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.