# A Trump General Election loss will lead to the worst of all possible lessons for all sides **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 4, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928 "2016-05-04T18:41:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/21 "2016-05-05T15:16:25Z")
> [@tullsterx](#): > > Sorry, current trends do not support this. Trumps polling has generally gone up since his campaign began. And history shows that Hillarys polling has never gone up in any of her, what it it, 3?, elections. Certainly these trends might not play out, but they do exist. H. Clinton has been in 2 Dem Senate primaries, 2 Senate elections and 2 Presidential primaries. Not sure which 3 you might be thinking of. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/22 "2016-05-05T17:01:37Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > From your keyboard to God’s ear. > [@running\_coach](#): > > I don’t have a problem with that. This is the wrong attitude. No matter what happens the GOP is not going to go belly up, at least not right away. But we are far better having a GOP with some degree of humility that is willing to compromise in order to improve their electoral chances, than for them to keep on the “my road or the high road” inflexibility, which while it may be bad for the GOP in the long term but is certainly bad for the country. > [@leftfield6](#): > > And sure, I bet a lot of Bernie supporters, in the heat of the primary fight, say they cannot EVER vote for Hillary. What else are they going to say in that moment? I would bet you dollars to donuts that most will vote for Hillary, or at the worst, not vote at all. I can’t imagine many voting for Trump. He just stands for so much that is the opposite of Bernie. I know they both are seen as “anti-establishment” choices, but that is where the similarity ends. Particularly when Bernie gets up on the stage at the Democratic convention and tells all his supporters that although he didn’t win the nomination through their work they succeeded in showing the Democrats that the progressive agenda has broad support and was a force to be reckoned with. That while he and Hillary had fundamental disagreements on policy those disagreements pale as compared to the disaster that would the US if Trump were elected, and so in order to continue the spirit of his historic campaign it is necessary that his supporters vote for Hillary in the general election. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/23 "2016-05-05T20:00:43Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > I don’t have a problem with that. Good point, and neither do I. I agree with **Oakminster** that the GOP is suffering from political Darwinism. Not only has the GOP failed to evolve, they’ve regressed, rejected bipartisanship and moderation, and moved so much further into lunatic fringe territory that both Cruz and Trump became front-running candidates. And I think the OP is spot on – their loss this year will be devastating, and they’ll ascribe all the wrong reasons to it. Hillary has so many negatives that she’d lose in a landslide if the GOP could field a decent centrist candidate, but if Trump is their guy the Dems could nominate a stuffed owl and still cruise to an easy win. ---
**Author:** ![davida03801](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5e925/32.png) [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/24 "2016-05-05T20:15:58Z")
I do not think Trump will be as easy to beat as you all are assuming. November is a political lifetime away, and a lot can change in that time. The normal rules will not apply to this election coming up and he has defied all expectations so far. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/25 "2016-05-05T20:26:08Z")
> [@tullsterx](#): > > Sorry, current trends do not support this. Trumps polling has generally gone up since his campaign began. And history shows that Hillarys polling has never gone up in any of her, what it it, 3?, elections. Certainly these trends might not play out, but they do exist. It’ll actually be interesting to see this over the next month or so. To date, most serious polling of Trump has been of registered Republicans and likely Republican primary voters. Yes, his numbers have been increasing as more Republicans came to accept him as a candidate. On the other hand, starting sometime in June - after Hillary officially locks it up - we’ll see polls move into general election mode where they’ll start sampling registered voters and likely general election voters. That will likely see Trump face a new significant challenge and will take away his applause line about how great his poll numbers are. Current general election polls are essentially meaningless. Until the candidates are decided it’s too volatile to count on them in any real way. ---
**Author:** ![escaped](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@escaped](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/escaped)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/26 "2016-05-05T20:26:47Z")
I agree with the above poster anyone could win this November. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/27 "2016-05-05T20:29:47Z")
> [@davida03801](#): > > I do not think Trump will be as easy to beat as you all are assuming. November is a political lifetime away, and a lot can change in that time. The normal rules will not apply to this election coming up and he has defied all expectations so far. Maybe… but one of the things about this election is that the polls have been more accurate than the pundits. If you turned off the editorial opinion and only looked at polls, you would have seen that Trump has had consistently high support among the public. The votes have followed the polls and the surprising thing is that the polls didn’t change the way pundits would have expected. (Specifically, the pundits keep assuming that x, y or z will offend a, b or c, causing a drop in poll numbers. Hasn’t happened.) As an example of what I mean, here’s a news article from July 2015: [http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-surge-jeb-bush-slump-2016-poll-120795](http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-surge-jeb-bush-slump-2016-poll-120795) So here we are with Trump trailing Clinton by double digits in the polls. While nothing is impossible, I feel fairly safe saying that Trump has defied expectations because the expectation was always that the polls were wrong/would change. They weren’t wrong and they didn’t change. The poll numbers that consistently predicted his success so far are also consistently predicting his failure now. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/28 "2016-05-05T21:06:51Z")
[Yes and no,](http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-gop-primary) **dracoi**. Trump’s polling numbers have indeed improved significantly in the last month or so, which has been driven by increasing support _among Republicans_; as of last week he now has the support of the majority of his party. However, his support among independents and Democrats, fortunately, remains abysmal. He has been the most popular single Republican since last July, but didn’t break 40% support until a couple months ago. Given that the other candidates were united in their dislike of him, many people, including “the pundits”, had a reasonable expectation that eventually the Republicans would unite around an alternative candidate. It wasn’t just some arbitrary expectation that “the polls will change”, there were real reasons to think that they would, not necessarily in the sense that Trump’s support would shrink but that the anti-Trump majority would organize themselves to beat him. Their failure to do so suggests to me that their coalition is indeed irreparably broken and they will soon either reinvent themselves or go the way of the Whigs. Compare, for example, the handwaving that we have heard from months from Clinton supporters about how Sanders’ massively higher approval ratings don’t mean anything, because his numbers will certainly fall if he is nominated and the Republicans run attack ads against him. That’s a real example of a prediction based not on data but on expectation that “the polls are wrong/will change”. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2016, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/29 "2016-05-05T22:16:07Z")
Yes, that analysis makes sense. I’m not saying that the anti-Trump predictions were _only_ wishful thinking. They were certainly bringing in experiences and expectations from what has happened in the past. Still, I think it was wishful thinking to assume that non-Trump supporters were going to coalesce. The never-Trump voters were never a majority. For example, here’s this article from early March: [“Never Trump” or “Always Trump”? - Rasmussen Reports®](http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2016/never_trump_or_always_trump) While 54% of general voters said never-Trump, only 36% of Republicans said the same, and 60% of Republicans said they’ve vote for Trump if he was the nominee. That’s still basically the story we’re seeing in the numbers and I think there’s a lot of reason to think it won’t change all that much by November. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/30 "2016-05-06T01:16:47Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Lessons schmessons … what will matter is who is left and who can emerge. And what the alternatives are. > > Trump has been, for the reasons listed in that article, the existential threat to the party as whole. The coalition between: rural and many working class Whites frustrated and pining for the past in which they could at least rely on having others to look down upon, confident that even with little education they could still have a solid lower middle class life; libertarians; the religious right; pro-business interests; and foreign policy hawks, is broken. Humpty Dumpty man, no putting it back together again. > > Assuming the probable (but by no means assured) Trump loss, Senate flip, and House staying GOP, what does the landscape look like? And not just on the GOP side, did Clinton win by pandering to the core Sander supporters or by sticking to what she has stated to date? > > There is the possibility that the Democratic party can make the mirror image mistake that the GOP has made with TP elements, and allow their more extreme but highly motivated no-compromise minority control over the larger numbers that are less extreme, giving a group of the GOP to rebrand themselves as more centrist, reject their party’s own extremity, and claim the middle. Paul Ryan is trying to position for that possibility. The Democratic side could easily make the mistake of taking overwhelming support from Black, Hispanic, etc. voters as a given, as they pander to more “progressive” young White college educated voters. A more centrist GOP not shooting itself in the head with those populations, willing to forcefully say no to their more other-fearing elements and not pander to that frustrated and pining White group, would make inroads, enough to even offset non-college educated Whites voting even less than before. They’d still likely win the White rural districts (albeit with lower turnout) and be more competitive in the true battlegrounds - mostly suburban America. I don’t see the math working out for them. The success of the Trump campaign seems to show that his base-- ignorant racists – comprise about a third of the GOP base, or about 10-15% of the total electorate. That’s about half the total number of minority voters, so to kick out the racists and remain competitive, they’d need to not just cut into, but totally eliminate, the Democratic advantage among minorities. How does that work? On the issues of special concern to these communities-- civil rights enforcement and immigration – the Democrats have shown themselves to be reliable allies. Even if the Pubs start talking like progressives on these issues, why wouldn’t voters stick with the party that’s already been walking the walk? Minorities are disproportionately low-income, so Republican economic policies aren’t going to have broad appeal to them. Of course, there are some wealthy minorities who would be likely to vote their economic self-interest if they didn’t fear for their racial self-interest. There’s also a bloc of religiously conservative minorities who would find a racially inclusive but gay-bashing and woman-hating party attractive. But those groups together probably don’t get you to 50%. Worse yet, the “social conservative” agenda is massively unpopular with younger voters of all races, so doubling down on those issues is long-term demographic suicide. The three main pillars of the Reagan coalition – rednecks, born-agains, and the rich – are _all_ shrinking as a proportion of the electorate. I’d say they’re pretty well screwed. The way I see it, the liberals took over the Democratic Party in the seventies and made it a hostile environment for racists and religious nuts. That stance put the party at an electoral disadvantage for decades, but demographic shifts have now given it a large electoral advantage that isn’t going away until there is a serious realignment. History suggests that we’ll end up with some sort of two-party system when the smoke clears, but I believe that both parties will be, by most measures, significantly to the left of the current GOP. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/31 "2016-05-06T02:34:50Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > I don’t see the math working out for them. The success of the Trump campaign seems to show that his base-- ignorant racists – This is a dangerous myth. See here: [http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/5-myths-about-trump-supporters-220158](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/5-myths-about-trump-supporters-220158) The worst thing anyone can do is under estimate Trump. He will probably lose but I don’t think Clinton will sweep the field, she is vulnerable on a lot of points and as has been said Six months is a very long time in politics. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/32 "2016-05-06T16:40:59Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > This is a dangerous myth. See here: > [http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/5-myths-about-trump-supporters-220158](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/5-myths-about-trump-supporters-220158) > > The worst thing anyone can do is under estimate Trump. He will probably lose but I don’t think Clinton will sweep the field, she is vulnerable on a lot of points and as has been said Six months is a very long time in politics. I agree in so far as, to under estimate Trump is to under estimate the level of fear, racism, ignorance and just plain cognitive dissonance that a staggeringly large proportion of the American electorate suffers from. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/33 "2016-05-06T18:14:29Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > … to kick out the racists … First off: No longer pandering to ≠ kicking out. There is some number of ignorant White racists out there. Quite a few of them are commonly non-voters. (The fear of course is that while Sanders’ dream of a revolution of new previous non-voter turnout, mainly young White Millennials, coming for him was a fantasy, Trump’s theory of a huge turnout of new previous non-voter turnout, mainly White ignorant racists, may not be.) Of those who routinely vote, what, they’re going to vote for the more liberal option? Okay maybe a few more would just sit it out, but they’d still win the same Senate and House seats they won before and possibly be more competitive on some swingable ones. At the presidential level just at current demographics you can play with the 538 app. A center right GOP emphasizing small business growth, having been part of bipartisan immigration reform, and getting rid of the pandering to racists rhetoric could earn 25% of the Black and 40% of the Hispanic vote within a few cycles, probably do a bit better among college educated Whites as well. Yes that would more than offset a few more ignorants racists not voting. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/34 "2016-05-12T22:56:49Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > First off: No longer pandering to ≠ kicking out. > > There is some number of ignorant White racists out there. Quite a few of them are commonly non-voters. (The fear of course is that while Sanders’ dream of a revolution of new previous non-voter turnout, mainly young White Millennials, coming for him was a fantasy, Trump’s theory of a huge turnout of new previous non-voter turnout, mainly White ignorant racists, may not be.) > > Of those who routinely vote, what, they’re going to vote for the more liberal option? > > Okay maybe a few more would just sit it out, but they’d still win the same Senate and House seats they won before and possibly be more competitive on some swingable ones. > > At the presidential level just at current demographics you can play with the 538 app. A center right GOP emphasizing small business growth, having been part of bipartisan immigration reform, and getting rid of the pandering to racists rhetoric could earn 25% of the Black and 40% of the Hispanic vote within a few cycles, probably do a bit better among college educated Whites as well. Yes that would more than offset a few more ignorants racists not voting. Returning a week later to say… I think your numbers are optimistic but plausible. But it’s going to be a really hard sell to get the GOP to commit to a strategy that, if all goes well, _might_ have them competitive again within a decade or two. It might rationally be their best option, but I would bet on them choosing some less rational strategy which promises a quicker recovery…which is pretty much what the OP said. I think the big danger for the GOP is that becoming just a _little_ less racist could alienate the Trumpoids while still failing to actually appeal to minorities. And this: > [@](#): > > Of those who routinely vote, what, they’re going to vote for the more liberal option? misses what seems to me to be the main lesson of Trump’s victory: there is a significant bloc of voters who have aligned with the GOP because they like the racism and xenophobia, but aren’t necessarily on board with the rest of what we’ve been used to thinking of as The Conservative Agenda ™. Given the lack of a party willing to pander to their baser instincts, I do think that some nontrivial fraction of these voters would move to the Democrats based on other issues, which makes the math even harder for the GOP. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2016, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/35 "2016-05-12T23:40:31Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > I do. It’s not healthy for _anyone_ that Democrats (like me) lack a sane, at least minimally intelligent opposition to debate ideas with. Neither is it healthy for anyone for Republicans (in the party’s post-1960s iteration) to be elected to public office. If the Dems need an opposition to keep them sharp and honest and and non-complacent, let it be the Socialists. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/36 "2016-05-13T02:15:29Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > There is the possibility that the Democratic party can make the mirror image mistake that the GOP has made with TP elements, and allow their more extreme but highly motivated no-compromise minority control over the larger numbers that are less extreme, giving a group of the GOP to rebrand themselves as more centrist, reject their party’s own extremity, and claim the middle. Paul Ryan is trying to position for that possibility. The Democratic side could easily make the mistake of taking overwhelming support from Black, Hispanic, etc. voters as a given, as they pander to more “progressive” young White college educated voters. A more centrist GOP not shooting itself in the head with those populations, willing to forcefully say no to their more other-fearing elements and not pander to that frustrated and pining White group, would make inroads, enough to even offset non-college educated Whites voting even less than before. They’d still likely win the White rural districts (albeit with lower turnout) and be more competitive in the true battlegrounds - mostly suburban America. I would not put it past my Democratic Party to own-goal in a spectacular fashion. We used to be the champs at that. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Neither is it healthy for anyone for Republicans (in the party’s post-1960s iteration) to be elected to public office. If the Dems need an opposition to keep them sharp and honest and and non-complacent, let it be the Socialists. Last I checked, the “Socialist” candidate is the one considered at risk to monkeywrenchng the Democrats inside their own party right now. Hey, this is the USA, the political calibration is not going to shift to have the centerpoint where Europe has it for at least another generation if we tried on purpose: the Conservative Right is not going away in a puff of smoke, if only because \*&^%$ Wall Street is not about to go down without a fight and all those rural and working-class whites have not lost that much life expectancy. What you are positing happens if the entity named Democratic Party itself becomes a coalition of enlightened conservatives and cautious liberals, while the ones named Republicans/Conservatives get marginalized into nothing, and the opposition role is taken over by movement “Socialists”. The quote was: \*“It’s not healthy for anyone that Democrats (like me) lack a sane, at least minimally intelligent opposition to debate ideas with.” \* A suitably chastened and humbled Republican Party \*could \*fill that role. If, _however_, it does not and instead doubles down on the wingnuttery (and the Dems don’t step on their own johnsons) \*then \*it would happen. But it would not be a smooth nor quick … nor guaranteed … replacement of the current Center-AllegedlyLeftish v. Right divide with a Center v. (Real)Leftist one. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/37 "2016-05-13T02:20:53Z")
I’m really starting to wonder if the Republican Party has such partisan supporters that they’ll just keep nominating steadily crazier and crazier candidates. Because the elections will always be fairly close, as the voters just pull the “R” lever blindly. “The only reason we lost was we were not far ENOUGH to the right”. Until, years from now, the party nominates the Time Cube Guy, or someone who simply goes on stage and alternates between screaming and drooling. He’d still get 49% of the vote. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/38 "2016-05-13T03:24:31Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > I’m really starting to wonder if the Republican Party has such partisan supporters that they’ll just keep nominating steadily crazier and crazier candidates. Because the elections will always be fairly close, as the voters just pull the “R” lever blindly. > > “The only reason we lost was we were not far ENOUGH to the right”. > > Until, years from now, the party nominates the Time Cube Guy, or someone who simply goes on stage and alternates between screaming and drooling. He’d still get 49% of the vote. . . . Actually, I think that’s happening now. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/39 "2016-05-13T03:48:15Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > . . . Actually, I think that’s happening now. Mark my words. There will come a day when you’ll say: “I never thought I’d say this, but I long for the days of Donald Trump. He was a freakin’ genius compared with …” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928/40 "2016-05-13T16:45:14Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Last I checked, the “Socialist” candidate is the one considered at risk to monkeywrenchng the Democrats inside their own party right now. :dubious: Bullshit. You might as well say Clinton is monkeywrenching Sanders. > [@JRDelirious](#): > > Hey, this is the USA, the political calibration is not going to shift to have the centerpoint where Europe has it for at least another generation if we tried on purpose: the Conservative Right is not going away in a puff of smoke, if only because \*&^%$ Wall Street is not about to go down without a fight and all those rural and working-class whites have not lost that much life expectancy. What you are positing happens if the entity named Democratic Party itself becomes a coalition of enlightened conservatives and cautious liberals, while the ones named Republicans/Conservatives get marginalized into nothing, and the opposition role is taken over by movement “Socialists”. The quote was: \*“It’s not healthy for anyone that Democrats (like me) lack a sane, at least minimally intelligent opposition to debate ideas with.” \* A suitably chastened and humbled Republican Party \*could \*fill that role. If, _however_, it does not and instead doubles down on the wingnuttery (and the Dems don’t step on their own johnsons) \*then \*it would happen. But it would not be a smooth nor quick … nor guaranteed … replacement of the current Center-AllegedlyLeftish v. Right divide with a Center v. (Real)Leftist one. Of course it’s not guaranteed. That’s why we have to work for it and fight for it. And of course it will take time – but much less time than a generation if we start working and fighting now. But the point is this: You think the Pubs have a valuable role to play at least as an opposition, a check-and-balance on the Dems. And I’m calling bullshit on that. It might have been true in the 1960s, but not since then. None of the various forms and branches of movement conservatism – with which the GOP is now institutionally coterminous – have **any** real value to America, to put it mildly, and all need to be thoroughly and permanently marginalized. Nor is any moderate-conservative party needed to rein in Dem “excesses” – it has been decades since there have been such excesses, if ever there were, and they needed no reining-in even then. The cultural excesses of the '60s, if so they can be called, are not nearly so regrettable in hindsight as many seem to think; and in any case were not a Dem thing the way contemporary movement conservatism is a Pub thing; and in any case were no real threat to the economic interests of the ruling class. The last wave of actual Dem social-justice-war was LBJ’s War on Poverty, which should properly be regarded not as a failure but as urgent and unfinished business. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-trump-general-election-loss-will-lead-to-the-worst-of-all-possible-lessons-for-all-sides/753928.md?page=3)