Play out both Trump as the candidate and Rubio. Assume they lose. One proves the failure of betting big on working class White turnout, the other demonstrates the impotence of the GOP elite. In each case what does the party look like moving forward after this race?
Of course the GOP still controls Congress (maybe not Senate all the time) but it seems likely that this race changes something fundamentally about the face of the GOP.
What happens from there?
Of course if the GOP candidate wins … it’s a whole other question!
What I would hope would happen is that a new, viable party of true* fiscal conservatives and social progressives would be formed, and all the sane people would move there.
But that probably means the opposite will happen.
“true” meaning not just in ideology, but in practice
Obstruct, obstruct, obstruct, obstruct, obstruct… Run for reelection… Obstruct, obstruct, obstruct, obstruct, obstruct…
I do think that issues like the supreme court, the environment and health care costs will eventually toss a monkey wrench to that path and we will finally see some progress in those and many other items.
A Rubio loss isn’t a blow to the party elite, he’s not their first choice by a long shot. It would show loudly that they can’t depend on the christian conservative-tea party part of the Republican coalition to deliver a Presidential win. But they are still important at Senate and Representatives level, so there would have to be some serious reflection on their part. How well Rubio is percieved to have helped downballot elections will certainly factor in.
If Trump loses they can write it off and the same struggle inside the GOP will continue.
Agreed. They’re trying, unsuccessfully at this point, to kill Trump. They’re attempting to mold Rubio into something he’s not because of desperation, and they can’t stand Cruz. Neither of these guys can be considered the standard bearer for the party. Trump is not a conservative, Rubio is not ready, and Cruz is a megalomaniac, but there is no one else.
This cycle, Republicans don’t have anyone they love so a loss by any one of them will not cause reflection or change of any kind.
the GOP will bring about a Republican Leadership Council (like the Democrats did after Dukakis) and shut down the Tea Party for good, since a loss at the presidential level will be a pretext to do so and end this idea that “you need to be more conservative” like many Democrats thought Dukakis wasn’t liberal enough (or for that matter, John Kerry in 2004, tho that election was statistical bad luck given the polling nationally and in Ohio that stood in MoE before the election, and Kerry didn’t lose anywhere closely as bad as Dukakis).
The GOP establishment asserts a moderate stance on immigration to the party; build a wall, but only deport criminals. Their next candidate does on abortion, gay marriage, and immigration what Bill Clinton did on the death penalty and crime. National (not GOP primary) opinion polls are much closer to Hillary and the Gang of Eight on illegal immigration than Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Abortion; most people only wanna see a ban on late term abortion, if at all. Most people support gay marriage rights-marriage documents are state documents, whereas only the ceremony is religious. Of course tho, the GOP does win on the transvestites in girls’ bathrooms issue, and I personally agree with them on that, even tho my abortion/LGB (notice the lack of T there) stances are with the Dems.
Donald Trump could’ve done that at least on abortion; but this KKK/Duke thing and deliberately quoting Mussolini will nullify that. His immigration stance is the opposite of what the GOP needed. He had a lot of potential; now I think unless somehow people forget the Duke thing, (and Hillary or Trump’s GOP enemies might not let that happen), Trump’s a gonner.
That’s not actually a moderate stance. It’s a very, very liberal stance that even Democrats won’t state explicitly. They say “concentrate” on criminals.
perhaps I should’ve emphasized building a large border wall. It could easily be done, despite what the critics say. The deportation is the expensive and inhumane part of Trump’s plan.
The same thing that happened after Obama won each time: the Republican party will once again acknowledge the problems they have known for years they have and make noises towards change and their base will go “lol no” and slap them back into shape after collecting a few scalps.
If Rubio loses, it shows that even mildly moderate-seeming Republicans can’t win the WH because they are being dragged down by the stupid idiots in the base, the howling monkeys that whine about everything but claim political correctness is a liberal thing. Of course, the monkeys will yet again whine that their guy isn’t conservative enough, despite nominating a guy who wants to tear up the Iran deal, start another war in the Middle East, and give trillions of dollars from the taxpayers to the wealthy. What they really mean is that the GOP base wants something openly hateful, stupid, and loud-mouthed as they are. But if Rubio is nominated, it will mean that the establishment GOP’s power isn’t completely gone yet and they’ll live to fight another day
If Trump loses, all bets are off. I have no idea what happens to a bunch of undead monkeys with their heads cut off will do. It could mean the adults in the GOP tries to retake command back from the children, but if they nominated Trump then it could be too late to get the inmates back into their cells. Or they could smarten up and go more establishment like they’ve been doing the past few cycles. One thing I’m sure will not happen is an introspective look at how they’ve been wrong about everything, with a sobering march back to reality while kicking out the extremists. Make no mistake, the crazy GOP base will be there until they die off. There will be no epiphany. There will be no moderation. Each loss will be further proof that they need to hold on to what waning power they have rather than join the rest of the world in reality
The same thing they did in the last 2 elections, claim they lost because they weren’t conservative enough. I don’t see any truly thoughtful ideas about them winning being spread among the rank and file anytime soon.
If anything, they will double down on suppressing voter turnout by declaring war on labor unions (who drive up turnout) and making it harder to vote. That is all I see coming out of 2016.
It’s beginning already. George Will’s column last Sunday claimed that Trump was to the left of Hillary. So a “real conservative” would have done better. Ditto with Rubio.
Maybe the establishment would save some money and just republish the recommendations from 2012.
I really wonder when that base will start electing Congresspeople based on explicit promises to “bring down the federal government from the inside” or something like that.
I’ve actually wondered about this. There is ample (polling) evidence that shows that Tea Party members have split in support between Cruz and Trump (let’s not forget that Rubio became prominent mostly due to Tea Party voters in Florida, but that doesn’t quite fit the current narrative). So I do wonder in what ways would it be spun about Trump not being conservative enough. Cruz can, quite rightly, say that he was everything the Tea Party dreamed about for a Presidential nominee and they tanked his run because a bunch of them decided to go for Trump.
No need to speculate, the “not conservative enough” narrative for Trump is already written if he loses. I guarantee this will be the first thing out of the mouths of the likes of Redstate, National Review, Fox News, etc. With Cruz it’ll be much different, I am both afraid and curious to see how they’ll spin his loss
It’s not like this time they would be wrong, Trump is about as fake conservative as they get. Most of the Redstate regulars are strongly against him. But it won’t be “not conservative enough” it will be “not conservative at all”.
And this is being accepted as both “Conservative” and “GOP”.
Hard to imagine that Eisenhower was a Republican. Within living memory, the GOP has gone from “intelligent but wrong” to “batshit insane”.
If the Old Guard is going to recover the Party, it had damned well better do so now, 'cuase it’s just getting worse.
Palin makes Dan Quayle look downright wonderful.