In this thread, I would like to ask that we set the *“Democrats = good, Republicans = bad” *mindset aside for a moment and just look at the issue from a problem-solving lens.
We’ve heard, for many years, that the Republican Party has a demographics problem, primarily due to age (older = generally more conservative, younger = generally more liberal) and also race (immigrants, growing minorities, etc. = tend to be liberal.) In upcoming decades, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to contend politically on elections that are anywhere except in solid-red territory (which, even then, will be shrinking.)
Now, what are practical ways in which Republicans could solve their demographics problem **while still remaining distinctly different from the Democratic Party? ** (in other words, if they totally jumped a 180-degree and turned themselves into a carbon copy of the Democrats in every way, then sure, they could get those votes, but then they’d cease being the Republican Party. They have to still present themselves as being distinctly different from the Democrats in order to be a meaningful rival.)
Again, setting partisanship aside, just looking at the issue as if the GOP hired you and paid you a lot to be its “demographic strategist.”
Boot the bigots. Abandon the fundamentalists. Focus purely on promoting business and national security.
Problem is that the bigots and fundamentalists together might be as much as 10-20% of the country or so, and without them, the Republicans would have to majorly cut into Democratic voters, and dominate independents, to have a chance. But I don’t think there’s any chance of Republicans gaining more than a tiny portion of minority voters as long as the bigots and fundamentalists (who are closely tied together – descendants of the original Democratic constituency of white Southern racists) are welcomed in the party.
Game the voting system. In the 2000 election, the Ohio Republican government moved several hundred voting machines from black neighborhoods of Cleveland where they were desperately needed to rural areas where they weren’t. Some people had to wait until midnight to vote and I am sure many were discouraged and went home. Enough to swing the state and therefore the nation? Maybe. So now we are in two unwinnable wars 18 years later.
For starters, they could convince all their hyper-religious members to stop having mass-meetings every Sunday during a global pandemic that is likely to kill a bunch of their followers 2-4 weeks later…
Blacks and Hispanics aren’t especially liberal. They are much more religious on average than the average American. So, if they dropped the subtle and not-so-subtle racism and bigotry, they could get a larger portion of those demographics on board.
I’m not sure any practical answer exists. The demographic groups that vote heavily blue are also the ones that are most attacked or most ignored by the reds. They’ve heard the message for decades so avoiding Republican politicians is completely rational behavior.
What could the Republicans possibly do while that message of hatred, intolerance, and bigotry blares out 24/7? What could they possibly offer that would overcome the blatant voter suppression? Do you expect the Republican party to become “woke”? They hate the word, they hate the notion, they hate the people who espouse it.
Take a look around you right this moment. Democratic governors, mostly in states with large urban populations with great diversity, are acting one way while Republican governors, mostly in rural states with largely white populations, are acting diametrically opposed. There’s your answer. There are no programs or positions that are 90 degrees off from those that form a complete party philosophy.
The modern GOP was born as a reaction to the Civil Rights movement and welfare state espoused by the Democrats in the '60s. Some of the rich (e.g.: the Koch brothers) opposed the welfare state and white nationalists/fundamentalists opposed the Civil Rights movement and found common cause. The rich thought they could use white nationalists/fundamentalists as foot soldiers/useful idiots. The Tea Party seems to have been the foot soldiers realizing that they had more power within the party than the rich guys so they could take over the GOP. With the election of a black president and gay marriage, they had better do something now because they were losing ascendancy so now we’ve got Trump.
So they’re not going to stop the bigotry; The bigotry is the point. Any scenario that involves the GOP doing better by shedding its bigotry is like those scenarios where the Nazis do better if they shed their anti-Semitic conspiracy theories; We’re not talking about the same entity anymore.
Gerrymandering, voting fraud, filibustering and other Tricky Dick dirty tricks are what they’re going to increasingly rely on. When they get really desperate, there will be an increase in violence.
No, they do not. Most are about as conservative as your average right winger. They are just not going to support a party that openly despises them and uses them as a boogey man.
Right. Those of us who are part of that population know that is so – if not “most” in the sense that people on these boards in this age think of current right-wingers, at least very many of them are as conservative on social issues as your classic old-school traditionalist.
The Georges Bush were very much into bringing in the Latino voters. Alas the white nationalist faction were much more highly motivated to do whatever it took, and here we are. As mentioned upthread, there is a problem in that the current Republicans rely too much on that faction. BUT a retreat from pandering to white nationalism and return to a proper conservative party would have a good chance of picking up a goodly share of minority vote.
As to demographic predetermination regarding liberalism, I have always been a skeptic. I’ve been hearing “the young generation with their open minds will change the world for the better” since I was in grade school at the end of the 60s. Now I’m in some definitions of middle age and still waiting. Maybe it’s just that Conservatives tend to have more children and most people stick with the values they learned from their parents.
I don’t like social conservatism (at least the way it’s normally portrayed), but I read a good opinion piece by a Canadian Conservative who decided to support a social conservative cause (specifically the family) without being openly homophobic. (I just do not understand how conservatives can think gay marriage is destroying families. It’s not impacting their families, probably.)
He talked about the success formula. Getting an education, getting married (not just common-law) and having kids after those previous steps were taken. Marriage is in decline (which has absolutely nothing to do with gay marriage, which increased marriage rates somewhat) and single parents (who have a high rate of poverty) and blended families are more common. This would mean putting some effort into reducing teenage pregnancy rates (which are often the result of rapes). Of course fighting crime is generally a conservative strength. Indeed, Democratic weakness on crime gives the Republicans lots of ammunition (no pun intended).
The UK Labour Party voted in a new leader today, who is a left-winger, but by the standards of his party is a moderate (unlike the previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn). His pledges don’t exactly align with Democratic party values but there’s some overlap. The list of pledges are here:
The Tories are the Conservative Party (somewhat similar to Republicans). The Republicans could portray this kind of “tax the rich” policy as a tax on success. I’m actually somewhat opposed to corporate tax increases, especially on small businesses, as I feel they hamper job production. I’m all in favor of taxing CEOs though and not letting multinationals avoid paying taxes.
I doubt the Democratic Party would introduce a Prevention Act because, to be blunt, sometimes wars have to be fought. Enforcing human rights is an emotional topic, but I don’t think any American leader could get China to respect them. (Every Canadian leader has done the verbal equivalent of mailing China a sternly worded letter on human rights.) I think a lot of Americans are sick of being the world’s policeman as well and don’t want to be a force for international peace.
The NHS is the National Health Service, the common government-paid healthcare. Many Americans would be opposed to government ownership of rail and energy. (I’m pretty sure most American mail and water is delivered by governments, however.) As for Obamacare, the Republican’s desperation to tear down that law has to go. Even if they succeed in the newest serious court challenge, a Democratic majority would create a similar law that creates such a marketplace in a different way, as the idea is more popular than some polls indicate. Many people who don’t like Obamacare say so because the law doesn’t go far enough for them eg it’s not Medicare For All. (Maybe the Democrats would go Full Bernie if they had to do this again.)
This is an explosive topic for the Republicans. Obviously “EU nationals” aren’t something Americans would spend any time thinking about, just immigrants to America in general. A “points” system is pretty popular and even somewhat logical. From what I’ve heard the US already has a points system, but Republicans generally try to stop family immigration and would rather have skills-based immigration (points-only) instead. Or the racists who want no immigration (or at least no non-white immigration, or want to exclude as many Muslim immigrants as possible) but said people have to exit the party, one way or another.
(This is probably Keir Starmer’s weakest area. The British public supported Brexit in higher numbers than in previous decades due to freedom of movement allowing immigration of people from poorer EU countries willing to work for less. This is almost the equivalent of Republicans constantly foaming at the mouth about Mexican immigration. And then came the wave of Muslim migrants. While an EU politician invited them, EU laws did not prevent the British government from controlling the borders. Starmer was a Remainer, and while he’s realistic that he cannot overturn Brexit, this does seem an attempt to cut out the heart of Brexit.)
The Democratic Party loves unions, and the Republican Party hates them. For some reason unions are unpopular, even though unionized workplaces are far more likely to have pensions and better healthcare plans. IMO the main reason that unions have lost popularity are unions not sticking to their role. Their job is to improve worker’s conditions, not promote causes outside the workplace or come up with unrealistic demands. In Canada the autoworkers unions actually lost popularity among their own members, because the pay increases they fought for simply led to layoffs of the vast majority of their workforce. A few wealthy workers don’t vote the way many middle class workers vote.
BAME stands for “Black and Middle Eastern”. Obviously the individual laws mean nothing in the US. The Republican Party fought against affirmative action for minorities, a topic as explosive as immigration since some opponents of affirmative action are blatant racists. (Starmer didn’t actually say he supported affirmative action, incidentally, but I suspect Republicans will not become more honest in the future.)
In addition, I’d expect Republicans to fight against over-the-top political correctness and more limits on welfare. If environmental protests stop the US from drilling more oil or piping it somewhere (like in Canada, where even programs that have majority public support and the support of all the native bands whose territory the pipelines travel through), I’d expect Republicans to jump all over that. They won’t actually win votes from semi-green voters unless they acknowledge that human-caused climate change is real, but I suspect they’ll downplay the effects. Some of the public thinks the discourse is “alarmist” and the Republicans want all those votes.
This thread starts with a fatally-flawed premise. White Christian Nationalism is the party’s identity now. In 2013, they were urged to appeal more to Latino voters. They went in the opposite direction, and they validated that right turn by winning the elections of 2014 and 2016. They’re not going back now.
I don’t understand why you say this. There are numerous black and latino female politicians and the vast majority are Democrats. It’s true that black votes didn’t turn out for Hillary Clinton but that’s because she wasn’t Obama more than she was a woman. Biden does extremely well with black voters and there’s no reason to think they’ll avoid him just because he names a woman as running mate. And what if he names Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams?