# Is now the time for moderate Republicans to try to retake control of the party? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 15, 2022, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704 "2022-08-15T17:36:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2023, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/201 "2023-09-28T13:00:46Z")
_Après D’Anconia, le déluge._ ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2023, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/202 "2023-09-30T15:28:13Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > And, he’s the only one cozying up to workers at all. Um… what? Was this sarcasm? ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2023, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/203 "2023-09-30T15:29:17Z")
Trump isn’t even in prison yet!!! ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2023, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/204 "2023-09-30T17:02:59Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > > [@RitterSport](#): > > > > And, he’s the only one cozying up to workers at all. > > Um… what? Was this sarcasm? No. Trump at least pretended to be a man of the people when he visited that plant last week. And, he’s wrong about how international trade works, but he put in those ridiculous tariffs in a misguided attempt to help increase manufacturing. The rest of the Republican crew don’t even pretend to care about labor. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2023, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/205 "2023-09-30T17:29:28Z")
WaPo article indicates that anti-Trump Republicans, like the Club for Growth, have been trying and failing to find a way to win Trumpist Republicans. > [@](#): > > The memo from a Club for Growth-aligned group called Win It Back, first reported [by the New York Times’s Jonathan Swan](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/us/politics/anti-trump-ads-memo.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare) and obtained by The Washington Post, contains strikingly candid findings after the group spent $6 million on ads in Iowa and South Carolina: > > - “All attempts to undermine [Trump’s] conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective, regardless of the setting (live surveys, online surveys, focus groups, controlled experiments).” > > - “Every traditional post-production ad attacking President Trump either backfired or produced no impact on his ballot support and favorability. … This includes ads that primarily feature video of him saying liberal or stupid comments from his own mouth.” > … > The memo also describes a particularly intractable problem, which is voters essentially dismissing Trump’s liabilities out of hand: > > - Even when voters are shown something “otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it.” > > - If you don’t make clear that the messenger is someone who once supported Trump, “the viewer will automatically put their guard up, assuming the messenger is just another Trump-hater whose opinion should be summarily dismissed.” > > None of this is shocking stuff. It comports with virtually everything we’re seeing in the Republican nominating contest. **It’s a picture of a personality-driven party, not a policy-driven one. The details are negligible and negotiable, and people will just adjust their priors to suit a candidate in whom they’ve invested so much.** Anti-Trump groups seem to have given up on the primaries, and will save their money now for the general, when they presumably will spend their money in support of Trump, a candidate that they despise, rather than Biden, a candidate they despise more. > **[Analysis | Anti-Trump GOP groups start waving white flag. This memo shows why.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/29/anti-trump-gop-groups-start-waving-white-flag-this-memo-shows-why/)** > > The memo from a key group that ran millions of dollars in ads opposing Trump suggests very little works. Other groups’ actions suggest they agree. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2023, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/206 "2023-10-01T07:10:57Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Anti-Trump groups seem to have given up on the primaries, and will save their money now for the general, when they presumably will spend their money in support of Trump, a candidate that they despise, rather than Biden, a candidate they despise more. Throwing bad money after good? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/207 "2023-10-02T15:59:10Z")
One of these days I’ve GOT to get one of these alleged “mainstream” R’s to tell me straight whatever in the Good Lord’s Sight could possibly be so horryfying to them about another term of watered-down Dem administration that they’d rather risk Trump. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/208 "2023-10-02T16:16:18Z")
It seems to me that some of the already vote D. There are posters here on this board who have talked about how they now vote Democratic since Trump took over the Republican Party. The problem is that the moderates have been a smaller and smaller part of the Republican Party ever since Bill Clinton ran as a moderate in 1992. At first Republicans managed, but demographic changes doomed the “rely only on old white men” strategy. Unfortunately rather than trying to compete for the moderate vote, they went after the crazy elements of the Democratic Party to compensate. So now the primary dynamic is crazy (including the crazies who used to vote D) vs. sane (including the sane people who used to vote R) rather than liberal vs. conservative. This obviously leaves very little room for Mitt Romney types in the Republican Party, and they certainly don’t have the base to “retake control”. ETA: By crazy, I refer to it in the sense that these voters blame the wrong things for their problems. Global warming? Blame people who support wind and solar. Inflation? Blame liberals who want to redistribute wealth. War in Ukraine? It’s the fault of those corrupt rich Democrats like Hunter Biden, and in no way Vladimir Putin’s fault. The list goes on of them blaming the wrong folks for what ails the world. ---
**Author:** ![TeroSunbear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terosunbear/32/14748_2.png) [@TeroSunbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeroSunbear)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2023, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/209 "2023-10-05T10:34:23Z")
Other than lowering Elon Musk’s taxes, removing Obamacare and cutting my Social Sercurity, what do they have to offer, without Trump? In addition to all that Trump would send troops permanently to the wall, I mean fence, at the border. Even if there are some serious Republicans, I have yet to hear any useful plan for 2024. Impeaching Biden does nothing to the country. Oh the oil! Pump more Alaska oil. Forgot that. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2023, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/210 "2023-10-05T19:00:38Z")
We’re all yelling (largely in unison) but once again I’ll bring up that the chance for ‘moderates’ to claim the party was probably sometime in the immediate post-Regan years. That was when the Religious Right became the tail that started to Wag the Dog. As it grew ever more dominant, then they could have realized they were becoming welded to that specific ideology rather than any semblance of a “conservative” political platform. And each election, a new, more reactionary faction would be added, from the various nay-sayers starting with Newt, to the Tea Party, to Qanon and MAGA. And of course, the Chaos Caucus of right now. Each and every time they’ve embraced the most extreme in order to keep their numbers up. And now, anything resembling the conservatives of the past (the moderates of the OP) are almost entirely forced out, retired, or merely looking on in horror as they refuse to vote or even do so reluctantly for the Democrats. And if anything, the trend is accelerating. So, yeah, the party was bartered away to ever-more crazy factions for votes, over the period of decades. As I said in another thread, the current Republican party is an anti-democratic, no platform populist party merely united around it’s hate of the other, with no actual platform, which wears a tattered skin bag Edgar-suit of the former Republican party and some of their slogans. Or to put it even more graphically, the Republican’s invited the parasitic entities in, hoping to benefit from their vitality, and have in turn, been eaten from the inside out. The last bit with the speaker being only the most obvious bit about how the dead skin and facade of the Republican party is now tearing showing what’s really left inside. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2023, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/211 "2023-10-05T20:16:47Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > the chance for ‘moderates’ to claim the party was probably sometime in the immediate post-Regan years. 1988 was 35 years ago. Look, at _some_ point the baby boomers will stop dominating politics. Well, whatever they did in the Reagan and post-Reagan years, they did it successfully, because the American coming of age during that period are decidedly Republican. > **[How Gen X Became the Trumpiest Generation](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/20/cherie-westrich-alt-rock-gen-x-maga-00033769)** > > Alt-rocker Cherie Westrich’s journey may seem unusual, but given the strange political arc of her generation, it might not be. Even among millenials, the Republican party is making gains. Today. The Republican party of Trump. > **[Millennials Are Not an Exception. They’ve Moved to the Right.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/upshot/millennials-polling-politics-republicans.html)** > > Over the last decade, almost every cohort of voters under 50 has shifted rightward. The fact of the matter is that today’s Republican party is doing _very_ well at the ballot box. Despite everything, because of everything, that’s a matter of opinion. It is tearing itself apart. It has abandoned any pretense of ideology. Its figurehead is being criminally prosecuted. But also, the Republican party controls the House of Representatives, and 23 states (compared to 13 or 14 Democratic state trifectas). They lost the 2020 Presidential election but they also gained votes with respect to 2016, which means 2020 was an _improvement_. They have appointed a slew of federal judges that have already forever changed the course of U.S. history. They are keeping up with and sometimes even neutralizing the Democrats. This is what political success looks like - not domination, but success nonetheless. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2023, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/212 "2023-10-05T20:30:38Z")
And how is this in any way different from what I said? I said the Republican’s found success in grabbing onto ever more out there, toxic, reactionary groups and sacrificed whatever actual “conservative” trappings they had previously. I said the trend was accelerating. Doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a success for them. Just that what is currently the Republican party has little to no remaining DNA with what the party previously was. And that the moderates constantly mentioned in this thread, the Speaker thread, and many others are already mostly the Ghost of Christmas Past. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2023, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/213 "2023-10-05T20:35:24Z")
I wasn’t being adversarial. If you’d like me to debate against what you’ve written though, I can. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2023, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/214 "2023-10-06T00:49:42Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > We’re all yelling (largely in unison) but once again I’ll bring up that the chance for ‘moderates’ to claim the party was probably sometime in the immediate post-Regan years. That was when the Religious Right became the tail that started to Wag the Dog. As it grew ever more dominant, then they could have realized they were becoming welded to that specific ideology rather than any semblance of a “conservative” political platform. And each election, a new, more reactionary faction would be added, from the various nay-sayers starting with Newt, to the Tea Party, to Qanon and MAGA. And of course, the Chaos Caucus of right now. > > Each and every time they’ve embraced the most extreme in order to keep their numbers up. And now, anything resembling the conservatives of the past (the moderates of the OP) are almost entirely forced out, retired, or merely looking on in horror as they refuse to vote or even do so reluctantly for the Democrats. > > And if anything, the trend is accelerating. So, yeah, the party was bartered away to ever-more crazy factions for votes, over the period of decades. As I said in another thread, the current Republican party is an anti-democratic, no platform populist party merely united around it’s hate of the other, with no actual platform, which wears a tattered skin bag Edgar-suit of the former Republican party and some of their slogans. > > Or to put it even more graphically, the Republican’s invited the parasitic entities in, hoping to benefit from their vitality, and have in turn, been eaten from the inside out. The last bit with the speaker being only the most obvious bit about how the dead skin and facade of the Republican party is now tearing showing what’s really left inside. I agree. I think the reason the numbers have stayed close enough for Republicans to be competitive is because they have taken the crazies away from the Democratic Party, plus adding some who previously were non-voters. That has been balanced out by moderate Republicans who are now becoming Democrats. The flip side is Democrats need to realize this is happening and make their tent even bigger. Rather than criticizing the Joe Manchins of the world, Democrats need to make that wing of the party larger by inviting in those moderate Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2023, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/215 "2023-10-06T06:48:30Z")
It’s alarming that the British Conservatives are sliding the same way, in a rather attenuated way. And if they do indeed lose the general election, they’ll probably go on doing so, as defeat seems to push a party more towards its extremes. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2023, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/216 "2023-10-06T14:10:41Z")
It’s a pretty world-wide phenomenon, differing mostly in degree and details, not at all in overall direction. Which suggests a common cause(s). My candidates for common causes are 1. Propaganda sponsored by totalitarian states. 2. Propaganda sponsored by entities that benefit from extreme economic inequality. 3. Rank and file public reaction to extreme societal economic inequality and the resulting individual economic insecurity. It’s a self-reinforcing feedback loop between all three. But IMO you need a bunch of #3 to get the snowball started rolling. Unfortunately, that also suggests that stopping and reversing the current momentum requires addressing all 3 prongs simultaneously. And preventing #3 from becoming a problem ever again. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2023, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/217 "2023-10-06T14:28:37Z")
I’ve mentioned him somewhere before, but turn-of-the-20th century House Speaker Thomas Reed of Maine was a moderate Republican whose principled stands led to his facing considerable personal abuse and ultimately torpedoed his political ambitions. At one point when tackling a Democratic abuse of House rules that was blocking important legislation, he told a colleague that if he was unsuccessful in achieving reform, he’d resign office and take a position in a Maine law firm. There are plenty of present-day Republicans who could support themselves handsomely in similar fashion, but addiction to short-term power and attention has deprived them of the courage to tackle the cancer in their party. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2023, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/218 "2023-10-06T14:50:59Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > My candidates for common causes are > > 1. Propaganda sponsored by totalitarian states. > 2. Propaganda sponsored by entities that benefit from extreme economic inequality. > 3. Rank and file public reaction to extreme societal economic inequality and the resulting individual economic insecurity. Social network algorithms. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2023, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/219 "2023-10-06T14:59:38Z")
Another article indicating that anti-Trump Republicans are giving up: [https://www.axios.com/2023/10/06/gop-anti-trump-fading-away-2024](https://www.axios.com/2023/10/06/gop-anti-trump-fading-away-2024) > [@](#): > > - Win It Back, a political action committee (PAC) affiliated with the conservative group Club for Growth, says it burned through $6 million creating 40 anti-Trump messages — none of them effective, the [New York Times reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/us/politics/anti-trump-ads-memo.html). > > - Republican Accountability PAC — a group of former Trump voters dedicated to moving beyond the former president — is giving up on the primary after spending $1 million on ads in Iowa. “We have stopped spending money in the primary,” the PAC’s leader, Sarah Longwell, [told Reuters](https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/republican-anti-trump-money-splits:-spend-now-or-wait-until-2024). > > - Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) — who [clashed with Trump](https://www.npr.org/2023/08/16/1194171929/donald-trump-georgia-indictment-brian-kemp-republicans) when he refused to go along with Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump in Georgia — [said last week](https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/kemp-back-trump-presidential-election-better-biden) that he’ll support Trump if he gets the GOP nomination. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2023, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704/220 "2023-10-06T15:01:15Z")
ETA: @Sage_Rat two posts up … That’s an excellent addition to the list. And which certainly serves as an amplifier for at least the first two. What is interesting to me is the number of economically insecure populists who are dead-set against redistributive economics as a solution to their self-acknowledged lack of money. A social network algorithm that tapped into that shared problem could just as easily offer Progressive or even Communist ideas as the solution. Yet they don’t. Why? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-now-the-time-for-moderate-republicans-to-try-to-retake-control-of-the-party/969704.md?page=12)