Is this the beginnin of one-party rule in the US?

Great Debates
1

I’m imagining a US where it is basically impossible to get elected without an ® next to your name. Could we see a time when the Republican candidate is a foregone conclusion and the real action will be when different Republican factions face off in the primaries? Could we see Dems change their party affiliation en masse in order to both garner more votes and ally with moderate Republicans against their reactionary base? Effectively creating a new two-party system under one party’s umbrella?

And hasn’t this been happening in a lot of the reddest parts of the country already?

2

Probably not. Not unless the DT administration takes significant hacks at the Constitution, which is not out of the question.

I think the backlash will be severe in 2020. '18 may be too early. But even the stupidest of the 50 million who voted T will figure out that being uninsured and uninsurable, and not having the local auto, steel or textile plant magically re-open adds up to a con job.

3

Also, when that wall doesn’t actually exist, that should be a pretty good sign that they’ve been played.

4

Weren’t we just discussing the decline and fall of the Republican Party?*

*of which the 2016 election is a harbinger, seeing that it’s now tied to a dingbat for four years, shoulders the blame for what happens and doesn’t get to reorganize while Democrats struggle in power.

5

Have you been asleep for the last 25+/- years? Nothing is ever the fault of a Republican; they can’t be blamed.

6

If and when there is a catastrophe under DT it will have been because Obama. We were weakened because of the worst president of all time and DTs presence was the only thing that stopped it from being even worse.

7

Keep in mind that there was a wholly Democratic Congress essentially for forty years after WWII, and several periods of one-party rule in there. It happens.

More recently, US voters have seemed to prefer divided government, so the current state of things may turn out to be a brief anomaly. Or it could be the beginning of a larger shift, and there’s no way to know from here.

Democrats are going to have go through the decision-making that the losing party always faces: do we move toward our base for enthusiasm or toward the center for numbers? They are also currently burdened by weak farm teams, as the state legislatures and governorships have been trending red. That will naturally turn itself around too, I expect, but it may delay a resurgence at the national level.

I think that Obama may eventually face some criticism among Democrats for not having been able to do more to translate his personal popularity into institutional advancement for the party.

8

Why does everyone treat the current election like a permanent state of affairs? Remember four years ago, how everyone concluded that no Republican could ever win the Presidency because of growth in Hispanic voters?

Give it four to twelve years and you’ll have another Democrat.

9

How about a court system stacked for the GOP? Not just SCOTUS. I understand there are a large number of federal judgeships the Republicans have refused to allow to be filled.
Whole lot of unconstitutional things can get through that sort of rigged system.

10

Because this is not “oh, darn, the Democrats lost” or even “oh, damn, the Republicans won”… it is the first time in anything like modern times, and perhaps ever, that a truly unqualified candidate with a personal history, business entanglements and personality grossly unsuited to a President has been elected. We’ve put a fucking loon in the Oval Office, a man who is a walking example of just how disgusting a white-trash American can be, no matter how fat his bank accounts.

This is not the dislike of a Reagan, or the low regard for a GW Bush. It’s not the usual “I hate them because they are the wrong party” - because every candidate elected until now was at least nominally qualified and an above-average example of humanity.

50 million voters just took a giant shit in the Oval Office and think it’s wonderful. Woo hoo, their turn now, they think.

The amount of damage a DT administration could do in four years, and likely will do if his behavior of the last year is any indication, is beyond imagination and could be beyond repair except over a generation or more.

So while the situation may not be permanent, the effects of it may well be. And on a scale prior “bad” administrations barely register upon.

11

I seem to recall hearing this after just about every election, particularly when it’s a second term. When Bill Clinton won his second term it was the beginning of all Dem rule all the time. Same thing in the other direction when GWB got re-elected, and then again in 2012 under Obama. Hell, I remember after the first Gulf War ended pundits were saying there was no way GHB would be defeated after “winning” that war and it was to be the beginning of a Republican dynasty.

Maybe someone could dig up cites, but I remember thinking to myself each time, “Hey - not so fast there…”

12

I don’t want to downplay the danger of Trump or the damage that I think he might do. It is unimaginable to me that he could be elected and doubly so that the Republicans let him do it under their banner. Some of that damage might even last a long time.

However, to worry that this might be the beginning of a one party rule, no I don’t see it. For starters, all those 50 million voters are going to find that their shit starts to stink after a while. Even Trump with a Republican Congress cannot achieve what he has promised to do. In part because some of his promises contradict themselves and in part because they’re not particularly realistic to begin with. When Trump can’t deliver conservative fantasyland, they will stay home or shift party and we’ll see the Dems back.

Even longer-lasting changes like the Supreme Court are hardly permanent. The court has leaned left for probably fifty years now, and now it may lean right for the next fifty. For better or worse, neither condition is permanent.

13

What promises? Trump’s base doesn’t believe he promised them anything. They know it’s all a con and voted for him anyway. So four years of Trump not acomplishing anything will be fine with them, as long as he gives lots of speeches explaining how it’s all the fault of the Mexicans and fags.

14

Quoted for truth.

15

Maybe, I suppose that’s possible.

But let’s skip ahead four years: There’s no wall, not a wall like his supporters expected, anyway. Hillary still isn’t in jail because she didn’t actually commit any crimes. Even a court packed with stooges won’t overturn Roe v Wade and they’re inundated with accidental-deportation lawsuits anyway. Trump’s attempts to renegotiate trade deals slow the global economy, stifling American exports and raising the prices on imports at Wal-Mart. As a result, coal miners and steel workers are still unemployable dinosaurs and general wage growth still favors only the college educated. Trumpcare health costs turn out to be higher after all. And Washington DC is still full of politicians and lobbyists.

I’m pretty sure that scenario looks like a one-term President.

16

Trump will blame the “cucks” in Congress for not passing [[insert inhuman and unconstitutional bill proposal here]], and ask for David Duke ‘n’ Pals in the next Congressional election.

And he’ll get them, as the media gives 24/7 coverage to Tammy Duckworth and PostGate–she sent a letter without a stamp! Can America trust Democrats after this?

17

I don’t think that Trump would have organically have been a catastrophe. That he got elected with a Republican legislature and an elderly and incomplete Supreme Court is disastrous for women’s and gay rights, but is not nuclear winter.

If there is a catastrophe, it will come from the mandate he has been given: Bring back low end manufacturing.

China is a large percentile of the global economy and, in addition, the United State’s primary creditor. They have been actively, aggressively hacking our computers, corporate and government, every day of the week for the last several years now and discovered an unknown number of exploits.

There’s the possibility that the realities of the situation will prevent Trump from cutting off the pipe from China, and thereby failing his mandate. But if he actually makes a go at it, the Chinese economy will crash, they’ll call in our debt, and cripple or economy to force us into paying. All the meanwhile, the global economy will have crashed because China collapsed and the US had been crippled, which will further take out the US economy.

And that doesn’t even require China to have a fragile economy. The US provides a MAJOR source of revenue for the country. I don’t know what percentage, but I’m sure that is big enough that it wouldn’t matter how strong the Chinese economy is , it would still take a major hit. Personally, I’m not willing to trust the robustness of the Chinese economy, and I certainly don’t trust the Chinese government to not go apeshit to protect it, causing more damage than if they did nothing.

The end result may also not be nuclear winter, but I think it’s reasonable to call it catastrophic.

So the question is, with a bunch of economists telling him that he can’t go up against China, will Trump listen to the experts or decide that he has a mandate and that he’s smart enough to figure out a way to pull it off without anything coming back up on the US?

18

I thought that was the [del]Jews[/del] “Juwes”

19

Sigh, why do we ask this question after every election? All the GOP has done is charted a possible course for the party that is viable: dominate among white working class voters. But even that only makes them viable, there’s no path to dominance with such a narrow coalition. Trump will have to be a very good President to survive the 2020 election.

20

The sad part is that due to the normal business and economic cycles, The Donald may enjoy four years of wide-spread prosperity … just what his supporters want of him.

Even sadder is that these economic gains at the lowest classes will be because of Obama’s policies these past eight years, setting the stage for a resurgent at all levels … but everyone will credit The Donald.

The saddest part … The Donald has promised public infrastructure improvement … damn … even Wall Street rallied on this news …

When folk say he lied, cheated and conned the Republican Party … does that mean he’s going to put forward liberal policies … hahahahahahahahahaha