Trump will still be the same blowhard he’s always been, but if he is ever seen to lose an election the GOP will pretend they never heard of him, just as with both Bushes before him.
My comment was really more about how the Republican Party fails to question its own orthodoxy. They had George W. Bush in office for 8 years, doing everything that they’d always believed would make the economy grow without end. When, at the end of those 8 years, the economy tanked, it couldn’t possibly have been the fault of Republican policies. Bush got cast aside as if it was all some personal failing on his part. And then the search was on for someone else to cut taxes, increase spending, and make the economy grow forever.
I think the same thing will happen to Trump if he loses. It won’t matter whether he loses because of incompetent governance on his part. Maybe the CDC completely mishandles the corona virus outbreak, and it’s an epidemic here while other countries have it more closely controlled and monitored. Trump will lose, the GOP will forget about him, and in 2024 they’ll nominate someone who promises to cut government waste like the CDC.
No. Republicans don’t like losers. They also don’t like perceived disloyalty to whoever the current president is. They’re happy to rag on past presidents, but don’t you dare do it while they’re in office. Romney Dixie Chicked himself, Republicans are not going to forget that. They hold grudges. In fact, I doubt he gets re-elected in the Senate after this.
Nah, Utah’s Senate seat is Romney’s for as long as he wants it. Utah may be solid red (Goldwater is the only Republican presidential candidate to lose Utah in the last 70 years), but it’s not Trump country at all. Trump came in dead last in the 2016 caucus (13% in a 3-way race), and failed to get a majority in the general (he got 45% while 3rd party conservative McMullin got over 21%). Sure, Trump will carry Utah this year because of the (R) after his name, but Romney did not put himself in any danger by turning on Trump.
OK, but that doesn’t really change my comment. The 2008 pretty clearly didn’t turn the voting public permanently against a relatively unchanged GOP. The GOP’s position in the US House, state houses and state legislatures by late in the Obama years was the strongest it had been since the 1920’s. In the Trump era they’ve lost back some, not all, of that. Nor is the underlying opinion you seem to hold that (relative*) free market policies caused the 2008 crash an obvious fact either.
However I also don’t think it’s strictly true that the GOP base thought of the crash itself as particularly Bush’s personal fault or even focused on whose fault. What they faulted was mainly the policy of bail outs which followed, populists on both left and right did not like that. Whereas the establishment on both sides agreed on it: Obama carried on pretty much with Bush’s policies in terms of bailouts (which I personally think was the only real choice for either of them, but anyway there was basic bipartisan continuity on that policy).
Along with other actually substantive issues on which the GOP base or parts of rejected Bush and embraced Trump, Bush’s nuanced position on illegal immigration, and the more protectionist instincts shared by Trump and the base (and again left populists also, Sanders is perhaps more of a protectionist than Trump, but he seems destined not to take over the Democrats, for now). So it’s not even really true the GOP hasn’t changed. Some things have definitely changed if you compare Bush to Trump, even besides very different personal styles.
*compared to the Democrats: the GOP has hardly been a ‘libertarian free market’ party, ever, and the mainstream of the Democrats has hardly been a ‘socialist’ party. It hasn’t necessarily been that big a difference once you take out electioneering rhetoric and consider what the two parties’ elected officials do, not what their mouthpieces in media and now internet say.
Why hello there! I see this is your first post at the Straight Dope!
Since you’re new here you may not know the ways of the board. While it’s possible you’ve misspelled Democrats, it’s also possible that you may be misspelling it intentionally to add an insult in there. Posters at this board will sometimes do this but it is generally regarded as juvenile. So just a heads up if anyone calls you out on that. But if you do feel like hurling some invective don’t worry, the board’s got you covered! There’s an entire forum called The BBQ Pit where you can flame to your heart’s content. Well, there are some rules there. I’d check first.
Now as for the “brain dead” part, I’m hoping you can clarify. Are you saying that the Democrats have been brain dead up to this point and that they can turn around by embracing intellectualism? That’s a hard sell in a world where people are stocking up on toilet paper to deal with a respiratory illness but if you’ve got some thoughts on the subject, I’m willing to listen.
Or perhaps you are suggesting a different approach? The perceived elitism of Democrats leaves many feeling left out in the cold. Perhaps the Democrats need to go a little more “brain dead” in order to widen their appeal to an audience that composes about half of the United States. Put down the arugula, pick up a Budweiser. Stop talking down to people, stop referring to the heart of America as “flyover country”. Something like that perhaps?
In any case, I hope you enjoy some productive and enlightening discussions here at the Straight Dope Message Board!
I think one of the important things is to call it what it is. It isn’t Trumpism, it is American fascism. And it isn’t going away, and I think will only get stronger over the next couple of decades until a true crisis point hits. Trump’s loss will be seen only as another sign of the danger of liberalism to the USA that will require more extreme countermeasures. The non-fascist GOP voters are never going to stand up to the fascists in their party because of guns, abortions, or low taxes. Expect the GOP to continue heading further and further right. In particular, if Biden (a moderate) wins, then expect Republicans to sprint further right. The more centrist the Democrat position, the further right the GOP has to become. They have to appeal to the idea that the Democrats are wholly wrong, and quite probably evil, and hence they must maximize the distance from any Democrat position (see Obamacare as a very recent example).
Presumably there is a limit to how far to the right that the voters who decide elections are willing to move. That’s why I think defeating the movement is going to take them losing consecutive elections including a midterm or two. I think three consecutive elections should be enough, but four should definitely do it.
Let’s start with this year’s election as an example. Let’s say Biden wins and the senate turns blue. The Republicans will double down on the crazy. If things go well for the Democrats and they somehow avoid a red wave in 2022, the Republicans will likely double down on the crazy again. But by 2024, and for sure by 2026, continued losses (assuming that they occur) would likely be enough to finally convince enough Republicans to abandon the crazy and return to normalcy.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it is that simple. You cannot embrace the crazy for 10+ years, and tell your supporters that this is the right way to go, and then suddenly do a 180. Look at the Tea Party. The Republicans embraced them instead of rejecting them, and now it is an entrenched and powerful part of the GOP. They could not get rid of the Tea Party now. What is more likely to happen is any Republican trying to return to normalcy would be primaried (not 100% of the time of course, but with high frequency). That’s the danger of the political messaging coming mainly from the right-wing media right now. It is a very dangerous type of message that they’re sending, which prevents the idea of turning back. And it was, at one point, mainly coming from the fringe of the right-wing media. Now, it is coming from POTUS. I legitimately fear for the future of the USA. I would very much like to be wrong but from history, I think the USA is on a dark path.
Pretty much my thoughts. If Trump loses and the Senate goes blue, the GOP could easily blame it on Trump’s general loathsomeness and not their overall approach to governance. (“That idiot just couldn’t stop pissing people off long enough for our policies to take control.”) They’ll revert back to being the party of no for four years and nominate someone in 2024 who checks all their boxes without being a supreme jackass.
If and only if that approach fails, we might see a humbling that leads to the GOP once again being a responsible, respectable party.
It depends on how badly they lose. You specified a big loss for Team R.
I imagine they would vote for a very strong conservative (doubling down) such as Ted Cruz. They would probably complain that Trump was insufficiently conservative and religious to win. Their support might not even fade much… for some reason so many people are liberal in everything or conservative in everything. (Christians supporting Mammon, god of wealth.)
If the Republicans act sensibly (something that hasn’t really happened since the days when Newt Gingrich was relevant) then I expect the Democrats to viciously fight with each other. With the Republicans “neutralized” the extremists can now vote for their beloved candidates… and destroy anyone who doesn’t believe in their extremism while they’re at it.
I believed the hype, thinking the Obama coalition was a “permanent” one, with the US becoming 0.5% more Democratic per year. Nope. I was wrong. (As pollster Larry Sabato said, after predicting a Clinton victory, “maximum mea culpa”.) The coalition lost one component, and other components didn’t turn out in the expected huge numbers. Democrats should have learned to work for their votes, instead of hoping to catch lightning. Democrats like to say they won six of the last seven elections in terms of the popular vote, but they may have won four of them with human lightning rods.
The Never-Trumpers who will help elect Biden will act mortified when Biden rolls out his public option to expand on Obamacare, push through gun control legislation and replaces Ginsburg with a pro-choice, pro-affirmative action Supreme Court Justice, and will rally around to restructure the party around Nikki Haley for 2024.
That won’t work. Now that il Doofus has fed them red meat, the deplorables will turn up their noses at the pink slime offered by the old-line-GOP Never-Trumper faction.
I don’t see this as happening at all. Even if Trump falls from grace, Romney will still be seen as a traitor to the party. I think he will keep his senate seat but be viewed as an outsider RINO (similar to Collins and Murkowski) Conservative and crazy is what currently sells ads on right wing media, and until that changes, conservative and crazy is what is going to win Republican primaries.
Regarding the OP, and mirroring much of what was said above:
Trump will be identified as not a true conservative, practically a Democrat in fact. McConnell will continue his agenda of pure obstruction. Efforts to win back power will be based primarly on voter suppression and campaign malfeasance with the helpful support of a new batch of Trump appointed judges. Ambitious individuals within the Republican party will engage in circular firing squads as they attempt to out conservative each other in hopes of taking Trumps spot as the head of the party.
Meanwhile, without the threat of Trump hanging over them, The Democrats will feel more safe in trying out some of the more radical progressive ideas. Eventually they will reach a bit too far, the Republicans will win the next election, and the whole cycle will start again. But before that happens there will be one or two bits of progressive legislation will make it through and the country will just a little bit better. Three steps forward and two steps back is how progress is made.
Trumpism is sui generis. It only involves Trump. The GOP has went along with it because it is a damn sight better than a President Hillary, President Sanders, or President Biden. Once Trump is gone, whether that is after the 2020 election or the 2024 election, the GOP will go back to regular GOP stuff.