I think the alt-right, or at least Bannon, believes that they are strong enough to stop being covert and coy and they can come right out and challenge the GOP establishment for control of the GOP.
And I think it’s even worse than that: I think that Bannon, at least, feels that they already have the numbers it’s just that the top of the GOP doesn’t fully understand that yet. In other words, I think Bannon, at least, feels that they already have control, it just isn’t formalized yet.
Which could mean that we’re in for a real shitshow over the next 3 years as the new rich try and cement their place at the top against the old rich. Koch brothers out, Mercer family in, etc., etc. ya know what I’m sayin’?
Authoritarian white nationalist nativists (Bannon,Trump)
Moderate fiscal conservatives who support a role for government (Dole, Kasich, Collins)
Libertarians (Rand Paul)
Plutocrats (Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney)
I don’t know where Bush fits into all this. There seem to be multiple factions in the GOP, and I don’t konw (at least I seriously hope) there aren’t enough votes for the white nationalists to truly take the party over.
For years, the plutocrats in the GOP have riled up the white nationalist base with fear of the others invading and taking over (black people, latino immigrants, gays, muslims, independent women) then when those people voted GOP, the plutocrats used the power given to them by the white nationalist nativists to push for supply side tax cuts. I know that alliance is under strain and has been for years because the white nationalists are starting to vote for their own in primary elections rather than pick the plutocrat candidate.
Generally the moderates and libertarians go along with either the white nationalists or the plutocrats, generally speaking. That is what worries me. No matter how deranged, criminal or unconscionable the GOP becomes the moderates and libertarians will tow the line.
Yeah, but it could be like Obama in 2008. Obama raised a lot of money, and a lot was from small donors. But it doesn’t take a whole bunch of small donors to make a difference.
1 million people each giving $100 adds up to 100 million. In presidential elections each candidate gets 60-70 million votes. So a small fraction of highly motivated people giving $50-250 each adds up.
They need to make small political donations a tax credit again.
I’m just not sure that’s the case. The culture war thing has a way of raising the emotional investment among voters on the right. We’re living in times when factions might be able to grab more power than they could in the past. They can apply pressure to make members of congress more extreme.
So, do you believe the GOP is a monolith? If you don’t, and you recognize that there are different factions within the GOP, what point are you trying to make?
This is the 1930s. The nationalist authoritarian right may be a minority when it comes to pure numbers, but they control the public conversation and they have a large contingent of committed thugs and propagandists ready to enforce their hard line. By-and-large, Republican moderates and the so-called establishment are pissing themselves to appease the insurgency from the right.
Of course there are factions within the party. And at any given moment, whichever faction holds the reins of power is the establishment, by definition. Right now, that’s Bannon’s faction.
THe war is pretty much over. The nationalists won. It’s just a matter now of cleaning out the establishment Republicans and possibly a lot of the Tea Partiers as well.
The real fight is now over the soul of the Democratic Party, and the establishment is going to get a huge boost from defecting Republicans. All it takes is 10% of Republicans deciding maybe they’d be better off voting in Democratic primaries and the Sanders insurgency is doomed.
2020’s Dem race may look like 2016’s Republican contest, solely from the sheer number of candidates in the race as everybody will see trump as vulnerable, maybe more so than he actually will be. Bernie, Hillary,Joe and (possibly Liz) are too far over the hill to be credible first-term presidential contenders. I know that Hillary is actually younger than trump and am to lazy right now to check on the others. So you’ll have a bunch of newbies taking their swing, either in hopes that lightning will strike or laying the groundwork for 2024, assuming that free elections are still a thing. Republicans defecting will have about as much impact on that contest as crossover Democrats did in 2016 trying to stop trump, unless they all coalesce around Jim Webb or somebody like him.
A question to ponder: who ends up owning the brand name “Republican Party”? I have little doubt that Bannon would prefer to oust the leadership in one swell foop, but what if he doesn’t quite make it? If he succeeds* totally,* sure, then a whole different set of names is now legally entitled to sign the checks, the contracts, the deals for the Republican Party.
If Bannon tries to kill the king but misses, about the only card he has left is to form a Deplorable Dipshits Party*. Which means he has to go begging for money from people who may already have given their money to the Republican Party. He may very well feel entitled to a chunk of it, since it was raised when he was still part of the Republican Party. Two chances, and slim is dead.
Is there a party rule, or some such, that specifies exactly under what circumstances the leadership is officially decided? If the Deplorables get 50.1% of the vote, and the Your Father’s Oldsmobile Republicans get 49.9%, can the Deplorables show up at the offices the next morning and kick 'em out?
If this shall come to pass, I will cancel all other forms or recreation and entertainment, that I don’t miss a moment. Spark a bong, sip some tea and nibble wholesome snacks. And gloat. Some gloating. Not too much, its bad karma. But some. For sure, some.
It’s complicated. I think that instead of the parties being ideologically distinct we’ll go back to both parties having an economically liberal and conservative wing, and the main differences will be over race, region, and culture. In other words, a return to the norm that existed throughout most of our history. The United States having ideologically distinct parties is a fairly recent and unusual event that seems to be running its course.
The left is pretty tiny, actually, about 20% of the population. Big enough to have a major role in one party, but the right is big enough to have a major role in BOTH parties, and does. Plus almost all the moderates are now in the Democratic Party as well, further weakening the left.
On the good side, the left’s party will be more likely to win in the future, which as we saw during the Clinton years, bought them free trade, smaller government, tax cuts, welfare reform, a record number of countries bombed up to that point, and a crime crackdown. That’s just what the Democratic Party looks like when it’s a true majoritarian party. Lots of Blue Dogs running around punching hippies.
I look forward to entering your tent with my bros(neocons, libertarians, free trade conservatives) and making you sit in the corner.
The Democratic Party is currently run by the left. No, not the progressive left, which some think is the only left, but it’s still run by the left. The big fight was between two different ideas of what he left should be.
The traditional right is also shrinking. The alt-right only was able to make inroads because the traditional right is shrinking. The traditional right needed to pull in the alt-right to keep up its numbers.
There’s also a huge faction of the right that will not under any circumstances work with the left. So you have the alt-right and the anti-left staying Republican, splitting the right in half. And no one from the left moving over without alienating the anti-left or the alt-right. So you just get a smaller Republican party.
Sure, Democrats will have to take conservatives into consideration. But there’s no reason for it to go back to the Clinton years, because society as a whole has embraced more left ideas and turned them into the “moderate” side. For instance, acceptance of gay marriage is mainstream now.
I don’t really see a way the Republican party can shift from what it is. I would more likely predict that it goes down in flames, but the Democratic party splits in two.
If the Republican party was actually trying to appeal to more liberals or even moderates, I would think maybe they could pull it off. But they’re appealing even further right, and running into a wall. And I can’t see them finding common ground between the far right and the moderate-to-left.
20% isn’t “tiny”, and that’s only self-identified left/liberals. Support for many key left/liberal positions (higher min wage, UHC, dove-ish-ness, reproductive rights, LGBT rights, law enforcement reform, etc.) is a lot higher than 20%. There’s no way one of two major parties isn’t going to try and ally with this big group on issues like this.
And it’s funny you lump me in with the far-left of the liberals; I’m a pretty down-the-middle Democrat on the issues and in my primary voting. The Dem Pres candidates I voted for in the primaries were Gore, Kerry, Obama, and Hillary Clinton (I wasn’t of voting age for Bill Clinton).
Politically, I still think turnout is much more important than reaching out to the middle (and I think the “middle” is getting smaller and smaller) – most voters willing to vote for Trump are nigh-impossible to get for the party of LGBT rights, immigrant rights, and civil rights, and there are tons of potential voters out there who didn’t vote in '16 but are supportive of those issues.
