The Republican Party Is Doomed.

[elleng]

'This is a transformational moment. Do the Democrats understand how to take advantage of it?

By Stanley B. Greenberg
Mr. Greenberg is a Democratic pollster.

The 2020 election will be transformative like few in our history. It will end with the death of the Republican Party as we know it, leaving the survivors to begin the struggle to renew the party of Lincoln and make it relevant for our times. It will liberate the Democratic Party from the country’s suffocating polarization and allow it to use government to address the vast array of problems facing the nation.

From listening to the waves of fraught criticism that followed each of the Democratic debates so far, you would not think 2020 was such a juncture. Commentators worried that the candidates’ anti-business policies and over-the-top plans for government would drive away moderate voters. They watched the candidates excite the Democratic base at the expense of independent voters whom they believe long for a return to bipartisanship. The commentators were just as befuddled that the Democratic candidates were critical of President Barack Obama, who knew something about “electability.”

Yes, Mr. Obama won in 2012, but he was the first president since Woodrow Wilson to win a second term with fewer Electoral College votes and a smaller winning margin in the popular vote over his closest rival than in his first election. Of course, Mr. Obama was met by a Tea Party revolt that helped push many white working class voters away from the Democratic Party, but his administration’s rescue of the big banks, along with prolonged unemployment and lower or stagnant wages for the whole of his first term, meant that the Democratic base failed to turn out and defend him in election after election. As a result, Mr. Obama presided over the crash of the Democratic Party in 2010 and 2014 that gave the Republican Party control of Congress and total partisan control in just over half of the states.

The elites who mostly live in America’s dynamic metropolitan areas were satisfied with America’s economic progress after the financial crash, but overall it helped make Donald Trump electable. . .

I learned as a young professor from E. E. Schattschneider’s “Semi-Sovereign People” and then later as an adviser to President Bill Clinton that those who figure out what the fight is actually about are able to set the agenda and motivate voters to get involved and pick a side.

The financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 left the vast majority of working people and the Democrats’ base of African-Americans, Hispanics, single women and millennials shattered for years. . .

The Democrats in the 2018 wave election did get it and made their biggest gains, compared with 2016, not in the suburbs — despite winning most of their new seats there — but in the rural areas and among white working class voters, particularly women. . .

Mr. Trump and the Republican Congress continued to seek the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, working both to make it fail in practice and to slash federal health care spending for seniors and the poor. That made health care the top reason for voting for Democrats in 2018, but it also revealed what has become a defining partisan difference: a Republican Party determined to destroy government outside of defense and a Democratic Party determined to use it expansively. . .

But this dam has burst. With Mr. Trump’s ever-escalating assault on government, the proportion of Americans who say that government “should do more to solve problems and meet the needs of people” surged to the highest level in 20 years. Democratic candidates who understand this political moment will push for a government that changes the country’s course, as it did under Democratic presidents after the progressive victories of 2008 and 1964 and especially after the 1932 triumph of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/opinion/republicans-democrats-2020-election.html

[WheelWalker]

1. Oh well.

[Thekaspervote]

2. One can only hope Mr. Greenberg is right!

[HelpImSurrounded]

3. Eggs, counting, hatched, something something

[Tiggeroshii]

6. Count all your chickens before they hatched!

[JHB]

13. Hatch your counts before they chicken

Vun b'kaw
Two b'kaw
Three b'kaw

[Tiggeroshii]

17. .

[TwilightZone]

4. I'll believe it when I see it.

American politics is cyclical and the voting public is quite fickle and has a very short memory. Until I see the tombstone, I'm not buying into the death of the GOP, particularly long-term.

[mountain grammy]

14. me too.. the money is with republicans.

and I'm not talking millionaires. It's the multi billionaires and they'll never let the party die.

[Thunderbeast]

5. On Obama's first Inauguration Day, Pudits declared:

The GOP was dead...gone..

With 60 Senate seats, and control of the House, the cable-puditry saw no way for Republicans to recover.

The next year, the GOP began their "Redmap" project to capture state legislatures and Governorships. The Tea Party built by astroturfers and the resonating shrill voice of Sarah Palin motivated voters who could not imagine a black President.

Re-districting and racial resentments led to a stalemate in governing, and eventually to the current disaster. Mitch McConnell was unafraid to wield power to aid in an election theft and two Supreme Court seats.

These people will NOT go away until enough of them stop breathing and are replaced by younger folks. Sadly, a fair number of those millennials became "Bernie or Bust" voters which resulted in Trump's victory.

Complacency got us here. If we ARE successful next year, WE CAN NOT LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN!

[Lonestarblue]

7. Unfortunately, I don't think this is true.

I do think the Party will have to change as the older white voters who resist change and fear anyone who is nonwhite die off. Fewer younger people favor Republican policies, but they may not favor Democratic policies either. They will be the ones to remake the Republican Party (and maybe the Democratic Party as well), but I can’t see the party disappearing entirely—although the current party deserves to disappear forever for all its crookedness and election stealing.

[yaesu]

8. as long as we live under a capitalist system republicans will thrive. nt

[paulkienitz]

9. It's doomed *IF* our future elections are fair and democratic.

[Sarg]

10. People were saying the same thing in 2016.

[FiveGoodMen]

19. So was an opinion piece in the Guardian, IIRC

[CDerekGo]

11. Sitting talking with neighbors this past weekend

Sure, the 'hard-core' Republicans' will never leave the 'party', even if there's no party to leave. But, sad to admit, as a former Republican (I was brought up that way, took getting a Union Job to realize the error of my ways decades ago) there are Republicans who are simply brainwashed to buy every single line of bullshit that Fux Noise and any Conservative Pundit utters. I listened to my minimum wage younger brother 'spew' the Trickle Down theory as he crashed at my home to interview for yet another dead-end job. I simply questioned him "Now what makes you think a Millionaire is going to spend all of that money to 'trickle down' when he could send it all to an off-shore bank, not pay taxes on it, never for that money to ever appear in the United States ever again?" He didn't have a friggin clue. He only knew how to repeat what he'd been spoon-fed over the years. I knew what it was like, I used to do the same.

I believed that given enough time, and hard work, I'd be a millionaire just like all of those 'Trickle-Down' guys. My brother and sister did as well. Hell, my Sister even bought into that sorry-ass Amway Ponzi Scheme of Devos Family. She and her husband nearly lost their home because of the brain-washing 'tools' that they listened to on their way to and from work each day. Believe when they finally had to tell their daughters NOT to answer the phone any longer (bill collectors) they both finally determined maybe a change in Political Affiliation was in order (and get the hell away from Amway). I just know when my Dad's phone blew up last time he was in car with my Brother-in-Law, and bro-in-law asked 'what the hell is all that about', when I responded "That's his Fox News Alert" my bro-in-law almost had to pull over he was laughing so hard, saying, "You mean Fake News Alert?"

Some folks learn, some don't. No matter how hard they get reality slapped across their faces. But, it does seem the older generation is the hardest to learn, not all, please, never say I'm generalizing. I've got way too many friends, family that are GOP and Democrats.

But, with the way Hairplug Himmler is literally ripping up our National Parks, National Forests, selling off BLM Lands, leasing the Arctic National Wildlife to the highest bidder, pulling us out of the Paris Climate Agreement, pulling us out of the Iran Agreement, overturning anything GOOD that Obama, Bush, et. al ever set forth, I really don't see that anyone can forget the living hell he's creating for our Nation on a second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day basis.

I just hope, who ever debates this azzhat, will bring up each and every point of what he's done to our Nation in the Debates. The harm he's done to our Nation. The fact that he's illegally enriched himself to the point, no one can honestly say how many Tax Dollars have been spent at his Resorts on a Daily Basis. How much Foreign Governments have spent at his Resorts, plying him with money to gain favor.

It makes me sick just typing this.

[calimary]

15. And it's sickening to read and know just how true it all is.

Glad you found your way OUT of that political garbage dump.

You confirmed what I’ve long suspected about the mentality of many GOP supporters and “true believers” - that if they just keep on voting republi-CON and keep on voting republi-CON and keep on voting republi-CON, they too will be rich someday.

And that’s just a big fat foggy fantasy. Biggest CON-job in the world.

[LiberalLovinLug]

12. And....Rove, Bush, and Cheney will go to jail for war crimes!

Pu......lease

Did this author forget about cheating? Democratic district polling stations closings?, Throwing black and Hispanic sounding names off the voter rolls?, reducing voting times?, the 24/7 disinformation campaign on RW radio in Red States especially? Fox News?, Putin and homegrown troll farms?, hackable voting machines owned by Republicans? A stolen Republican SCOTUS, plus the hundreds or thousands of new Trump judges appointed to help with those rulings on things like blatant gerrymandering?...etc etc..

I guess whatever you need to make you feel good. I live in a more cynical world. Its not as pleasant but its based in reality based on history.

In fact, I think Trump was the best thing to happen to the Republican party in the long run. When Trump is finally gone, and I think he will have a good chance to win in 2020, but when.....the New Republican party will emerge from the ashes to proclaim they are not, and never were, supporters of Trump (just like after Bush and Cheney left, they were ostracized and not invited to conventions anymore) Graham will say he was taken out of context and was always against Trumpism. It will be back to the hard right, from the extreme right bordering on fascism. Our allies will be lauded once again, Russia will be an enemy again, and they, the GOP, will be the ONLY party that takes national security seriously.

And everyone will breathe a sigh of relief, especially the MSM like CNN and even MSNBC who will be able to go back to their safe false equivalency MO and get away with it because they don't have this unpredictable baffoon to deal with on one side who has made it impossible for the MSM to carry on with the both parties are the same mantra.

[TomSlick]

16. I've lost track of how many times I've heard this before.

The GOP is a political vampire. It ain't dead until its head is cut off - buried separately with the mouth stuffed with garlic - and the body secured to the ground with a holly stake through the heart.

[Arthur_Frain]

18. Yeah, I've been hearing this particular refrain since 1981 or so.

Simply isn’t true. As I’ve said in other threads, go visit Utah, see how many they’re raising inculcated with good, solid, fear based republican values.

Oh, and:

Every.
One.
Of.
Them.
Votes.

Unlike democrats. Raising fewer children, not teaching them to lock step.

[Maven]

20. Except that they have effectively established minority rule

thanks to over-representation of "empty states" in the Senate and the Electoral College.

If we had a government that actually represented the majority of people, the Republican Party of today would not be possible.