Today's Republican Party

[prideandfall]

So, is there any future for the Republican Party, or is it doomed for a very long time to come? Will it be replaced by something new? Any thoughts?

it's fine - what's going on in the US right ow politically isn't new, and the next 100 years are completely predictable.

human history's default starting point was tyrants and oppression, and over 3000 years has been a long repeating sequence: progressive periods with gains to human rights and improvements to the human condition, followed back a regressive backlash trying to reinforce oppression.

in the US the last big progressive push finished up in the early/mid 70s and the social pendulum has been swinging in the other direction ever since - the US has been on a cultural conservative slant for the last 40 years with relatively little progressive social change.
i would guess it will be 15-30 years before this regressive period is over, so the GOP is going to be completely fine for that long at a minimum. the republican party is serving the values and political desires of their constituents quite well right now, so the party is in a very healthy place.

if a cultural shift happens wherein the regressive movement peters out then the GOP would be in trouble if it doesn't pivot along with it, but right now it's completely fine.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Because of this goddamn party, which still masquerades as 'conservative', although it cares nothing about deficits or bashing the Commies, we have to do battle with Jim Crow all over again. In 2021!!! They seem ready to draw a line in the sand over their right to restrict the vote. No wonder they talk about the 50s as a time of wonderful American values.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Really good thread and post above. I agree completely. I'm pro-police, pro business, pro economic development, love guns, hunt and fish, worried about the deficit, want a stronger economy that lifts everyone up and I'm a business owner. I should be a republican! But I could never be a party where I had to accept looney theories (Quanon, no climate change, earth 6,000 years old) and accept looney politicians (Trump, Crawley, Greene, and etc.) I'm a proud democrat who can happily disagree with members of my party while still wanting them in. Finally, a very large group of republicans tried to overturn the 2020 election. They did. They have not reconciled this yet.

You're an old school Republican.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

the answer to this is quite simple: starting with nixon's campaign and coming to a head in the mid-late 70s, the republican party began to move away from a party ideology of political conservatism (ie, economic frugality, limited policy expansion, environmental regulation, things that actually go along with the word 'conserve') and moved to an ideology of social conservatism, which really has nothing to do with 'conserving' anything and should be called regressive fascism because what it actually is.

My father saw things shifting in the 60s. He had been active in politics in the 60s in Wisconsin, they moved to Arizona and he got out of politics because he didn't like what he saw in Arizona Republicans.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I have a cousin who recoiled from the trend the GOP was taking back at the time of the '92 convention -- all it took was listening to Pat Buchanan's speech on the culture wars. In retrospect, this was what we would call mild Republicanism today. The party has allowed crackpots, racists, science deniers, and outright facist militia types to claim its central turf.

 

[Treedbear]

I have a cousin who recoiled from the trend the GOP was taking back at the time of the '92 convention -- all it took was listening to Pat Buchanan's speech on the culture wars. In retrospect, this was what we would call mild Republicanism today. The party has allowed crackpots, racists, science deniers, and outright facist militia types to claim its central turf.

Even Republicans can have a Rainbow Coalition.

 

[lpetrich]

So, is there any future for the Republican Party, or is it doomed for a very long time to come? Will it be replaced by something new? Any thoughts?

it's fine - what's going on in the US right ow politically isn't new, and the next 100 years are completely predictable.

It would be hard to be as precise as the psychohistory of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, but overall, that is likely correct unless advancing technology makes a lot of social hierarchy unnecessary.

human history's default starting point was tyrants and oppression, and over 3000 years has been a long repeating sequence: progressive periods with gains to human rights and improvements to the human condition, followed back a regressive backlash trying to reinforce oppression.

in the US the last big progressive push finished up in the early/mid 70s and the social pendulum has been swinging in the other direction ever since - the US has been on a cultural conservative slant for the last 40 years with relatively little progressive social change.
i would guess it will be 15-30 years before this regressive period is over, so the GOP is going to be completely fine for that long at a minimum. the republican party is serving the values and political desires of their constituents quite well right now, so the party is in a very healthy place. ...

 Cyclical theory (United States history)
Arthurs Schlesinger I and II proposed that sort of theory of US history, an alternative between liberal and conservative phases, public purpose and private interest, increasing democracy and containing democracy, concern with the wrongs of the many and concern with the rights of the few, human rights and property rights.

Conservative phases end from unsolved social problems not being addressed by society's elites. This provokes activism to solve them, activism that produces a liberal phase.

Liberal phases end from society-scale activism burnout and from changes being a bit much to digest all at once. Wanting a rest produces a conservative phase.


Another cyclic effect is party systems, sets of characteristic platforms and constituencies for the parties. Also Stephen Skowronek's political-time cycles. Each cycle starts with a reconstructing President, one who leads an overthrow of earlier political paradigms and creation of new ones. His party then becomes the dominant party, with the other one becoming the opposition party. He is succeeded by Presidents in his party, articulating Presidents who expand on the era's political paradigms. He is also succeeded by opposition-party Presidents, preemptive Presidents who try to oppose those paradigms, typically without much success. Each era is ended by one or more disjunctive Presidents, Presidents who try to keep failing paradigms going.


Other big events are Samuel P. Huntington's periods of "creedal passion". According to him, "In terms of American beliefs, government is supposed to be egalitarian, participatory, open, noncoercive, and responsive to the demands of individuals and groups. Yet no government can be all these things and still remain a government."

Also periods of race-relations upheaval, periods that cause great national trauma.

 

[lpetrich]

The periods:

• 1776-1788 - Revolution and Constitution - Lib - Creedal Passion
• 1788-1800 - Hamilton Era - Con - First Party System, Federalist Party dominant
• 1800-1812 - Jefferson Era - Lib - Democratic-Republican Party dominant
• 1812-1829 - Era of Good Feelings - Con
• 1829-1841 - Jackson Era - Lib - Creedal Passion - Second Party System (Democratic) - Recon pres start - populism: guests trashing the White House, shutting down a major bank, spoils-system cronyism, property qualifications for voting ended, extending the vote to all white men
• 1841-1861 - Slaveowner Dominance - Con
• 1861-1869 - Civil War, Abolition of Slavery, Reconstruction - Lib - Race-Relations Upheaval - Third Party System (Republican) - Recon pres start
• 1869-1901 - Gilded Age I - Con
• 1901-1919 - Progressive Era - Lib - Creedal Passion - Fourth Party System (Republican) - Recon pres start? - increased democracy like popular election of Senators, women getting the vote
• 1919-1931 - Roaring Twenties - Con
• 1931-1947 - New Deal Era - Lib - Fifth Party System (Democratic) - Recon pres start - major social-democratic expansion
• 1947-1962 - Eisenhower Era ("Good Feelings II"?) - Con
• 1962-1978 - Sixties Era - Lib - Creedal Passion - Race-Relations Upheaval - lots of reforms: social-democratic, race relations, feminism, environmentalism
• 1978-???? - Gilded Age II - Con - Sixth Party System (Republican) - Recon pres start

 

[lpetrich]

So we are overdue for another liberal period, and there are indications that we are starting to move into one. Like how big the recent COVID-19 stimulus bill is.


I remember the Clinton Presidency and the Obama Presidency, and they were both false starts, so I'm reluctant to be very optimistic about the present.

 

[southernhybrid]

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/536113-tens-of-thousands-of-voters-drop-republican-affiliation-after-capitol

More than 30,000 voters who had been registered members of the Republican Party have changed their voter registration in the weeks after a mob of pro-Trump supporters attacked the Capitol — an issue that led the House to impeach the former president for inciting the violence.

The massive wave of defections is a virtually unprecedented exodus that could spell trouble for a party that is trying to find its way after losing the presidential race and the Senate majority.

It could also represent the tip of a much larger iceberg: The 30,000 who have left the Republican Party reside in just a few states that report voter registration data, and information about voters switching between parties, on a weekly basis.


Voters switching parties is not unheard of, but the data show that in the first weeks of the year, far more Republicans have changed their voter registrations than Democrats. Many voters are changing their affiliation in key swing states that were at the heart of the battle for the White House and control of Congress.

We don't register with a party in Georgia, but I have met a few former Republicans who are now voting for Democrats. In the cases that I know of, the people really weren't very familiar with what the party represented, and then Trump came along and helped them think more about their vote.

So, it does look like voter suppression is the only tool that the Republican Party has right now. If the party would be willing to change and promote policies that more people find appealing, there is a chance it could survive. Right now, the R party is the party of Trump, and while they does seem to please a lot of the members of the party, it's also beginning to drive away some of the more thoughtful members of the R party.

A small bit of good news. Due to pressure from corporations and other business in Georgia, it looks as if many of the bills that are attempting to suppress the vote may not pass. We will know by the end of March, since that's when the Georgia Congress comes to an end for the year. Kemp has been very quiet in regards to which bills he might support, but Georgia politicians have always had a fear of losing corporate jobs, so corporations pressuring the Republican Party not to make it harder for people to vote, just might help flush those bills down the toilet.

 

[TomC]

if a cultural shift happens wherein the regressive movement peters out then the GOP would be in trouble if it doesn't pivot along with it, but right now it's completely fine.

I quite disagree that the GOP is "completely fine".

Quite the opposite, it's going down the tubes. Since the early 90s, they've been running low on ideas for improvement to the USA. They've been increasingly relying on emotive wedge issues, gerrymandering, fiscal insanity, and now voter suppression. By 2008, they were so weak as a political force that some billionaire TeaPartiers staged a coup, a hostile takeover as it were.

Those aren't viable solutions in the long term. Trump mania aside, they're fading faster than ever as their demographics age. Now that Trump is disappearing in the rearview mirror they're in bigger trouble than ever.

That's the way I see it, anyway.
Tom

 

[prideandfall]

I quite disagree that the GOP is "completely fine".

Quite the opposite, it's going down the tubes. Since the early 90s, they've been running low on ideas for improvement to the USA. They've been increasingly relying on emotive wedge issues, gerrymandering, fiscal insanity, and now voter suppression. By 2008, they were so weak as a political force that some billionaire TeaPartiers staged a coup, a hostile takeover as it were.

Those aren't viable solutions in the long term. Trump mania aside, they're fading faster than ever as their demographics age. Now that Trump is disappearing in the rearview mirror they're in bigger trouble than ever.

That's the way I see it, anyway.
Tom

which... i mean ok. i don't think reality agrees with you, and i also think that's a very dangerous way of viewing things.

republicans have controlled the senate for 21 of the last 25 years.
republicans have controlled congress for 17 of the last 25 years
and about what, half of presidents for the last 40 years?
trump lost in 2020 by about 7 million votes which is almost nothing, and he's supposedly some insane shitheel that was ringing the death toll of the modern world.

the GOP is doing fine from the logistical perspective of an operational political party.
you might think them philosophically failed, but that has nothing to do with their functionality or viability.

 

[Shadowy Man]

the GOP is doing fine from the logistical perspective of an operational political party.
you might think them philosophically failed, but that has nothing to do with their functionality or viability.

Because voting logistics favor Republicans, partially by happenstance and partially by design.