Then what do you think happens to the conservative movement? There are still more self identified conservatives in this country than liberals. So there’s going to be a mainstream party that represents them. So I don’t see any outcome here that ends well for liberals beyond one election cycle. Either the GOP reforms itself, a new party forms so that we have a temporary liberal vs. conservative vs. populist three way battle for a few cycles, or the Democratic Party actively attempts to appeal to mainstream conservatives and kicks the progressives to the curb.
The last possibility is a part of my dream scenario – that the Democratic party becomes a center or center-right party, and a real progressive party forms on the left. In this scenario, a libertarian party might emerge from the ashes of the Republican party, as well as perhaps a Christian nationalist party (the latter of which would only be a significant factor in the deep South).
There is no liberal party. What you’d have is a moderate, vs. conservative vs. populist battle and the moderates would siphon off conservative votes, but would not jettison progressive votes. What you’d ultimately end up with is a moderate party and far, far right party that can’t win anything nationally.
If the cost to the Democrats is to actually lose progressive votes, then it won’t happen. I think what the party elite will hope for is that they can gain moderate and mainstream conservative support while progressives grudgingly sit at the back of the bus.
I think Rubio, Cruz, and Kasich could guarantee a brokered convention if their egos allow it. The first step would be for Rubio to drop out. He could then throw his support to Cruz in Florida and the more conservative states and to Kasich in Michigan, Ohio, and other Midwestern states. Cruz and Kasich could then agree not to go after each other and focus on their strong areas while ceding the field in their weaker areas. With this strategy I could see Cruz winning Florida, Arizona, and western states like Idaho, Utah, and Montana. Kasich would be competitive in and possibly win Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. I think this would be the easiest path to a brokered convention. The main problem, of course, is that the egos of Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich won’t let this scenario occur.
Edited to add that Rubio is the largest obstacle for this scenario, and Cruz to a lesser extent. Kasich would probably go for it.
Whether the Democrats become more progressive lies entirely in the hands of younger voters. They have to start working at the local level to create a crop of progressive politicians. The numbers are favorable over a generation and somewhat so in the shorter term, since polling consistently shows younger voters double digit percentages more liberal along every dimension. Can they do it? I don’t know. And while the increasing percentage of minorities is favorable toward a liberal party, whites and non-whites appear to have very different agendas that will be hard to combine. Progressives have no history of forming a majority coalition outside of limited areas.
Yet conservatives have not shown they can attract majorities in any group that’s demographically increasing. Populist parties rise to respond to anger but fail to produce national party agendas that are either meaningful or lasting. Trump doesn’t have one now, and none of the conservatives running against him are for anything.
If you’re betting, always take the side whose numbers are increasing. There will be local variations in that, of course, but nationally the trend is clear.
Minorities don’t tend to be all that progressive. You’re also going to have to contend with a Democratic Party that has more religious members than it does today, as the percentage of minority voters within the coalition increase. Progressivism has always been primarily a white movement and African-Americans certainly aren’t buying Bernie’s version of it. As for Latinos, the parties they supported back home owe more to Trumpism than progressivism.
Most latino voters were born here. They have little memory of the lives their grandparents knew.
The problem for Trump is that some of “his” delegates don’t actually support him, so they can’t be relied on to stick with him once they’re unbound. In some states, candidates don’t get to pick their own delegates, they just get whoever the state party chooses to send. (This is theoretically an issue for every candidate, but I think it hurts Trump the most. These are long-time party loyalists and he’s not their type.)
And most Hispanics/Tejanos I know (naturalized or born here) have no nostalgia for politics in the old country. Music, food, art–sure, they are proud of their roots.
They have no love for tinpot demagogues & economies that serve the rich. That’s why most of them left.
Latino voters who are born here are indistinguishable from white voters once you account for age and income.
Except that they vote heavily Democratic. And their numbers are rapidly increasing.
It’s utterly astounding that the GOP is ahead in not a single demographic group whose numbers are growing. When has this last happened? The Whigs, maybe? Never?
Yeah, I was going to mention this if no one had by the time I finished reading the thread. Does anyone know just how many delegates are bound for the convention having gotten there only as a delegate for whom they are pledged? I believe in Caucus states the delegates trickle up (down?) from the local caucuses through the county and state conventions, and that there are always specific people from among the conventioneers that support the candidate that are chosen. In primaries I don’t know if all of the candidates submit delegate lists in every state, some states, or even any state at all, much like electors for president, or if the delegates are all chosen by the state party without regard to whom they actually support and they are pledged on the first ballot. If the latter is the case, how likely are some of those delegates to break their pledges? Even if it opens them up to lawsuits or other sanctions, they might think it a better option than voting as instructed by the ignorant masses.
:eek: This blows away a big chunk of the OP.
Nate Silver discussed the byzantine process in 2012. There were six categories of delegates, not including wholly unbound super-delegates.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/the-g-o-p-s-fuzzy-delegate-math/
Details are available at this website, which unfortunately is undecipherably complicated without spending a couple of hours on it. The Math Behind the Republican Delegate Allocation - 2016
At the moment, we have little basis for speculation about a brokered convention because after the first ballot we don’t know who the key players are. We do know that there is scope for chicanery along the lines of, “We’ve instructed Trump and Cruz’s delegates to vote their conscience.”
They vote heavily Democratic because they are younger and poorer. Only African-Americans are a truly reliable Democratic constituency. Latinos are only reliable as long as they are poor. As they get wealthier they tend to get more Republican. Plus, as recent history as shown us, Latino voters tend to get unreliable at the worst times for Democrats, either by not showing up or by voting 40% or so for Republicans.
Today’s Hispanics are yesterday’s Italians.
It depends on the state. Some states make their delegates keep their pledges for two or even three ballots, unless the candidate releases them.
California, for example, requires Republican delegates to maintain their pledges for the first two ballots, unless the candidate releases his delegates or the candidate did not get at least 10% of the votes cast on the first ballot.
Uhuh, the problem I see with your idea is that as long as the Republicans are opposed to immigration reform and just condemn immigrants and specially Hispanics that are not Cuban you will not see those high numbers that Bush the lesser once got.
The big problem is that many of the current crop of Republicans are very reliable on alienating Hispanics.
Must be an awful lots of poor Hispanics, then. Go to Roper and click on How Groups Voted. The breakdowns go back to 1976, when only 1% of the voting population was Hispanic, to 2012, when 10% was. The following is percent voting for the Democrat.
1976 82
1980 56
1984 66
1988 70
1992 61
1996 73
2000 62
2004 53
2008 67
2012 71
On RedState, Myra Adams looked at these numbers and said this:
It’s fantasy to hope that Hispanics can be swayed to the current Republican party, and almost as unlikely that mere aging will turn them conservative.
I also need a cite for the assertion that Italian Americans were ever reliably Democratic. You won’t have one because it’s not true. Oral History, Oral Culture, and Italian Americans, edited by Luisa Del Giudice, gives the real historic picture:
Funny enough while the second part may be true the first part is still false. Pew Research.
So relatively more Republican, yes, but still overwhelmingly Democratic.
I’d posit that they stay voting Democratic mainly because the GOP insists on doing all they can do to drive that vote away.
Just a Q:
Since I’ve never heard his name in 40 years:
How did Goldwater get nominated (1964; in 1960 the GOP ticket was Nixon/Lodge).
Goldwater was widely viewed as a Right-Wing Wacko.
See: “Daisys” Commercial.
How did it go from Bad (Nixon) to Borderline Batshit?