The Republican Party is too damaged to ever return to legitimacy. Mitt Romney and GW Bush need to face reality and stop nurturing fantasies that MAGA and Trumpism are just a phase that will pass.
totally agree, the best path for them is a total gop meltdown and new party that rises from the ashes. exactly what that party is called and stands for and who will inhabit it... no idea but i don't mind speculating. i keep thinking there's a centrist party in the us that would exist if we were a parliamentary system... basically the independents plus the center-right, center-left folks have far more in common than their extreme left or right wings of their current parties... but what the heck to do i know anyway.
Obviously MAGA has a shelf life. A movement cannot dominate a political party if it loses general elections. MAGA has a terrible batting average on general elections. The future of the GOP is not MAGA.
I disagree, this stuff does not have a shelf life. The volume on it just goes up and down, but it is ALWAYS there. Just when you think you might have gotten rid of it, it rears its ugly head once again--and the closer you get to effectively suppressing it (which is all you can do), the more extreme and violent it gets.
TRUMP has a shelf life. He is pretty near the end of it, regardless of whether he wins or loses. His movement, the racism, the sexism, the Christo-fascism, will be around long after I am dead and gone. It was here long before I was born.
The whole movement is a very strong Us/Them thing, structured around amplifying and punishing difference of any type deemed worth punishing... and as the Oher of the moment is effectively eliminated, they will move on to the next people on their ever-expanding list.
When you throw in the fact that they can actually WIN elections, even when they lose elections... when they can control entire swathes of the electoral landscape (municipalities, counties, states) and lock themselves into power there, what is the actual impetus for them to change?
They have a 50-50 shot (ATM) of electing a President, they are likely to get a Senate majority, they have and could retain a House majority.
Where are they actually losing to the point that they become untenable and unable to maintain control of the party? Remember that part of their shtick is being a minority party even when in the majority. That many of thse peope are happier being in the minority (because it is their excuse for not getting things done), so long as they , personally, continue to hold office.
Agree. It all turns on whether Trump loses or not and all of his attempts to overturn his loss are adjudicated or, as in the case of Jan 6th, stopped.
FWIW, because it's so close and his opponent is not a white guy as he was in 2020 - meaning his opponent is not only a female, but a Black female - I am preparing myself psychologically for her loss. I live in a very blue county in a very blue state and I'm white, so I think my government will protect me from the Trump Thugs. But there will be disruption. In that case, I will be glad that I am in the final chapters of my life.
Can you think of an example of a major political party, in any country ever, going through a phase as radical as this, and then going *back* to something like what it was?
If you think of this as just an ugly phase, then, yes, it would indeed run out of steam. Maintaining all that rage is work and serial election losses would eventually become wearying, as David Brooks predicted they would .... how many elections ago?
But this is not a phase. This cruelty and intolerance are fundamental to the American experience. This didn't begin with Trump, nor with Bush, Reagan, or Nixon. This came over on the Mayflower. The original New World settlers came from Europe to practice a level of cruelty and intolerance they were denied there.
Many times this "conservatism" has emerged and submerged again, won and lost, but never discouraged, until finally around 1900 it formed around a plan, staffed by people working toward an America they knew they would never live to see. They lost big with the Scopes trial, they lost with Goldwater, they won with GWB, and with Trump they crossed the line that allowed them to be out loud where heretofore they whispered.
This cancerous view is not new, and it is not going away. It's not just the new version of the Tea Party or the newest reaction to secular humanism or regulations or racial tolerance.
MAGA is the American Heart of Darkness, and if we think we can vanquish it with reason and appeals to better angels then we are as deluded as Trump.
Agree MAGA can only be vanquished with serial election losses. But, even though as you've shown it has been a part of our history since the first colonists arrived, I think it's power will begin to dissolve if Trump loses. Historians call it American anti-liberalism (see Robert Kagan's "Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart--Again"). It's always there, and always a minority, but, like a virus, it lies dormant until societal stress - like our cultural evolution since the 60s - activates it. The Anti-Federalists, the Confederacy and the Peoples Party all lost politically and went underground. If Trump wins, it will be a break in our history and all bets are off.
Also, I don't think it's not part of conservatism per se because both Reagan and the two Bushes respected the peaceful transition of power. Nixon was just a crook; when his party leaders told him to resign, he resigned.
Hitler had a shelf life as well. He still managed to get some 40,000,000 men, women and children killed, and destroyed Germany. I just pray the cost to the US isn't that extreme.
Does anyone doubt that Trump would order his key-turning loyalists to nuke a major US city to avenge a minor slight?
Does anyone doubt they would turn those keys?
It's all happening again.
And even if Trump kicks (what a blessing that would be before the election) the fight to take his place will be murderous but in the end things will just be worse.
I'm not quite sure about his shelf life. He does get mentions and some of his fans are a bit vocal and active, something akin to the Lost Cause. Still not like during his heyday. We'll always need to be on the lookout and tamp this crap down where we can.
The Republican Party is too damaged to ever return to legitimacy. Mitt Romney and GW Bush need to face reality and stop nurturing fantasies that MAGA and Trumpism are just a phase that will pass.
Everyone needs to unite against this vile madman.
Romney should add to his statement supporting Harris that he warned people when he ran for president that Russia was the problem.
totally agree, the best path for them is a total gop meltdown and new party that rises from the ashes. exactly what that party is called and stands for and who will inhabit it... no idea but i don't mind speculating. i keep thinking there's a centrist party in the us that would exist if we were a parliamentary system... basically the independents plus the center-right, center-left folks have far more in common than their extreme left or right wings of their current parties... but what the heck to do i know anyway.
Obviously MAGA has a shelf life. A movement cannot dominate a political party if it loses general elections. MAGA has a terrible batting average on general elections. The future of the GOP is not MAGA.
I disagree, this stuff does not have a shelf life. The volume on it just goes up and down, but it is ALWAYS there. Just when you think you might have gotten rid of it, it rears its ugly head once again--and the closer you get to effectively suppressing it (which is all you can do), the more extreme and violent it gets.
TRUMP has a shelf life. He is pretty near the end of it, regardless of whether he wins or loses. His movement, the racism, the sexism, the Christo-fascism, will be around long after I am dead and gone. It was here long before I was born.
The whole movement is a very strong Us/Them thing, structured around amplifying and punishing difference of any type deemed worth punishing... and as the Oher of the moment is effectively eliminated, they will move on to the next people on their ever-expanding list.
When you throw in the fact that they can actually WIN elections, even when they lose elections... when they can control entire swathes of the electoral landscape (municipalities, counties, states) and lock themselves into power there, what is the actual impetus for them to change?
They have a 50-50 shot (ATM) of electing a President, they are likely to get a Senate majority, they have and could retain a House majority.
Where are they actually losing to the point that they become untenable and unable to maintain control of the party? Remember that part of their shtick is being a minority party even when in the majority. That many of thse peope are happier being in the minority (because it is their excuse for not getting things done), so long as they , personally, continue to hold office.
Agree. It all turns on whether Trump loses or not and all of his attempts to overturn his loss are adjudicated or, as in the case of Jan 6th, stopped.
FWIW, because it's so close and his opponent is not a white guy as he was in 2020 - meaning his opponent is not only a female, but a Black female - I am preparing myself psychologically for her loss. I live in a very blue county in a very blue state and I'm white, so I think my government will protect me from the Trump Thugs. But there will be disruption. In that case, I will be glad that I am in the final chapters of my life.
Can you think of an example of a major political party, in any country ever, going through a phase as radical as this, and then going *back* to something like what it was?
Great question. In a free society, things don't go backward. They evolve. That is the nature of all things biological and cultural.
Let me tell you why I think you're wrong.
If you think of this as just an ugly phase, then, yes, it would indeed run out of steam. Maintaining all that rage is work and serial election losses would eventually become wearying, as David Brooks predicted they would .... how many elections ago?
But this is not a phase. This cruelty and intolerance are fundamental to the American experience. This didn't begin with Trump, nor with Bush, Reagan, or Nixon. This came over on the Mayflower. The original New World settlers came from Europe to practice a level of cruelty and intolerance they were denied there.
Many times this "conservatism" has emerged and submerged again, won and lost, but never discouraged, until finally around 1900 it formed around a plan, staffed by people working toward an America they knew they would never live to see. They lost big with the Scopes trial, they lost with Goldwater, they won with GWB, and with Trump they crossed the line that allowed them to be out loud where heretofore they whispered.
This cancerous view is not new, and it is not going away. It's not just the new version of the Tea Party or the newest reaction to secular humanism or regulations or racial tolerance.
MAGA is the American Heart of Darkness, and if we think we can vanquish it with reason and appeals to better angels then we are as deluded as Trump.
Agree MAGA can only be vanquished with serial election losses. But, even though as you've shown it has been a part of our history since the first colonists arrived, I think it's power will begin to dissolve if Trump loses. Historians call it American anti-liberalism (see Robert Kagan's "Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart--Again"). It's always there, and always a minority, but, like a virus, it lies dormant until societal stress - like our cultural evolution since the 60s - activates it. The Anti-Federalists, the Confederacy and the Peoples Party all lost politically and went underground. If Trump wins, it will be a break in our history and all bets are off.
Also, I don't think it's not part of conservatism per se because both Reagan and the two Bushes respected the peaceful transition of power. Nixon was just a crook; when his party leaders told him to resign, he resigned.
Hitler had a shelf life as well. He still managed to get some 40,000,000 men, women and children killed, and destroyed Germany. I just pray the cost to the US isn't that extreme.
Does anyone doubt that Trump would order his key-turning loyalists to nuke a major US city to avenge a minor slight?
Does anyone doubt they would turn those keys?
It's all happening again.
And even if Trump kicks (what a blessing that would be before the election) the fight to take his place will be murderous but in the end things will just be worse.
I wish I could write that I think youтАЩre wrong, but I cannot do it.
Nazism didn't require winning free and fair elections.
The AfD (new Fascist party in Germany) is winning elections in certain German states.
I'm not quite sure about his shelf life. He does get mentions and some of his fans are a bit vocal and active, something akin to the Lost Cause. Still not like during his heyday. We'll always need to be on the lookout and tamp this crap down where we can.