Not to declare the Republican Party dead prematurely, but we may be witnesses to the death of a major political party as such for the first time in a century and a half over the next few years. The brand-name is such that it may be re-constituted (with angry claims that it’s the same strong, solid entity it’s always been, and also that we have always been at war with Eurasia) but is it showing signs of finally rejecting some of its core values, and acknowledging the rejections of those values by a majority of American voters?
Mostly what I’m talking about is social issues: contraception is prominently in today’s headlines as one which the vast majority of Democrats AND a smaller majority of Republicans favor in practice, while GOP pols are still committed to denouncing it on moral principles in theory. Basically, my thesis (as far as I have one) states that such “wedge” issues as healthcare, social programs (like Social Security and Medicare and the legitimacy of taxation to support them), the marginalization (in government) of religious beliefs, abortion and other women’s rights issues, etc. had up until now skewed far enough right that, depending on personalilties and economic factors, opposing them could sometimes earn the GOP a majority of national votes but that no longer is a defensible position.
At some point in the future, IOW, and that point may be here, the core of positions that the GOP stands for may only be enough to gain a clear minority of voter support. Of course, this won’t happen overnight. There will still be pockets of GOP strength, states and congressional districts that will continue to elect right-wing candidates, and they could still under the right circumstances even win national office if all the boxes check off (extremely attractive candidate running against a dork, economic conditions favoring a GOP candidate, colossal screwup or scandal by Dem candidate, etc.) but that with increasing speed over the next few decades, we will have progressed sufficiently that the default position will align with Democratic candidates overall, and the GOP will be compelled to cave in on abortion, supporting churches over government, endorsing UHC.
From an outside perspective, and drawing general parallels to the conservatives here, it’s a generation problem (or as one satirist put it: a march over the cemetary). Polls have shown that once people are conservative, they generally don’t change their vote no matter what screw-ups their party does (probably because of authoritarian thinking mechanism).
But the younger generation has different attitudes. So maybe when in 20-30 years the crotchety old white guys have died off, the party will quietly move to a different position. That’s why slacktivist hopes for the Churches, too, currently controlled by old white men.
The pessimist in me thinks that before they die, the old guys have managed to convince enough young men to spout their beliefs, (I certainly see enough suit wearers on TV in their 20s/ 30s talking consie nonsense, too), so like centuries of history before, it will continue.
On the third hand, history has marched forward, no matter how slowly. Topics that were debated 100 years ago are no longer seriously held today, it’s only through the efforts of constant Overton window that some ideas dressed up differently are on the table again.
I agree that there will always be reactionary thought, nostalgia for the past that never was, and that this is a part of the human condition. But this has never been all that the GOP stood for.
Just the number of atheists who identify as Republicans, particularly younger Pubs, tells me that appealing to the importance of consulting with churches, as a wedge issue, will break increasingly Democratic. Long-run, this will force Pubbies to give up on that as an issue, but short-term it will result in their getting their ears kicked in in a few election cycles.
No, quite the reverse, it is showing signs of embracing those values despite their rejection by a majority of voters, and that is what is killing the party.
To some extent, you are confusing how Republicans act when a Democrat is in the WH with how they act when a Republican is there. Much of their agenda, such as it is, is driven by opposing whatever Obama proposes. I don’t know where you’re getting this anti-Social Security thing from because GWB tried to very slightly privatize it partially, his own party shot him down from the git go.
As for the Religious Right and their stance on social issues, the Republicans are going to have to change or soften their stance at least a bit in order not to drive away young people. And you see this already with many Republicans supporting Civil Unions for gays. That would have been unheard of 20 years ago.
Really? Are you as blind as the Pit thread says you are? Don’t you remember how the 2010 elections *proved *the accuracy of post-2008 election “Republican party is toast!” predictions?
What?
We do a version of this OP pretty much every year. Many people on this MB simply don’t socialize with any conservatives and so it seems like an alien belief system to them.
These kinds of threads come in two flavors - when Republicans win an election, the world is coming to an end. When Democrats win an election, the GOP is coming to an end.
I won’t go into a year by year break down but if you look back to at least the 1840s/1850s (basically as long as we’ve had two parties) we’ve only had one real party death and that was the Whigs being consumed by the GOP. If you look at that same history, you will note periods in which one party for various reasons becomes essentially politically weak and almost irrelevant due to a combination of “losing” on the issues and typically also just plain political mismanagement.
What happens is not either party dying, but a shift in its positions and such so that it can represent a spectrum of the electorate that is around ~50% of the population.
I can’t predict what the future holds but over the next say, 30 years I predict another Republican resurgence. Most likely the party becomes more moderate to be more appealing to the country as a whole, if the GOP poaches moderate voters it makes the Democrat the “leftist” party which hurts it electorally and probably returns the two parties to some parity. It’s really impossible to predict the shifts and such but our system is predicated on two parties so whatever positions need to be adopted, over the long term, will be adopted by the “losing” party to recapture its electability.
But as John points out, and history shows on both sides, there are likely many issues that the current GOP will change its stance on over the next few decades. Gay marriage is an obvious one as the demographic trends are overwhelming. Both major parties will support civil unions at a minimum in the next 20 years.
Other issues are less clear. I think it’s pretty likely that the GOP will return to a more robust taxation system at some point, and they are already backing defense cuts (which really need to be even more sever). On the other side it’s likely that the Democratic party will been forced to face some sort of entitlement reform. Long-term employment trends also point to a reduced impact of unionism on the Democratic party, IMO.
UHC is an interesting question. I think the most likely outcome is that Obamacare gets revised and extended and embraced by the GOP (it was, of course, their idea in the first place). Whether the GOP ends up embracing a more nationalized plan (like, say, the Tories) is much harder to tell.
And obviously changing racial demographics will force the GOP to eventually reckon with it’s image in minority circles as it won’t be long until you can’t win an election on white votes alone.
A lot of the above counter-arguments seem to me to consist of “It’s never happened, so it’s never going to happen” reasoning, which is hardly a refutation of an “It’s never happened, but I think it’s going to happen” argument.
The GOP is currently getting tugged in two opposite directions: towards a progressive viewpoint, largely on social issues (contraception, gay rights, etc.) and further to the doctrinaire, hardline right which for a few generations has vowed never to compromise on these core issues. Their current immediate dilemma is that the latter position, as embodied by Santorum, appeals to a shrinking base of Republican voters, and the former (more progressive) position, as embodied by Romney, is being forced to pretend to align with some of the core GOP positions until the nomination is secured. But their problem is that the extremist, absolutist core positions are not really capable of compromise: you’re either for abortion rights or you’re not, you’re either for gay marriage rights or you’re not. These wedge issues are really not winners for the GOP in the long term, and I think the GOP will take some hits until it recognizes that.
And yet the GOP controls the House, has enough clout to filibuster the Senate, and controls more state houses and governor’s mansions than the Democrats do.
]My theory concerns near- and longterm-future trends–not relevant to past results. To make filibusters irrelevant, all that’s required is for the Democrats to get a few more Senate seats. You don’t think this could represent a serious fracturing of the GOP? You think you’ll continue to be an anti-abortion, anti-gay-marriage party when most of your party becomes pro-abortion-rights and pro-gay-marraige-rights? You think the hard-liners will cave on the social issues or the progressive GOP types will support social beliefs they oppose? I can’t see either happening.
Its obvious! Because they consistently advance sensible and worth-while policies that have worked so well. And, of course, because all real Americans are center-right.