There is a sentiment among some that can be described as, “Republicans have nothing to lose from Democrats winning, whereas everyone stands to lose from Republicans winning.”
In other words, when Republicans lose, all that will happen to them, according to this logic, is…they’ll get better healthcare, a stronger social net, a cleaner environment, higher minimum wage, access to abortions, more LGBT rights, more labor unionization, more workplace regulation, better and cheaper education, less gun violence, more racial equity, etc.
So, then…is there anything Republicans actually stand to lose, from losing elections? (Other than, of course, having less political power as a result of having lost elections.)
Further damage to white hegemony; further damage to fundamentalist Christian hegemony; further damage to patriarchy; further damage to wealthy oligarchy (hopefully anyway – the Democrats have been weaker on this than the other issues in recent decades); off the top of my head.
With most of the items you listed, what they have to lose is money. They don’t want to pay so you can have something. For example, they don’t want better healthcare, they already get better healthcare. Why would they pay for you to have better healthcare?
(“They” being the GOP members that are actually making these decisions, along with their closest private sector friends. Remember, the little store owner or farmer that’s making $60,000/yr has no real say in any political decisions beyond their vote and if they vote GOP, they’re voting for GOP values, like healthcare they can’t afford).
Most of those things you list do have policy tradeoffs and many Republicans believe that the downsides are worse than the upsides.
Also, LOL at “access to abortions” and “more workplace regulations” in your list of gains. Do you not realize that a substantial number of people see those as bad things in and of themselves?
You talk about political power as though it’s an abstract thing, but it’s the thing that we use to mold the world into what we want it to be. Many Republicans don’t want a world with fewer guns, more abortions, more racial equality, and more workplace regulation.
Sure, but they still get the benefits. It’s like the kid who would rather eat a donut instead of vegetables. They still get the benefit of the vegetables and avoid the drawbacks of the donut if their parents make them eat that way.
If someone thinks abortion should be illegal (the donut), what benefit do they get from abortions being legal (vegetables)?
If someone has millions of dollars in the bank, why would they want to pay for your healthcare?
In other words, why would a republican want to increase the amount of taxes they pay to fund something that has no benefit to them?
That is, I don’t think your analogy works since it assumes the person is having something they like taken away and in exchange being given something that’ll benefit them. With a lot of these issues, what’s happening is that something (or an ideal) AND some money is being taken away and in exchange they get nothing.
Those aren’t benefits to them. You and the OP are both thinking that the Democratic political agenda is full of unalloyed goods, but lots of people don’t agree.
For what it’s worth, I don’t agree with that framing either. I think that many of these policies are worth doing despite the tradeoffs, but I don’t pretend that there aren’t any tradeoffs, and I don’t think it’s crazy that someone with a different philosophy or different priorities thinks the downsides of the tradeoffs are worse than the policy goal.
FWIW, I think abortion really is a difference in value systems and the argument doesn’t apply. On the other hand, for things like healthcare, the social safety net, minimum wage, etc., I agree that there are a few wealthy Republicans that won’t benefit. The rank and file working class white people from small town America, however, would benefit from things like universal healthcare and a higher minimum wage.
this right here. their sense of social identity and privilege is under assault and tend to get worse under leftists who support egalitarianism and multi culturalism
A substantial weight of money from my wallet with the “cleaner environment” and all the endless entitlement programs to take money from people that work had and earn an honest living and giving it to welfare queens that would rather be lazy and watch TV than work.
My personal safety and comfort when they yank me out of my spacious, safe, comfortable SUV and force me into an tiny, crackerbox clown car like the Europeans drive, (but hey, now my chiropractor bills will be “free”) and make it to expensive for me to heat and cool my house to a comfortable level in the name of “cleaner environment”
The right to bear arms would be another big one. And again, personal safety, considering how liberal politicians refuse to lock up criminals (while trying to seize our guns to that would render us helpless against those criminals). And with crime exploding they’re actually still talking about defunding the police instead of hiring more of them to protect me and society.
There’s this sense of naivety by Democrats that this question shows they can’t even fathom a non-racist reason why someone might vote Republican.
I was too brief. Let’s examine each of your misunderstandings:
The world will not shrink to the size you want just because you refuse to understand GLOBAL effects of client change and the fact that technological advances are changing the nature of the labor force and what jobs will be available to people now and in the near future. You and your children may very well find yourself to be one of the “welfare queens” getting paid a minimum living wage to stay home and watch TV while you work a part time gig economy job because the world simply does not need more coal miners or factory workers that have been replaced by robots.
Cars have become bigger and bigger, not smaller. There are small cars to be sure but nobody is forcing you out of your Ford Explorer SUV, which has become bigger while it’s engine has become smaller and more efficient. It will soon be a fully electric vehicle which will be more environmentally friendly and much faster, much more luxurious, much more safe, much more reliable than the fuel burner you currently drive.
Look at any statistic published by any law enforcement agency. Crime rates continue to drop decade after decade. Police funding has increased and policing policies are being improved to better deal with the changing nature of crime and community needs. It’s all been improving, not getting worse. And while you love your guns, there is plenty of evidence that America’s gun deaths and suicide rate is directly linked to the abundance of guess what… guns. The safety you feel from having a gun is part of a national delusion.
I think the time has come to face the truth. Trump lost, but aside from that the Democrats lost this election. The added (so far) only one seat in the senate, lost a number–not as yet determined in the house–and did not flip one single state legislature. There is every reason to believe that the Republicans will control congress by 2023 and the white house by 2025.
By the way, can anyone explain why, almost 4 weeks after the election, only 84% of NY State votes have been reported and why there are still 7 undetermined House races?
God it’s pathetic how poorly so many Democrats handle victory. It really is true that Republicans can’t handle defeat and Democrats can’t handle victory. Biden won, and we held the House, and we may get the Senate. And Biden won with the largest number of votes ever, and the best turnout in a hundred years. Yes, the Republicans had surprisingly good turnout that made this just a solid win instead of a blowout. But this was a big win. We beat Trump! An incumbent who somehow gained 10 million more voters than he did in his first election. That’s hard to beat, and Biden did it. We did it. We should feel good about it. There’s still plenty of work to do, but we should feel good.
I get the disappointment that it wasn’t a massive wave with a huge Senate majority. But what more could the Democrats have done? The turnout was historic. It turns out there are just several million more Americans than we thought who like and want Trump-style hatred and chaos.
I can think of plenty of benefits. For one, they get a convenient thing to rail against the libs for. Those in power get easy access to abortions when they decide it’s okay for them in some special circumstance (like danger to the mother, inconvenience, or outing a mistress). They don’t have to face it when one of the base have to deal with making a rape victim or a young teen have the baby, when they would be willing to make an exception.
The lose the one issue where they aligned with fundamentalists, meaning it’s now more obvious how completely at odds they are with the values those people claim to uphold. And since they’re bannign osmething they think is immoral, they open up to all the liberal arguments that do the same thing and that point out the whole “government should stay out of lives” thing is a falsehood.
And as for paying more in taxes–the argument in the OP seems to be that they’ll actually wind up better off, even if they don’t think they will. He’s not phrasing it in terms of what conservatives believe will be better, but what will actually be better. So, for instance, they will likely save money overall on healthcare, as they’ll wind up being taxed less than their coverage costs them now.
IF Democrats manage to win control of the Senate, it will likely be for a very brief 2 year window. No matter how loud we cheer for this win - and it deserves cheering - all the work is still ahead of the Democrats in Congress. There will be no more voting until 2022. No amount of positive attitude is going to help the Biden administration pass new laws if Democrats in Congress are afraid to lose their seats more than they want to pass new legislation. Of course, if Democrats don’t win the Senate, nothing of substance will get done. This is not Democrats not being able to handle winning. This is people looking at the Obama administration and seeing that Democratic elected officials lack the courage of their convictions and a fickle constituency that is only good for Hail Mary touchdowns and historically piss poor at defense (to use a much hated West Wing football analogy).
Defund the Police cost them a lot. It should have been shouted down immediately and loudly. Reform the Police might well have been a positive instead. The Dems handed the Republicans a perfect way to prey on fear and cost Biden a lot of Suburban votes and probably some of the House & Senate seats.
Black Lives Matter was finally gain ground until the Defund the Police idiocy sabotaged it.
That’s finding the negative and ignoring the positive. The positive is that we beat Trump. Democrats are acting like that was obvious, or easy, or a foregone conclusion. It wasn’t – not even close. He gained 10 million voters, at least!
I don’t think any prominent Democrats – not even AOC – were pushing “Defund the police”. But because a few random activists were, that means that Republicans managed to latch onto it.
There’s literally nothing that can be done about this. Literally nothing. There will always be random activists who say something that’s easily exploitable by the opposition. Democrats just need to get better at sidestepping it, and better at finding the awful activism from the extremes on the other side and painting Republicans with it. This is about tactics. Yes, there are some things we can do better on. But we still won – and it was a big win. Not the giant sweeping win of my dreams, but still a big win. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t a foregone conclusion.