Thread by @Noahpinion

I repeat: The center-right should ask ME how to reinvent itself.

I would only concern-troll a very little bit...

bradford-delong.com/2018/12/niskan…

2/So what would I do to resuscitate the Center-Right?

Well, first let's state the problem. Here is the Right's problem in one picture. It has driven away nonwhite voters in droves.

3/Now, how to respond to that?

One idea is to ignore nonwhite voters, and concentrate on winning an increasingly large percent of white voters, with things like economic populism and xenophobia.

This is the so-called "Sailer Strategy".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Sai…

4/But this is basically Trumpism, and Trumpism isn't working that well. The 2016 victory was very unimpressive, the 2018 loss was big, and Trump's approval is low.

Because it turned out that the # of white voters you could win over with racism + populism was limited.

5/So with the Sailer/Trump strategy - or some watered-down, warmed-over version of it - out of the picture, what can the Center-Right actually do?

Its only choice is to find appeals that will appeal to both white AND nonwhite voters.

But what are those?

6/Well, one idea is Christianity. But it's pretty clear at this point that what attracts white Evangelicals doesn't attract other people, including other Christians.

7/But I still think people would be receptive to a broad conservative appeal to traditional values.

Don't bash gays or trans people. Instead, bash single parenthood, single-ness, divorce, family breakdown, etc.

I think lots of people of all races would respond to that.

8/For some reason, people look to the government, to their leaders, to protect their families from breakdown. TBH I don't know how much the govt. can really do to change family structure and make people want to get married and stay married, but the rhetoric seems powerful.

9/On economic policy, I think the Center-Right should emphasize hard work. Oren Cass seems to have this covered: manhattan-institute.org/theonceandfutu…

10/Also, the Center-Right should make real measures to support small businesses a pillar of its economic policy.

Small business owners have always been the backbone of the Right. Yet now they're being driven to extinction by big monopolies.
business.financialpost.com/entrepreneur/s…

11/Big business brings the donations, but the Center-Right needs to stop drinking from that poisoned chalice. Ultimately, it's small businesspeople who vote en masse, and who influence their communities to vote.

12/But the real thing the Center-Right needs to do in order to succeed with nonwhite voters, I believe, is not about policy - it's about rhetoric.

The Center-Right needs to tell nonwhite voters a story of why they are an integral part of the American mainstream.

13/Right now, nonwhite voters get the message, over and over, from the Trumpist Right - and from much of the rest of the Right - that they are peripheral Americans. Contingent Americans. Outsiders from the mainstream, who live in America but are not really OF America.

14/The Center-Right can change that message.

But it will take more than just ignoring race and ethnicity. It will take more than just a fake, affected colorblindness.

Because that silence on race creates a void that will be filled by the Trumpist Right's message of exclusion.

15/The Center-Right, if it wants to win, must create a narrative of Americanism - of the American mainstream - that *explicitly* includes Hispanic, Black, and Asian people, not just *implicitly*.

16/That narrative can be rooted in history - not the history of minority rights struggles that the Left emphasizes (though these should be acknowledged), but a history of nonwhite Americans fighting for America in the military, building American industry, etc.

17/In other words, the Center-Right should explicitly embrace a pan-racial nationalism rather than a fake, affected colorblindness. A vision of positive shared history, of shared values of hard work, liberty, family values - all that stuff.

18/This rhetoric, and policies that are consonant with that rhetoric, would go a long way to reduce (though not completely eliminate) the ethnic bloc voting that has emerged in the past two decades.

In other words, the opposite of the cursed, doomed Sailer Strategy.

19/Oh, and also, for fuck's sake, stop cutting taxes for the rich.

(end)

And again, remember, I'm not telling the Center-Right how to be GOOD...I'm not saying this is what it would take to get ME to join them. I'm saying this is what I think would WIN elections for them.