So are we basically watching the end of the Tea Party Takeover of the GOP?

[GreenPartyVoter]

I would love to say yes, but living in Maine's 2nd district, I am still seeing a strong Tea party love here. How about in your area?

[global1]

1. On The Contrary......

I think we are watching the end to the GOP and the complete takeover by the Tea Party. T = Trump.

Deplorables Rule!!!!!!

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. So you think there are enough deplorable to hold on to the party? What will happen to the

not quite as nuts and moderate Rs?

[louis-t]

6. I think it will be like the deplorables trying to

grab the anchor as it is being thrown overboard.

[GreenPartyVoter]

36. I can't wait to see what the fallout will be. Do the last moderates defect and leave the

GOP to become the TOP? Do the less crazy folks somehow wrest back control, forcing the tea partiers to start up a new party or attach themselves to a smaller existing one?

[lapfog_1]

4. yup... when the Trump supporters

stay home this election... the establishment repukes will lose the Senate and the House and the White House and the looney toon trumpanistas will say "you didn't support Donald so you got what you deserve"

[Proud liberal 80]

2. No

I think we have witnessed that the tea party has finally fully takenover the Republican party

[GreenPartyVoter]

25. Could be!

[dembotoz]

7. tea party doing quite well where i live

too well in fact

could be an interesting fight....the traditional gop has the party apparatus and the tea party has the passion and the feet

[Shankapotomus]

8. In 2010 I called the collapse

of the GOP we are seeing now.

I think what will happen next is the alt-right will progressively nominate even worse candidates than Trump.

If none of them win, they will abandon politics and resort to force.

[tinrobot]

9. The party may have to split.

I could see the Tea Party wing taking a life of its own and the less extreme Republicans heading over to the Libertarians.

[edhopper]

10. yes its the end ofvthe takeover

They have completed it.

Most of the Repug voters left ar TPers.

[meow2u3]

11. I think it's one of two scenarios

Either the Republican establishment will retake their party and kick out their extremists or the teabaggers will take it over completely, causing the moderates to form a new center-right party.

[Cakes488]

30. That would be the smartest thing to do ...and also

they need to stop with the social issues. If they did that they could peel moderate Dem's and of course Independents from time to time.

[scheming daemons]

12. We're watching the end of the GOP as we knew it

[davidn3600]

13. It's the reverse. The Tea Party is taking over.

Trump is going to go away. But his supporters won't. They will grow angrier and ultimately larger in number. The RNC has completely lost control of them.

The moderate Republicans could ultimately end up in the Democratic party, pulling this party more to the center.

[Major Nikon]

16. Moderate Republicans are few and far between

There are mainstream Republicans and there's batshit crazy Republicans with a lot of intersection between the two. Most of the former just aren't ever going to have a place on the left because they abhor everything about the left.

I think it's far more likely you'll see a modest rise in the Libertarian party with mainstream Republicans moving them a little farther away from Batshitcrazyville and the rest will either remain with what's left of the GOP as a regional only party or just refuse to affiliate with anyone.

[LanternWaste]

14. I think we're witnessing a loose replay of the Democratic party realignment of the 1930s.

I think we're witnessing a loose replay of the Democratic party realignment of the 1930s which eventually resulted in the eventual expulsion of the Dixiecrat platform in 1948-52 and their own (doomed) minor party.

I think the GOP is currently faced with the choice of returning to their more moderate, eastern establishment, Rockefeller Republican roots of the 1960s and 70s by expulsion of the radical Tea Baggers, or allowing the radicals to completely co-opt the party, thus ending the GOP as my grand-parents, parents and I grew up familiar with.

Today's moderate republicans (Powell, Pataki, Huntsman, Collins, et. al.) may soon be forced to channel Rockefeller when political operative Stuart Spencer called on him to "summon that fabled nexus of money, influence, and condescension known as the Eastern Establishment. 'You are looking at it, buddy,' Rockefeller told Spencer. 'I am all that is left...'"

[zipplewrath]

18. Of both parties

The reason Trump exists is because the Democratic party lost the battle over labor unions. Much of this Trump/Tea Party crowd is former union members and lower blue collar white folks that formerly would have been guided by their unions. They are the "Reagan Democrats". Now they're guided by Fox News. The Democrats are morphing into the "immigrant" party and it isn't clear what direction that will take. But looking at the demographics of the Clinton/Bernie race, there seems to be our own "angry white guy" element in the democratic party too. More importantly, the liberal battles of the past century aren't the future battles of minorities going forward.

Both parties are way too involved with the moneyed classes, and the income disparity has been pushing politics in a bad direction for a while. The GOP is exploding in disarray, but the Democrats may have a slightly slower unraveling as the old guard moves on and the new generation comes into office. Something tells me we're not all going to agree with each other.

[Cresent City Kid]

31. You are right about the former union members

In today's climate they won't be Democrats any time soon if ever. They are guided by Fox like you say, but the anti-Democratic Party message got so loud that they didn't realize that the conservatives they were electing and conservatism itself was not making their lives better. Perhaps they are just now coming to this realization.

[Major Nikon]

15. I think we are watching the death throes of the entire GOP

The modern GOP is built almost entirely on the Southern Strategy. The problem with this strategy is the demographics of the US have been changing significantly. As such the GOP has to depend on getting an increasingly larger share of a shrinking demographic. The Tea Party was just the shot in the arm that kept the GOP alive for a little longer. The prognosis remains unchanged.

[davidn3600]

17. So you suggest we are going to have one-party rule?

It's never happened before in the history of the country...at least not for any extended period of time.

You will probably see a split of the Democrats in the coming years. It's going to become too big. Without an equal size GOP holding a balance, things are going to fly apart in all directions.

I know a lot of Democrats are only "Democrat" because they hate the Republicans. What happens when the Republicans aren't there anymore?

[Major Nikon]

19. Actually it has happened before in the strictest sense

From 1933 to 1947 and 1961 to 1969 the Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and Executive. There have been shorter periods for the Republicans.

I don't really see us as going to a single exclusive party. I see us as going to one major party and two or more minor ones with the former having national control and the latter having some regional influence. I think eventually you'll see an emergence of one of those minor parties gaining more market share after completely reinventing the way the GOP has in the past.

[davidn3600]

20. I just don't think the Democratic party is popular enough to hold together

Without a GOP, it's likely to fly apart just as easily. The Republicans have terrible popularity and trust, but the Democratic party only polls slightly better.

We just went through a brutal primary. And the only reason it united was to defeat Donald Trump.

I've said it for many years that most Americans are voting AGAINST a person. They are not voting FOR a person. So if the GOP does split up...the threat that party poses is minimized. That means voters on the outer fringes of the Democratic party may be tempted to consider other options.

[Major Nikon]

21. The GOP has changing demographics working against them

The DNC has changing demographics working for them

If you look at registered members and those unregistered who would most likely affiliate with a particular party, the DNC crushes the GOP. So it's not as if the two parties are on equal footing. It just appears that way because the GOP has to maintain a massive GOTV effort to remain viable nationally. Now imagine what happens when the money gets cut off and their constituency gets demoralized. They are little more than a house of cards and I don't think that's true for the other side.

[davidn3600]

22. But those assumptions don't hold true when one party falls apart

You are assuming if the GOP falls apart, that the Democratic party stays together and holds majorities. I disagree that that is a certainty.

When the Whigs fell apart in the 1850s, it didn't lead to one party rule. It lead to the birth of a whole new party... and a civil war.

And I've never bought into the "changing demographics"" theory. Political parties and issues morph and change faster than the demographics change. 50 years from now the Democrats won't even be the same party....regardless what happens in this election.

[Major Nikon]

24. I'm not saying anything is a certainty

I'm just saying what I think the most likely outcome will be. If the GOP falls apart, which appears likely either in the near or far term, someone is going to look for a dominate power structure. Whether we like it or not, politics is driven largely by money and there just isn't going to be much resources going to a sure loser.

Whether or not you believe in changing demographics, the GOP and to a lesser extent the DNC bases their resources and strategies on them. That's why gerrymandering is so effective.

[jacksonian]

23. True, there is a lot of voting against

Last edited Tue Oct 11, 2016, 06:25 PM - Edit history (1)

and that it will fade as the threat lessens is possibly a concern.

But also much of the disenchantment with Dems is their lack of delivery on promises (health care, income fairness and other policies that are actually pretty popular) - a lack of delivery due mainly to Republican obstuctionism. If that tactic is removed (removed is a big word, lessened maybe), well, it's hard to say how that would play out, but one could imagine things turning out rather positively.

After all, isn't this the reason why they obstruct?

[GreenEyedLefty]

26. I agree with this. I thought all along that Republicans weren't voting *for* Trump in the primaries

per se.... they were making a statement about the other, "establishment" candidates. I can totally see why.

On another note, as odious and repugnant as Trump is, Cruz would have been FAR worse.

[Vogon_Glory]

28. And don't forget the period between the collapse of the Federalists and the rise of the Whigs

That was anothe decade and a half of one-party rule.

[romanic]

32. The opposite.

The tea party and the alt-right are destroying the GOP establishment.

[ecstatic]

33. As in teabaggers vs. the deplorables?

Or are you lumping all of them together? I know there's a lot of overlap, but isn't Paul Ryan more on the teabagger side? I think the teabagger wing is flaming out, the deplorables will never gain their footing but I think they'll do a lot of damage while trying.

[GreenPartyVoter]

34. Are they not the same people?

[OnDoutside]

35. Trump won't have an interest in the Republican Party after he loses, except to stoke resentment

against those in the Rep Establishment, who the general Rep voter has been groomed to view as traitors.

[salin]

37. I think the teaparty is trying to dethrone the GOP.

Trump is the ether on a rag being held in the RNC face until the establishment GOP pass out and can be physically removed/replaced. At least this appears to be what they are attempting.