A few threads ago, a poster complained that Democrats often talk about what they need to do to win over (certain types of) Trump voters or Republicans - such as voters in the Rust Belt, farmers in Iowa, “flyover country” voters, middle-class or impoverished white voters, etc. - but that the onus is very rarely on Republicans to do the same to win over blue voters (with perhaps the exception of a brief time after 2012 in which some GOP-ers talked about immigration reform to help win the Hispanic vote).
So it is fair enough to ask what the Republicans ought to be doing to win over blue or light-blue voters. But, IMHO, this task is far harder. Blue voters are such a far distance away from the Republican Party that there is essentially nothing the GOP can do to win them over (a black woman in inner-city Philadelphia, for instance, has virtually no reason to vote Republican.) The only way the Republican Party could win over blue voters is by moving so far to the left that they wouldn’t be the Republican Party anymore; they’d just be a more conservative Democratic Party. (The exception might be the Hispanic vote; Latinos have historically been a rather religious and socially conservative bloc, although that may be changing as well.) The GOP has had some success in winning some of the Asian vote by using affirmative action as a wedge issue, but mainly among recently-immigrated-and-naturalized Chinese-Americans.
What else?
The easiest thing is to quit with the anti-science nonsense. I know some educated people who just can’t vote Republican because of the stupidity they allow as far as science goes.
I also believe the Democrats should never give a platform to the far left woo types who dance around with the anti vaccine nut jobs.
Just as a start, eject and actively campaign against the open bigots, misogynists, and abusers of women within their party. That means not only does Steve King get booted off committees, but he gets no funding, no support/endorsements, and his opponents are actively supported/endorsed by national and state Republican officials. King, of course, would only be the beginning – there are many more, with Trump at the top.
Without this just as a start, I couldn’t even consider voting Republican as the party is right now, and neither could most of my progressive/Democratic friends and family.
There’s no chance of this happening any time soon, of course.
OK, but even if the GOP kicked out every single misogynist, racist, bigot, etc., why would you vote for them when they are the opposite of your views on abortion, climate change, LGBT, and a dozen other such issues? That’s what I am asking about - not just what is wrong with the GOP per se, but rather, what they would have to do to make blue voters pick them over the D’s.
They will win Democratic votes by convincing moderate Democrats that the leading Democratic candidates are extremists who would ruin this country (or this economy), while Republicans are the safe, centrist choice who would maintain the status quo.
Equality is a big issue. Republicans need to stop acting like white people are more important than black people, men are more important than women, Christians are more important than non-Christians, straights are more important than gays, rural people are more important than people in cities, and people whose ancestors came from Europe are more important than people whose ancestors came from somewhere else if they want to win the votes of people who are straight white rural Christian men.
Republicans should also stop putting the interests of rich people ahead of the interests of middle class and poor people.
Before some conservative comes in to complain, I’m not saying they need to put the interests of these other people ahead of the people in the Republican base. I’m just saying they should offer them equality.
They could start by being in the same freakin’ reality as the rest of us.
They could acknowledge the reality of climate change, that it’s happening way faster than the climate scientists predicted even a decade or so ago, and that it’s going to take major governmental investments and changes to the laws to do something about it in time.
They could have acknowledged that even if Iran continued to be a disruptive influence in the Middle East, keeping Iran nuke-free was a Big Fucking Deal, and therefore the JCPOA was an achievement they should have praised to the skies, instead of opposing and demonizing it.
Remember all that money for high-speed rail in the 2009 stimulus deal? Remember all those GOP governors refusing that money because trains are like communism or something? In Europe and Japan and China, they have intercity trains that routinely go 200+ mph, and we have a crappy rail system left over from the pre-WWII era.
At that same time, NJ Gov. Christie turned down the money for a new tunnel between NJ and NYC. The old tunnels are starting to have some serious issues. But Obama’s money had to be refused, just because.
And of course, there are still a number of GOP-controlled states that continue to turn down the Medicaid expansion money, including big states like Texas, Florida, and Georgia, hurting their own citizens to own the libs.
That’s just a few examples out of many of a party that refuses to do what’s in its constituents’ best interests for purely tribal reasons. How does a Republican even get to where sane people are from where they are?
Convince the centrists that the far left mean what they say. The average well to do, socially liberal voter probably doesn’t want wealth confiscation and retirement fund seizing to pay for those who choose destructive lifestyles. Unfortunately, the specter of socialism is not currently real enough to overcome many people’s disdain of the evangelical right.
This is the minimum for me to consider the party as possibly a “political party that is trying to institute their vision for the best future of America and Americans” rather than a “political party of powerful and wealthy bigots, misogynists, and abusers of women whose primary mission is enabling and protecting the wealth and power of bigots, misogynists, and abusers of women”. For the latter, the issues don’t matter – there’s no possibility of even considering a vote for such a party. I’d consider voting for the former, and seriously analyze the pros and cons of their position on the issues. Even further – a legitimately honest and decent Republican candidate might actually be able to convince me that I’m wrong on, say, the corporate income tax rate (a topic on which I don’t have particularly strong views). There’s no possibility that a bigot, misogynist, abuser of women, or an enabler/supporter of such could do so. Moral authority is a real thing that matters, at least to some of us.
I’m a socially liberal voter who doesn’t want “wealth confiscation and retirement fund seizing.” I like my wealth and my retirement fund. You really think my money is safer with Republicans in charge? I’d like a cite for that.
I think the Republicans have the ability to put forth a positive agenda rather than a mostly negative one. The Republicans were traditionally seen as the party of fiscal responsibility. Unfortunately, they’ve weakened that legacy by adopting a platform of tax cuts without spending cuts, which leads to massive deficits. But they could go back and adopt the principle of balancing the budget and reducing the deficit.
There is a mirror image here. The D s don’t need to win the non-college educated vote, just lose it less badly. Likewise on the R side.
Be less racist and xenophobic and the margins with minority voters shrink significantly. There are plenty of minorities who on many issues align more GOP if not for that.
Less anti-intellectualism and more acceptance of climate science and some college educated whites could return.
I suspect after Trump you will see some this repositioning occur. A move to the middle as the D side defines itself farther Left and has its own internecine warfare.
They have no intention of ever balancing the budget. Deadeye Dick Cheney said deficits don’t matter. They truly believe that to be the case, except when a Democrat is in the White House in which case it is a crisis. If all the racists and misogynists and crooks left the Republican Party, there’d be nobody left to turn off the lights. They will never get a vote from me as long as I live.
In other words, same old same old; scare people into voting for the Republicans by claiming the Democrats want to let the Commies attack America/let negroes marry your daughters/let homosexuals marry your sons/let terrorists kill you/let jack-booted thugs take your guns/let Mexicans take your jobs/let environmentalists take your cars/let atheists ban Christmas/let socialists take your property (pick whatever is appropriate for the current decade).
Maybe stop implying that poor people are poor because of their “destructive tendencies.” Maybe enact election reform that seeks to empower voters everywhere, not just in the rural breadbasket. Maybe stop treating science as a cultural enemy.
Then you’re saying, “The Republicans need to do such-and-such to become a party that I can respect, but still not a party I can vote for.” That’s not what this thread is about.
Also this isn’t a thread about ***you ***per se, but rather, about blue voters in America as a whole. About 100 million voters, rather than just 1. (not insulting or attacking, just trying to steer the thread back on track; this is not an IMHO poll)
a) Convince me that the left has no solution to economic inequality except to let the market economy run and then when it’s done, grab all the salaries and resources and redistribute them, creating a mighty and powerful governing class in the process.
b) Convince me that they are willing to look at other solutions that operate on a voluntary basis, if necessary in the tradition of voluntary service work, but within which framework they will directly fund experiments and projects at local levels to see how best to facilitate people helping each other and pooling their resources to eliminate deprivation and offset the unfair outcomes of the market economy (concerning which they need to acknowledge that the socialist critique is accurate and spot-on even if the socialists do not have any viable solution to it).
c) Finally make good on their rhetoric of individuality and individual freedom. Go all-out liberatarian about the right of citizens to do absolutely any goddam thing they want to that doesn’t demonstrably hurt others directly, destroy public resources or private property, or disrupt the community beyond the point that it can function. No more nanny state. That means no drug laws, sex laws, or other intrusions into personal choices.
d) Reclaim the Teddy Roosevelt mantle of protectors and guardians of our natural resources, so that our children and their children will have places to hunt and fish and hike and so forth.
e) Promise to Make America First by sponsoring covert operations in foreign countries aimed at increasing the personal freedoms and political authority of people in those nations, on the grounds that the greatest external threat to the American nation lies with despotic dictatorships.
f) In a similar vein, ensconce the American political way on the face of the earth by moving to shift the political structure of the United Nations to a bicameral legislature with representatives elected by popular vote in one house and representatives elected by member nations in the other. Disband the security council and make plans for bringing the entire planet under the leadership of the US as the de facto model and focus of the UN.
Items E and F should go a long ways towards addressing the immigration problem by giving the denizens of the earth fewer reasons to want to relocate to the US insofar as they’ll be doing OK where they are in their own lands.
Not really – I could concievably vote for a relatively honest and decent Republican (in this hypothical new version of the party) over a dishonest and indecent Democrat. But in the present, I don’t believe there are any honest and decent Republicans, at least in national office (Pres, VP, or Senate). There might be one or two decent Republican governors or representatives. Even these would be unacceptable unless they’re actively fighting against the Trumpists (thus Amash might be the only one that qualifies in the present).
What I said would apply to most of the liberals and progressives I know and speak to about politics regularly.
Nothing. The GOP will never recover. The final death knell is tolling. The end began with Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell will be the last one out, pulling the plug behind him.
Again, if I may junior-mod a bit, I am not asking this thread as an IMHO question - i.e., what does the GOP have to do to get ***your ***vote, BobLibDem? - but rather, what does the GOP have to do to win some or many blue votes in the nation. They won’t get your vote, but they could peel away Hispanic votes by changing their message and policies, they could win over immigrants who hold socially conservative views, they could win super-rich liberals who are afraid of their taxes getting steeply raised, etc.
Just trying to keep the thread on track.