# Will The Republicans ever figure out why they lost? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 26, 2012, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224 "2012-12-26T21:33:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 83
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1641 "2013-07-21T11:20:42Z")
> [@computergeek](#): > > adaher, what’s wrong with embracing minorities though? Why should the Republican Party want to depend soley on the white vote? Perhaps if they didn’t piss off minorities with their hard line stance on everything, they wouldn’t have such a hard time attracting minorities and they wouldn’t look like such a racist party. Surely you can’t believe with the rising tide of minorities that the Republicans can survive solely on the white vote, or more specifically, the white vote that isn’t turned off by their racist, misogynist, dumbass, anti-science, etc, nonsense? Just because whites might remain in the majority doesn’t mean the party can hold on to all of them. The Republican Party would love to win more minority voters, but if that can’t be done, they can win with white voters. And there’s no “might” about white voters remaining a big majority. Unless we specifically choose to make whites a minority. Demographics are not an accident, at least not if you’re a sovereign country. Besides, I’m not convinced of any of the trends, either demographic, or voting behavior. 2008 and 2012 saw extraordinary racial polarization in voting. Since 2016 will almost certainly feature a white Democrat, I’ll be interested to see how that changes minority turnout levels and voting behavior. I’ll be interested in seeing if that changes white voting behavior as well. Hillary Clinton does well among white working class voters. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1642 "2013-07-21T11:51:56Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The Republican Party would love to win more minority voters, but if that can’t be done Why would that not be possible? Or is the thing that is “not possible” (read: inconvenient) the abandonment of its racial politics? The Democrats did that once, why can’t the Republicans? > [@](#): > > Unless we specifically choose to make whites a minority. Demographics are not an accident, at least not if you’re a sovereign country. What is it that you’re proposing? Some set of laws encouraging or requiring racist whites (but not them dam’ librul ones) to reproduce profusely, while limiting the number of brown babies? Or are you proposing only the reinstatement of immigration quotas by country and race, like we had a century ago? Please be specific or else you’re getting yourself into a hole there’s no climbing out of. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1643 "2013-07-21T12:36:41Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Why would that not be possible? Or is the thing that is “not possible” (read: inconvenient) the abandonment of its racial politics? The Democrats did that once, why can’t the Republicans? The Democrats have abandoned racial politics? Now that’s funny! > [@](#): > > What is it that you’re proposing? Some set of laws encouraging or requiring racist whites (but not them dam’ librul ones) to reproduce profusely, while limiting the number of brown babies? Or are you proposing only the reinstatement of immigration quotas by country and race, like we had a century ago? Please be specific or else you’re getting yourself into a hole there’s no climbing out of. We don’t have immigration quotas by race anymore, nor should we. But we do have immigration quotas in total, and no sovereign nation would forego such a policy. Whites becoming an actual minority in our lifetimes won’t happen from mere reproduction, it would require the purposeful importing of at least 100 million new immigrants over the next 30 years. Never gonna happen. One of the reasons reproduction alone can’t eliminate a majority is intermarriage. While the offspring of a white and black marriage is generally regarded as black, all other white/minority marriages tend to produce a person that is regarded as white. See: George Zimmerman, Mark Paul Gosselaar(Zack Morris), or even Wentworth Miller from Prison Break, who is actually part African-American, but always gets cast as a white guy. In cultures where intermarriage is not frowned upon, minorities tend to be quickly absorbed into the majority population. Assuming rates of interracial marriage increase over the coming decades, we’ll have a lot more dark-haired white people around than is currently projected and a lot fewer brown people. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1644 "2013-07-21T13:09:06Z")
You seem to be delusionally hopeful about the kind of people who will vote for republicans. Hint: not the interracial ones, even if they come out vanilla flavored. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1645 "2013-07-21T13:28:44Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The Republican Party would love to win more minority voters, but if that can’t be done, they can win with white voters. > > And there’s no “might” about white voters remaining a big majority. Unless we specifically choose to make whites a minority. Demographics are not an accident, at least not if you’re a sovereign country. > > Besides, I’m not convinced of any of the trends, either demographic, or voting behavior. 2008 and 2012 saw extraordinary racial polarization in voting. Since 2016 will almost certainly feature a white Democrat, I’ll be interested to see how that changes minority turnout levels and voting behavior. I’ll be interested in seeing if that changes white voting behavior as well. Hillary Clinton does well among white working class voters. I don’t think you’re getting that regardless of the issues, many white voters just aren’t comfortable voting for a party that is almost entirely white. Diversity is not just good for vote-counting, it’s a popular idea by itself. The diverse party, other issues being equal, is more attractive superficially to most voters (of any race) than a non-diverse party. Being “all-white” (or nearly all-white) is a real stigma that hurts the Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1646 "2013-07-21T14:07:00Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > … The diverse party, other issues being equal, is more attractive superficially to most voters (of any race) than a non-diverse party. Being “all-white” (or nearly all-white) is a real stigma that hurts the Republicans. I’ll guess there are many white voters (especially older ones) who admire GOP’s lack of diversity. This is why GOP strategy is focused not just on white voters, but more specifically on white _racist_ voters. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1647 "2013-07-21T14:11:04Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I’ll guess there are many white voters (especially older ones) who admire GOP’s lack of diversity. This is why GOP strategy is focused not just on white voters, but more specifically on white _racist_ voters. Perhaps, but my point is that every year this will be more and more of a losing strategy- for every racist vote you get, you’ll lost more than one non-racist vote because you’re not diverse. ---
**Author:** ![Oldeb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea666f/32.png) [@Oldeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oldeb)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1648 "2013-07-21T16:56:55Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The Republican Party would love to win more minority voters, but if that can’t be done, they can win with white voters. I actually agree with you here. It _would_ be possible for the Republicans to easily win with only white voters if they could somehow persuade whites to vote in a large (90+%) bloc. The problem is that this would require at least half the people who self identify as Democratic to switch to backing Republicans. See, despite being the non-white party, 61% of the people who identify as Democratic also identify as white. Democrats aren’t “anti-white,” they are white themselves. Whites are simply the majority of both parties. It gets glossed over a lot but the majority of people who voted for Obama were white, same as the majority that backed Romney. Claiming that the Republicans could win if the majority of Democrats supported them is certainly true, but it’s not going to happen. 87% of the Republican party identifies as white. They’ve basically maxed out the number of white votes they can possibly get. Pretending that they’re somehow going to sweep up more white voters ignores that the fact that there really aren’t any left to be had other than among first time voters who skew heavily Democratic. [Cite for numbers](http://www.people-press.org/2012/08/23/a-closer-look-at-the-parties-in-2012/) ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1649 "2013-07-21T19:16:47Z")
> [@Oldeb](#): > > They’ve basically maxed out the number of white votes they can possibly get. Pretending that they’re somehow going to sweep up more white voters ignores that the fact that there really aren’t any left to be had other than among first time voters who skew heavily Democratic. > > [Cite for numbers](http://www.people-press.org/2012/08/23/a-closer-look-at-the-parties-in-2012/) While you are completely correct, I’m sure someone would be able to “unskew” those numbers to get something that then agrees with their thesis. This seems to be all they have left. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1650 "2013-07-21T19:53:25Z")
It genuinely seems amazing to me that one of the major political parties extant today could be transformed from the party of limited government into one that wishes to control the populace through fear and misinformation. In a mere fifty years, the GOP has transformed itself into a party that supports expanded police powers, ubiquitous surveillance of the civilian population, a genuine and pervasive enmity towards women and minorities and (most troubling) an insidious push by a few powerful members of the leadership to supplant the secular nature of our laws with one based upon biblical principles. This didn’t happen merely because the GOP embraced such heinous ideas, but also because the opposition party failed to oppose these very measures. This is the only valid defense that the GOP has, “the other guys are just as bad.” I’d say a pox on both your houses, but I am to blame, as are we all in my opinion, for the gradual disintegration of our hard-fought liberties. We could have spoken up in 2001 when the ill-named PATRIOT ACT was rammed through Congress, but we were apparently all shell-shocked into submission. 12 years later, the phantom threat to our republic still lurks in the shadows, and we all accept the consequences of our actions. A state of perpetual war is a very tried and true method of controlling the populace. It is no wonder that those who are in power are loathe to relinquish any of their ability to dictate their desires to the governed. And we ask ourselves if the GOP will learn from their recent electoral defeats. Why should they? The men and women who are in charge will continue to hold the reins whether they are elected officials or paid consultants. The fact that one of their chosen will lose against Ms. Clinton in 2016 means little to them as long they remain able to further their agendas. ---
**Author:** ![Lok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e8c25b/32.png) [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1651 "2013-07-21T19:58:52Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > You assume that voters maintain their attitudes for life. Democrats used to dominate among the Greatest Generation and won Baby Boomers handily. Those are GOP voters since 1980. > > Now the GOP just has to figure out how to win the 2-3 million young voters who came out for Obama in 2008 but stayed home in 2012. Obama already took the first step for us by disappointing them. Now we just have to close the deal. And you know how you close the deal? By governing well. THe Republicans will win another Presidential election soon, if not 2016 then 2020, that’s just the nature of politics. If they use that opportunity to do a good job, they’ll have no worries. Baby Boomer here, voted for the first time in 1980, registered Democrat. For John Anderson, Reagan in 84 (Young, in love, in college, got better.) Haven’t voted for a Republican for President since. Didn’t vote for a Democrat until 04, in an effort to defeat W (certainly didn’t like Kerry, but 3rd party vote wouldn’t have kept Bush out of office. Unfortunately, neither did the one I cast.) Voted for Obama twice, got pretty much what I expected, centrist who made me proud in some things, disappointed me in others. Don’t count on all of us being GOP voters. You are right, the GOP could win over young voters by governing well. Too bad they seem to believe more in not governing at all. Which just pisses off all age groups. > [@adaher](#): > > Back to gerrymandering, one reason for the greater number of red-leaning districts is that the Voting Rights Act requires the stuffing of minorities into their own districts. You’ve got a lot of blue districts that are 70%, 80%, and even 90% Democrat. > > What’s more, it seems that Ascenray is suggesting that we should draw districts to ensure partisan balance, rather than just drawing logically shaped districts. Put some squares on the map, make sure your districts have roughly equal population, you’re done. Many states now have computers draw the districts. > [@adaher](#): > > Those are simply the reality. Since Democrats are concentrated into small geographic areas, you’d have to draw crazy lines to be able to get an even number of blue and red districts. You’d have to make it even more crazy if you wanted to keep the minority districts. > > Fact: Prior to 2010, there were 45 more R leaning districts than D. You can’t get the district lines any screwier than they are now. Ohio has a very [nice system of districts](http://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/OH). OH-9 stretches from Toledo to Cleveland along Lake Erie. Including a stretch along a bridge that crosses a large bay and has no population on it. OH-4 runs along just south of it, in the rural sections and also stretches down to Columbus, then hooks under and almost surrounds part of OH-5, to reach almost to the Indiana state line. Just looking at it, taking Kenton and Upper Sandusky out of OH-5 exchanging them for Lima would have made things a lot more even, but then the numbers of Dems in OH-5 would have been more even and Bob Latta might have actually had to campaign or something to win in a general election. These are from the Republican controlled statehouse, and despite the fact that Ohio is a purple state, going close to 50-50 in voting for Dems and Republicans in statewide contests, our reps in the House are divided 12 Rs, 4 Ds. The same sort of thing goes on in other states, like Texas. So trying to say that the Republicans didn’t hold the House because of gerrymandering is not entirely accurate. At all. > [@adaher](#): > > Because the military has its own justice system, removing one class of crime from them undermines that. This might be correct, if the military justice system actually worked with regard to sexual assaults and rapes. > [@adaher](#): > > Anyone here making under $250K who are willing to pay more? I make less then you, and I would be willing to have my taxes go back up to the Clinton rates. The entire country would be a lot better off, especially if it helped the idiots whining about the deficit. They didn’t care about it when they voted to create it under Bush, but now it is a horrrrrible, horrrrible thing. > [@Acsenray](#): > > And that’s only in theory. When federal income taxes are cut, there is a domino effect that means that other taxes will rise, you’ll get less in exchange for it, cuts in services and programs will result in other things becoming more expensive. When the first round of Bush tax cuts hit, and they passed No Child Left Behind but didn’t fund it, the local city had to institute a city income tax to pay for school programs. An idiot I worked with then complained about that. “W cut taxes, the city should be able to do it too!” When I pointed out that Bush did it by forcing the states and localities pay for more stuff, he didn’t care. It should just magically be paid for somehow. > [@adaher](#): > > That’s current policy. Many posters here are calling for Clinton-era tax rates across the board, which would cost a $175,000/yr taxpayer a lot of money. > > It would cost me $1000 or so, maybe a little more. It would cost them around $14,000. Which is a lot of money, to me and you. More than a quarter of my income, 8% of theirs. Not that bad for someone making $175,000. As for the question in the OP, someone in this thread answered it. The leaders of the GOP know why they lost. They would even like to fix the problem. But they can’t, because the state and local party has been captured by the Tea Party and other right wingers. If they appeal to the center, which they need for national elections, they will get primaried and very possible lose their seat (Dick Lugar). They can try and go right to please that segment, then they need to figure out how to get back to the center for the general election. Senators and Representatives can manage, especially in red states, but for the Presidency, I don’t think they will figure it out for a few elections. And I think it will get harder and harder for the local politicians to pull it off, because they keep having to go farther out to the extremes to keep the wingnuts happy. Eventually they will just piss off too many independents and moderates. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1652 "2013-07-21T20:17:28Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Contrary to Democratic belief, there are no voters that are more virtuous to win than other voters. Of course there are. There are no voters that (individually) are **winninger** to win than others, but that is not the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1653 "2013-07-21T20:20:36Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > One of the reasons reproduction alone can’t eliminate a majority is intermarriage. While the offspring of a white and black marriage is generally regarded as black, all other white/minority marriages tend to produce a person that is regarded as white. See: George Zimmerman, Mark Paul Gosselaar(Zack Morris), or even Wentworth Miller from Prison Break, who is actually part African-American, but always gets cast as a white guy. In cultures where intermarriage is not frowned upon, minorities tend to be quickly absorbed into the majority population. Assuming rates of interracial marriage increase over the coming decades, we’ll have a lot more dark-haired white people around than is currently projected and a lot fewer brown people. Yes, that **is** going to happen. But it’s not going to be good for the GOP. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1654 "2013-07-21T21:48:14Z")
I don’t think you can predict who it will be good for. I say it would be good for the GOP because the melting pot has historically produced GOP voters, whereas Democrats benefit from distinct ethnic communities. And this was true when those distinct ethnic communities were white. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1655 "2013-07-21T21:52:33Z")
> [@Oldeb](#): > > See, despite being the non-white party, 61% of the people who identify as Democratic also identify as white. Democrats aren’t “anti-white,” they are white themselves. Whites are simply the majority of both parties. It gets glossed over a lot but the majority of people who voted for Obama were white, same as the majority that backed Romney. Claiming that the Republicans could win if the majority of Democrats supported them is certainly true, but it’s not going to happen. 87% of the Republican party identifies as white. They’ve basically maxed out the number of white votes they can possibly get. Pretending that they’re somehow going to sweep up more white voters ignores that the fact that there really aren’t any left to be had other than among first time voters who skew heavily Democratic. > > [Cite for numbers](http://www.people-press.org/2012/08/23/a-closer-look-at-the-parties-in-2012/) That’s true for now. What happens when whites are no longer the majority in the Democratic Party? What happens when the yuppie issues that currently dominate the Democratic Party are supplanted by the more populist economic concerns of minority voters? What happens when the Democratic Party transforms from a party of mostly non- or infrequent church goers into a party that’s majority devout Catholic? We’re seeing white flight from the Democratic Party even now, because white working class voters feel ignored by the Democrats. Democrats are all gung ho about importing 30 million new workers to compete with them. ---
**Author:** ![Oldeb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea666f/32.png) [@Oldeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oldeb)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1656 "2013-07-22T00:15:48Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > What happens when the Democratic Party transforms from a party of mostly non- or infrequent church goers into a party that’s majority devout Catholic? Rick Santorum sees his dream of running for the presidency. But as a Democrat. I’m not accusing you of anything, mostly because I think you were paraphrasing something you picked up from somewhere else, but those were some loaded, race-baiting questions. What happens when whites are no longer the majority in the Democratic party? Probably the same thing that happens to blacks in the Democratic party now. So becoming a two term president, I guess. Tragic? Seriously though, who cares? Are other racial identities unable to comprehend the wishes of white voters but whites can understand the needs of blacks, asians, latinos and every other group out there? In a sane world the GOP would get it’s shit together and we could go back to disagreeing over policy instead of skin color. Then all those conservative Catholic latinos could be Republican. Oprah can support the GOP for the best tax break. And there is no “white flight” from the Democratic Party. I tried to show that. It’s over. There are no more people who self identify as white who can be persuaded to join the GOP as it currently stands. The Republican hope that half the Democratic party is suddenly going to start voting with them because otherwise the minorities will take over is crazy. If they were scared of that they wouldn’t have voted for Obama in the last election. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1657 "2013-07-22T00:38:12Z")
It’s not race-baiting. Right now, the Democratic Party is controlled by whites and white liberal interests are placed at the top of the list: the environment, gay rights, etc. Once Latinos are in charge, the priorities will change to Latino issues and white issues will be relegated to the backburner. You’ve already lost middle class whites, all that’s left is poor whites and those aren’t going to hang around much longer if Democrats keep up what they are doing. And I can’t imagine wealthy liberal whites giving much of a damn one way or the other once their primary purpose becomes giving people money and having their issues ignored. Now granted, it might not turn out that way. Maybe minority voters in the future will be more liberal outside of the economic sphere than they are now. Maybe they’ll be less religious. Maybe whites’ economic power will enable them to still steer the ship even while being a minority within the party. But if we assume that minority voters will behave as minority voters do now, which is actually the assumption Democrats are going with when hoping for this awesome new future of Democratic dominance, then they’ve forgotten something very important: they’ve been all focused on how the REpublican Party will have to change, without considering for a moment how the Democratic Party will change. They just blithely assume that the white party brokers will still be in charge and setting the agenda. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1658 "2013-07-22T00:43:19Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > What happens when the yuppie issues that currently dominate the Democratic Party are supplanted by the more populist economic concerns of minority voters? Good things for the country happen, if the Dems are in power at that time. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1659 "2013-07-22T00:55:29Z")
Well, admittedly, some liberals are more into the economic issues, but most middle class and upper middle class whites I know consider gay marriage and organic foods and global warming to be the preeminent issues of our time. And there’s still the religiosity issue. A party run by devout Catholics will simply not be the same as a party run by secular liberals. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1660 "2013-07-22T00:58:06Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Well, admittedly, some liberals are more into the economic issues, but most middle class and upper middle class whites I know consider gay marriage and organic foods and global warming to be the preeminent issues of our time. Global warming **is** important, much more so than the others, which are really cultural (and the cultural front is one where the left can be sure to win in the long run anyway, without making any particular effort, just by generational attrition). But, otherwise, the populist economic issues are what really matter, and we’re **never** gonna get any action on those from the Pubs. The only economic-populist item on their agenda is border control, if that even counts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224.md?page=82) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224.md?page=84)