The Animals Are Running the Zoo: Why the GOP Might Actually Die This Time

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Animals Are Running the Zoo: Why the GOP Might Actually Die This Time

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

first off, as much as it pains me to say, cruz is not going to be the nominee. it will be hillary vs rubio, and hillary will win by a fairly slim margin. the Rs will be shut out of the presidency but will continue their insurgency at lower levels of government basically indefinitely

# ¿ Oct 29, 2015 10:00

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 05:23

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Jose posted:

is this just through gerrymandering/only old people turning out to vote for these elections?

it's a combination of gerrymandering at the state and local level and the right being much more institutionally vigorous / old people voting more

# ¿ Oct 29, 2015 16:37

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

mugrim posted:

I will believe it when I see it. Most of the demo breakdowns I've seen don't account for political changes as people get older and have kids as well as how many people emigrate to the state from other red states. I'm fairly certain the source of most of the hub ub about Texas's glorious purple state status is from campaigners and PACs that have convinced the Democrats that it's totally worth it to hire people in Texas.

this isn't actually a thing that happens, HTH

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 03:50

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

mugrim posted:

Do you have a source? I'm more than happy to accept that, but I've never seen information to show that. I'm wondering how that's even possible, because if we assume the older white generation is roughly voting republican at the same rate as before, how do you explain candidates like Carter and Clinton?

Even accounting for it, I still have a very very hard time imagining this state blue or even purple, especially with the VRA being overturned.

http://news.discovery.com/human/psychology/voter-conservative-aging-liberal-120119.htm

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/getting-more-liberal-with-age/

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/09/the-politics-of-american-generations-how-age-affects-attitudes-and-voting-behavior/

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/08/upshot/how-the-year-you-were-born-influences-your-politics.html

People's political views are formed when they are young and then solidify and stay the same the rest of their lives, generally. If those articles are to be believed they might even become more liberal. Gen X and late Baby Boomers seem to have been overwhelmingly Reaganite conservatives from the start of their political careers, and they've remained that way ever since

Carter was the last gasp of the Southern Democrats, was not exceptionally liberal despite what the right would like you to believe, and portrayed himself as a Washington outsider to a country shocked by Watergate. He then got stomped by Reagan who consolidated populist conservatism. Clinton was a white good ole boy from Arkansas who sold himself as a centrist who was fundamentally different than the last few comparatively ultraliberal Democratic candidates like Dukakis, Mondale, Humphrey

Basically, the line you hear from Boomer conservatives that you're a liberal at 20 and a conservative at 40 :smug:

or whatever, is complete horseshit. They were all conservatives at 20

quote:

In my district, I was kept from voting for "ID violations" in a major mayoral run off race. Despite having registered and voted for the main election and the pollster knowing that and being able to look up my registration, because my drivers license had a different address than my voter registration they refused to allow me to vote. In the poorer areas people were getting the same strict ID observation.

The gerrymandering here is easily some of the strongest in the nation. There are districts with 'arms' that extend over 100 miles despite multiple massive metro areas between points A and B like Austin and San Antonio.

I agree with this though, that the Republican stranglehold on state and local politics outside of the East and West coasts isn't going to be broken for a long time.

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Oct 30, 2015

# ¿ Oct 30, 2015 05:50

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

man it's a shame we've had a Republican president these last 8 years, because of how Democratic voters are apathetic/don't exist and the right is motivated more

# ¿ Oct 31, 2015 21:32

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

the right is literally doing the "nobody I know voted for Nixon :qq:

" thing, as usual without even the slightest hint of self-awareness

# ¿ Oct 31, 2015 21:35

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

people said the same thing about Obama in 2012, and i can't imagine the right will be more fired up to get not-Hillary than they were to get not-Obama

# ¿ Oct 31, 2015 21:52

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

hillary clinton would Make America Great Again

# ¿ Nov 1, 2015 05:54

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

FuzzySkinner posted:

The GOP killed any chance it had for a significant youth movement the day the economy collapsed. (among other events)

Millennials likely associate them with W. and likely associate them with these happening on their watch:
-Letting 9/11 happen and ending our "innocence" abrutly.
-Destroying our reputation as a nation by entering into war with Iraq and Afganistan. Both were failures.
-Hurricane Katrina ("Doing a heckuva job Brownie")
-The economic collapse of 2007-2008.

I think a lot of "young professional"-types that would have voted GOP were destroyed and lost forever during the 2007-2008 economic collapse. Opportunities that their parents once had were now scarce and a lot of hardship was dumped on them during that time.

It also doesn't help that the only sound that seemed to be coming from the right post-2008 or so was this loud screeching sound of racism and being terrified of some really stupid inane poo poo.

ronald reagan won the under-30 vote by 20 points in 1984

it's true that it's easy to overstate the speed with which the USA's political climate is changing, but it's loving insane to think of of how dominant these shitlords were only a generation ago

# ¿ Nov 1, 2015 07:32

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

FuzzySkinner posted:

The big selling point that these people used to have was:

1.) The fear of communism
2.) How much better they were at managing the economy than the Jimmy Carter's and LBJ'S of the world.
3.) The cutting of social programs and the complete lack of them based on people's own prejudices.

Ever since 1989 (the date at which many, many millenials either were too young, or had yet to be born) communism has been a dead concept around the planet. The GOP's policies of deregulation have been to blame for the housing crisis that put a lot of us out of work. Not to mention the concept of "welfare queens" doesn't seem to sell well with a lot of millennials.

When you see the dipshits squaking about how any sort of cocept of government is apparently "socialism" it's met with rolled eyes by a good portion of the population now. That's their base apparently, and it's just seeped into their main candidates.

honestly I'd say Iran and the oil crisis was more important to Reagan than the USSR, which was at that point a legacy geopolitical rivalry. unfortunately by TYOOL 2015 we've all seen how catastrophically awful neocon mideast policy is, so uh, so much for that

Call Me Charlie posted:

Ok, buddy. I'll make you a deal. I'll toxx my account with a normal ban if Hillary win the presidency, if you agree to take a permaban if she doesn't win the presidency.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 00:39

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Ocrassus posted:

I think the biggest stumbling block to a democrat victory in 2016 can be seen in this very thread. It is found in the tendency of educated progressives to openly pathologise their political opponents. I am not saying this is something the right wing is immune to either, they infact say the very same thing about us 'not living in the real world', but it is much less associated with them.

These pathologies might even be true, but what use are they to us beyond a self-congratulatory wankfest about how we in the in-group are oh-so correct and they're clearly not. People see this and see a sort of social elitism, which is probably part of why Trump is so successful. Oh sure, he is economically the most elite in the primaries, but in the way he speaks and presents you can observe a more genuine salt-of-the-earth character that feels, for better or for worse, way more authentic than the facade the other candidates wear.

I think that is where the battle-lines are drawn, not between the multiple ideological factions of the GOP, but in the polarisation of presentation between the rural 'good ole boy' and the urban suited cosmopolitan. Trump best bridges both those worlds (notice how he isn't even particularly religious, using it more as a prop than anything else, yet is still highly successful). The GOP isn't necessarily going to tear itself apart because all of the ideologies found underneath it's tent continue to share all of the commonalities that it work made in the past.

They are having a bit of a time because of continuous losses in the culture war and the part of their base which is invested in that feels like the rest of the party isn't helping, but all that is required is a candidate that they feel supports their interests. Hell, if enough people buy into opposing the elitist-ey mentality the left has accrued, they might even win.

people keep framing this as left vs right but the US up until the realignment of the 70s did not have a strong ideological left or right, a pragmatic liberalism dominated politics until it was destroyed by the newly forged Reaganite coalition. the problem is that it's very hard for a movement without a strong ideological basis to combat a movement that has one, because the supporters of the former are not motivated as much by its very nature. this is in comparison to euorpe, where strong ideological lefts and rights popped up very early and after murdering the poo poo out of each other for 150 years they finally decided that pragmatic centrism was the best solution

and no, i think it's perfectly fair to pathologize modern Republicans, because it's a coalition of nutjob fascists, theocrats and libertarians. the only way to kill the GOP is for enough of the country to be so disgusted with them that they get thrown out

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Nov 2, 2015

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 18:05

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

minorities voting R is about as likely to happen as the R party disintegrating into warring factions. it's not going to happen, and it's hilarious that people still think that it will. we're seeing right now what happens to you as a republican primary contender who attempts to court minorities

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 20:34

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

trapped mouse posted:

The big problem is that we're seeing these populations as non-white.

Non-whites do not tend to like the Republican party. However, whatever the hell "white" means shifts all the time. I grew up in a diverse city, and people like fitting in for the most part if they can. I knew a bunch of kids who would act completely white, speaking only English, and I'd be startled when their parents would call them and they'd suddenly start speaking fluent Spanish. While many Hispanics have a little darker complexion, most of them look just as white as, I dunno, Italians, if not more so. If Christianity is motivating these people to vote as well, Republicans could very easily start earning Hispanic votes.

Honestly, if the Republican party is smart, it will start considering Hispanics white at some point. And then they can start pointing dogwhistley fingers at those OTHER assholes trying to take their poo poo.

white ethnic catholics who immigrated in the 1800s are still significantly more Democratic than their native WASP counterparts, and that's been fading for 150 years. hispanics will not be anywhere close to equally R as non-hispanic whites within my or your lifetime. and as for black people, lol

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Nov 2, 2015

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 20:53

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

people who think mexican-americans are going to assimilate into white WASP culture in sooner than 100 years are stupid, and people who think irishmen were ever treated as badly as black people are even stupider

# ¿ Nov 3, 2015 12:13

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Monkey Fracas posted:

I keep waiting for them to dump the loons of all stripes and trek through the wilderness for a while but they absolutely refuse to change.

turns out the entire party is loons. dropping the loons would literally mean there's nobody left to vote for them. it's like a twilight zone episode, the leadership baited the loons for decades, and then when they try to get rid of them there's nothing left

# ¿ Nov 3, 2015 18:03

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Terrorist Fistbump posted:

This is the part I don't get when I think about the current state of the Republican party. Why court the crazy, paranoid reactionaries so aggresively? Surely it wasn't the only way to win, considering how much of the center the Democrats control. Take centrist positions and force the Democrats leftward, and there is still a big enough base in the center-right without the fringe weirdos. And didn't anyone know what it would do to the party long-term?

The problem is that the party was too successful in its lies and now most of them actually believe them.

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Nov 3, 2015

# ¿ Nov 3, 2015 23:04

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

when this race is over I predict Trump goes back to doing whatever he was doing before it. and there is plenty of room for a nativist right-populist movement that is still short of literal fascism. the best outcome, of course, would be for such a movement to take shape and continue after Trump's candidacy, crippling the Republican party, but i don't think that will happen unfortunately. Trump is just an omen as to the internal weakness of the Republicans

# ¿ Nov 5, 2015 05:35

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

uncle wrinkles posted:

At this point in time back in 2011, Cain lead in the polls. Gingrich didn't pull ahead until later on in November. While the analogy is imperfect in some regards (Trump's been leading for longer than Cain), it adequately illustrates how trying to form grandiose conclusions about the direction or health of an American political party based on polls a year before the election is tremendously stupid.

you're a literal retard, HTH

point of return posted:

Strike out "genuine" and add "among the legislators still in office"; same point.

Okay, so now answer the question and say why it is somehow illegitimate?

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ¿ Nov 6, 2015 14:26

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

MODS CURE JOKES posted:

Cruz just needs for the Trump blood tide to ebb, which it is almost guaranteed to do by March 1st.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. how are people still insisting he's going to collapse any minute now? the mechanism for his not getting the nom has always been a brokered convention, it's been clear his poll numbers aren't going to drop for literal months. Cruz getting the nom will happen if and only if the convention is unable to nominate Rubio and chooses Cruz over Trump. that's it

# ¿ Dec 22, 2015 10:20

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

BrandorKP posted:

David Brooks exploded today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/o...collection&_r=0

He's looking back to Buckley kicking to nutters out, by the title reference. (Ha, loving knew it) It's too late though. It's going to be interesting to watch what happens when he realizes that. Bolding mine.

There has been much bullshit flagging the "silent majority of hopeful, practical, programmatic Republicans" Brooks is referring too already. Nobody else thinks they exist anymore.

The Meltdown Continues:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/opinion/stay-sane-america-please.html

quote:

In January of 2017 someone will stand at the U.S. Capitol and deliver an Inaugural Address. This is roughly the place where Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan once stood. I am going to spend every single day between now and then believing that neither Donald Trump nor Ted Cruz nor Bernie Sanders will be standing on that podium. One of them could win the election, take the oath, give the speech and be riding down Pennsylvania Avenue. I will still refuse to believe it.

Yes, I know what the polling evidence is telling us about Trump, Sanders and Cruz, but there are good reasons to cling to my disbelief.

First, these primary campaigns will not be settled in February. They won�t be settled in March or April. Sometimes a candidate can sweep Iowa and New Hampshire and cruise to the nomination. But that candidate has to be broadly acceptable to all parts of the party. Trump, Cruz and Sanders are not.

As Jay Cost writes in The Weekly Standard, �This could mean a lengthy nomination battle that stretches all the way to the California primary in June.�

On the Republican side the early primaries and caucuses allocate delegates proportionally. Only 16.2 percent of the delegates over all come from winner-take-all states. That means the delegate-getting war will be a slog.

The first day when any candidate could rack up a big winner-take-all delegate harvest is March 15, an eternity from now. More than half the delegates will be allocated after that date.

Second, Cruz and Trump will go after each other with increasing ferocity over the next many weeks or months. There is a decent chance, given their personalities, that they will make each other maximally unattractive and go down in each other�s death embrace.

Third, the Trump and Sanders turnout problems are real. Trump is doing very well among people who haven�t voted in the past four elections. It�s possible he has energized them so much they will actually caucus and vote, but you wouldn�t want to bet your gold-plated faucets on it. People who don�t vote generally don�t vote.

Sanders is drawing support from nonvoters, too. As Nate Cohn wrote in The Upshot on Monday, Sanders is up in some polls over all, but he trails big time among people in Iowa who caucused in 2008 and among those who are definitely registered to vote.

It�s quite possible that the big story post-Iowa will be how badly these two underperformed.

Fourth, establishment Republicans who are softening on Trump because they think he is more electable than Cruz are smoking something. According to a Pew Research survey, a majority of Americans think Trump would make a poor or terrible president.

Chuck Todd ran through Trump�s favorable-unfavorable ratings on �Meet the Press� on Sunday: Among independents, Trump is negative 26 points; among women, negative 36; among suburban voters, negative 24. Is the Republican Party really going to nominate one of the most loathed men in American public life?

Fifth, America has never elected a candidate maximally extreme from the political center, the way Sanders and Cruz are. According to the FiveThirtyEight website, Cruz has the most conservative voting record in the entire Congress. That takes some doing.

Sixth, sooner or later the candidates from the governing wing of their parties will get their acts together. Marco Rubio has had a bad month, darkening his tone and trying to sound like a cut-rate version of Trump and Cruz.

Before too long Rubio will realize his first task is to rally the voters who detest or fear those men. That means running as an optimistic American nationalist with specific proposals to reform Washington and lift the working class.
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If he can rally mainstream Republicans he�ll be at least tied with Trump and Cruz in the polls. Then he can counter their American decline narrative, with one of his own: This country is failing because it got too narcissistic, became too much like a reality TV show. Americans lost the ability to work constructively to get things done.

Finally, eventually the electorate is going to realize that in an age of dysfunctional government, effective leadership capacity is the threshold issue. That means being able to listen to others, surround yourself with people smarter than you, gather a governing majority and above all have an actual implementation strategy. Not Trump, Cruz or Sanders has any remote chance of turning his ideas, such as they are, into actual laws.

In every recent presidential election American voters have selected the candidate with the most secure pair of hands. They�ve elected the person who would be a stable presence and companion for the next four years. I believe they�re going to do that again. And if they�re not, please allow me a few more months of denial.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2016 18:29

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 05:23

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

BrandorKP posted:

More Krugman:

Bolding mine

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/opinion/the-time-loop-party.html?_r=0

It's too late. The chances they had to avert the distortions that have taken over the party, they missed.

They won 40 loving years ago. Congrats on figuring it out Krugman

# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 21:57

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