Redeeming the Republicans

[Lago PARANOIA]

They're predominantly religiously conservative, mysoginistic, and incredibly homophobic.

Yeah, that's not true, sabs. Look at an actual opinion poll sometime and educate yourself. Here's one right here.

Now, granted, I'm aware that this is the meme that is circling conservative circles. And I have no intention of disabusing conservatives of that notion. But as far as liberals are concerned, let's get our story straight.

If the republicans were willing to drop the racist part and embrace immigration, they could make themselves relevant for generations.

Depends on what you mean by 'relevant'. The social conservative agenda is going down in flames short of a Pol Pot-style takeover. The economic conservative agenda isn't exactly secure (since the demographics want things like an improved welfare state and more environmentalism) but if they play their cards right the plutocrats can hold onto a lot of their ill-gotten wealth.

The only way the social conservative agenda remains relevant for more than a couple of decades is if they suddenly go sincerely and all-po pulist and abandon xenophobia. That means attacking the Democratic Party from the left economically. The plutocrat conservatives and/or centrists aren't going to let that happen without a fight, but it's pretty much their only hope. Unfortunately for such a movement, almost every major conservative figure in the media (O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Beck) is aligned with the plutocrats over the STBRAs and the few that aren't completely in their pocket like Erickson are disorganized and broadly unpopular.

[sabs]

I get forced to listen to Rush Limbaugh every so often, because I do support work for a religious organization, that guy is just.. crazy. I have no idea why anyone listens to him or doesn't just laugh at what he says.

Interesting, I admit my intersection with latino community is almost entirely through kitchen workers, and hotel maids. That's probably a very very bad sample group to judge from.

Interestingly enough, if the Republicans do implode completely, it'll be followed very shortly by the implosion of the Democratic party.

[RobbyPants]

The only way the social conservative agenda remains relevant for more than a couple of decades is if they suddenly go sincerely and all-po pulist and abandon xenophobia. That means attacking the Democratic Party from the left economically. The plutocrat conservatives and/or centrists aren't going to let that happen without a fight, but it's pretty much their only hope. Unfortunately for such a movement, almost every major conservative figure in the media (O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Beck) is aligned with the plutocrats over the STBRAs and the few that aren't completely in their pocket like Erickson are disorganized and broadly unpopular.

Are you suggesting that rather than moving closer to the center, that they move further left than the Democrats? I'm not sure why you think that would work or why (or how) they would do it in the first place.

Interestingly enough, if the Republicans do implode completely, it'll be followed very shortly by the implosion of the Democratic party.

Why? Because of the void being filled?

[sabs]

Because the Democrats are for the most part just a coalition of Non Republicans. Roy Rogers is famous for saying "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat"

What keeps the Democrats together is, "Republicans are batshit crazy" This is why when Democrats are in power, they tend to accomplish only 1 or 2 things. Because on any given day, you can't get more than 8 democrats to agree on a course of action.

[Ancient History]

I don't think that's entirely true. Republicans, if deprived of enemies, would be forced to create them because their rhetoric and philosophy only works if they see themselves as the embattled majority. If the Democrats disappeared tomorrow, the Republicans would keep attacking imaginary liberals or start in on "No true Republicans" because that is the beginning and end to their need for unity.

If the Republicans disappeared tomorrow, the Democrats would split - but I think it would be a more amicable split between center-right Democrats and center-left Democrats, or shifting alliances based on issues. Of course, that might be rose-tinted glasses talking there.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Are you suggesting that rather than moving closer to the center, that they move further left than the Democrats? I'm not sure why you think that would work or why (or how) they would do it in the first place.

They keep (or move right on) their social conservative positions except for the xenophobia and then attack Democrats from the left economically.

I'm not saying that it would be a foolproof plan or anything since that kind of populism is pretty much dead in the party after decades of internalizing plutocrat bolstering prolefeed -- the highest ranking Republicans who are even leaning towards producerism is Huckabee and maybe Santorum. Most of the Republican party are either establishment pigs or suckle at the teat of stupidism like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Steve King, etc.. Hell, I can name more 'moderate' Republians than populist ones. Not to mention that they will be taking drubbings for several cycles anyway due to mistrust even if their conversion is sincere.

But that really is the only way forward for the STBRAs to keep some of the WASP Heartland Revanchism alive. The Ron Paulites and the plutocrats still have a few alternate scenarios to game out, but American social conservatism in its current form is pretty much doomed otherwise. It's too Christian, too rural, and too white to attract anyone outside of the dead-end demographics.

[Drolyt]

Are you suggesting that rather than moving closer to the center, that they move further left than the Democrats? I'm not sure why you think that would work or why (or how) they would do it in the first place.

Interestingly in polls the majority of Americans want economic policies left of the democrats. Except it depends on how you phrase the questions.

[RobbyPants]

Are you suggesting that rather than moving closer to the center, that they move further left than the Democrats? I'm not sure why you think that would work or why (or how) they would do it in the first place.

They keep (or move right on) their social conservative positions except for the xenophobia and then attack Democrats from the left economically.

I'm not saying that it would be a foolproof plan or anything since that kind of populism is pretty much dead in the party after decades of internalizing plutocrat bolstering prolefeed...

So, you're suggesting they become some type of religions communists/socialist with a focus on the hard-working everyman?

It just seems that with words like communism and socialism being thrown around as an insult unto themselves, that the core wouldn't suddenly accept left leaning economics like that. I can't picture the level of weasel wording and framing you'd have to do to trick them into thinking it was some sort of free market solution.

As much as the party is composed of entirely different groups united only by their fear and hatred of liberals, it seems that more and more, the rank and file conservatives are finding ways to align themselves with the other points of view. If the person sounds like a neo-con, they seem much more likely to prescribe to a fundamentalist, or at least evangelical, point of view. If they're deeply religious, they seem to fap to the free market. It's like they're trying to rationalize the views of their party or something.

Libertarians seem to be pretty good at keeping distinct from a lot of mainstream republicans, but they still, by and large, tend to turn out and vote for them. Also, it looks like what your advocating would be the complete opposite of what Libertarians would want.

I'm not really sure I see something like that as attracting many members of the right. It seems like they'd be horribly vulnerable to the formation of an insurgent Libertarian party or Tea Party forming and running along side of them. What's your solution to this?

Are you suggesting that rather than moving closer to the center, that they move further left than the Democrats? I'm not sure why you think that would work or why (or how) they would do it in the first place.

Interestingly in polls the majority of Americans want economic policies left of the democrats. Except it depends on how you phrase the questions.

That does not surprise me. Phrasing can make people say the exact opposite thing if you do it right.

[Whipstitch]

That's probably a very very bad sample group to judge from.

Yeah, you have to remember that immigrant populations tend to skew young, and even in Mexico young people tend to be favorable-to-neutral on laws regarding stuff like same-sex marriage. Also, never forget that Mexican history is batshit insane. I mean, yeah, the Cristero war and simple demographics show you that Mexico is totes Catholic and is likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. But it also tells you that not everything that goes on in Mexico or has been passed by the government over the decades have been in lockstep with Team Jesus. I mean, ffs, in practice lots of lgbt people have been charged with "lurid acts" and faced persecution but technically a couple bros performing the ol' reach around has actually been legal between consenting adults in Mexico since the 1870s and all states are obliged to legally acknowledge same-sex unions even if they are only performed in Mexico City. A lot of citizens aren't so fond of that, but it rather aptly demonstrates how the idea isn't unthinkable to their children by any means. So while it's vaguely possible that Mexicans might team up with Team Fundie to skullfuck separation of church and state, I wouldn't count on it. Remember, it wasn't that long ago that people were suspicious of JFK being Catholic. Many people would probably shriek like you just scalded their balls at the idea of teaming up with brown Catholics even if it otherwise served their interests.

Also, the fact that the Republicans have done a poor job of muzzling their racist fuckwads is a stink that won't wash off as easily as some elephants might hope. Mexico is hardly some wonderful land of racial unity but much like with Brazil the population is sufficiently mixed that it's hard to soft-sell your racism skinhead style because the prejudices are tied to much different dog whistles. Just saying "Look, you seem like a good guy, but how great was it when we had our own cultures and fucked our own women?" doesn't work so hot when you're talking about a country that once made the author of La Raza Cósmica Secretary of Public Education nearly a hundred years ago.

[nockermensch]

The thing is, if you look at it Hispanic voters should be a republican feeding frenzy. They're predominantly religiously conservative, mysoginistic, and incredibly homophobic. They work hard, and don't particularly like hand outs. If the republicans were willing to drop the racist part and embrace immigration, they could make themselves relevant for generations.

Pretty much this. It's being a huge pain to decriminalize abortion here, and there's a new law being considered here now that will take women's rights in Brazil about 80 years back. We're talking "prohibiting rape victims from aborting" bad.

[Whipstitch]

Abortion is about the only issue I'm actually be concerned by far as demographics go, yeah.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Abortion is about the only issue I'm actually be concerned by far as demographics go, yeah.

Look. At an. Opinion poll.

[Whipstitch]

I already said I don't expect a Republican feeding frenzy. I do expect a lot of them to do what most Americans already do--mumble something wishy washy under their breath and punt the issue. With that said, for all the women's rights issues present in Mexico, they do have education for both genders, as imperfect as it may be, and oftentimes all it takes to swing women on the matter is letting them have the option at all via personal income and access to doctors who don't refuse to do the procedure in the first place.

[Josh_Kablack]

The Republicans just need to dial up their buzzword spouting of "FREEDOM, LOW TAXES, STATES' RIGHTS" and dial their talk about "traditional values" down a notch or two to seem inclusive while not losing the bigot bloc.

If they can do that and also stop their mouthpieces from saying stuff like "47% of country will never take personal responsibility", "anyone who uses insurer provided birth control is a whore who should post videos of themselves having sex online", "why should the Republican Party care about a bunch of kids who don’t know anything?", and they'll continue to pick up enough votes to win anytime a democrat screws up or the economy ticks downwards under a democratic president and/or congressional majority.

They don't even have to go so far as to have their lesser-known members stop making up non-science about "legitimate rape" or to only actually scream "you lie" at Democratic presidents when such presidents are making claims which are not objectively verifiably true.

Really they just have to quit generating outrage turnout amongst the voting blocs opposed to their policies to do well.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Reviving this thread for two reasons.

1.) There has been some talk in the media about a GOP civil war. I think that this risk is both under and overstated. It's overstated because the Overclass Authoritarians and the Second-to-Bottom-Rung Authoritarians still seem to by and large be on the same page. The shutdown/debt ceiling fiasco ended up being bungled due to WASP Heartland revanchist panic, but the establishment agreed to the broad contours months ago.

But for that same reason I think that a civil war isn't exactly out of the question. As I said before, the social conservatives know that short of a fascist revolution (which would be opposed by an alliance of moderates, liberals, and most plutocrats) or going 1890s-style populist (which they can't, due to being addicted to overclass-fellating prolefeed) they're fucked. The United States is getting browner, less Christian, more educated, and more urban. Like a deserter from the Bolton or Lannister army, their only choice at this point are longshot do-or-die forlorn hopes.

Not so for the business conservatives. There are enough centrists and confused people in the country that they could probably cobble together a coalition of libertarians/Rockefeller Republicans/Third Way Democrats/Americans Elect quislings that would be socially liberal and economically conservative. Such a party would be pretty competitive in the swing states, Northeast, and West Coast. They'd look pretty much like the Democratic right now, except more to the right on shit like taxes, welfare, and regulations.

But the thing is, that's only a plausible path if they start getting their shit together right now. If they keep hitching their wagon to the Republican Party and don't have a good Plan B then the Democratic Party is going to get more liberal/progressive simply due to the country's brownification and Millenialization. So when it comes time to ditch the WASP Heartland revanchists there aren't going to be enough voters and politicians on the margins to forge a new political party and they'll be going down the death spiral with the SoCons.

So... how's that exit strategy coming along?

2.) Care to make any parallels between the current Republican Party and the Democratic Party after Nixon's 72 election? I suppose that the most obvious difference is that the Democratic Party, especially the liberal wing, was from '72 - '96 pretty much being routed everywhere. The Republican Party still polls really strongly in certain regions of the country. Liberals refusing to adapt to the realignment caused by the Southern Strategy would have pretty much caused them to cease to exist outside of certain clusters; even the worst-case outcome for the current Republican Party based on current trends would 'merely' have them reduced to a regional rump.

[RobbyPants]

1.) There has been some talk in the media about a GOP civil war.

Do you think this will result in a flat out schism, or a rebranding? Right after the 2012 loss, I heard a lot of chatter on the radio from conservative politicians about softening the stance on immigration and social issues to this end. Of course, I also heard a lot of chatter about how the appropriate course of action was to turn the dial from 11 to 12. Because it's been historically working out for them so well recently.

The shutdown/debt ceiling fiasco ended up being bungled due to WASP Heartland revanchist panic, but the establishment agreed to the broad contours months ago.

Bungled by it? Not caused by it? Can you elaborate?

So when it comes time to ditch the WASP Heartland revanchists there aren't going to be enough voters and politicians on the margins to forge a new political party and they'll be going down the death spiral with the SoCons.

SoCons?

[Username17]

SoCons?

Southern Conservatives. They are the block that Nixon made the Southern Strategy around, and which the Right has been chasing ever since. It's a dwindling demographic, but habits die hard.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

At this point, probably the best result would be a Reverse Dixiecrat maneuver, where moderate Republicans which make up about 25% of the GOP ditch the party and join up with the Democrats because at least they can work with them. The evangelicals and the Tea Party can't be reasoned with, but the GOP moderates could plausibly defect if those two groups get too rabid (although how rabid-is-too-rabid is an interesting question - who exactly has to rape the goat?)

As it is, I think it's plain that not everyone in the House or the Senate was aware of the GOP's debt ceiling hostage plan, and some certainly were against it. At the same time liberal internal bullying is such that anybody that isn't conservative enough is demonized, and the party apparatus has less and less control over its members - Cantor and Boehner can control the argument by deciding what gets on the House floor, but they can't really effect who is getting elected. PACs are much better at raising funds for individual candidates so that they don't need official!GOP money to campaign, and the gerrymandered districts mean that you're getting vicious fights over very small, white slices of pie. Organizations like the Heritage Foundation have an outsized influence on GOP reps, to the point that Boehner couldn't even get his own budget deal out of committee because of lack of votes.

[erik]

This seems oddly appropriate for the GOP.



It was just a matter of time.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You know, a lot of liberals claim that the culture wars are just a circus and distraction for the plutocrats to rob those below. That is, the overclass doesn't care who wins in the fight between WASP Heartland revanchists and urbanite multiculturalists because either way they will pick the pockets of both groups.

And while I do think that's true that 'centrists' use said fight to split the difference on issues and keep their ox from getting gored, I sometimes wonder about the characterization of said culture wars as a 'side show'. Aside from the fact that many of the issues (LGBT rights, illegal immigration, hate crimes, etc.) are literally a matter of life and death to certain groups, I think that defeating the plutocrats won't happen until the culture wars are settled.

For example, take the late 60s-70s. The American (white) middle class is literally the strongest that it's ever been politically and economically. All thanks to liberals, of course. And yet, they were willing to throw it all away thanks to a few references to welfare queens and Jesus and whatever the fuck. What exactly makes liberals think that any gestalt economic victory wouldn't be undone by the next paroxysm of social conservatism if the culture wars were just ignored?

[nockermensch]

For example, take the late 60s-70s. The American (white) middle class is literally the strongest that it's ever been politically and economically. All thanks to liberals, of course.

I used to have the view that FDR was behind USA's middle class success in the 50-70s, but these days I think that prosperity was due to a realpolitik reason:

Communism was a real threat during the XX century, giving Capitalism a serious run for the "true way", so it was in the plutocrats best interests to keep their workers happy. People had to see how the average guy had it better than under the communist yoke. I think this can't be overstated.

The middle class had it easy during what was not coincidentally the highest points of the cold war. Once Communism was relegated to joke nations like Cuba or North Korea (Juche != Communism, whatevers), Capitalism had achieved an effective cultural monopoly in the world. And then it resumed showing its true colors, treating the proles like shit.

TL;DR: You should thank Marxism for America's mid XX century prosperity.

[Josh_Kablack]

While there is definitely an element of truth to the notion that the Cold War benefited workers under "capitalist" nations, it's not quite that simple. I mean WWII reducing most other industrialized nations to war-torn rubble in the 40s did a lot to help American prosperity in the 50s and 60s.

[nockermensch]

While there is definitely an element of truth to the notion that the Cold War benefited workers under "capitalist" nations, it's not quite that simple. I mean WWII reducing most other industrialized nations to war-torn rubble in the 40s did a lot to help American prosperity in the 50s and 60s.

That too. But without the need to showcase how Capitalism is totally awesome for everybody, USA could have that awesome 50s/60s productivity, but with the profits going almost entirely to capital owners, while the workers received scraps. (qv: how it works today)

[Lago PARANOIA]

Krugman says otherwise.

On the history: the great postwar boom wasn’t just a few years after the war; it was a whole generation long, from 1947 to 1973 — well into an era in which Europe had very much recovered.
...
But the bad history is incidental; the really key point is that this is nonsense economics. Yes, our competitors were in ruins for a while; so were our customers (who were more or less the same countries). Basically, we had nobody to trade with. Here’s exports and imports as a percentage of US GDP:

There’s a brief surge in exports in the late 1940s; that’s the Marshall Plan. But through the 50s and 60s America essentially did very little trade, exports or imports. If you think that’s good for the economy, you should be all for extreme protectionism.

[Mistborn]

Reposted here at Lago's request

I'm curious what you guys thing is going to happen to the Republicans in the long term, every time the GOP loses an election all the pundits go on about how they're going to broaden their appeal/be less crazy/ect. and it never happens. The GOP keeps doubling down on the crazy because the inmates are running the asylum. So where does this end? do cooler heads somehow prevail? Does the party stupid itself out of existence by actually nominating on of the Michelle Bachmann? Do the armed wingnuts actually make good on their threat of armed revolt and get gunned down by the Army?