# 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:** 88
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1741 "2013-07-26T14:01:02Z")
You’ve still got majority support for restrictions on abortions in the fifth month of pregnancy or later. It’s not a losing issue for the GOP. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1742 "2013-07-26T14:20:04Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > You’ve still got majority support for restrictions on abortions in the fifth month of pregnancy or later. It’s not a losing issue for the GOP. 83% favor restrictions up to 20 weeks with some going farther. I doubt there was ever much support for later than 24 weeks. Stop trying to spin this, you’re making yourself dizzy and unable to think straight. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1743 "2013-07-26T14:37:40Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > 83% favor restrictions up to 20 weeks with some going farther. I doubt there was ever much support for later than 24 weeks. > Stop trying to spin this, you’re making yourself dizzy and unable to think straight. And stop characterizing these laws as “popular” based on polls unrelated to the laws. It’s like saying “the majority of people want to reduce jaywalking, therefore they are in favor of rooftop snipers being installed to take out anyone doing so”. The “policy aspects” you’re handwaving away have very real consequences and it does not go without saying that everyone supports them, even when the bill purports to achieve something they support. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1744 "2013-07-26T14:39:21Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Except that the problem isn’t just where they want to draw the line on abortion but all the other things the GOP are doing - restricting access, closing clinics, requiring intravaginal ultrasounds and forcing women to view those ultrasounds, and all in the name of “protecting women”. When we talk about the GOP’s “war on women” that’s the stuff we’re talking about, not the esoteric line of viability. The public opinion on those things is quite a different matter, and the fact that some people pretend they’re the same says a lot. Mandating ultrasounds could be construed as a “war on women” if you want to. In no way is defunding abortion clinics to be considered a “war on women”. If so it is a war that was started by “women” and their “supporters” on the working class by taking taxes from them. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1745 "2013-07-26T14:49:36Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Mandating ultrasounds could be construed as a “war on women” if you want to. In no way is defunding abortion clinics to be considered a “war on women”. When many of those clinics are also the only providers of affordable women’s health care and contraception within a large area, it certainly is. > [@](#): > > If so it is a war that was started by “women” and their “supporters” on the working class by taking taxes from them. That’s…quite a non sequitur. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1746 "2013-07-26T14:50:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course they are. More people live in cities (blue) than in the countryside (red). Between the two are the suburbs/exurbs (purple). And, history American and foreign teaches us, when a political conflict comes down to City vs. Countryside, the City usually wins and usually deserves to win. So we agree the populists didn’t deserve to win in 1896? > **[1896 Democratic National Convention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Democratic_National_Convention)** > > The 1896 Democratic National Convention, held at the Chicago Coliseum from July 7 to July 11, was the scene of William Jennings Bryan's nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate for the 1896 U.S. presidential election. > At age 36, Bryan was the youngest presidential nominee in American history, only one year older than the constitutional minimum. Bryan's keynote "Cross of Gold" address, delivered prior to his nomination, lambasted Eastern monied classes for supporting the gold standar... ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1747 "2013-07-26T14:55:38Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > When many of those clinics are also the only providers of affordable women’s health care and contraception within a large area, it certainly is.That’s…quite a non sequitur. 1)“Women” and their “supporters” elect politicians who will give them free stuff paid for by taking money from workers. 2)This coalition loses influence and a new crop of politicians is elected to end this transfer of resources. 3)The new crop of politicians is waging war on women. Is this your view? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1748 "2013-07-26T15:01:55Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > 1)“Women” and their “supporters” elect politicians who will give them free stuff paid for by taking money from workers. “Workers” being a group that includes “women” and their “supporters.” ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1749 "2013-07-26T15:06:01Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > 1)“Women” and their “supporters” elect politicians who will give them free stuff paid for by taking money from workers. What free stuff are you talking about? Are you saying every Democratic vote is a vote to get free stuff? Why haven’t I gotten mine? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1750 "2013-07-26T15:06:41Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > So we agree the populists didn’t deserve to win in 1896? > > [1896 Democratic National Convention - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Democratic_National_Convention) Interesting AH if they had, but I doubt it would have been a better history. They were money-cranks, for one thing. (And, in hindsight, it is rather hard to take WJ Bryan seriously after the role he later played in the Monkey Trial.) Strangely, there is a definite continuous thread between the Populists’ inflationary Free-Silver policy and modern deflationary goldbuggery, and that thread goes back to Andrew Jackson and beyond. The common element is mistrust of bankers, etc. This whole line of thinking is based on the pseudoeconomic fallacy known as [producerism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Producerism) – the idea that only people who make things you can hold in your hands are producers of “real” wealth and all others are parasitic on them. This kind of nonsense is actually very old in American populist thought. British conservative Paul Johnson commented in his _A History of the American People:_ > [@](#): > > The Founders, particularly the Virginians, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, et al., equated property, as a moral force, with land. Their views were articulated by John Taylor (1753-1824), like them a Virginia landowner who served in the Senate and published in 1814 a monumental work of 700 pages, An Inquiry in the Principles and Policy of the United States. Taylor distinguished between ‘natural’ property. such as land, and ‘artificial property’ created by legal privilege, of which banking wealth was the outstanding example. He saw the right to issue paper money as indirect taxation on the people: ‘Taxation, direct or indirect, produced by a paper system in any form, will rob a nation of property without giving it liberty; and by creating and enriching a separate interest, will rob it of liberty without giving it property.’ Paper-money banking benefited an artificially created and parasitical financial aristocracy at the expense of the hard-working farmer, and this ‘property-transferring policy invariably impoverishes all laboring and productive classes.’ He compared this new financial power with the old feudal and ecclesiastical power, with the bankers using ‘force, faith and credit’ as the two others did religion and feudality. What particularly infuriated Taylor was the horrible slyness with which financiers had invested ‘fictitious’ property, such as bank-paper and stock, with all the prestige and virtues of ‘honest’ property. > > Taylor’s theory was an early version of what was to become known as the ‘physical fallacy,’ a belief that only those who worked with their hands and brains to raise food or make goods were creating ‘real’ wealth and that all other forms of economic activity were essentially parasitical. It was commonly held in the early 19th century, and Marx and all his followers fell victim to it. Indeed plenty of people hold it in one form or another today, and whenever its adherents acquire power, or seize it, and put their beliefs into practice, by oppressing the ‘parasitical middleman,’ poverty invariably follows. Taylor’s formulation of this theory fell on particularly rich soil because American farmers in general, and the Southerners and backwoodsmen in particular, already had a paranoid suspicion of the ‘money power’ dating from colonial times, as we have seen. So Taylor’s arguments, suitably vulgarized, became the common coin of the Jeffersonians, later of the Jacksonians and finally of silver-standard Democrats and populists of the late 19th century, who claimed that the American farmer was being ‘crucified on a cross of gold.’ The persistence of this fallacy in American politics refutes the common assumption that America is resistant to ideology, for if ever there were an ideology it is this farrago. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1751 "2013-07-26T15:07:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > “Workers” being a group that includes “women” and their “supporters.” ok thanks for pointing out the obvious. In any case, what you have is a net transfer of resources from taxpayers not using the free stuff to taxpayers recieving more than what they paid in taxes for the free stuff. There is no way around this. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1752 "2013-07-26T15:10:32Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > What free stuff are you talking about? Are you saying every Democratic vote is a vote to get free stuff? Why haven’t I gotten mine? No but you are willing to extract money from workers to pay for your favored groups. This is why you feel so good about yourself, you’re a modern day Robin Hood, don’t ya know? ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1753 "2013-07-26T15:13:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Interesting AH if they had, but I doubt it would have been a better history. They were money-cranks, for one thing. (And, in hindsight, it is rather hard to take WJ Bryan seriously after the role he later played in the Monkey Trial.) Strangely, there is a definite continuous thread between the Populists’ inflationary Free-Silver policy and modern deflationary goldbuggery, and that thread goes back to Andrew Jackson and beyond. The common element is mistrust of bankers, etc. This whole line of thinking is based on the pseudoeconomic fallacy known as [producerism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Producerism) – the idea that only people who make things you can hold in your hands are producers of “real” wealth and all others are parasitic on them. > > This kind of nonsense is actually very old in American populist thought. British conservative Paul Johnson commented in his _A History of the American People:_ No and i’ve seen you post that quote several times already. I think you are being contradictory in saying that the gold standard types of 1896 weren’t cranks but the goldbugs of today are. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1754 "2013-07-26T15:35:34Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > ok thanks for pointing out the obvious. In any case, what you have is a net transfer of resources from taxpayers not using the free stuff to taxpayers recieving more than what they paid in taxes for the free stuff. There is no way around this. So why pick on women? Why not pick on the much larger corporate welfare recipients? The farmers? The freaking military-industrial complex? Why is it that when the money is needed to keep someone from dying it’s a boondoggle, but when it’s used to kill people it’s a necessity? Yet again: this is why it’s seen as a “war on women”. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaptics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Sinaptics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaptics)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1755 "2013-07-26T15:40:23Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > No but you are willing to extract money from workers to pay for your favored groups. This is why you feel so good about yourself, you’re a modern day Robin Hood, don’t ya know? That, or through data and research we determined that it’s a net benefit to society to offer reproductive planning instead of dealing with multitudes of impoverished children. Kinda like healthcare. We pay a fortune due to people not having healthcare showing up at ERs in bad condition when an ounce of preventative care would have mitigated the cost mightily. Heaven forbid we offer that preventative care that would in effect save us money because “FREE STUFF FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T DESERVE IT!!11!” ---
**Author:** ![Sinaptics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Sinaptics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaptics)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1756 "2013-07-26T15:42:13Z")
> [@Sinaptics](#): > > That, or through data and research we determined that it’s a net benefit to society to offer reproductive planning instead of dealing with multitudes of impoverished children. > > Kinda like healthcare. We pay a fortune due to people not having healthcare showing up at ERs in bad condition when an ounce of preventative care would have mitigated the cost mightily. Heaven forbid we offer that preventative care that would in effect save us money because “FREE STUFF FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T DESERVE IT!!11!” That and, of course, it’s the humanitarian thing to do. You know, help thy neighbor and all that. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1757 "2013-07-26T15:48:15Z")
So, what you are saying is that coveting your neighbor’s maidservant’s ass makes you a bad person? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1758 "2013-07-26T16:05:25Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > No but you are willing to extract money from workers to pay for your favored groups. This is why you feel so good about yourself, you’re a modern day Robin Hood, don’t ya know? It’s human nature to want more. What’s truly abhorrent is that the poor, who don’t even have enough, are vilified while those who have more than they could use in a lifetime, are lauded. Even worse, it’s seen as a virtue to take from the poor if it makes you wealthier. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1759 "2013-07-26T16:15:21Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > No but you are willing to extract money from workers to pay for your favored groups. This is why you feel so good about yourself, you’re a modern day Robin Hood, don’t ya know? Do you consider the Sheriff of Nottingham to be the good guy in those stories? ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/1760 "2013-07-26T16:19:31Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > So why pick on women? Why not pick on the much larger corporate welfare recipients? The farmers? The freaking military-industrial complex? Why is it that when the money is needed to keep someone from dying it’s a boondoggle, but when it’s used to kill people it’s a necessity? > > Yet again: this is why it’s seen as a “war on women”. Well one answer would be that is is apparently more politically expedient due to the large number of anti-abortion zealots, but i agree with your overall point. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224.md?page=87) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224.md?page=89)