I’ve read a bunch of stupid articles recently, many of them by conservatives, about how the GOP will change after this election, assuming Trump loses.
Really? Now, I don’t blame conservatives for hoping that this will happen, but it’s ridiculous to think that it will. Trump is popular with their base. We will get four more years of obstruction along with all kinds of ridiculous investigations of Hillary Clinton. And the media reaction will be a combination of cheering the Republicans on and saying both sides do it, with the occasional reference to Robert Bork and Ronnie n’ Tip thrown in. The GOP will become a little bit whiter and a little bit older, and their long-term prospects will become a little bit worse, but the GOP becoming a reality-base party is about as likely as Morning Joe becoming a reality-based show.
That’s just the world we live in. There’s not a damn thing we can do about it except keep electing Democrats. I do agree with Atrios that a Hillary victory will make Washington a little less wired for Republican control:
I’ve long held the belief that Dems needed 3 consecutive terms in the executive branch to rebalance certain things that had gone a bit off kilter since the Nixon era. I stand by that, though I’m a bit less optimistic about how much that will ultimately help. The Blob, the Deep State, and various other bipartisany elements of the permanent floating Washington power class aren’t going to budge too much. Still if the most we can hope for is to nudge things one way or another, better one way than the other.
We’re lucky, really lucky, to have candidates like Hillary and Obama, who understand that politics today (maybe always, I don’t for sure) is a long painful slog.
Yutsano
That gets them about 30% of the US population max. You can’t win national elections on that.
The way this election is going, not for at least the first two years. I never imagined the House being in play, and if this all gets played right (a heavy burden I know) the 2018 election won’t be a wash-out.
germy
I don’t know. When I see footage of the herr drumpf rallies, the people cheering the loudest look awfully young to me.
And isn’t the “alt right” full of youngsters?
gene108
Too much right-wing money in the media – Fox News, Washington Times, etc. – for the media to not be wired wired for Republicans.
It doesn’t matter how many times in row Dems win the White House.
Doug!
@germy:
He’s only getting something like 30% of the under 30 vote. Sure, there’s some crazy kids, but the craziness is more concentrated in the olds. That’s why I’m not that worried about a violent right-wing movement here — olds don’t have the energy for that, bless their souls.
p.a.
Leave it to Canadians:
Iff Sniffy McSniffleson wins I imagine the message becomes #WTFAmerica??!!
Dave
I just finished reading Martin Longmans take on this at The Washington Monthly where he sees the Teatarded faction alienating those few conservatives who are semi-rational and realize we must pay our bills and have budgets so that the party splits and the rational faction works with the dems to accomplish something. Will it happen? I don’t know, but I believe the Republicans are headed for minority party status and it is only a matter of how long it takes them to get there.
Barbara
One of the reasons why it is so hard to predict is that we have at least three trends coalescing. The first and most obvious is the last gasp of white identity as a political movement. Does the GOP go back to dog whistling or will it actually try to expand the tent and take the short term losses in stride? The second is the day of reckoning for safety nets, with Obamacare really just being a downpayment on universal health care. Will the GOP ever get over the New Deal and admit that citizens deserve a safety net and start offering constructive ideas to which they are actually committed, and not simply as a rearguard action to take away anything they can? The third is income inequality and the force of technological change. Will both the GOP and the Dems look for a new paradigm on the taxation of wealth/capital versus labor? And overarching all is climate change. I wish it were only the deniers who could end up with Hell on earth, but alas, it is not.
terry chay
Yes, just look at the CAGOP to know the threat of irrelevance won’t stop their descent.
Msb
Quite right. Ornstein, among others, has predicted that the Rs will just double down on the current obstructionism. I wonder if they’ll bother with making an autopsy this time, or just blame it all on Trump.
You should know better...
From what I’ve seen and read, yes…
No matter what happens in the WH or Congress, I suspect we’ll get at least 4 more years of Herr Gropin’fuhrer bellyaching about Crooked Hillary stealing the election from him, building up to yet another suicidal run at the WH, most likely as a 3rd party, the psychic climax of which will him lead his followers over a cliff like so many ranting, raving lemmings…
trollhattan
@Msb:
Trump gives them an easy out: “Well, that was too bad. Now then, back to Proper Conservatism and also, too, impeachment hearings!”
Judge Crater
Make America White Again is really the theme of Trump’s campaign. He’s at least as good as George Wallace at stoking racial fears. And his base is rancid as he is.
This talk of rigged elections and worldwide conspiracies scares the shit out of me. Even if he loses, the toothpaste is out of the tube. Getting it back in is going to be difficult.
Kylroy
@You should know better…: If he makes another run at the nomination, what the hell can the GOP do to stop him? Steal his thunder by running David Duke? Their primary base has heard the clarion call of loud and proud racism, and I don’t think dog whistles will cut it anymore.
bystander
How did I not know there was a livestream benefit last night Broadway for Hillary? Sorry I missed it, but we do have a clip of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Renee Goldsberry performing.
trollhattan
NYT election prediction nudged from 91/19 to 92/18% today. Can it go to 101%?
Snarki, child of Loki
@terry chay: “just look at the CAGOP to know the threat of irrelevance won’t stop their descent.”
With luck, the remnant will get small enough to be drowned in a bathtub.
Speaking of which, when will Hillary announce the plan to relocate RWNJs to the very low-lying tip of Florida, and wall them in?
germy
@Msb:
I think they’ll skip the post-mortem and blame it on their flawed candidate.
From what I see on wingnut book of face comments, herr drumpf is either (1) a pseudo-conservative hired by Bill Clinton to throw the race to his wife or (2) the greatest gift ever to mankind who is being foiled by the corrupt hildebeast and her buddies in the MSM and State Dept.
jl
@Msb: I don’t think any GOP House member in a safe general election seat will have an incentive to do anything but spew the crazy and obstruct. The GOP primary voting base isn’t going away unless the Trumpsters can come up with enough funding to start their own media org and political movement. And I think that is unlikely because Trump political brand will be toxic to funders because of ugliness of Trump and his base, or because after the election he will seem like a titanic loser to everyone except the crazy 27 percent. And building a political movement will take hard work, and Trump is not into that, and unlikely knows any political allies who are.
So, I think most likely House GOPers in safe general election districts will be obsessed with fighting off GOP Trumpster rage in primaries.
If House is GOP after election, best Dems can hope for is to make it close and maybe scare some GOPers in marginal districts into jumping ship from time to time.
burnspbesq
So according to ESPN, Curt Schilling plans on running for the Republican nomination to challenge Elizabeth Warren in 2018.
Note to self: buy popcorn futires for October 18 delivery.
Peale
@germy: I think we should pose as Republican donors and ask both sides to write their own post-mortem reports.
Bill E Pilgrim
Yes back to normal, when people like Sarah Palin were the official nominees. What was that, eight years ago now. That ought to be back far enough, right? No extreme right-wing nut cases then, no siree.
As far as I can see all that’s changed in nearly a decade amounts to decorations on the surface, like having a slightly different style of dressing on your word salad and thinking that you’ve changed cuisines.
germy
@burnspbesq:
So he’ll be a hero to those of us who believe there should be less regulation and lower taxes for millionaires and corporations?
jl
@germy: Probably be dual autopsies. One by the evil establishment GOP that is obviously plotting with HRC to lose their Congressional elections, and one by raging Trumpsters still in the GOP. It will be ugly and macabre, as 2016 GOP electoral body parts get thrown around and stomped on ans smashed. Many things will thrown against the wall.
Tim C.
I think the answer is “Who the hell knows.” Massive shifts in opinion and history are easy to see coming only after the fact. At the moment, the thing that keeps white nationalism in the game at all is gerrymandering. It’s allowed the worst of the GOP to not have to engage in the real world.
germy
@Peale: We clearly need less regulation and lower taxes for the wealthy. We learned this from the Flynt water crisis and the Wells Fargo situation.
burnspbesq
@germy:
He’ll be a hero to srv, shomi, and Reggie Mantle.
ETA: also Mandalay and GoBlue72.
gene108
@Barbara:
There’s the Upton Sinclair quote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”.
As the Republican party now stands, they are paid – by the Koch brothers, Pete Peterson, etc. – to not support safety nets of any kind and oppose all safety nets created, since the New Deal.
Start getting some of the money out of the process and you may end up with politicians actually doing things that voters want them to do, rather than their billionaire backers.
schrodinger's cat
@trollhattan: You mean 91 to 9 and 92 to 8 right? They have to add up 100%
germy
@burnspbesq: “We could be heroes, just for one day”
Knight of Nothing
The only thing that will change Republicans is this: Democrats turning out for midterm elections and flipping state houses and governorships. Until that happens, I agree: we can expect more of the same from the GOP.
It will be a long, slow slog.
MattF
Well, if Trump quits the race and tells people not to vote R, that would be a meteor-hits-DC situation. I don’t expect that because it presumes a level of longer-term planning and revenge that just isn’t a feature of Trump’s behavioral repertoire.
Short of that, it’s still a fact that most Republicans are sticking with Trump. I think two out of the 17 Republican primary candidates (Kasich and Graham) repudiated Trump, and I’d expect something like that fraction to hold for Republicans in general. I don’t expect much change.
The Moar You Know
@terry chay: Thank you. They’ve been beaten so badly here they can’t even ask for permission to go to the bathroom anymore.
And yet has their commitment to lunacy subsided? On the contrary. I hear shit out of elected CA GOPers that a Southerner or Tea Partier would be ashamed to say.
Tom Q
I really think we ought to hold off on the post-mortems till we see how the election turns out. Yes, many GOPers will remain crazy, but the gestalt after a Hillary +7/Senate Dems 51 seats/House Dems gain 10-15 election is way different from Hillary +10 or more/Senate Dems 54 seats/House in Dem control by even a single vote. In the latter case, the craziness will be seen to be taking place in the basement, and primarily involve intra-party stuff, while the Dems actually run the country. And those investigations will disappear.
I hear a lot of people saying, Eh, they’ll just dismiss Trump as a one-off, as if that’s good for the party. I think it’s WORSE for the party. It’ll make a lot of the RNC crew think they just have to go back to finding some bland face as a presidential candidate (they’re actually talking about Pence! or Cotton!), that the unpopularity of their policies has nothing to do with their election losses. So they’ll trot out in 2020, with the demographics pushed Dem-favorable by another few points, and get crushed again. Owning up to the fact they they’ve totally fallen apart as a coalition is the first step toward recovery, and Trump is preventing their taking that first step. They’d have been luckier to get Cruz this time around; his crushing defeat would have at least made the message clear.
Barbara
@trollhattan: Only when we start hearing about polls showing Idaho as a toss up.
germy
@gene108:
There’s also the problem that every town hall meeting is attended by redfaced, angry voters who scream “socialist!” at anything not approved by what they hear on their truck radios or on Ailes’ old tv station.
trollhattan
@schrodinger’s cat: Hillary put an extra 1 in there. I saw her do it on my server.
dmsilev
@schrodinger’s cat:
Clearly, “math” is rigged against Trump.
cmorenc
If the election was up to the panhandle area of Florida, Trump would win in a landslide. I am freshly back from visiting collateral relatives down near Pensacola. First, the frequency of people flying confederate flags in their front yards in the western Fla panhandle and southeastern Alabama is off-the-charts compared to anywhere else I’ve been in the southeast – and that includes some of the reddest parts of South Carolina I’ve recently visited. Second, the frequency of people with Trump signs in their front yard or on bumper stickers on their cars is far higher than e.g. here in Raleigh, and I live in a GOP-leaning neighborhood.
The paradox is that everyone I met during my visit to the Fla panhandle were face-to-face the nicest, most considerate folk you would love to have as neighbors, so long as you could avoid getting into any politically provocative conversations with them (caveat if you are black or hispanic). These people are attracted to Trump because they feel their cozy way of life and culture is threatened from the outside, as well as freeriding and stealing from their ability to economically prosper. Also, too the ones who fly confederate flags are blindly attracted to identifying with a rebel cause, with overtones of racial resentment.
In short, there’s a great many otherwise good folk down west of Tallahassee who have been infected, many since early childhood, with the chronic virus of racism and blind resentment against outside forces.
schrodinger's cat
First day of packing and I am already beat. I. hate. packing.
burnspbesq
By way of contrast to Trump, today an actual billionaire (Phil,Knight) gave the University of Oregon yet another $500 million slice of his money, to build a new science classroom and lab building. His quackanthropy now totals somewhere north of $1.5 billion, not including the additional $500 million or so he has given to Stanford.
Trump’s known giving to Penn and Fordham: zip.
Barbara
@Tim C.:
This is a really important point. It’s why things seem to have gotten so much crazier so quickly. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Virginia are heavily gerrymandered out of proportion to the way they consistently vote in statewide elections. Some of this is due to midterms as well, but gerrymandering makes the midterm results even more lopsided.
Tom Q
@Knight of Nothing: Not denying the problem, but consider that, in 2018, the young college folk who first came out for Obama in huge numbers will be edging toward 30, and thus in the range where they start voting with more regularity. And another four years’ worth of elderly passings will make the midterm electorate a bit less GOP. (It’s also help if the economy is not in deep recession, which hurt a lot in 2010, and there are no exploitable crises like Ebola/ISIS provided down the stretch in 2014.)
The Moar You Know
@Knight of Nothing: Forgot to add “throw cash to downticket races and start building local benches, so we have candidates for the future”. So, nothing changes then. That’s what I expect as well. Dems have some hard lessons to learn that they have not learned yet, due to a obsessional focus on the presidency to the detriment of all other races.
germy
@cmorenc:
Thought experiment: What if Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch had grown up idolizing Woody Guthrie? What if they had built their media empire pushing progressive voices? What if Jim Hightower had been blasting for twenty years in their homes and truck radios instead of Lush Rimbaugh?
What would they be parroting?
RSR
Yup. Also from Atrios a few days ago:
Knight of Nothing
@The Moar You Know: yes! I’ve put quite a bit into Senate and House races this year.
chopper
@Kylroy:
i dunno about the rest of the party, but a whole big chunk of the republican base finally found in trump the straight uncut shit they’ve been looking for forever. they’re not interested in going back to the old stuff.
David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch
p.a.
@Tom Q: There is a recession coming. No one outlaws the business cycle. If Repubs continue to hold a veto over legislation as seems likely, the recession will be worse than it has to be. For long term electoral purposes, it’s better to happen early in the HRC admin; the midterm results may be worse than otherwise, but an early recession won’t affect 2020.
Peale
@The Moar You Know: Yep. Unless you’re a business owner with something that needs to get done, you can wait it out until the day when an honest to goodness scandal, corruption or just plain timing takes out the Democratic presidential candidate. Unless something changes, we need to apparently win every presidential election for the next 12 years. That said, I do find it a bit comforting that the Dems talk about Texas turning blue and I don’t hear much discussion about how the Republicans are going to take back California or New York.
germy
@chopper:
The old stuff was cut with baby powder and baking soda. Herr drumpf is the REAL shit and they can’t get enough. When the supply is cut off things will get ugly, unfortunately.
SFAW
@schrodinger’s cat:
trollhattan’s (and the NYT’s) scale goes to 11.
schrodinger's cat
@p.a.: Now we are panicking about 2020? Give me a fucking break from this moronic sky-is-falling BS.
BruceFromOhio
Bwhahahaahhaa, snort snort. I see others have already commented on why this is Not. Going. To. Happen.
The GOP will not change, not one single Gaia-damned bit. The two-bit ratfuck soulless criminals are riding the river of grift, and that shit is here to stay. Un-gerrymandering, as likely as me waking up wealthy, younger and taller tomorrow morning, might help the Houses (state and DC), but do nothing to un-cluster the Senate and the Executive candidacies – the ferrets are in charge of the circus, and the paychecks are still clearing. Getting whomped at the ballot box isn’t going to scare them off or encourage a changing of the ways, it will only make the furry little bastards double down on the double-downs.
Thanks for the laugh, DougJ – New Years’s Day indeed.
Knight of Nothing
@Tom Q: as people age, funny things happen; they get married, return to their families, return to their comfort zones. We can’t just count on the Obama coalition aging into permanent Democrats.
Even if Dems take the House this year (Silver puts chances of that happening at 1 in 5), we will have to turn around and defend 25 senate seats (plus the House, of course) in the 2018 midterm. That could be brutal. The only hope is turnout, turnout, turnout.
On the plus side, seems like PBO will be working on gerrymandering. That could really help in the long term.
catclub
@Tom Q:
Still no love for Thune!
Major Major Major Major
We aren’t lucky to have candidates like Hillary. She’s the worst major party candidate since McGovern.
/NR
BruceFromOhio
@germy: It is a GREAT time to start a STOP HILLARY! LOCK AND LOAD! PAC, put up a website, start collecting email addressess and taking credit card donations. Fuck, I just might be able to retire on that shit. The poor bastards want a fix of the good shit, let’s get it to ’em stat – for a price.
Oh, wait, that’s the dumpster fire business plan after Nov 8. Darn it!
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: And all the young people who voted for Obama and are now voting for HRC are going to turn into Trumpettes when they get old. We are doomed.
Barbara
@gene108: Well yes, of course, but billionaires are a minority of voters. That’s why they need the lower rent types to come along for the ride.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I think the tilt in the beltway has been significantly adjusted by this election. I even heard someone on NPR (maybe Cokie?) say the Republicans are in disarray! I mean, if that catches on permanently we know the tables have permanently turned inside the beltway. The beltway folks are dense and cling to their preconceived notions, but, when something is this obvious they can’t hide it.
p.a.
@schrodinger’s cat: All I said was a late-in-admin recession has been in the past, is, and will be in the future, a negative for the admin, especially if the opposition party prevents any positive action. All in response to another comment discussing voting % by age and economics. Hardly panic.
JPL
@David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch: He’s polling at 53 percent. in NBC/WSJ poll, Obama job rating overall: 53% approve, 44% disapprove. among whites in union households, 44%-53%
60% is for everyone else.
catclub
@p.a.: as long as government spending remains strangled, the odds of a boom followed by recession are low.
I think it will be years of grinding along. 5% unemployment is pretty good. Continuing job growth is good. wages bumping up ever so slowly is better than rising unemployment and falling incomes.
The recession prediction article by Barry Ritholtz started with ‘a concensus of economists think there is a sixty % chance of recession by 2020’.
I read that as a 40 % chance of no recession before 2020. [never mind that predicting either case is pretty useless.]
japa21
I am actually modestly hopeful that both the Senate and the House will flip. Right now, Silver has 7 GOP seats in the Senate flipping to Dem and Dems keeping Nevada. Even if two end up wrong, that still means 51 Dem seats.
Cook has 10-15 seats in the House flipping to Dem. If anything, Cook is very cautious and conservative in his estimates, so 15-20 as of now is probably reasonable. But then we get into the unknown factor of election rigging. No, not real rigging but Trump’s claims of rigging. More and more Republicans are coming out and saying that the election can’t be rigged. This won’t stop Trump’s base from still believing the election is rigged and there is a significant chance, IMO, that Trump will make major claims about how the GOP is also in on the rigging. His basest of the base supporters, and basest is used in multiple ways, will still vote for him but may well choose not to vote GOP down ticket.
Although not likely to impact additional Senate races, it could make a difference in many districts where the Republican has a 3-5% margin at present.
Weaselone
@p.a.:
The recovery and expansion have been incredibly slow by historical standards. It’s not inconceivable that the correction could come as late as Hillary’s second term, particularly if Dems take all three branches and get a solid infrastructure spending package passed.
Mike in NC
By 2020 the GOP will seriously consider nominating for president an alleged serial killer if he makes the right noises to their base.
Brachiator
@germy: Old conservatives may be dying out, but there is a new generation rising up to take their place. I used to be surprised at the number of younger people I tech who consider themselves to be libertarian, who are very Trump friendly. An odd bunch, many are for gay rights, but are sometimes racial and anti woman bigots (but not overtly so).
As an aside, I recently had conversations with a group of young Latinos who absolutely despise Trump, but who are either voting for Jill Stein or not voting at all.
The generation coming up shows every sign of being as confused and difficult to pin down as earlier ones.
germy
@efgoldman:
I can copy paste copy paste copy paste until the cows come home!
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: trump-friendly libertarians aren’t libertarians, they’re embarrassed republicans. There are real libertarians (who also tend to be young) but they ain’t it.
germy
p.a.
@catclub: @Weaselone: I like BR, bonddad and Calculated Risk, and the numbers do seem to show this expansion is getting long in the tooth, but the negative numbers keep flipping; nothing is neg consistently MtoM! Pretty damn good considering 2/3 of the fed gvt is trying to tank the economy. As long as oil stays low, we may continue with anemic but not negative growth. And as long as the Fed behaves. I’m not into conspiracies, but I find it interesting that talk of rate hikes tends to happen when (non-corporate) income begins to show positive movement.
Soylent Green
Right after PBO’s win in ’08, people here were celebrating the imminent demise of the GOP.
Zero chance that Agent Orange will run again; it’s too much work. They will nominate a generic white guy who is not insane, and their voters will fall in line. I think Hillz will have a tough time getting re-elected.
Major Major Major Major
@Soylent Green:
I believe people were predicting that up until about June 2016, too.
Cermet
@p.a.: Exactly and Hillary will be the person most likely to be holding the bag unless she is very lucky; also, fracking will begin failing in 8-10 years and the energy crash after that will not be pretty. We are currently living with cheap oil even through easy oil DID past peak a few years ago – tar sands and especially fracking have prevented a dangerous spike in energy costs but the piper will be paid after that – the more we do now the less costly that collaspe will be; better still, all we do now reduces the AGW. Yet, like Casandra, these warnings will be ignore until it happens.
Soylent Green
Also, Sanders poisoned the well and turned a lot of young people away from being good Democrats.
schrodinger's cat
@p.a.: If you can predict a recession, what are you doing commenting on Balloon Juice, start a hedge fund stat.
waspuppet
My hot counter-take to those conservatives: Trump won’t run in 2020, but explain to me how he wouldn’t get the GOP nomination if he did run.
catclub
@Brachiator:
I think the kids are ok. (plus 18-34 is getting kind of out of kids range) The electoral map if only millenials voted
Miss Bianca
@germy:
Sadly, probably the same things coming out of the loony leftie cakeholes right now: “Crooked Hillary! Wall Street fat cats! Triangulation! Warhawks!”
Major Major Major Major
@waspuppet: nobody likes a loser.
waspuppet
@Major Major Major Major: Maybe. There was more than enough evidence of Trump’s loserdom before he announced, though.
gene108
@Peale:
But Republicans, in the short term at least, have gobbled up Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.
California and New York maybe out of reach, but the industrial Midwest is in play for them, as well as central plains states like Iowa, Montana, etc.
Republicans are still in a strong position in too many places, Democrats used to have more influence in.
chopper
@p.a.:
my issue with an upcoming recession is the fact that 1) the fed has nothing much left to work and 2) goopers will block any attempt at relief on the gubbermint’s side of things. which means it has a good chance of getting relatively bad.
chopper
@Soylent Green:
worked for ’em in ’08 and ’12.
gene108
@germy:
We had this once. They’d be all for collective action – like taxes paying for city works, rather than parking tickets – but would still dwell in their racial resentments.
We saw this at work 50 years ago, with the Great Society, which is initially very popular because it was pitched at helping the poor white folks in Appalachia, but also ended up helping blacks in the inner city.
Mnemosyne
@Knight of Nothing:
Actually, most studies show that the whole “people get more conservative as they get older” thing is BS, and most people stick with the party they first started voting for. The “Reagan Democrat” thing was very anomalous and much more indicative of a re-alignment of the parties, not of the voters.
Unfortunately, this also means that we’re going to be stuck with the Bush voters of Gen X (my generation) for some years to come, but the Millennials will swamp us if we can get them to vote Democratic from the start.
catclub
@Major Major Major Major: The biggest loser. A bigger loser than Romney.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@Dave: I think Longmans is on to something – Cal, for example, the GOP is quite happy with permanent minority party status. Not governing is the only way they can remain pure conservatives.
Tom Q
@Knight of Nothing: I think this “people get more conservative when older” meme hasn’t been borne out by the last 30-40 years of American electoral history — age groups that have tilted one direction appear to have stayed pretty faithful as they’ve aged. If you can show me data proving otherwise, I’m open to being persuaded, but I’ve heard this as fact.
If Dems achieve the miracle of gaining House control this year, Pelosi should take her new members aside and say, OK, you folks in marginal districts: take for granted a good many of you will lose in ’18. It won’t matter how accommodating you are to GOP factions — given the choice in a midterm, they’ll choose the genuine article over a halfway-GOPer. How you can best serve your party is not by cutting and trimming, but by sticking with us and giving President Hillary as strong a roster of accomplishments as is possible. Then, when she runs for re-election in 2020, you can come back aboard and try to regain your seat, in a year when redistricting — which can affect the balance of power for the key next decade — is at stake.
gene108
@p.a.:
The last two recession did not follow the classic business cycle. Both were partly or totally driven by financial shenanigans, rather than inflationary pressure. The 2001 recession was closer to the normal business cycle, but it had some issues with the accounting problems of Enron, Worldcom, etc., as well as a negative reaction after 9/11/01.
The 2007-2009 recession seemed almost entirely to be driven by financial shenanigans.
I’m not saying a recession isn’t possible, but it’s going to be hard to predict how it’ll come and what it’ll look like. And I think one driving factor will be a government that lets businesses, especially finance, run wild, which creates another bubble.
Major Major Major Major
@catclub: This one will have lost to a girl.
waspuppet
@efgoldman: Well, you know how it is — some of THOSE people just get so dependent on government handouts that it never occurs to them to go out and get a real job.
It’s something in their culture, really; if their leaders truly cared and weren’t just race-based grievance pimps, they’d stand up and do something about it.
Knight of Nothing
@Mnemosyne: @Tom Q: I hope you’re both right! I’m sure you are. Even so, it doesn’t mean much until we start flipping those seats.
Knight of Nothing
@Tom Q: Did you see this piece in Vox – it’s pretty pessimistic about the Dems prospects for control of the House.
http://www.vox.com/conversations/2016/10/5/13097066/gerrymandering-redistricting-republican-party-david-daley-karl-rove-barack-obama
Tom Q
@gene108: I’d argue they’re only able to “gobble them up” in a midterm electorate — I don’t think Scott Walker would have won a single election in a presidential year. I’m not saying it’s not an issue for Dems, but eventually a fuller electorate is going to come into play, and that doesn’t favor the Republican future.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
I have never met anyone willing to talk about their political affiliation who was embarrassed to admit to them. Never.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: You must not talk to a lot of democrats.
Brachiator
@catclub:
Very interesting electoral map. That cluster of red states running across the center of the country is an interesting counterpoint to the surrounding blue states.
A hopeful sign, but there is still much to learn about this group.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s funny.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: I don’t know how else to explain the notion that you’ve never met somebody embarrassed of their political affiliation.
bemused
@Dave:
Longman titled his piece “How the GOP Will Split Next Year”. It seems more likely than not that he is right. I can’t imagine how they can stop their ship from sinking.
Major Major Major Major
@bemused: the piece seemed right enough to me but I can’t shake the feeling I’ve been expecting them to crack up any day now for years.
bemused
@Major Major Major Major:
Me too. They’ve been teetering back and forth walking a tightrope seems like forever. How they missed all the neon warning signs is beyond me.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Doesn’t matter. Maybe there are a few people like this. But you’re mostly wrong. I don’t know why some people want to insist that there is this core of politically shy citizens.
I live in California, where people are proud to let their political freak flags fly. We also still have a smattering of fringe political groups such as the Peace and Freedom Party.
And if I were to be more rigorous, I would say that I talk to a lot of people who are open in expressing their political views. The dominant two party system forces most people to make an either/or choice most of the time, but does not adequately reflect their views.
You remind me a bit of my Southern relatives who insist that I really love Jesus, and when I say that I am agnostic, I am just angry at God, but must inevitably embrace Him again.
philadelphialawyer
@Brachiator:
Please.
A clear plurality of young voters prefer Hillary. Trump is tanking heavily with young voters. And that is despite the fact that the champion of young voters on the D side was defeated by Hillary, and in a fashion that many young voters, urged on by Trump and Stein and the media (quite erroneously), believe was unfair. And despite the fact that there are two make-pot-legal, stick-it-to-the-man third party candidates, one of whom claims the mantle of that defeated champion of the young.
Hillary, much as I love her, was never going to be the fave of the young. But, looking forward, most young people seem to be, in order of preference…regular Dems, more liberal than regular Dems (Sanders supporters)/Green party, Republicans, and libertarians (most likely more in the sense of social, pro secular libertarianism than economic libertarianism).
In other words, what are you talking about? Young voters hate Trump. They don’t love Hills, but more support her than anyone else. And most of those that don’t support her or are lukewarm want someone to her left. Then there is the group that supports Trump, which is not much larger than the make pot legal libertarian group.
And, somehow, this bodes ill for Dems, and is good news for John McCain?
Um, no.
Also, yeah, Hills can’t replicate what Barrack did with the young voters. So what? She does better with White voters, particularly White women voters, than O did. And yet he won. Twice. Pretty easily, both times. Every candidate has strengths and weaknesses, and making young voters swoon is not one of Hill’s strengths. She has other strengths, though.
And she will, at most, only be a candidate next month and in 2020. The young voters who love Obama and Sanders and/or are Stein and Johnson curious ain’t going for Trump, for Trump-lite, for Ted Cruz or even for John Kasich. The younger cohort is multi racial, multi cultural, pro women’s rights, pro GLBT rights, economically liberal, suspicious to the core about private business corporations, thinks the religious right is insane, is less religious in general than the older cohort, and is not in love with the police, the military or foreign intervention, and so on.
It’s all good.
philadelphialawyer
@Brachiator:
Jeez.
“Interesting”…”counterpoint”…”still much to learn…”
How about, instead, the FACTS show that you totally and absolutely wrong. That millenials would give even tired old Hillary a frickin popular and electoral landslide, and that only the worst and most populous States would go for Trump?
philadelphialawyer
Should have been “least populous”
Won’t let me edit.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
You know this time is different – unlike 2008 and 2012 the conservatives know they are going to lose. That might be the thing that brings the change because these reptile brains won’t be able to take backing a losing team. In fact Trump is a sign they are rebelling, just they were dumb enough to mistake the Ultimate Businessman persona Trump has from the Apprentice as who he really is.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
The big thing most everyone is missing is that business as usual died when the GOP handed the keys to the campaign to Trump, lest they lose their Trump-loving base. Now they’re coming up against Gotterdammerung, and the short fingered vulgarian is going to need someone to blame for this disaster. Who better than the feckless GOP leadership that’s bent over for him time and time again. All he has to do is cry ‘sabotage’ and ‘stabbed in the back’ and the next thing you know Corey Lewandowski has taken over Reince’s old office. And after that, suddenly 2018 doesn’t look nearly as business as usual anymore…
Brachiator
@philadelphialawyer:
I see the problem here. It should be clear by the totality of my posts here that I was not talking about this election. My main point was pretty simple. That old conservatives passing away will be replaced by a new generation with most of the same bigotries.
Trump friendly is a metaphor for a resurgent white supremacism that is just as nasty, if nastier than old school bigotry.
So, yes, as a matter of record, a majority of millennials support Hillary.
Also, unless there is a surprise equivalent to a meteor falling from space, the election is in the bag for Clinton (but people gotta vote). I’m in a zone where I no longer care about Trump’s insane ravings, or fretting about the election, or into heavy speculation about the future of the GOP or the degree of inevitable Republican obstructionism. I’m going through the phone book sized California voter guide and getting ready to vote. I will be interested in the post election demographic info.
Alea iacta est.
philadelphialawyer
@Brachiator: No, “the problem here” is that you were fretting over all the millenials in your anecdotal universe going for Trump. But they ain’t representative of anything. The other “problem here” is that even your “totality of the posts” (as opposed to the one post I, ya’ know, actually responded to), back peddle (ie “That old conservatives passing away will be replaced by a new generation with most of the same bigotries”), is not supported by the facts either. The data shows that the new generation is less bigoted than the old one, on average. So, no, the old bigots will not be replaced by the new ones.
That only thirty per cent, tops, of young voters support Trump is also not irrelevant to the “interesting” question of what the future holds for today’s young voters. As was pointed out to you repeatedly by other posters.
JR in WV
@cmorenc:
Drove to town and back today.
Trump signs = 2 separate yards
Hillary signs = 4 separate yards
In southern WV!!! I was a little reassured. I know Hillary won’t win WV, but maybe it won’t be a humiliating landslide of Trump Crap.
The Lodger
@BruceFromOhio: So start now and get out of dodge before the lawyers find you. ?
The Lodger
@Mike in NC: Good news for Ted Cruz.