The American Politics Thread

http://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/18/stacey-abrams-georgia-elections-1002201

I think micky's case - and it has been his case since before the 2016 upset result - is that the demographics are going to keep changing in a way that benefits Dems.  That MAY be so but will not happen in a permanent way except in the very long run.  And that depends on minorities continuing to come in, continuing to stay put in USA.  If we are going to extrapolate, we have to accept that neither of these are certainties either.  I read an analysis that Ohio is changing in a way that firms it up as a GOP state (rather than the battleground that it used to be).  Such is apparently the case in Florida too.  As Democrats start to at least make a play in erstwhile GOP bastions, some battlegrounds will turn red and some blue states will turn into battlegrounds. That's just how politics works.

I think you have misunderstood my point a little.  Of course, demographics are changing but the majority-minority moment micky projects is still far away.  It is expected to take until 2045 for non-Hispanic whites to form a minority in USA as a whole.  That's a very long way off.  Further, even if non-Hispanic whites are a substantial minority, like 45%, they can still swing an election in the GOP's favour for the very reason you just mentioned - turnout.  Mobilizing the majority community is the favourite tactic of majoritarian parties and it's not going to go away.  Hence, Democrats should stay as far away as they can from Robbie Mook's Rainbow Coalition plank and continue to splice the white vote which they have successfully in the Mid terms. 

;)

aye!  and a double for both of you! 

@Steve.  My point is and has always been...  yes.. my dire predictions are nothing IF.. and that is a big if.. those ebbs and flows continue.  My points have been ...  unless the Republican Party changes. It is doomed.  What I have tried to explain in great length over these pages is it has not, and has painted itself into such a corner with regards to white nativists and its focus on white indentity politics that is is simply to say. 

oh they just have to broaden their appeal. 

if it were only that easy.. they would have done it already.  The great lesson of Trump is no matter what the leaders of the party might think, in the end, it is the voters that call the shots. Trump smoked the 'traditional' Republicans because well. .that is where the Republican voter is now. In order to change, they have to tell those voters they do not want their support.  Do you really see that happening? I sure do not.

The times are different now, and surely you a man of many years and much wisdom and experience, to see the differences between Nixon and Trump.  Even Republicans took up the cause that Nixon needed to go. Where is that today?  The Repubican Party survived Nixon for distancing itself from him and recognizing what he did went beyond partisan politics. Again.. where is that today. The damage Nixon may have done the Republican Party back in the day is nothign.. nadda.. zero..  capatible to what Trump has done to the Republican party. Thus the poltical realignment we are seeing now.. 

which takes me to Madan... love ya buddy..

yes.. I have always stated that demographic change is a long term proposition. What is not however is the process of alienation of those very groups which is why some Republican forward thinkers have warned of this.. yet they have been ignored for obvious reasons.  It means losing the white nativist base of support that keeps them in power now but is shrinking by teh year and more imporantly is setting the plate for what is going to come and nothing is going to stop that. It will not even take the decades it will take for the minority to become the majority.. when you alienate a group so completely.

in 1960  almost 40% of blacks supported the GOP..  funnily enough. Richard Nixon

then came the Civil Rights Act

by 1964.. that level of support had fallen to 6%.. and it never really has improved from there.  A generation .. multiple generations of a entire segment of our voting population were completely turned off the Republican party by their anti minority stance.  Even now Democrats are winning latino votes by 40 or more points.  They need to have been more inclusive not tomorrow...  but yesterday.

that in itself is bad enough.. but in conjunction with losing women and educated suburbanites.. it may not take decades.. 

I need not remind you that Dubya openly wondered if he was going to be the last Republican President. With reason.. the electoral math is slanting heavily to the Democrats. .was even before the Republicans lost women to the historic degree they seem to have, add on to that suburbanites...  

I did note in my election preview.. only one purple state has gone Red in the last 20 years... Ohio. Florida is not going red.. it has been the truest sense of a 50-50 battlefield for several decades.  It might change for either side.. it may not. 

however all over that map in these last 20 years are states that were once Red that have completely flipped blue..  or have gone purple or even now going purple.  If the numbers we are seeing out of Texas are accurate. .and nothing says they are not.. that state is in play for the democrats not years from now.. but is in 2020.. and if they win that..  the Republicans have really no realistic path to winning the White House.

as I posted last night. All of this is known by those in power.. but who is going to step forward and tell the party they have to change..  they'd first be burned alive by Faux then called RINO's for daring step out of line.. then likely primaried out for as I noted earler..  who is the largest and most active and engaged element of the Republican Party today.. yep.. the same white nativists, bigots, racists, and fundies that spit on traditional corporate Repubicans and put 'one of their own' atop the ticket.  

Thus my skeptism that the Republican can change..and not become a regional rump party... as that article I posted the other night noted. This problem with a demographic death spiral..  (now accelerated by alienating women and educated suburbanites) is nothing new.. nothing that my sterling intellect has seen.. Republicans have seen this coming.. but the only people that can change the course of the party are those in charge.. and they have nothing to gain. and everything to lose by trying to change the course the party has taken which means in direct terms...  disavowing the fear hate and anger of the very white nativist voters that put them in office.

thus my conclusion.. the Republican Party is dying.. and there is no miracle drug, no silver bullet as that article notes,  on the market that is going to save it save tearing the party and burning it to the ground.

and what politican, and we are talking Republians here, the very definition of swamp creatures here, do you know is going to be the one to do that and risk that gravy job on capital hill...

a graph says it all .. it finally took Trump to do what no policy issue ever could. shake off Democratic apathy as well as finally convince moderates and independents that the Democratic Party is far closer to where they live than what the Republican Party has become and 'Trump voter' is simply not enough to win in the face of that...

but as if that wasnt clear enough as to what Trump has done..  having an article to read along with it will help explain yet again why the Republican party really is up the creek and without a paddle. As I alluded to last night.. it isn't going to take the decades it will take for the minority to become the majority for the Republican Party to become nationally irrevalent.. losing women and surbanites will only expidite the death spiral and it looks like 2018 was the first obvious and tangible sign nationwide of what is indeed going to come...

in other news...  I had a suspicion about him.   Today's news merely gives hope I was correct about him.

Keep an eye on Justice Roberts.. while I may not agree with him philosophically.. he has more sense of 'American values' than the whole of the Trump adminisration does collectively.   I have him pegged as a future swing from right to left justice.  I do get the sense the games and shenanigans of the right .. really truly do offend him as an American. 

as they do many of us...

Here was a nice feelgood read this morning... 

a lot of chatter about as to what next for Beto down in Texas way.  Presidential run?  It doesn't seem like a smart move but then again I was dead wrong about Obama in 2008 thinking he was running too early (was only in hist first term in the Senate) and should have waited a few years.  Perhaps Beto is made of the same stuff Obama was.  However many are hoping he stays in Texas and uses his influence to help turn that state from solid red.

Read some really interesting stuff I didn't know about.  I figured Cruz was the weak link and most likely to go from that state in the Senate.  Seems Corryn who is up in 2020 is even less popular in Texas than Cruz. ie with the right candidate..  the Democrats might be able to flip that seat in 2020. Problem is Beto is really the only Democrat in Texas at this time with the name recognition and infrastructure to wage such a large and expensive battle.  I'll be curious to see what he does, pulls an Obama and thinks this is his moment, or looks long term and builds an future Presidential campaign resume as a Texas senator.  I tend to think he'll jump to the Prez campaign..  but the smart move might be to stay in Texas for a bit.  I think the Democratic primary campaign of 2020 will make the Republican 2016 primary campaign look tame in comparison.  Quite simply his chances will be so much better down the road a few years

np on the welcome. Always nice to get fresh and different perspectives on these interesting times.

Yeah Colorado is one of the several states that has flipped color, other than 1964 in which most states voted against Goldwater until 2008 it had IIRC voted Democratic once in like 50 years.  Like Virginia, and still others it has pretty much flipped over the last 20 years from solid red to solid blue.  IT is part of that huge demographic death spiral the Republicans are now staring right in the face...with the data from 2018 indisputable and Trump himself coming the ticket in 2020....yet with Trump winning in 2016 and not doing the country the favor of residing 6 feet under by 2020 (President Michael Pence.. urrrggg)..  the seeds long laid of their fatal affliction to minorities, women and surbanites will have those many more years to germinate before they can even attempt, and the jury is out whether they even can, to moderate and move left of where they are now.  That lady in that article spoke of all those young women motivated to run for office.. does anyone think the Republican Party has any appeal to them.  Just like all the immigrant youth I see .. they will be comiing of voting age soon.. and unlike their parents they will not be afraid to vote.. does anyone think the Republican Party has much appeal to them either.  10 years is what I give it before the Republicans become a permanent oppo party if they don't change.. and I just don't see how they can since they have put themselves into a corner with white identity politcs. It will have to be a literal tear down, burn it and rebuild from scratch to save it now.

speaking of Texas. Yeah that state has been on the radar of political junkies for years waiting for it change.  Demographic change forever changed California politics.. it has long been forcast the same will happen with Texas. It does seem the numbers out of Texas indicate that time is finally arriving.

It isn't just Austin....

hundreds of thousand of new residents are moving into Texas every year and choosing to live not in the sticks but in the fast growing suburbs and around the big 4 metro areas.  It will be curous to see how many seats they get in the next census.  I mean six of the 10 fastest growing counties in the NATION are in Texas. It was bound to change that states poltics..  I red somewhere that 1 in 10 Texans today.. didn't even live in the state when Cruz was first elected a mere 6 years ago

here are some hard numbers that explain why the Republicans are soonto get a fatal afflication to winning the White House...  and not getting Texas's 36 (+)  electoral votes. Note the same forces here are in play in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.. having already flipped Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico and the big daddy a few years previous to those. California from solid Red to solid Blue.   The electoral reaper is coming for the Repubican Party...

rather than type this out.. I'll just cut and paste.. the numbers are simply scary for that party.  Yet I do think their is a sort of disbelief in play here... no.. that has long been a Democratic wet dream.. it will never happen?