Just so we’re on the same wavelength here. I’m a hard-core capital-P Progressive. I’m not here explaining what I think *ought *to happen. I’m here explaining just what I think *will *happen. My predictions demonstrate how reality-free I think the Rs have become.
As to this:
IMO that’s flat wrong.
IMO the 27% are proud of themselves. It’s deplorable, but it’s true.
The other 23ish percent of America who are R voters will not think as you say. Some will think: “Damn - these alt-right 27% guys are embarrassingly public about saying a lot of what I think (or say) in private.” Others will think: “I liked it better when our clueless peon pawns weren’t so noisy; now they’re rousing the opposition. Let’s have our henchmen quiet them down while still encouraging them to vote for our side. Deplorables indeed; some even haven’t bathed!”
Those roughly 50% of the national electorate are going to keep voting Republican once Trump himself is not the figurehead. A sizeable fraction of them live in monocultures where they don’t know a single solitary Democrat and where Republicans win elections by 80/20. And frankly a sizeable fraction of Democrats live in a similar, though usually less strident, monocultures. That’s a separate issue, but it certainly is a structural barrier to Progress as a nation.
If indeed Clinton comes up with 60 or more percent of the popular vote (which I fervently hope she does) it will be because 10% of the electorate (or ~20% of the R electorate) turns their back on Trump. I’m not predicting this *will *happen. But *if *it does, it *is *evidence that a meaningful chunk of Rs are not totally irredeemable human beings. But it would be very, very foolish for the Ds to consider those Rs who voted for Clinton (or perhaps abstained en masse on the Presidential race while voting a straight R ticket otherwise) to be anything but a one-time event. That will not translate into additional D support in 2018 or 2020.
As to
I agree completely. They’re not victims except in the *very *narrow sense that a smarter party primary process might have selected somebody more electable for them to rally around. Instead they got handed Trump to rally around and many are going to be pissed on Nov 9th when their Home team doesn’t win.
All I’m saying is they’ll continue to wrap themselves in the R banner no matter how shit-stained it becomes. Not because they’re all irredeemably utterly in agreement with the worst disciple of David Duke or Joe Arpaio that you can imagine. Some certainly are. Some are not.
They’ll keep rallying around the R banner simply because they prefer Us over Them and have totally imbibed a fixed view of who constitutes their Us (the R party: warts, crazies, racists, and all) and everybody else is a Them.
You seem to be blinded by your anger and moral outrage; you can’t think of how they think. Defeating an enemy first requires you to think like they do. Only then can you successfully predict what they’ll do. Understanding them doesn’t mean giving their ideas credence. It means comprehending them so as to defeat them efficiently and effectively.
