A clash with the future

[abomvubuso]

Now that the dust has subsided somewhat, two weeks after the election, time for a more sober look on the situation for the GOP, possibly from a detached furrinner, eh? ;)

It was Bill Clinton who famously said that elections are a decision for the future. The presumption is that when time for voting comes, the electorate would tend to be driven less

Comments

[dwer]

if TX goes blue, you're going to see Dem white houses for a VERY long time. However, nothing substantive will change until House districts can be re-drawn in a reasonable manner, and that takes winning state legislatures and governor-ships.

[devil_ad_vocate]

House district solution: length can't be more than twice their width.

[anfalicious]

I love this idea. I <3 phi.

[mahnmut]

You and your cult for pragmatic technocrats! Why can't we have irrational sloganeering talking-point-spewing tools who can see Russia from their house, just about all over the place? FOR THE LULZ, YOU KNOW!

[nairiporter]

You/we have one, he is currently our president. :-)

[abomvubuso]

But at least he's a formidable dancer!

[nairiporter]

His wives dance better than him, and they even have their hands occupied with all those knives and shields!

[nairiporter]

I agree that every society needs a viable left and right, and a center, etc. Every party goes through crises like these. The GOP will be all right in the long run. They better be, because a society dominated by one ideology is not a healthy one. Just look at the almost one-party state we are having here.

[chron_job]

If a magic wand were waved such that all conservatives disappeared (say, were 'raptured') you'd simply have a new Right (former moderates) and a new Middle (former liberals) and a new left (former extreme liberals).

You wouldn't have one monolithic ideology, because the parties, despite their press and platforms, do not represent a coherent ideology, any more than loose terms like Conservative or Liberal do. They represent emergent stable points of best-fit consensus on either side of a defining line, which itself is defined by how large and powerful the sides are.

[mahnmut]

say, were 'raptured'

Sounds fairly kinky!

[underlankers]

The simplest answers as to what happened in 2012 are these:

1) The GOP appealed very strongly to a very narrow constituency which it did get out to vote in large numbers.

2) The GOP only does well with low turnouts, when this actually crosses the barrier to win elections.

3) There was high turnout.

4) Thus the Democrats won by virtue of securing their own votes in multiple categories and being able to benefit from another poor slate of GOP candidates, whose low quality is ultimately because GOP politics is steadily becoming an echo chamber where there's one person talking to themselves in a padded room. Changing this factor is going to be neither simple nor quick, but if Democratic turnout is low, the GOP will still be able to win in elections with the constituency they have now for a few more years.

[luzribeiro]

So that's what all that voter suppression effort in Ohio was about.

[underlankers]

Well, yes. If a party can't guarantee apathy they'll try to induce it artificially.

[luzribeiro]

Wasn't the whole tea party thing supposed to activate certain segments of the electorate in an astroturf grassroots manner? How does that fit into the "GOP is trying to induce apathy" narrative?

[oportet]

The problem with transforming is the implied admission that you, as an individual or a group, were wrong. It hurts when you consider it, it hurts more once you realize it, it hurts the most should you decide to tell anyone.

We're pretty much the farthest away from any elections right now as possible. If the GOP wants to lighten up on abortion, compromise on immigration, and completely change its views on gay rights - now would be the time to do it. Yes, dems and lefties and the media will give them shit for it - but they'll be better off the more time they put in between that change and any election.