What is the future of the Republican Party?

Consider the current plight:

Trump, with his penchant for divisiveness, had delivered minority status to the Republican Party, losing control of the House, Senate, and Presidency in his single term, and he continued to work his magic in 2022, crapping on GOP hopes for a “red wave” by endorsing unelectable candidates.

Now, affirming the Lincolnian aphorism that an outhouse divided against itself cannot stand, Kevin “Fifteenth Time’s the Charm” McCarthy, with a tenuous, theoretical control of the House, is desperately trying to quell a zany faction that appear hellbent upon shutting down the nation if they don’t get their way.

Chip Roy blasts Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling deal as ‘turd-sandwich’

Hard Right Punishes McCarthy Over Debt Ceiling Deal:
How The House Freedom Caucus Is Waging Mutiny​

Republican hardliners’ revolt against Kevin McCarthy
shuts down US House of Representatives​

Senate GOP fears House actions could lead to shutdown:
‘It’s going to be a problem’
​

Yet another aphorism regarding piscine decomposition arises.

​

Karl Rove warned that… Trump’s federal indictment over his mishandling of classified documents will come at a steep cost to himself and the country…

“No matter the outcome, America will pay a high price for the former president’s reckless petulance.”…

The blame for this calamity rests solely on Mr. Trump and his childish impulse to keep mementos from his time in the Oval Office, no matter what the law says,” he added.

[https://thehill.com/regulation/cour...ump-will-pay-a-high-price-in-mar-a-lago-case/]​

Trump is a ‘grifter’ and engages in “political sociopathic behavior.”
Anthony Scaramucci
​

A number of Trump’s “best people” are openly disgusted by his shameless, national-security-compromising self-indulgence.

John Bolton said he too sees "big trouble for Donald Trump."

"I think this is a potentially catastrophic turn of events for him…
It certainly should be, because if proven in trial ...
it should put Trump in jail for a long time.”
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/12/1181653609/trump-indictment-john-bolton

William Barr says Trump may be ‘toast’ after ‘very damning’ indictment​

Pence on Trump indictment: "I cannot defend what is alleged."

John Kelly: Trump is "scared shitless."

Even Fox News' top legal commentator says the indictment against Trump is
'extremely damning’​

[https://www.businessinsider.com/fox...ley-trump-indictment-extremely-damning-2023-6]​

So, given the current state of affairs in the Republican Party, its increasing preponderance of aging, less-educated, white men, as a more diverse, better-educated electorate arises, with women hellbent upon securing their personal liberty, where does it go, and how does it get there?

 

I just don't think Trumpism can last. Our system is very solidly set up as a 2-party system, but it really feels like the republicans are going to have to be beat down enough that they realize a major shift in their party towards a bigger tent is needed. Today, basing a party on bigots and rich people will only get you so far. Cheating doesn't look like a sustainable strategy for them either, because even the judges they appoint tend to follow the law. Them being reborn as the "moderate" party would probably help, but the base has become so delusional from Fox News, I am not sure if it will work in the medium-term. A base like this will cause primaries to go with crazy fringe candidates, who moderates cannot stomach, giving races to democrats that could have gone to normal republicans.

 

children have hissy fits, throw tantrums but eventually quite down

 

That’s the Republican party’s problem. As a swing voter, I don’t give an owl’s hoot about either major party. I just choose who I think is the best candidate for whatever office they’re running for. Which isn’t at time either major party’s candidate. What I have witnessed over the years though is an increase in the independent ranks, from 30% in 2006 to 41% today if Pew Research and Gallup are to be believed. Both major parties are shrinking as more and more Americans view the two major parties as they move further left and right as becoming extreme. Then too, this nominating candidates most Americans dislike and don’t want as their next president isn’t doing the two major parties any good either. This happened in 2016, Clinton vs. Trump and it will happen again if things hold the way they are today. 60% of all Americans don’t want Biden to run again, 56% don’t want Trump to run again. Questions 22 and 23.

https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/rj3bg6ve06/econTabReport.pdf

You may be down on the Republican Party, which is fine, but perhaps one needs to do some soul searching about the Democratic Party also. Just a thought. Then I suggest you check out question 24, especially independents. What stands out to me is the 32% who state they’d vote third party, other in the poll or not vote at all if there’s a rematch between Trump and Biden. This figure was but 12% in 2020, not close to the 32% it is today. Back in 2016 that figure was 26% when both parties ran two unwanted and disliked candidates. Trump won independents that year 46-42 over Clinton with 12% voting third party against both major party candidates. Voter turnout for 2016, 54%. For 2020 62%. For me this 2024 election has more of a feel of 2016 than 2020.

 

I have voted for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, but am currently more critical of the Republican Party because of its authoritarianism (n lurid contrast to its traditional libertarian philosophy,) its internal divisiveness, and its alienation from most Americans, but have no interest in promoting any party. I don't pretend to know what a "third party" or what its ideology is.

I prefer politicians who don't presume to know more about climatology than climatologists, more about epidemiology than epidemiologists, more about embryology than embryologists, etc.

I had rather they respect the views of all Americans over special interests and dogmatists, especially when they impose unpopular laws that force everyone to adhere to the dogmatic dictates of an extremist minority. E.g.,

A majority of Americans in a new poll released on Friday said they would support stricter gun control laws.

Sixty-four percent said they were in favor of stricter laws, while 36 percent said they were opposed, the CNN-SSRS poll found.

A slightly smaller portion — 54 percent — said that such gun control laws would reduce gun-related deaths in the country, and 58 percent said they believe the government is able take effective action to prevent mass shootings.

Some 59 percent in the survey said they were in favor of banning semi-automatic rifles, while 94 percent said they would support taking measures to prevent convicted felons and those with mental health issues from owning guns.

Eight in 10 also said people under the age of 21 should be barred from purchasing any type of gun, the poll found.

https://news.yahoo.com/most-americans-support-stricter-gun-231016148.html


Poll: Support for legal, first-trimester abortion access at all-time high

Almost 70% of Americans believe that first-trimester abortions should "generally be legal," according to a new Gallup poll that sheds more light on the nation's deep political divide on the issue almost one year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Sixty-nine percent of Americans say abortion should generally be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, the highest share in Gallup’s polling dating back to 1996. Seventy-four percent of independents and 86% of Democrats feel that way, while 47% of Republicans agree.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/p...-abortion-access-at-all-time-high/ar-AA1cylFV


63 percent now say abortion pill should be available with prescription: Gallup​

Far too many Republicans refuse to respect democracy when they lose, and that is when it matters.

 

Does that mean that we can look forward to not being subjected to more partisan rants like the one this thread is based on?

 

When I vote third party, I did so in 2016 as both Trump and Clinton disgusted me. I wanted my vote against both officially registered. I didn’t care what the party stood for, only that the last name on the ballot wasn’t Trump nor was it Clinton. That was good enough for me. Heck, it could have been Atilla the Hun for all I cared.


A 538 poll backs you up on abortion. Only theirs stated 60% of all Americans were in favor of abortions during the first trimester. Only 24% supported abortion during the second trimester. There is your compromise on abortion. Legal in all instances during the first, but only for rape, incest, the life of the mother after the first trimester. That I agree with. I’m more of a pragmatist when it comes to politics, certainly not an ideologue as most, in my view, party members are.


Now I’ll admit that abortion hasn’t ever been a hot issue for me, so compromising on it is easy for me to do. Abortion is one of my druthers. I rather have it legal during the first trimester than totally illegal. It’s not an issue that decides my vote. Neither does gun control. Although I’d prefer that we delve deep into our society to find out where we went wrong and then fix it. From 1900-1970 in an era when there weren’t any control laws except for having to have a federal permit to own a machine gun, there were 28 mass shootings. Since then we’ve had hundreds. Why? I’d like to find the reason behind all these mass shootings we have today. Once we find the cause, we can do something about it. But we can’t if we refuse to look, to delve deep into our society to find out where we went wrong. I’m certain gun control has a place, but it is but a band aid over a tremendous problem until we can get to the causes and reasons. Letting the causes and reasons to remain will let the killings continue by other means as the causes and reasons weren’t addressed. I don’t believe we care about the causes. My two cents on this.

 

As unpopular as Clinton was after years of her having been targeted by Republicans because they anticipated her being the 2016 nominee, not even a single charge could be contrived to "Lock her up! Lock her up!" Nevertheless, the fatwa was a success. As Kevin McCarthy boasted on September 29, 2015,

"Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee.
What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's un-trustable.
But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought and made that happen."​

Nearly 3 million more Americans still voted for Clinton in 2016 and, no matter how reluctantly, are likely to have no regrets today, given what Trump has inflicted on the nation.

Again, I personally find the authoritarian intrusions by current Republican politicians repugnant - book banning, vindictive acts against the private sector for expressing support for equality, personal gender identity dictated by the State, despite the scientific reality recognized by every medical society, extremist suppression of reproductive rights that had been secure for half a century, climate change denial, rampant gun permissiveness in contravention of the hopes and wishes of the majority, etc.

The continuing refusal by many to accept the will of the People but, rather, to defend or tolerate a mob attack on outnumbered police defending democracy because a loser could not handle his loss are among the realities that make me hope fervently for the GOP's recovery.​

 

I like the GOP but I hate DJT.
If I were American I would vote for them after they fixed their Trump problem.

 

I’ll never condone Trump. I’ll say this, Clinton had a democratic administration and a democratic DOJ. If Clinton had been in the military, she’d immediately lost her security clearance and ended up at Ft. Leavenworth. What was it, something like 200 classified e-mails on an unsecured, unclassified sever which included 28 Top Secret Special Access Program, Sensitive Compartmentalized Information?


The problem is the public doesn’t know how these different communications networks work, NIPR, SIPR, and the TS intel network. All stand alone networks with no transfer to another network interfaces. In fact, the TS, SAP, SCI information can only be viewed in a SCIF or ACE with no outside devices allowed inside like cell phones or thumb drives etc. Nothing in, nothing out. Yet 28 of these type messages ended up on her unsecured, unclassified server which was only authorized for NIPR, if that. Someone had to copy and take those 28 TS, SAP, SCI material out of the SCIF/ACE and then retype and reintroduce into the unclassified NIPR network. Human intervention, human done. No other way.


A SP/4, SGT, LT, anyone in the military getting caught with classified information, let alone TS, SAP, SCI on his NIPR computer would have been crucified if he didn’t report it immediately. If nothing else, the FBI should have investigated further to find out who did reintroduce messages off SIPR into NIPR and who took information out of a TS, SCI SCIF/ACE and be prosecuted. Anyone in the military would have been prosecuted to the fullest. Special treatment for Clinton and her underlings, no doubt about that in my mind.


But the state department has been notorious for lax security, both physical and electronic. You have material marked eyes only, EXDIS, NODIS and other types ending up in the unclassified pile of stuff all the time. I’ll never be able to figure out why the FBI didn’t investigate further down the line to find out who the culprits were that were taking all this classified material and reintroducing it physically into an unclassified network so they would end up on an unsecured, unclassified server in Clinton’s home.


But that’s water under the bridge. The failure of the public to understand what happened with each network and how they worked, the government doesn’t want the public at large to know. So maybe it was just cutting its loses by keeping things from the public and our enemies at the same time.


But this still irks me to no end. Send Trump to jail, he deserves it. But why the whitewash on Clinton. I think the paragraph above explains a lot of it. Besides, she was Secretary of State, she was a presidential candidate, she was a Democrat, not some SP/4 or PFC or LT. In short, RANK does have its privileges.

 

The future of the GOP is Trump ("America First"). The are dead in the water without him and his America First movement.

To nominate anyone other than Trump would be to fracture the party in a manner that would put 1992 to shame...

 

It’s funny. You keep hearing the words “authoritarian” and Republican and yet the Democrats are the party of regulations and tax increases. The Democrats are the party that is making noises about doing away with gas stoves, limiting air conditioning (which could bring death here in Florida) and forcing people out of gasoline powered vehicles. The Democrats in California had forced brown outs and will have them again if they are not careful about phasing in their all EV strategy.

Yet, the Republicans are the party of “authoritarianism.” It’s a bad rap, and it’s mostly fiction.

 

I was unaware that any of these regulations are in the Democratic Party platform. What legislation in the House, Senate, or being promoted by the Biden Administration are you referring to?

The shift from libertarianism to authoritarianism in the GOP is most blatant in Florida, but is metastasizing.

 

if a significant democrat FARTS in public, RW media will say dems push mandatory farting

 

Republican Comey brought no charges against Clinton.

In the U.S., the principle "Innocent until proven guilty" conveys that privilege to all.

Seven years ago, Republican James Comey "held an infamous press conference at the height of the 2016 presidential election, in which he announced that although Hillary Clinton hadn’t committed any crimes in using a private email server as secretary of state, she’d still done things Comey personally thought were 'extremely careless.'​

He then publicly announced, on the eve of the election, that he was investigating more Clinton emails. Nothing ever came of it.

... Comey’s announcement may well have helped tank Clinton’s campaign."​

After Comey refused to quash an investigation into Trump's crony and subsequently-convicted felon Michael Flynn, Trump fired him and called him names.

[https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/r...ary-clinton-conference-still-stings-rcna36772]​

 

The wises of the Founding Farters anticipated the Democratic Party:

Fart Proudly, by Ben Franklin (1781)
​

 

No, they are coming from the Washington bureaucracy, which is the same as the Democrat party. On the local level, Democrat politicians are doing what they can to ban gas stoves by preventing them from being installed in new construction.

The Democrats would never be dumb enough to put those proposals in their platform. That would reflect an excessive amount of honesty. They will be buried in the "Green New Deal."

 

This post is great - Republican understanding is regulation, tax increase, limiting air condition and banning gas stove is same thing as climbing up the capital hill to replace legitimate election result. No wonder Republican party is authoritarian. They don’t even F$$$ing understand what is authoritarian behavior.

 

The real concern here is that at least a third to half of the states are still ruby red and will have complete GOP control both internally and in their Congressional make-up regardless of any schism in the GOP between trumpist and anti trumpist forces and that will be enough to obstruct democratic legislative goals. Those state legislatures are still going to gerrymander both state and congressional house district lines. We will still have stagnation rather than reform for decades, and nothing is going to get done on time sensitive issues such as climate change. We have to get rid of that filibuster in the Senate, and the votes will not be there.

 

335 million Americans and for GOP only option is Twice impeached, twice indicted, lost election once Trump. It must be very dark in republican party.

 

There is no future for GOP. Most GOP are older white male. Less then 30% American under the age of 44 support conservative ideology. Republican party will decease to be major political party after 2036.

Republicans knows they can’t attract younger generation to conservatism, they know they can’t attract immigrants or minority to their party, that is why every Red state they are making it harder and harder so only White American vote in those state.

 

I think the last SCOTUS verdict on Alabama gerrymandering will put 4-5 other congregational district toward Dems side. This Fall WI Dems will bring gerrymandering case in front WI Supreme court. That too will change 2-3 districted toward DEMS. I think if DEMS can break 8-10 gerrymandering district that will balance somewhat and gives a better chance of DEMS winning the House. I agree with you this stupid filibuster is so undemocratic, this got to go.

 

I was encouraged by that last SCOTUS decision. It is a clear indication that there still is support for an active role by the judiciary in containing the reach of gerrymandering when it disenfranchises minorities. I was very pleasantly surprised.

 

After 2020 censes Dems fought back and gerrymandering is no longer as serious issue as it was even 6 years ago. Another 5-8 congressional district change will balance out. Here is an interesting article


The gerrymander myth (brookings.edu)

 

The hapless RP's survival depends on the DP's bosses ability to select candidates that are even more repulsive than DP pols. I don't know how they manage to do it.

“Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home--but not for housing. They are strong for labor--but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage--the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all--but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine--for people who can afford them. They consider electrical power a great blessing--but only when the private power companies get their rake-off. They think American standard of living is a fine thing--so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire to Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.” Harry S. Truman