This. There will always be two parties because two parties is the most stable. You have the one party in power and your have the other party. As extreme as one or the other may seem, most voters are somewhere in the middle. They get tired of one party, they vote for the other.
How do the GOP secure a permanent victory in the USA, and destroy the Democrats' chances henceforth?
That’s my point. They conquered other areas to fund the government and territorial expansion, and Roman citizens in Italy got free bread and zero taxes out of the deal.
Besides just taxing the conquered areas, like Rome, you can always steal their rich people’s stuff, like the Nazis did. Like priceless artifacts and artwork, and jewelry. Or their resources, like oil, coal, rare minerals, salt, gold, etc. You can steal their infrastructure – why build foreign military bases at great cost to ourselves when we can just take over foreign countries’ bases? Why pay to ship items by rail through Asia when we can just take the railroads for ourselves? Why pay docking fees when we own the ports?
The biggest idea might probably be to take over capital. No more outsourcing, those factories are American now. Then, if we have the stomach, there’s forced labor. It’s not technically slavery if they can quit, even if quitting dooms them to destitution because the US businesses are the only employers now authorized to pay employees in the only legal currency, the US dollar.
But more likely, given republicans’ circa 2003 theory that war is an economic stimulus: bomb the fuck out of our economic competition. We had an unprecedented era of economic dominance in the 40s and 50s because the rest of the world was rebuilding their infrastructure from rubble and the US was the only place with an intact manufacturing economy to buy from. Seeing as how the 1950s are seen as a golden era by a lot of Republicans, that idea will probably hold a lot of sway. Minus the 90% top tax brackets, of course.
Anyway, all that is just spitballing. The point is, when you have the pistols, you get the pesos.
We aren’t talking about a state. We are talking about the country. The country is clearly split 50/50. And I think there is a desire to keep the parties in balance.
Are you saying that Democrats wouldn’t like to be the only party in power?
What do you mean by “people like you?” I’m pretty sure you don’t know who I generally vote for. I have no idea what the rest of this sentence means either.
I’m not as convinced as you are that if the Democrats controlled the Congress, the White House and the Court, that they would really want to share that power and just take only half a loaf.
I agree with Colibri and don’t think your example works in your favor. So, 100 years ago it was acceptable, en mass, to disenfranchise an entire segment of the population. In fact, it was acceptable to do more than Jim Crow, since women also didn’t have the right to vote at all. On this and many other issues the general population of the entire US has shifted left…the center is no longer close to where it was in 1916 or even 1956…or even 1976. There is no going back to that and no way the GOP can ‘secure a permanent victory in the USA’. Now, it IS possible that the Democratic Party could be destroyed. It’s happened before and could happen again (though, frankly I think it’s the Republicans in more danger of this than the Dems, but MMV and all that). If it does happen, however, the big tent party that takes over for the Dems will almost certainly still consist of most of the elements making up the various factions in the Democratic Party…just like if the Republicans fold a similar dynamic would occur. For a time whatever replaces the Democrats would probably not fair well nationally and the Republicans would, again for a time, do well. But eventually that would change as it always does, and the Republicans will be the ones frantically wringing hands about how the country has changed and whether or not the Democrats could secure a permanent victory in the USA and destroy the Republicans chances henceforth and blah blah blah.
The answer to the OP is, no…there isn’t any realistic way for that to happen. There is a chance that, for a time the country could swing more right than they would like and that the Republicans could have more power than folks on this board or in this thread would like, but permanently? No way. And, personally, I think that this Trump presidency will have the exact opposite effect. It’s going to be such a disaster that, assuming we survive the apocalypse, the Dems will win back the presidency AND probably control of at least part of the Congress at least…maybe the whole thing. And we’ll have threads like this created by the few board Republicans asking the same questions in 6 or 8 years…
Don’t understand, the Presidency wasn’t won by a Republican?
If the Democrats could rebound from a 49-state landslide defeat in 1984, where they lost the popular vote by a margin of 16%, why do some people think they can’t or won’t recover from a 2016 defeat in which the EC margin was far narrower and in fact they *won *the popular vote by 2%?
“In power,” sure. But in uncontested and unopposed power? No. There are many, many Democrats who would not want that.
Here in California, we have 2/3 majorities in both wings of the state house. This, to be totally honest with you, makes me uncomfortable. It means there isn’t any real and meaningful opposition. The role of “loyal opposition” is vital to democracy as we know it; otherwise it defects to one-party-rule – and that is generally unpleasant.
I assume there are right and left wings to the Democratic Party in CA. Which side controls the levers of power is based on which side has more elected officials, and/or which side wins primary elections for statewide office.
So I would think there is real and meaningful opposition, it just doesn’t happen to be Republicans.
“I do not talk like that, the way I communicate is much different. I do not reiterate, repeat, reinstate the same thing over and over again. I am clear, concise, to the point!”
Indeed, and one should take into account that the Republicans in 1928 also resorted to gerrymandering and other discriminatory practices to keep power and to pit the big cities against the countryside and small cities. Back then Al Smith was accused of not deserving to be president because he could not be trusted to be faithful to the constitution. Just because he was a Catholic and supported the end of prohibition.
It was prohibition and prejudice what the Republicans then used to minimize the Democratic reach, and yes, it worked very well for the Republicans, even better for them than what see today. But as history showed the best Republican plans did not work 4 years later to prevent the complete collapse of the Republicans.
A year after Roosevelt won, prohibition was repealed. Al Smith received a case of beer by Anheuser Busch to celebrate the end of prohibition. What I hope to see in about 5 years would be Hillary getting a box of a then legal Mexican red from the Rastafarians. 
It’s hard to totally decimate the left…but if they are smart about it, the Republicans can further tilt the field in their favour…some ideas would include
- Make it harder to vote - both by Gerrymandering but also be voter registration laws so that the electorate is skewed towards well off, relatively time rich etc etc
- Make it harder to run - increase deposits that candidates must pay to be on the ballot, introduce penalties if a candidate doesn’t do well, introduce a “character” element / bar that must be passed to be allowed to run for office - and then control the evaluation panel that grants the “licence” to run
- Control information - deny any opposition access to the sorts of information that allows them to craft policy, shut down as much as possible access to think tanks and other policy development sources. If this means tighter control of Universities and linking education funding to support for the political party - then do it this way. If not explicitly, at least implicitly.
- Politicise the civil service - bring back earmarks, use infrastructure spending as a “prod” to vote for the “right” party - if a state goes blue, then they don’t get highways, power lines and the like
- Tighter control of the media - introduce some sort of “truth in news” legislation or a “right of government reply” so that news can be spun more to incumbent benefit.
It would require some law changes sure - but with so many State parliaments / congresses in Republican hands, and with the Reds having control of both houses, the presidency and likely soon the Supreme Court not entirely impossible - and it doesn’t need to be an overnight thing, gradually over 4-8 years the battle could be made a lot tougher for the democrats
It is always puzzling to me what it is about the American left that every one of your election cycles produces the wondering about the “permanent” results of whatever last cycle was - it was only four years ago the Left tendency here was celebrating a permanent ascendency by the demographic factors and now it is worrying about a permanent defeat… strange.
I don’t think any center of power remains in place forever, but if we’re talking about how republicans can dominate national politics for a generation or more, then I’d say they’re already on their way to making it happen - and it starts with control of politics at a more local level.
The United States was designed so that it keeps a lot of power within state boundaries, and it is state voters who send their representatives to national office – something that was not lost on republicans in the year or so between Obama’s inauguration and the 2010 mid-terms. It also happened to coincide with the census, which gave republican victors the chance to shape national politics over the next 10 years regardless of who won the presidential elections.
Meanwhile, they’ve also been dominating state politics, winning super majorities in a number of states and again nullifying the agenda of any opposition who might happen to win executive power.
And now we’re beginning to see what can really happen in a few states where republicans have simply decided that democracy and democratic norms are in and of themselves unimportant. In Kansas they’ve started impeaching judges who disagree with their radical laws. In North Carolina they’ve stripped the executive of power. Technically, these are still constitutional, but only in terms of process not in any sense consistent with the spirit of the supreme law of the land.
This trend will soon spread. I suspect that this year, 2017, will be the beginning of a right wing assault on institutions that preserve democratic rule and two party participation. Governors and judges who get in the way of republican extremism will be impeached on specious grounds. Executive departments will be purged and stacked with loyalists. Newspapers and journalists may not be jailed, but they’ll be sued repeatedly.
Remember in the midst of the financial crisis of 2008 how there were more than a few republicans who voted against TARP and any federal intervention to save the financial system? Remember when Sam Brownback ran as a presidential candidate and couldn’t give a straight answer on whether he believed in evolution? That was the beginning of rise of the tea party and the radical right. They were insane then, as they are now. But unlike then when they were considered a fringe and were seemingly brushed aside by Barack Obama’s victory, they have power now – real power. And they’re going to start using it. And people aren’t going to like the results.
You seem to have overlooked the part where I said I was referring to time spans of centuries.
Short answer is they can’t. America traditionally see-saws between different parties. Creating a one-party state is just not on the cards.
The actual big hits to the Democrats were in Congressional races in 1994 and 2010.
Mondale losing the Presidency was a harbinger, perhaps.
I’ve noticed that too. The political left reads far more into victories and defeats than it ought to. And it makes much more out of relatively small poll leads - thinking that 3-4% in the polls is a big lead, when in fact it mathematically represents just a room of 65 voters in which 33 go for Candidate A and 32 go for Candidate B - a very TINY lead.
2008 wasn’t the end of the Republican Party and 2016 wasn’t the end of the Democratic Party yet some are convinced both were the case.
Even just a few months ago we had Dopers here (I won’t call them out by name) who predicted that there would “never be a Republican president again.”
Yeah, we totally overestimated the wisdom American people. We thought that a party that was moving further and further to the extreme and seemed to have no policy other than obstruction couldn’t possibly have a winning strategy, but Trump showed us wrong. I’m still hopeful that you really can’t fool all the people all the time, and that actually being in power will show that the Republican policies and promises really aren’t going to work the miracles they promised but who knows.
The concerning thing is that the Republican electoral strategy seems to be heavily in the direction of voter suppression and gerrymandering, rather than policy changes. So while we thought that the Democrats would prevail through demographic changes and the implosion of the other party that would lead more voters to choose the Democrats, the Republicans seems to be most concentrating on using the law to make sure that they get to choose who can vote. With near total power at all levels it will be difficult to prevent Jim Crow mark II, which while much more subtle than the original, can be far more targeted.
Now that the voting rights act is defunct and the FEC is effectively neutered, there are a number of ways that states can choose their electorate without being so crass as to come out and say that black people can’t vote like they did in the 50’s. Voter Id is just the beginning. I expect to see voter rolls purges that target those whose names match a list of felons, leading to rejection of many names common among African Americans. Distribution of voting machines to be evenly spread geographically rather than Demographically so that rural districts have one machine per 1,000 residents while urban districts have 1 machine per 10,000 residents, along with further restrictions on early voting so that voting in an urban district requires waiting for hours in line and missing a day of work. I also doubt that they are going to take the Demographic changes sitting down. I imagine that ALEC is already crafting legislation that would restrict the voting rights of new citizens or of children born in the US to non-citizen immigrants.
etc. etc.
This thread is a thought experiment. I want Democrats to think about what the Bannons and Brownbacks will try to do, so they can try to counter it. Honestly, it would take much less than the proposals in this thread to guarantee repeated Democrat defeat, because Democrats mostly assume that they can sit back and wait for voters will come back to them out of boredom or something.
And I am hoping to smash the illusion that a party that only really holds the Presidency, like the Democrats lately, can run the country.
You really think that dems are sitting back and waiting for voters to vote for them out of boredom? That’s not exactly what is happening.
Dems are hoping that voters come back out of the horror of what they have allowed or enabled to happen. Whether they were complacent, or against hillary in the last election, many made a pretty terrible choice. A choice that many are already beginning to regret.
By lately, I suppose you mean the last 4, maybe 6 years if you stretch it. That seems like a long time, but it really isn’t.
I am hoping to smash the illusion that a party that has no interest in governing, and only wishes to take power so that they can either enrich themselves, or dismantle the govt they are supposed to be running, can run the country.
Maybe the republicans will do a head fake, and try to mess with the dems reelection prospects by actually doing things that are useful to the country, rather than failed ideology or personal enrichment. It would be an interesting strategy for them to try, one they haven’t tried in a while. Hell, if they actually seem to be willing and able to run the country, I may vote for them in the future.
Of course, if conservatives take governing seriously, then that pretty much changes their entire platform to be indistinguishable from the liberals.