1. A thread on what the Republican Party is now and where it might be going. Would really appreciate feedback from people with an interest in US politics as these ideas are just forming.
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2. To understand what the GOP is today--these are the most important charts to examine.
Sourced from: news.gallup.com/poll/248525/no…
3. The GOP is now overwhelmingly the choice of non-College Educated Whites--and correspondingly is being abandoned by those with college degrees. This is not a shock to those who have been following the Trump phenomenon.
4. The important thing is that the shift started years before Trump was nominated in 2016. By that time the GOP as people born before 1980 understood it was gone. That was what Trump instinctively understood and people like Jeb Bush did not.
5. Indeed what the GOP is today is not the traditional Republican Party at all. However it does have an uncanny resemblance to another major party in US history. Take a look at these charts:
6. The first is the 1916 election and the second what the 2020 election could be if it were held today and the polls were accurate. They are close to mirror images (with some notable changes). The blue and red states (representing the parties) have switched places
7 This phenomenon goes down to a county level. Take a look at the Ohio county breakdown in 1916 and 2016 (a vital swing state in each election). Some of the bluest parts of Ohio in 1916 are now deep Red.
8 to cut a long story short. The GOP today is not the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt or even Ronald Reagan. It is basically the Democratic Party of William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson.
9 The Democrats then were the party of the south, of the non-educated, evangelical white and had little appeal to minority voters. Basically the Trump coalition. Moreover Bryan/Wilson Democrats shared some interesting political stances with Trump Republicans (that is for later)
10, The huge migration of non-college educated whites to the GOP did allow it to win its very surprising win in 2016 (along with a historic and I would argue frightening imbalance in the electoral college--again another thread some other time).
11. For that reason, the party cant change after 2020 (when it will almost certainly lose) because its base is the only thing it has going for it. Basically the blue-dog Republicans will control the party. The old country clubbers and suburbanites wont be flocking back
12. The problem for the GOP is this is a recipe for the odd victory is what will be long periods of being out of power. The Democrats based on this electorate were one of the least successful major parties in US history--winning only 4 presidential elections between 1860 and 1928
13 The Democrats only became what we know them when FDR added African-Americans to that coalition with the New Deal. That was the force that dominated US politics until the 1960s when it started to break apart
14 So unless the Republican Party is granted something like a Great Depression which will allow it to add another large demographic to its base--it is basically doomed. Non-College educated whites are a declining part of the population
15 The obvious target for the GOP would be Hispanic voters or a combination of Indian (subcontinent) and Chinese/Asian American voters. Its hard to see how this can be done. It will be like trying to add African Americans to Woodrow Wilson's democrats without a Great Depression
16 So the odds are that we are heading into an era of decades of the Republicans being out of power--unless it repudiates its own base.
What do people think?
actually have decided that the GOP today should be called: Bryanite Republicans
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