The question cannot be meaningfully pondered without first considering the broader question of where the GOP goes from here, in its general political direction. The conservative coalition is cracking up mainly for economic reasons – it is becoming increasingly obvious to the GOP’s base, the distressed (and even dying-by-drugs-and-suicide) conservative white working class, that the Establishment’s neoliberal supply-side economics are not delivering and will not deliver the goods, at least not to them. Trump’s nationalist populism might well be the wave of the future for the GOP – but there are two obvious limits to its viability: It cannot hope to win the all-important financial and influential support of the party Establishment and its ruling-class backers; and it cannot hope to win the votes of many nonwhites, of liberals, or of the 10% degreed-professional class that now predominates in the Democratic Party. The white working class might well have been a “Silent Majority” in Nixon’s day but it is a numerical minority now, no successful political movement can be based on the WWC alone. OTOH, GOP Establishment politics are now pretty thoroughly discredited in the base’s eyes, and that won’t change any time soon. Pure economic libertarianism, of the kind that does not simply serve crony capitalism and established business interests the way neoliberalism does, has marginal appeal even in the GOP, as the Pauls have demonstrated. Likewise with social-religious conservatism – if it is not supported by the Establishment, it is not a strong enough force to win on its own. And I just can’t see any fifth option – can anyone?
Sure. Lots of immigration from the European countries being overrun by Muslims. 
I do bet social conservatism definitely sticks around; many Dems get mistaken in thinking that because Hispanics and blacks vote overwhelming Democratic, they must be social progressives. When you actually look at issues alone from candidates, like Prop 8 winning despite Obama winning CA big in 2008, the picture isn’t so. It indeed is that the GOP still appears to have a lot of white racists/rednecks. They didn’t help themselves with the birther stuff, and not fully repudiating it. I mean Romney did accept Trump’s endorsement in 2012.
I’d be watching Bobby Jindal, if he can ever regain popularity in his state. Ditto Rubio if he can run for another office, win, and retain it. Cruz will probably be a big force for years to come, since he’ll prob get re-elected in 2018.
Of course tho, the above assumes the Dems don’t go so far to the left they lose those suburban voters Bill Clinton brought to the party in 1992 in states like CA, PA, ME, MI, IL, etc. Part of the reason those voters came to the Dems in the first place is how far right the GOP moved in 1992 with Culture Wars, Quayle vs. Murphy Brown, etc. Dems need to make sure the party doesn’t do the same on Muslim immigration, PCness, and economics (like adopting Bernie’s protectionism). Hopefully, the Clintons’ inherent centrism stays around, which is one of the big things I like about them.
Then American will be flooded with social democrats. That ain’t gonna help the GOP any.
It’s not that. Social conservatism is doomed, not to die out but to decline into marginalization, because of generational, not ethnic, demographics: Millennials are more socially liberal than any older American generations including the Boomers – they are less racist, less sexist, less homophobic, less religious, with a higher percentage of atheists and agnostics among them, and there is no reason to expect that they will grow any more conservative (in social-cultural as distinct from economic respects) as they grow older, nor that Generation Z will be anything but even more liberal (again, in social-cultural respects).
that assuming the GOP doesn’t go to reclaim the Muslim vote; before 2004, they voted GOP. Muslims don’t vote on the left in the west because they agree on the actual issues; its because of identity politics. On actual social issues like abortion, LGB rights, etc, Muslims resemble the most conservative Republicans. For voters like me, mass Muslim immigration represents the worst of both worlds: bad on social issues, but even worse on foreign policy ones, and of course, Islam anti-Semitism.
Exapno’s scenario seems to assume the new wave of Euro immigrants would not be Muslims, but white infidels coming here to get away from the Muslims. And even Euro Christian Democrats are practically Commies by American standards. Once they’re naturalized, they won’t be voting GOP.
But if Trump loses – which is to be fervently hoped for – then the next would-be celebrity demagogue won’t have Trump’s big advantage: right from ‘go’, they’ll presumably come at Trump II with everything they’ve got. Hell, even if it’s just establishment types, whichever one is least unlike Trump will presumably be the obvious target for everyone to pile on, because that’ll be the sensible thing to do.
Sure, if Trump wins then the way is paved for anyone else who can do an eerie impression of Greg Stillson doing an eerie impression of Biff Tannen. But in any scenario where Trump goes down in defeat, don’t you figure on everyone busily preparing the last war instead of getting caught by surprise again?
What’s odd to me is that I’d’ve thought that as one ages and finds some form of success they’d have more of a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and so tend toward conservatism. Of course, that doesn’t take into account being raised in a generally more tolerant society.
However, I know for myself that my arc was the opposite; I started out a Reagan Republican at voting age and moved steadily further toward liberal the older I got. Maybe I’ll be a Democrat by the time I hit retirement age…
I’m holding out for Duck Dynasty Guy and Joe the Plumber.
Economic, perhaps, but not social. Things like gay marriage and abortion do not upset the status quo in such a way as to threaten the wealth or position of the successful. As for immigration – well, the higher you are in the socioeconomic scale the less threatening it is, and the highest have an actual economic interest in the cheap labor.
Also . . . we are, after all, no longer so much living in a society where people born into any but the highest classes can confidently expect to find more economic success as they age . . . are we?
Unless the GOP reconfigures itself, sheds its hard-right wing and moves well to the center.
Which is always a possibility. And probably the most sensible course in the long run – the hard-right wing is demographically dying out anyway. But not fast enough that it can be ignored in the next few cycles.
It’s not about ideology though. If it was, Sanders would have won the non-white vote.
The non-white vote has no common or consistent ideology. Just enough ideology, if that is the proper word for “rational self-interest,” to unite them against the Pubs.
Their self interest is that they don’t like the Republicans. Republicans changing their ideology wouldn’t change that. Trump is less right-wing than any GOP nominee in the postwar era yet he’ll win less of the minority vote than any GOP candidate ever.
Cruz.
The fact that he’s not only the candidate of choice for white supremacist groups but is actively being used as a vector to recruit for such groups suggests that the messages he’s putting out are not exactly friendly to non-whites. You can complain all you want that you can’t hear the dog whistles but there are a helluva lot of dogs running to him.
It’s not just dogwhistles. Drumpf is a white nationalist, and the vast majority of his voters are white nationalists of the slightly stealthy variety (no swastikas on their forehead or that sort of thing). It’s a myth that his base is these poor, unemployed Rust Belt workers. The average household income for his primary season voters was $77,000. They are just white, racist, sexist, xenophobic assholes who, as a Southern Republican operative snarked on NPR recently, want to turn the clock back to 1956.
There are no dog whistles with Trump. He’s about as direct as one can be. But he’s no conservative. He’s the most liberal Republican since Nixon. Ideology and race have nothing to do with each other.
Liberal in the Huey Long sense: let’s use government to redistribute resources to non-rich whites, but no one else.