I understand this calls for speculation, but I’m really interested in hearing what my fellow dopers think. Let’s say Trump is replaced by a Democrat in 2020 and Congress is at the same level of Democratic control it was at the start of Obama’s first term (which I think is the modal outcome)- where do we go from there?
Political issues tend to change over time as some get settled and some new ones come to the fore. What will be the policy challenges of the 2020s and 2030s? How will our political parties change? Will the Republicans keep doubling down on Trump-like politics or will they pivot? What does the conservatism of 2030 look like? The Democrats will surely change as well. How does a majority-minority Democratic Party differ from one dominated by white liberals? How will demographic shifts affect the political landscape in general? Will politics continue to be so polarized or will the temperature be turned down?
I’m going to share some of my thoughts on these issues and more tomorrow, but I thought I’d get the discussion started.
The democrats are going to be dominated more by liberals, not less.
Liberals went from 28% of democrats in 2000 to 48% in 2017. That trend may continue.
The republicans will likely stick with authoritarian white nationalism because the base loves it and the GOP doesn’t dare anger their base. Also authoritarian white nationalism drives away moderates, which means they don’t vote in GOP primarie and GOP elections anymore. So the white nationalist base is all that is left to vote for the GOP.
I think one thing that’ll happen is the democrats will realize how terrifying the modern GOP is and they will start bending the rules too. Gerrymander like hell, block all judge appointments, abuse procedural rules, manipulate the census, etc.
I’d argue we are in a 7th political system realignment.
Whites high in authoritarianism (and low in education) loving the authoritarian white nationalist GOP. Whites low in authoritarianism and high in education being much more concerned and unsure about the new trend.
The democratic party becoming more liberal and also more willing to play hardball and break the rules to avoid being walked over by the GOP.
Demographic shifts will mean white heavy areas become more republican and everywhere else becomes more blue.
The cities will become more blue and the rural areas more red. The suburbs will become more purple as college educated whites can’t decide which party they identify with anymore.
I think this is a possibility, but not the most likely one. At a personal level, this is a nightmare scenario for me and would leave me unable to vote for either major party in good conscience. Here are some critiques:
Demographic changes will favor Democrats, but not as much as many think. For one, the Census Bureau keeps revising projections of the minority population downwards due to decreasing immigration and birth rates. Two, I expect Hispanic identity will lose sailency due to intermarriage and multi-generational assimilation. With the increase in the Hispanic population being mostly driven now by natural increase, these trends are poised to continue. Third, the Hispanic population is not uniformly liberal or Democratic-voting.
I think there are constraints on the Democratic party that will prevent it from moving too far left. To be sure, they are moving left and I think there will be a strong leftist/social-democratic faction going forward. As your link above points out, many groups that provide strong Democratic support, such as blacks and Hispanics, are more conservative than the party as a whole. Further, if the Democrats want to be competitive on the national level, they have to win some amount of support from rural and exurban areas- not to mention I’d think they want to compete in state legislative and gubernatorial races in those areas.
The Republicans are a different story- Nothing so far has derailed the GOP crazy train. While I wouldn’t put your scenario past them, I would expect that if they are unable to be nationally competitive, it would put pressure on them to change. That’s why I think it’s so important that Trumpism/the current GOP be throughly repudiated in 2018 and 2020.
In a broader sense, your scenario leaves no room for a mainstream, non-crazy conservatism (although you could make a good case we’re already there) or a center-left. Also, anyone who believes in the importance of institutional norms is politically homeless. I find it difficult to imagine either party not trying to claim that ideological room at some point.
That’s not what the poll says. The poll says the number of Democrats who self-describe as liberal has changed. It doesn’t say anything about whether their views are different, just how they self-describe. We don’t know how much of that change is people with the same views, but who no longer feel like “liberal” is a dirty word.
Well, after being defeated in 2012, the Republican Party decided to go with Donald Trump. At this point, I think that their response to failure to be competitive with voters will be to advocate the elimination of the opposing voters (either through extreme gerrymandering, disenfranchisement, or . . . even more extreme methods) rather than changing their platform.
The main thing I’d look at is what happens when the next recession occurs. Now, I don’t know when it will, but there will eventually be a recession Will it be a relatively mild recession such as after the dot com crash? Of course, one reason that recession was relatively mild was because of the easy credit, especially after September 11. I"m sure George W Bush was well aware that a bad economy helped defeat his father for reelection in 1992. That easy credit helped lead to the housing mess and financial meltdown of the great recession.
If Trump’s trade wars get blamed for the next recession, then I can see the GOP walking back some of the extreme nationalism going forward. I do think Trump ‘owning’ the trade war issue means the Bernie position of anti-NAFTA and anti-TPP will be even more of a fringe.
One thing that’s going to change: It’s now established that no Supreme Court justice can be nominated unless the Presidency and the Senate are controlled by the same party. So whenever that happens, we’re just going to get vacancies accumulating, to all be filled at once as soon as the Presidency and Senate are controlled by the same party. So the Court is going to become a lot less stable.
And I can hope, although I’m still not optimistic, that the left of center voters will finally understand how important the Supreme Court is. It isn’t as sexy as $15 minimum wage, Standing Rock, free college, or transgender issues, but ignoring the McConnell theft of a seat was a horrible mistake in 2016.
Trump mentioned the court often, even suggesting that Hillary’s appointments could be assassinated and every sermon in a right wing evangelical church will always include a mention of ‘activist judges’
This is possible, but it really means once a judge is retired his or her political point of view is down a vote until replace. So you don’t necessarily need to replace a judge to retain a majority. Just subtracting one is just as good in many cases.
IMO, Trump will appoint more than two super court justices.
Ginsberg will be 86 years old in August. Breyer will be 80 in August. The odds of both living out a 2nd Trump term are pretty slim. In fact, there is no guarantee either make it to 2020.
The Republicans should be able to hold the Senate in the midterm elections. If this happens, he’s getting a 3rd supreme court nomination, I think.
There used to be a solid working-class moderate white Democrat. That Demographic is changing, as many in this group who did not typically vote Republican in the past did so for Trump in 2016.
Many in this faction need manufacturing type/labor type of jobs or need a good economy to stay employed based on age, or lack of education. They are also tired of seeing good-paying jobs go overseas.
The press pulls a double standard, unfairly underling their lack of education while casing a blind eye at several base Democratic factions, which in most cases have even less education.
I don’t see this as a fad, more like a continuing trend.
There is some evidence that the young vote is shifting some of its voting percentage toward Trump as well.
My hope is that the voters will deliver a clear message to the Republican Party in 1018 and 2020: There’s a limit to how much we’ll accept.
The Republicans need to be hurt enough for the message to sink in (and for the Democrats to note it also); if you choose a really terrible President, we’ll vote against you. Both parties need to have some minimum standards on being qualified to be President.
We also need to fix our election system to get back to some core principles of democracy. Voting should be a right and whoever gets the most votes wins the election. Letting the second place guy win has given us the presidencies of George W. Bush and Donald Trump; how much of a wake-up call do we need?
I’ll leave the post-Trump speculation to Americans, but you have the opportunity to set things right later this year and again in 2020. And right now you’re the best cheerleaders Trump has.
By that I mean that many more wildly unqualified candidates, with no government experience and shady legal/ethical backgrounds, will run for office at all levels - local, state, national. They’ll run as angry right-wing populist demagogues. They know they’ll have a much better chance than they did before 2016.
Though I’d like to believe in a “blue wave” in 2018 and 2020, I don’t see it happening. The electorate is more or less evenly split, and I think it will remain so no matter how radical the Trump administration becomes. (A severe recession may change things, though.)
I believe many of the institutional norms that Trump has violated will remain broken for the foreseeable future.
This would be a fine question to ask, about six years from now. If you have imaginations of getting rid of him sooner, then you are part of the persistent illusion that continues to hold the Democratic Party back.
Democrats only resent the electoral vote system because it was our ox that got gored in 2016. I don’t remember anyone calling for it to be “fixed” when Obama won in 2008 and 2012.
People need to learn to deal with the electoral college voting system and campaign accordingly. As I keep saying, the popular vote determines the outcome of the election in the same way that the number of balls hit into the outfield determines the outcome of the game: not at all. It’s where exactly the balls go, not how many of them there are. It’s possible for Democrats to win the electoral vote with the right candidate and the right campaign. I don’t view it as something that needs to be abolished just because they dropped the ball in 2016.
I live in a medium-sized, solidly Democratic state. Why should my vote matter less than those of voters in smaller states (since the electoral vote count of a state is 2 plus a term proportional to its population) or those in swing states (since the electoral votes are allocated all or nothing)? That’s a fundamental, undemocratic problem, regardless of how parties adjust their strategy to accommodate it.
Yeah. My point is, Obama won the popular vote, but he was elected by winning the electoral college. Nobody was saying, “it should just be determined by the popular vote alone”, nobody was saying that the electoral system was unfair because certain states had more power than others, etc; they just accepted that Obama was a good enough candidate to win both the electoral and popular vote, and were cool with how the system worked.
Now that Hillary won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote, everyone’s saying “let’s ditch the electoral vote”. I just don’t think it’s an ideologically consistent perspective.