Will the GOP split into two parties within the next two Presidential cycles?

[Tom_Tildrum]

Because the two-party system produces coalitions on both sides, the question of “will the party fracture” always comes up as to the party that’s currently on the outs. It’s a subset of “should the losing party fortify its base or move to the center.” These sorts of questions were asked of the Democrats in the 80s and after 2004, they were asked of the Republicans after 1996 and now, and the next time the Democrats lose the presidency, they’ll get asked of them again. Right now it’s Tea Party vs. mainstream Republicans, then it will be progressive Democrats vs. Clintonistas or some such.

The flip side is that whichever party is up at any given time starts wondering, “maybe this time our majority is going to be permanent.” This thinking proceeds in similar cycles, and it’s much like the exuberance of a boom in a business cycle.

Neither party ever breaks up and neither ever will. Neither will ever have a permanent majority. Coalitions shift within a party due to ideas, money, and personalities. Eventually, the voters get sick of the party in charge; its accomplishments fade in their minds, and the accruing problems of the day get laid at their feet. The other party gets voted in, and the faction of that party that happens to have produced the candidate that year looks like geniuses.

[DSeid]

Just for the record my question does not imply a permanent majority for the Democrats. I see a strong possibility that a moderate GOP free of the Tea Party could appeal to many disaffected Democrats depending on the personalities and visions of who runs and some chance of an eventual fracture with the Democratic Party at some point as well.

And Parties splitting is not historically without precedent.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@Maeglin

There is an interesting piece in Salon today exactly about this question.

The wording in that article is somewhat misleading. The key phrase is:

The data, however, show that Tea Party activists and leaders on average are more affluent than the average American.

The rest of the article is mostly concerned about those activists and leaders, not about the base of supporters.

The white working class often votes for the Newest Right, but then the white working class has voted for Republicans ever since Nixon.

Why they vote this way Lind never addresses. But it is this group of supporters who are poorer, older, whiter, and less educated, and seemingly more antithetical to Others.

The closest he comes to this point is:

Today the white notables of the South increasingly live in states like Texas, which already have nonwhite majorities. They fear that Obama’s election, like Lincoln’s, foreshadows the emergence of a new national majority coalition that excludes them and will act against their interest. Having been reduced to the status of members of a minority race, they fear they will next lose their status as members of the dominant local class.

The group that follows them has the same fears of being dispossessed, of being turned into the Them of the new majority. This terrifies the Tea Party, because they remember exactly how they treated Them. At least the Tea Party activists look like their followers.

This still gives no pathway to a larger party, though.

[Evil_Captor]

@Maeglin

There is an interesting piece in Salon today exactly about this question.

In other words, locally wealthy people who are very exposed to changes in the market but may have lower individual human capital investments than coastal elites.

If this is so, why do the people at Tea Party rallies look like homeless street sweepings that have been gathered up in van by party apparatchiks, dressed out in Goodwill finery and dumped at the rally?

[DSeid]

Where the Tea Partiers are. (I’ll eat them up I love them so.) Note: the author refers to these Representatives as the “suicide caucus” in reference to Charles Krauthammer’s nickname for them.

The average suicide-caucus district is seventy-five per cent white, while the average House district is sixty-three per cent white. Latinos make up an average of nine per cent of suicide-district residents, while the over-all average is seventeen per cent. The districts also have slightly lower levels of education (twenty-five per cent of the population in suicide districts have college degrees, while that number is twenty-nine per cent for the average district).

The members themselves represent this lack of diversity. Seventy-six of the members who signed the Meadows letter are male. Seventy-nine of them are white.

As with Meadows, the other suicide-caucus members live in places where the national election results seem like an anomaly. Obama defeated Romney by four points nationally. But in the eighty suicide-caucus districts, Obama lost to Romney by an average of twenty-three points. The Republican members themselves did even better. In these eighty districts, the average margin of victory for the Republican candidate was thirty-four points.

In short, these eighty members represent an America where the population is getting whiter, where there are few major cities, where Obama lost the last election in a landslide, and where the Republican Party is becoming more dominant and more popular. Meanwhile, in national politics, each of these trends is actually reversed. …

[BrainGlutton]

@Saint_Cad

I’ve got to disagree with you on this. The Tea Party believes the Bible should run this country and not the Constitution which means that their draws are those that believe homosexuality is wrong and abortion is wrong and legalized marijuana is wrong (because guess that’s in the Bible somewhere). Here’s an example from my state’s Tea Bag affiliate which as you can see is a mix of Fundamentalist preacher and Sovereign Citizen bullshit. THAT’S who they appeal to.

Well, that’s the Constitution Party. No affiliation with the TP AFAIK. Though considerable membership-overlap wouldn’t surprise me.

[Boyo_Jim]

I used to think that the Tea Party would try taking over the Republicans from the inside by primarying the more moderate Republicans. Now, after all the hysteria over the very idea of Republican leadership “caving” to avoid default, I think they don’t have the patience for it. I think they will split off, maybe even before the 2014 elections, and destroy both the Republicans and whatever influence the Tea Party may have had with them.

One can only hope.

[BrainGlutton]

Gallup: 60% Of Americans Say Third Party Is Needed.

The numbers reflect the highest dissatisfaction with the nation’s two political parties since Gallup first asked the question 10 years ago. Just 26% of respondents believe the Democratic and Republican parties adequately represent Americans.

Those polled that identified as Republicans and Democrats were equal in their view that a third party is needed, 52 percent and 49 percent respectively.

[DSeid]

It would be more interesting if they also had options for what they would want that third party to look like and if they’d be likely to vote for that choice. 60% may want a third choice available but I highly doubt that more than any small minority want to make the same third choice.

[Boyo_Jim]

@BrainGlutton

Gallup: 60% Of Americans Say Third Party Is Needed.

This will certainly encourage the Tea Partiers, who will believe most of this 60% will go to them, and they’ll pick up some more disaffected Republicans.

They will be wrong, of course, but they’re in their own bubble.

[elucidator]

I heartily endorse a third party that can boldly and directly present the views of those conservatives who are not corrupted by so-called “moderation” and “compromise”.

[ElvisL1ves]

I can’t see an actual split into two parties, just a continuation of the RINO rhetoric against the non-crazies, who if they’re still in the party must still have hope the fever will break. But the internal rift we saw in 2012, where the Sanes have to spout some Bagger rhetoric and the Baggers have to keep doubling down on the hate, with neither faction having enough trust in the other to form a united front, pretty much has to continue.

[elucidator]

@Boyo_Jim

This will certainly encourage the Tea Partiers, who will believe most of this 60% will go to them, and they’ll pick up some more disaffected Republicans.

They will be wrong, of course, but they’re in their own bubble.

Frankly, I have come to doubt that the Tea Party even really exists any more, save as a mirage and a feint, a means by which fatcats like the Koch Brothers can sluice their vast cash reserves into our politics. Perhaps “flush” is the better word…

[Boyo_Jim]

Did you notice how ‘compromise’ and ‘communist’ both start the same? And that '‘moderation’ contains m, o, t, i and n, also found in 'communist"?

This is no coincidence, people!

[BrainGlutton]

David Frum: A tea party exit would be a blessing for GOP.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

From that link:

In 1948, African-Americans remained very much a swing constituency. Hundreds of thousands of black Americans had moved north and gained voting rights in the 30 years between 1917 and 1948. As a group, they tended to prefer the New Deal policies of the Democratic Party, but they deeply distrusted that party’s Southern white supremacist wing.

Truman was a card-carrying member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who had adopted the civil rights cause late in his career. Could he really be trusted? Truman’s willingness to face down Thurmond convinced many Northern blacks that he could be. He carried an estimated 77% of the black vote in the North, and those votes provided the margin of victory in the three crucial states of California, Illinois and Ohio. Those three states provided 73 electoral votes in total, and they were each won by Truman with a margin of less than 1%.

But don’t tell this to you-know-who.