Talk Elections

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Not a Republican, but I assume President Trump's supreme court and the state legislatures will have disenfranchised all of those people and closed the borders by then so that Republicans can still coast to victory on their white dominance

This is no longer a long term problem for the Republicans. Trump was the first President elected who was affected by this problem. Minorities made up 29% of the electorate and their 75-24% support to Clinton couldn't be offset by a historically high 21% margin among whites. The House GOP eked out the popular vote by 1%, and they won the white vote by 22%.

If you do the math, every 4 years, they need like an extra 3% of the white vote to just offset minority growth. This means the GOP has to increase their white vote totals to 61%, then 64%, then 68% or so by 2028. As an comparison, Bush won whites by 17% in 2004. Trump won it by 21%. That's a shift of 4 points in 12 years. The big difference between Bush and Trump is that Bush won 44% of Latinos and 44% of Asians and 40% of others. Trump hit 29% of Latinos and Asians and 11% of blacks, roughly the same as Romney.

And the 3% growth among white support just translates into 51% support each election. It means that the GOP is vulnerable to defections from say, groups of whites, who are not a homogeneous group. So, basically, the mathematical model says the GOP is locked into decades of 51% wins without growth among minority support, and that's being generous and saying the white vote will increase 3% each election for the GOP.

White population is set to decrease beginning in 2024, as well. That just heightens the minority bloc's importance. Even if you put in a national voting restriction law, it's been shown they decrease the Democratic margin by 1-2%, so you're only protecting yourself in a close race, not a landslide.

Somehow, the concern that was there during the Bush years has been completely lost in the Trump years. Their Muslim ban, the border wall with Mexico, everything doesn't seem geared towards minority voters but to the 90% white base.

As Hispanics assimilate (just like the Irish, Italians, and Jews did), they will become part of the white mainstream (at least the majority of Hispanics who have white skin), so America will never truly be majority-minority (or anywhere close to it).

Somehow I don't see the Hispanics being that into the party that has a President that calls them rapists and mocks them and wants to build a wall with Mexico. Seems to me that it's the kind of thing that prevents them from backing that Party.

They voted 65-29% Democratic for a reason and they've been voting Democratic since the 1960s. Republicans aren't changing that trend. Simply put if Republicans insulted my lineage and my background I'd be pretty sure I'd be hostile to them. “Otherizing“ a group seems a surefire way to get that group to consistently vote against you.

Yeah but most of those groups assimilated during Plessy v. Ferguson which define race by white and black. Those days are long over. If your talking about Cubans and Puerto Ricans assimilating then your right but they were always white there is not much difference between them and peninsular hispanics. What the op meant was Mestizos who are genetically similar to what we call Native Americans. I doubt they will assimilate because 1 Mexico is right there and 2 most want to retain their Mexican/Mesoamerican identity. They will likely if not already go the way of African Americans were they do not assimilate with American culture but American culture assimilate with them. For example American culture has taken so much from African Americans in fashion, music, cuisine, and vernacular especially for a minority group. So much that they complain about cultural appropriation. That is the future of Hispanics Americans. If your are saying that Hispanics climbing up the economical ladder is somehow equivalent to the assimilation of white people that is not only idiotic but insulting.
           

The American system makes it difficult for one coalition to get too much larger than the other. Factions will wind up resenting each other. New issues will arise that divide a coalition. At some point, some group will get dissatisfied with the Democrats and the GOP will be able to peel them off.

Now, that doesn't preclude the GOP having awful medium term prospects, but in the long term they'll be ok. I'm purposely leaving the prediction vague because who knows what the future holds, but I am confident, at some point the Democratic coalition will get too big, and some faction will break. Actually you could argue this happened with the white working class in the Midwest last year.

I think the place where you don't want to be as a party is to be totally dependent on external events for winning elections.

Well, whites seem to be trending Republican, potentially countering minority growth.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the Hispanic and Asian vote.  I think it could be argued that Black Americans - for a variety of reasons - have been very adamant about NOT assimilating into "mainstream White America" (whatever that means), and they also vote Democratic for a variety of historical reasons, but groups like the Irish and Italians - once fiercely loyal to the Democratic Party for literally the exact same reasons that Hispanics would support them today (White WASP Republicans came off as anti-immigrant, and the Democrats' progressive economic policies - especially in cities - helped them out economically, which is what matters most to voters in dire situations) - are now Republican-leaning groups, because those people don't feel alienated from the majority.

However, the GOP of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s took a decidedly more liberal tone on immigration, and I don't think Italian and Irish Americans warm up to them if they don't.  So, take note, 21st Century GOP.

We just need to work harder to bring God back into the public sphere and convert more of them into Evangelical Christians.

He tells it as it is.

Yes, that ship has sailed. Thanks, though.

It's a better plan than meaningless platitudes like "communicating conservative values" to minorities.

I don't think that's a winning strategy, in the increasingly irreligious United States, let alone it's not within a political party's sphere to convert people to Christianity. Probably would offend that growing bloc of non-religious voters, might cause even more problems.

It could just be wiser to do immigration reform and try to win 40% of Latinos. But of course, that's too hard for the Republicans.

-There obviously is a positive trend among Hispanics. Look at the South Texas counties from 1960 to today. In any case, differential fertility also favors White Cruzlims, as well as Hispanics.

The long-term strategy here is to revise immigration downward. We don't want the entirety of the United States to become New Mexico (even if New Mexico was a solidly Republican state!).

So far, death patterns have actually been helping the GOP due to the death of the New Deal Democrats.

Stuff like candidate quality and outside circumstances is far more influential on the nationwide vote than mass immigration and differential fertility, at least, in the short-term. By how much would Trump have won the popular vote in 2000 had he been the GOP candidate that year?

Dems control no branches of government at present due to Trump's successful use of the Sailer strategy (designed in 2000), so they crow about imaginary victories in the distant future. But I say unto you, thou shalt not count thine chickens before they hatch!

-If Romney won 50% of Latinos with no gains with non-college Whites, he would still have lost in the electoral college. Think!

Also, "immigration reform" is simply code for "national suicide". Why not make Mexico City the capital of the U.S. in 2017, then? I'm not a fan, BTW.

Also Hispanics are overwhelmingly concentrated in states like Texas, California and New York that are not currently competitive so they have less impact on the election than thought because they are inefficiently located for the Electoral College.

-Indeed. Winning only 51 fewer electoral votes than Donald J. Trump because you spent all your money on Hispanic outreach isn't much fun:
()

....and Barack Obama who minorities voters took/take a heavy liking too.

No borders aren't being closed off even by The Trump Administration.

-That would be the missed opportunity of a lifetime. At least Gorsuch won't amnesty the illegal immigrants by judicial fiat.

Romney won the white vote by 21% points too but he didn't win in 2012.

White Population has been decreasing as a % of the US Population for a few decades because of Hispanic Growth so its nothing new. I know you are trying to say the White Population won't even be growing by 2024 but overall growth of the White Population has been flat since 2000 or  maybe even the 1990 Census.

Trump did no worse than Romney with Hispanic Voters though in the end though.

Build a wall-Didn't Congress vote to build a fence in 2006 along the Mexican Border but the fence was never built?

Asian Vote will be Dem for a long long time because of where they live: San Francisco, Bergen County, NJ, New York City, and Northern Virginia.

Well Arizona as well.

People who grew up under FDR have long since passed or become such a small portion of the population that its irrelevant. That happened over a decade ago. Over the past decade the people who have been increasingly dying off in large numbers if the Silent generation - people who grew up mostly under Truman and Eisenhower, who have all tended to skew more Republican. Within 5 - 8 years all of the remaining silent gen. will be over 80 years old, which would be a very small portion of the electorate.

Point is, since 2007-ish, the death rates have increasingly and very disproportionately affected Republicans due to the heavy GOP leanings of the silent generation. Because the GOP relies heavily on Boomers and the older portion of Gen. X, old voters "aging" out of the electorate will disproportionately affect the GOP for the next 20 - 25 years at least.



It's more about long-term viability. Consistently scoring these kinds of numbers among Hispanics is going to eventually bring down states like TX, AZ and put states like NV/CO permanently off the map. Florida may also be another concern in this regard. Problems with minorities and Millennials is showing similar trends to other states slipping from the GOP's grasp, with the caveat here being that the constant influx of older voters and an electorate whose white voters have shifted more Republican has bought the GOP more time to dick around.

-

The GOP can't just write off these portions of the electorate. And waiting for them to assimilate and start voting like whites is ridiculous. It is basically the same as saying "we have no plan." There is no guarantee that will ever bring you close to the support you need long-term. It's also a pretty lazy approach that I can only imagine future Republicans will resent the older GOP generations for.

Virginia, you have a very overactive imagination. I suggest keeping it to yourself, lest you be embarrassed by another Trump victory.

Nothing in my post suggested Trump couldn't win in 2020. I even said long-term twice. If you want to call simple addition and subtraction part of my overactive imagination, then by all means, continue.

     Political trends are tricky business. It's not the most promising trend possible, but anyone putting too much faith in the continuation of current demographic trends and the continuation of current voting trends, whatever those trends are, is certain to be disappointed.

-Think a DJT Jr. victory in 2032. In any case, if you used your assumptions in 1988, you would have predicted inevitable doom for both DJT and GWB. Instead, the Hispanic and White votes both trended towards the GOP since then. Yes; in the long run, the country may be New Mexicanized, as you predict. But, despite the deterioration of U.S. institutions, the GOP will continue to survive, just as it does in mayoral races, though in a less conservative form (of course, I would prefer a more conservative form).

If, however, your assumptions are correct, the first priorities of the GOP should be immigration reduction and the institution of a stiff tax on out-of-wedlock births. The second priority of the GOP should be the institution of political business cycles to make sure economic growth is always highest in presidential election years, so as to positively impact the younger generation's perceptions of the GOP. The third priority of the GOP should be an incorporation of Ron Paulism into its appeal, for the same purpose as the second priority.

Republicans don't need the minority vote as long as they can keep increasing their share of the white vote. It makes sense as long as the cost of convincing the next marginal white person is lower than convincing the next marginal non-white person to vote for them. Unless the remaining white Democrats decide to become extremely stalwart for some reason, cannibalizing white Democratic support will always be easier.

The future of the country is in the hands of white Democrats. If they become extremely stalwart, the GOP will have to reach out to minority voters, which necessarily means abandoning the racist identity of the party. If that happens, racism will be without a major party and probably collapse as a force in politics. If white Democrats continue to switch to the GOP, you will see political racial polarization and race-based politics, ending in potential genocide. It's all up to white Democrats.

My advice to white Democrats would be to not be afraid to stand up to minority constituencies within the party. If you feel uncomfortable because of excessive anti-white rhetoric on the left, please speak up and stand up for yourself without guilt or shame. There are plenty of us minorities who are not extreme SJW. Since you are the glue holding the country together, the Democratic party should be catering to you moreso than minorities.

Actually, based on the numbers I would have seen then, which probably wouldn't have given me strong hope of the growth of a bloc of voters that is persistently & strongly Democratic (minorities), and strong GOP performance among the youth might have led me to believe the GOP will enjoy years longer of presidential success. All else things the same, without the growth of minorities that might have been true. Actually, though, despite Bill's 2 terms, the 80s-90s and early-mid 2000s was still a pretty good time for Republicans.



I do actually agree with your last 2 points there (business cycle & Paulism), although my opinions on the latter are more mixed. Your party for sure needs to stop picking losing fights over various social issues.



There lies the problem. TD has actually gone over this a couple different ways, iirc. For instance, the GOP's success in moving more whites into the party over the past 15+ years has simply been too little, too late. Their existing success would need to be accelerated a good bit, and right now there isn't much to show that they can actually keep getting more white voters anyway. They can try, but white Millennials so far have shown themselves not to be as receptive to the GOP and that would immediately hinder GOP efforts to expand their ranks.

-The Hispanic population grew by 50% during the 1980s. The non-Hispanic-White population grew by 6%. This was all well-covered at the time. Don't make up numbers. And Hispanics were far more strongly Democratic in the 1980s (relative to the non-Hispanic White vote) than today.

In the 1998 elections, the GOP won 55 Senate seats (one more than it did in the 2014 elections) and won the House popular vote by 1.1 points (4.6 points fewer than it did in 2014). The Clinton era was not a better time for the GOP than the Age of Obama.

You do realize DJT got more votes than any previous GOP nominee, right?

If DJT won uniformly 10% more of the Hispanic vote, he'd only win six more electoral votes. If he won uniformly 3.5% more of the non-Hispanic White vote, he'd have won twenty more electoral votes. White outreach is simply a winning strategy for the GOP, and it will be for decades to come. I'm not a fan of making up numbers.

The nationwide 1992 GOP bloodbath was not due to an influx of minorities, but WJC winning states like Kentucky and Montana.

The White youth in the 2000s were mentally scarred by the Iraq War and the GOP putting up candidates with no appeal to them. Trump solved some of these problems (especially on foreign policy) while creating others (expressing an explicit backward-looking posture on the economy). In any case, new generations always arise.

I don't respond to EHarding when he rambles about his devotion to this ideal of white America and his constant fears of "New Mexico" America but a funny thought about the white vote struck me. Atlasia is vastly majority white, American, and would run into the 60s-70s leftist. I can't help but wonder if Atlas liberals represent the constant of 35-38% whites who vote Democratic in federal elections. If that's the case, Atlasia Democrats and minorities might be enough to derail EHarding's hopes. :D

Oh, and Trump won 18-29 whites by less than Romney did. They were 47-43% Republican, compared to 51-44% Republican in 2012.

The problem is that his white vote majority wasn't enough to surmount the fact that Latinos and minority voters were overall able to deliver a strong plurality to Clinton in the popular vote. It's not so much that Trump barely outperformed Romney as much as that given the glacial shift in the white population for the GOP that minority voters are going to be vastly more important going forward in the future.

-It's called Massachusetts. I know it exists, and why: the marriage gap+liberal elitism. I prefer current New Mexico to current Massachusetts, but only due to the rent differential.

That 18-29 Whites number sounds dubious; HRC was a much worse candidate for young people than Barry O. The Upshot says White northern voters 18-29 without a college degree had the strongest anti-Dem trend of any age group:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/upshot/how-the-obama-coalition-crumbled-leaving-an-opening-for-trump.html?_r=0

-A majority of HRC's coalition was non-Hispanic White.

I dunno - I don't know what was well covered in the 80s, and I would have liked to see real changes in the electorate before I made assumptions. Maybe all the data was there to see and I'd draw different conclusions than what I'm saying here? I don't know why you'd assume that I know what was available to me in the 80s.

I'm not really trying to engage in a hostile argument with you, EHarding, so don't be a dick. You've been doing this pretty much as soon as you started here. Just quit it already.


Population growth? He still got 45.9% in the end. Saying he got the most votes for a Republican ever is as pointless as saying Obama got the most votes ever for any president in 2008, when he only won the PV by a single digit margin.


Look, I mean, you can keep acting like it won't matter what they do in regards to this but in the future that kind of thinking is not going to be thought well of. I'd bet the farm on it.

As for the 90s not being better than the Obama-era - I never said it was, you did, and in fact I'm not sure why I made that arbitrary date range but regardless it was still a good time for the GOP, compared to years before.


I don't know, based on the election results he isn't very well liked. 48% to 43% among white Millennials is pretty bad. Maybe in 2020 if he actually runs again, it improves, but that is anyone's guess right now. I'm sure me and you have very different opinions on how that'll play out.

And yes, new generations will arise. I'm sure the GOP will hit it out of the park with white youth down the road some time, but forgive me if I don't think that monster will help at all.

OK

Sigh. Just because northern whites without a college degree turned towards Trump doesn't mean that overall all 18-29 whites did. Just because you dislike a stat I cited from the exit polling does nor make it untrue. I realize facts are out in the Trump era but…

I'm sure your world is just as insulated as mine based off of all of these comments, but you act like there aren't just as many elitist conservatives as there are elitist liberals.  You're wrong.

-There are as many rich conservatives as there are rich liberals, but elitism isn't quite the same as wealth. Yes; conservative elitism still exists in the U.S.; the Mercers are a big example. Williamson TN and Delaware OH haven't gone Dem yet. But a whole lot of traditionally Republican elites really showed their true (liberal) colors when Trump appeared before them. Just look at East Grand Rapids.

Considering you can't put TRUE tolerance (not SJW crap) on a simple left-right scale, a lot of those people - in addition to being turned off by Trump's, err, less-than-sophisticated language toward certain Americans - opposed Trump on the grounds that he wasn't ENOUGH in line with conservative thinking on issues such as entitlements, trade and foreign policy, so that's just a load of shlt.  Your ideology and that of Trump's most loyal supporters might be in the right at the end of the day, but conservatism is not officially defined by whatever angry Whites are feeling, in fact quite the opposite.  White Southerners who felt left behind during the Great Depression weren't conservatives, period.  Non-college Whites who flocked to Trump, similarly, don't get to redefine an ideology to describe whatever the hell they think.

RINO Tom, do you think my ideology is conservative?

Yes, EXTREMELY so.

-RINO, people like you did not vote for HRC because she was an avatar of conservatism. Look at your political matrix score. Now look at mine. These people were merely Carter-hating low-tax liberals. I'm not a fan. As for the True Conservatives, every single county in Indiana that went for Cruz in the primary trended towards Trump in the general. And every county that trended against Trump in Indiana had a Kasich vote share above that of Indiana as a whole. It wasn't conservative Republicans that crossed party lines this year to vote for HRC. It was the least conservative portion of the party. Just compare Kasich and Cruz's congressional voting records.

EHarding, I have to disagree with you there.  Places like the suburbs of Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston aren't exactly liberal Republican bastions and are very ideologically conservative (look at who represents these areas in Congress).  There were some conservatives turned off by Trump, but I think these are the first people he would win back in 2020.

-This isn't 1996. Fairfax and DuPage were Dole counties, too. Things change. Barbara Comstock's, Pete Sessions's, and Tom Price's seats will be Titanium D by 2026. I haven't checked the primary vote in TX and GA, but my guess is Rubio and Kasich voters, having a similar demographic to Obama primary White voters, will someday leave the GOP for good. They are "the least conservative portion of the party", though they are still by no means always unwilling to support men like Price and Sessions. They remain largely Republican downballot for similar reasons people like them were Dole voters two decades ago.

Turns out, Cruz primary voteshare was uncorrelated with Trump overperforming Romney in the general election in GA.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/11/17/a_deep_dive_into_the_trump_and_clinton_coalitions_132367.html

I only consider a Cruz vote outside Texas a true anti-Trump True Conservative vote. Rubio voters still largely (though not entirely) belonged to "the least conservative portion of the party".

*snorts* I voted for Cruz in the Republican Primaries. And better yet I voted similarly in 2012's Republican primaries. I believed Cruz was a genuine Reaganite not the half addled protectionist nationalist nonsense Trump is. I certainly as heck didn't vote for that orange buffoon and I would never do so.

Thanks for “validating˝ that I acted like a conservative in the primaries though!

People like me, specifically, voted for Hillary because they thought Trump was quite literally unfit for office, beyond politics.  Hardly a comment on my political ideology.

Conservatism comes in many forms, and different voters prioritize different parts.  My sister's best friend's dad, who lives in Zionsville, IN (a suburb of Indy) and owns his own business is extremely conservative but doesn't think cultural things being legislated through the government is a worthwhile fight; he is just as conservative (I'd argue more) than some culturally conservative guy who rails against elites, wants to limit free trade and thinks, "yeah, ya know what?  The Democrats WERE right about taxing those evil millionaires a little bit more!"

A "low-tax liberal," as you describe such a person, is more conservative than a xenophobic liberal who shouts conservative as loud as they can, which is what this mythical "Working Class White" voter you fetishize about is.

Why don't we all just be across-the-board conservatives on both the economy and social/cultural issues? :)  :)

Because actual Trumpists (not counting the tons of people that voted for him, not endorsing his "movement" but to stop Hillary) aren't conservatives; they share nothing in common with the tradition of the Republican Party.  They just want an outlet for their anger over cultural change and what they see as an inadequate America, compared to some romanticized golden age.  Some had legitimate concerns, some are just intolerant.  Either way, they don't get to start being the RINO police, as they're all at LEAST as "not sufficiently conservative" as people like John Kasich or Marco Rubio.

Honestly, if we're going to start tossing around who's a conservative and not, why don't we start with the fact that Trump is decidedly to the left on several issues that would delineate traditional conservative orthodoxy in this age; e.g, commitment to free markets (read: free trade), lower taxes (Trump has said that he is open to raising taxes on the rich and negotiating with the Democrats), minimum wage (again, Trump has indicated a willingness to see a higher minimum wage), opposition to authoritarian regimes that threaten the hegemony and stability of the United States (Russia). There is of course Trump's famous break with neoconservatism (the war in Iraq), which he concocted some conspiracy theory about.

By a lot of metrics, Donald Trump is no conservative. His supporters are people who want government to actively interfere in the economy to restore jobs that have been lost through automation and trade (more automation). And arguably, if we're going by Reaganite conservatism, the Gipper and G.W. both favored immigration reform.

Trump is a populist conservative - no doubt he's conservative in a couple of areas, but to say that anti-Trumpists aren't conservative or somehow are not Republicans in name only is funny given Trump refused to commit to the GOP nominee if it wasn't him and broke with conservative orthodoxy multiple times.

Guys, let's look at the constituency correlations. Kasich voters tended to live around general election Obama voters to the greatest extent. Super Tuesday Rubio voters did so to a lesser extent; cf., Rubio's win in solidly Republican Williamson County, TN, but the correlation between White Obama vote in November 2012 and Rubio primary vote share is still very much positive (look at Atlanta, NoVa, etc.). Cruz voters tended to live in the most pro-Romney areas in November 2012. The typical Trump voter lived in a less pro-Obama county than the typical Super Tuesday Rubio voter, but in a more pro-Obama one than the typical Cruz voter. The ideologies are, thus, Kasich to the Left of Rubio, who's to the Left of Trump, who's to the Left of Cruz. Very simple, and consistent with a first impression.

TD, you're going to be the new BRTD by the time this is over.

RINO, Trump's positions simply are not that different from those of Coolidge. They are well within Fourth Party System GOP tradition. I mean, you even call yourself RINO Tom, and have a Political Matrix score clearly less conservative than mine, so your redefinition of low-tax liberalism as conservatism is a bit rich.

I voted for Trump in the primary because I did not trust Cruz with the nuclear button or to be genuinely independent of outside influences. I would have gladly voted for him over HRC had he been the nominee because of the Supreme Court, as unlikeable as he was.

I don't know who BTRD is, in the first place, and second of all, I anticipate keeping my positions, just resisting your nationalist cult of the God-Emperor and his goons. I don't anticipate ever joining the Left in a formal position, and while I may vote Democratic to resist Trump, I certainly find myself feeling more conservative than liberal. (Of the neoliberal variety).

I assume that I rejoin the GOP once the crazy nationalists are thrown out of power in 2024 and we resettle into a more traditional dynamic. That would be up to the GOP to determine, however.

EDIT: I am somewhat open to Pence, provided he takes the necessary steps to repudiate Trumpism on Russia, et al.

If Kasich and Rubio don't count as "conservative" by your definition, clearly your definition is very narrow...

And wrong, LOL.

Anywho, I won't get into why I think being a protectionist in Coolidge's age is completely different than being one today (and, using Coolidge's own pro-business rhetoric on the issue, arguably closer to being for free trade today ... motive is ALWAYS more important than method, period), as I have discussed it so many times here.  Bottom line is that people like Eharding (and, ironically, Non Swing Voter on the other side of the aisle) are absolutely adamant that affluent Republicans - some of the voters who have been with the party the longest, LOL - will eventually just become straight-ticket Democrats, and the idea is ridiculous for a number of reasons that they aren't willing to listen to (two particularly funny ones are that this BS "college degree" correlation has a hell of a lot more to do with the AGE of the White voters in question than some magical political change that happens if you go to college and also that the exact types of people they think are going to be exiting the GOP HAVEN'T EXITED THE GOP AND ARE VERY INTENT ON STAYING, haha), but that is not the narrative either of those groups (Trumpist populists and self-deluded liberal hacks) want to push; neither furthers the grand battle they perceive themselves to be fighting.

-What's your beef with Russia? That it's fighting ISIS too hard?

-Rubio's conservative, Kasich is not. It is, thus, notable, that Rubio (much as I dislike him) voted for Trump and Kasich didn't.

-You know the state that voted Republican the most times was Vermont, right? It had a GOP Senator as recently as 2000. Times change.

Trump literally hired the CEO of ExxonMobil as his Secretary of State. He's one of the most pro-business presidents in history.

I understand nations that interfere with Germany's, France, and our elections, plus opposition to NATO, plus doesn't want us in the Ukraine, or wants to expand its sphere and take away our influence and autocratic regimes are not much of a issue for you but they're an issue for me.

Russia is a menace. And yes, while you're for Mother Russia, I'll be happily in the anti-Russia conservative camp. Autocratic leaders who aren't for us (or willing to be for us) aren't really my thing.

-What has NATO done since 1992 other than encourage Islamic terrorism? "Interfere" is anti-thinking, it is a word meant to obscure, not describe. How's the non-autocratic Libya working out?

NATO has been involved in Bosnia. Generally, it's a nice European-American military alliance that keeps us fairly close. And it's a good organization to get Putin's hackles up and it bothers him. So I like NATO. Also you disliking NATO is a positive point for it.

"Interfere" isn't anti-thinking. I see you've adopted the 1984 Orwellian Trumpian thoughtspeak that means "Up is down." But no, in the real world, they interfere and try to swing these elections. I kind of have an objection. Now if you believe that we should be a satellite of Russia, we totally don't agree with the premise of this debate.

I see now you're a troll who likes autocracy. And that concludes my 30 seconds snarky answer/entertainment to you.

Moving along to more interesting things in life.

Based on this post, all I can assume is that "whether or not they voted for Trump" is your only qualifier for "conservatism", which I still consider to be a very weird definition.

-Nope. I'm going by Congressional voting record here. Jeff Flake's conservative, for instance.

Okay, I'll bite. On which issues is Kasich not conservative on?

Learn your history. NATO troops fought in Afghanistan to keep Taliban out of power, who were providing sanctuary to Al-Qaeda

-And Afghanistan remains a terrorist haven.

I don't know about you, but where I've lived (Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, and Southern California), white-mexican dating/marriage is not uncommon.  Many of their children will dabble in Mexican culture, but many more probably won't even learn Spanish and may just identify as "white" with the census out of convenience.  Some Mexican Americans live on the East Side of L.A., some live in a small town in Iowa, some in the hills of Colorado.  They're already a lot more geographically dispersed than the African-American community has ever been, and consequently have different lifestyles, jobs, and economic interests.  They don't have the memory of slavery/jim crow and a subsequent Civil Rights Bill to put 90% of them on the same side of the political spectrum.  For these reasons, the hispanic vote, even the Mexican-Am vote in particular, is fundamentally different than the black vote, and as a result not monolithic.       

EHarding, you keep mentioning Williamson County, TN as an example of an upper-income place that voted against Trump in the primary and then refer to these types of places as places that will eventually be Democratic strongholds.  Do you really expect Williamson County- which The Daily Caller ranks as the most conservative place in America- to become Democratic territory?

-By fits and starts, eventually. Not in 2024, but maybe 2036. The model for this is DuPage county, IL. Nearly the same percentage of Williamson County, TN voters went for HRC in 2016 as DuPage County, IL voters went for Michael Dukakis. Twenty years after 1988, DuPage County, IL voted Dem for the first time ever -and will stay that way on the presidential level for a long, long time. But I expect Delaware County, Ohio and the Texas suburbs to flip first. Who will be Texas's Democratic John Tower, I wonder?

-Immigration, Medicaid expansion, Roe v. Wade, same-sex marriage, Common Core.

It is certainly what he wants to happen, but it obviously won't.  WWC voters will become Democrats before Williamson County types, easily.

I agree but what are Williamson types? Genuinely curious.

-WWC were always the swing vote. The last time they were more Dem than college-educated Whites was the 1996 presidential election. I think the education gap will only intensify in the coming two decades.

Williamson County, Tennessee (a wealthy and conservative suburb of Nashville):

-The richest county in America, adjusted for cost of living (and richest in the South, even without an adjustment)
-The biggest homes in America
-Ranked by the Daily Caller as the most conservative county in America

It is the type of place where pure Heritage Foundation policies are extremely popular.  It is the base of Marsha Blackburn's (who is so conservative that she rejects the term "congresswoman" as a politically correct misnomer) support.

-Also, most pro-Dole county in Tennessee in 1996, and the only county in TN that went for Rubio in the primary, as well as the one in TN that swung most against the GOP nominee in 2016. One of the few counties in TN to go for Obama over HRC in 2008 and to swing in the direction of Barack Obama in the general that same year.

Makes sense to me. Yeah I see WWC going Dem before this county.

Because millennials are very Democratic and more have college degrees, not because of a long term shift in how affluent Whites vote.  Really pretty simple: as having a college degree has become less exclusive, that share of the electorate has gotten more Democratic (not to mention a heavily Democratic generation of New Deal folks, VERY few of which had a college degree, ceasing to be part of the electorate).

It is SO far from a sure thing that Trumpism defines the GOP going forward.  It's equally likely this is a fluke.

-That's clearly wrong, as the Democratic trend has been largest among postgraduates. Yes; there has been a clear shift in how affluent Whites vote; look at Denver and Chicago suburbs.

John McCain, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, and Marco Rubio are the Republican Party's past. They are not its future.

-You do realize Dana Rohrabacher represents a Clinton district, right?

-Californian Hispanics are strongly Democrat because California's non-Hispanic Whites are strongly Democrat. California is filled with liberal elitists, including some of the first non-Jewish ones to switch to the Dems.

LIBRULLL ELEATS.

-No; the GOP didn't max out the White vote. VA's White vote in 2012 was only slightly more Republican than Indiana's, and far less so than Texas's, Georgia's, or even North Carolina's. The reason Trump lost Virginia was because a bunch of White liberal elitists moved in, attracted by filthy DC lucre. Washington, DC does not exist in every state in the country. In any case, it's still objectively easier for the GOP to win DC elitists (much as I despise them) than it is for them to win minorities. Look at Comstock.

Why do you suppose making gains among Dem minorities (a numerically smaller group nationwide than White Dems) would be any easier for the GOP than making massive gains among White Dems? Trump at least demonstrated one can do the latter, at least, among some types of White Dems. Meanwhile, not a single Republican candidate has ever won the Hispanic vote.

-Yes; see the Kasich-voting towns in Massachusetts. They exist.

The one place where it might be profitable for the GOP to make gains among Hispanics is southern California. This is simply judging from the manner Schwarzenegger won. New Mexico might be another case. There really aren't that many others.

-Which Republican candidates on a statewide level have actually won the Hispanic vote without winning the liberal elitist vote? The big one I can think of is Schwarzenegger 2003.

A note about Millennials: as one poster (I believe EHarding) pointed out, a lot of white millennials were repelled from the GOP during the Bush years and Iraq.  This generation is in their 30s now, many probably still hold an animosity towards the GOP, though I personally know a few older millennials who've mellowed out and become moderate or even conservative.  My cousin was a This-is-all-Bushes-fault! college lefty in 2004, now she's married with a kid in the burbs and voted for Trump.

Today's Younger 20s Millennials are more racially diverse and some are very passionate leftists (SJWs), some are loud-and-proud conservative nationalists (Alt-Right).  I think social media and the internet radicalized a lot of people.  You have some left-leaning trends since the 2000s and the unpopularity of Bush, but also an overreach of leftism that helped create the Trump phenomenon.  Take for instance the rise of BLM, Milo Yiannapoulos, the Trans-bathrooms debate, all popular/hot (and controversial) topics especially amongst the younger Gen-Yers.  Diversity and political correctness was more of a cool concept to Gen-Xers and older Millennials, now it's a reality to the younger ones, not to mention the emerging Generation Z.

As a whole, I think Millennials have been a more Democratic-friendly generation, although noticeably more and more polarized, with many white millennials becoming more conservative like their parents did as they get older.  Romney's and Trump's performance gap between white millennials and non-white millennials is startling.

-OK; areas of a per capita income 50% or more above the national average in which Obama got over 60% of the non-Hispanic-White vote in 2012.

-Fairfax County did not fall into this category in 2012 (maybe 2016?), but Arlington and Alexandria sure did.

In any case, I repeat my question: which Republican candidates on a statewide level have actually won the Hispanic vote without winning the liberal elitist vote?

John McCain has won as much as 65% of the hispanic vote in his Arizona Senate campaigns. Not exactly sure if there are that many liberal elitists in Arizona, much less how they feel about Sen. McCain, but the Trumpie populists and the Alt-Right crowd sure do despise him.

The problem with this question is that only one of those demographics exists.

FTFY. :)

I define "Liberal elitists" as "residents of an area with a per capita income 50% or more above the national average in which Obama got over 60% of the non-Hispanic-White vote in 2012".

-The closest thing to a "liberal elitist" area in AZ is Coconino County. Did he crack 60% there when he won Hispanics?

Such a broad brush you have there.

-Narrow, you mean. Does not include Fairfax County, as Non-Swing pointed out.

No, broad. You're just assuming those people in those areas are "liberal elites." You don't know them, so how would you know? What about the residents there that didn't vote for Obama?

If you're going to go trying to define "liberal elites" like that, at least come up with more detailed criteria.

In the long term, the Republicans best chance of winning Hispanic votes is to focus on the needs of blue collar Americans. In the end, Hispanics have more in common with working class whites than they do with college educated whites, and are unlikely to be a permanently disadvantaged community. Now, Donald Trump is not the ideal Republican candidate to do so, but he's also not going to be president forever. It turns out Hispanics want the same things everyone else does.

-I have sympathies to this position, but Hispanics clearly have a great deal of Dem machine loyalty not explainable by social rank. Compare places of similar income in East Tennessee and South Texas.

Working class Whites, by how you both defined them, will not be a significant part of the GOP in 20 years.  The future of minority outreach is getting affluent minorities to appreciate conservatism that would benefit them.

True the White Vote although shrinking as a % of CA's electorate has gone or swung more Dem than in a lot of other states of late.

Trump? Hispanics didn't vote any differently for Trump than they did for other GOP Presidential Nominees pre-Trump.

Jewish People-They are a D voting group although Romney won 37% of the Jewish Vote in 2012 but Trump only ran low-mid 20's with them.

Yeah Trump is pro-business but he is a populist on the issue of trade for example.

Yeah but Silents weren't always as Republicans as they are now. They either split 50/50 between the 2 parties from 1993-2008 or slightly leaned R. They have only swung heavily R since the 2008 Presidential Election. Silents actually voted for Clinton in '96 and Gore in 2000 that were 18 years of age when Eisenhower was President. Silents who were 18 when Truman were President voted for Gore in 2000 and were only 1 point more R than the overall Presidential Vote in 1996.

True Silents who were 18 years old when Eisenhower was President voted for Bush W. in 2004 but they voted at the Presidential Popular Vote average. Also, yes Silents voted for Bush W. in 2004 and were 3 points more R than the overall Presidential Popular Vote.

-Affluent minorities do not and will not "appreciate conservatism" because they aren't conservative. The WWC is. Your predictions are quite far from reality. Would you have predicted in 1996 that the Dems would win DuPage County in 2012?

Minorities are not an alien species. They can vote for conservatives, provided the right political approach and structure. The first thing would be to stop treating them as a - oh it's eHarding. Why do I even bother. He's an unreconstructed segregationist.

Black Voters have been voting 90-10% D for 50 years and I don't think that's changing anytime soon. The Republicans get around 27-30% of the Hispanic Vote each Presidential Election nationally. In California I think the Republican Candidate gets 20-25% of the Hispanic Vote each Presidential Election.

No, that's a myth actually that the California Governor(Pete Wilson) and Prop 187 that the Hispanic Vote got more Dem. I read somewhere(I think it was National Review) that 23% of Hispanics identified as Republicans in CA in 1990 but in 1992 that number was only 12%. 33% of Hispanics actually voted for Prop 187 in 1994 and Pete Wilson got 21% of the Hispanic Vote but he actually did win 20% of the Black Vote that year.

The Asian Vote is only important in VA and NV. I do think with Rubio and Kasich a Republican Presidential Candidate could have done well in NOVA in order to win Virginia or at least come close to winning it but Trump was the wrong republican candidate for the state.

Yeah but the state changed very little in terms of demographics from 2004 when Bush W. carried Virginia in the Presidential Election to 2006 when Jim Webb beat George Allen in the 2006 US Senate Race there.

Hispanics actually vote more R the more money that they make. With Asian and Black People income means very little in terms of voting R vs D although the poorest Asians do vote more D than the Asian Vote as a whole.

WWC is conservative-Depends which WWC's you are talking about. If you are talking WWC Conservatives than yes but if you are talking about WWC Moderates than no. WWC's aren't conservative as a whole I don't think. Obama only lost WWC Moderates by 13% in 2012 where as Hillary lost them by double that by 26% from an article I read on Real Clear Politics.Com  a couple months ago.

I don't know if I am going off on topic here but without Cook County and it wouldn't matter how DuPage County votes Illinois is probably politically like Missouri.

-Try Iowa or Ohio. Trump won Illinois by 6.75 points outside Cook County.

-I suspect the income--->Republican vote correlation among Hispanics is stronger in low-rent states such as TX than in high-rent states like CA.

I think the fundamental disagreements about which groups are, which groups aren't, and which groups could potentially be conservative has to do with the fact that the different ideological factions of conservatism are splintering and in the process of potentially realigning. The foreign policy conservatives are already some of the most alienated from the current shift under Trump, which is why so many of the former Reagan through Bush Jr. era security-intelligence community and state department officials overwhelmingly backed Clinton. Socially moderate, fiscal conservatives were also appalled by Trump and swung against him in many suburbs across the nation during the election, and this is the group that has the greatest potential for even further alienation from the conservative coalition. College-educated Whites compose a rather large percentage of this branch of the conservative coalition, and college educated whites are far less receptive to authoritarian populism than working class whites.

And then there's the social conservatives, who I would argue are the true lifeblood of the Republican party, and also the reason that the original conservative coalition is possibly on the verge of unraveling entirely. The Religious Right has so heavily affixed themselves to the Republican platform that they have essentially politicized the Republican party into a self-styled "Christian" party. No, you don't have to be Christian to be a Republican, but "traditional" Christian values are a hallmark of the Republican brand. The crux of the matter is that American society is increasingly not accepting traditional Christian values as the standard, and the Evangelicals, conservative Catholics, and conservative Mainlines have as a result fulfilled the role of cultural reactionaries. Trump has finalized the transfer of a new group of cultural reactionaries who aren't nearly as religiously minded yet still have political enemies in common with social conservatives: liberals, illegal immigrants, and Muslims.

Trump is now overwhelmingly backed by conservative Christians despite a cool reception at first, because he has promised to be their culturally reactionary champion. He has pandered to them in the most obscenely hollow of ways, yet that in itself should indicate how they will accept anybody who pantomimes their values no matter how insincere and shallow the display may be. They are desperate to turn back the tide of a diversifying, liberalizing, and increasingly pluralist society that doesn't follow their norms.

The threat here is that Trump could end up realigning the axis of the Republican party. Traditionally, social conservatives and social moderates in the right wing have found common ground on economic issues. Trump has the potential to shift that alliance into one between social conservatives and economic protectionists by having cultural reactionism usurp fiscal policy as the unifying link between factions. That would wholesale alienate the majority of your educated suburban, socially moderate Republicans that already swung against Trump in the general election. That should serve as an omen to what could happen to an even greater degree if cultural issues become the defining feature of the Republican party under Trump's auspices, because college-educated, fiscally conservative Republicans have more in common culturally with college educated liberals than they do with either social conservatives or the Trump faction.

I'm not saying this necessarily will happen, but if it does, it's the recipe for Republicans delegating themselves to the status of a minority party for at least a couple of decades. They would become the party of White Christian nationalism during a period of time when a rising tide of minorities, immigrants, Millennials, and college-educated Whites want nothing to do with White Christian nationalism. This is what the Republicans must keep in mind if they want to remain a viable party on the national level.

Tartarus, you are half-right and half-wrong. What you must remember is there are ALWAYS more people than elites. That's how Trump won.

Demographics is destiny,  Part 87744081116664327 - as the Democratic Party controls quite close to absolutely nothing at any level of government.

Yes, but that will change in four years when more older people die off, you see.

But that means nothing. From 1968 - 1992, where Republicans controlled the presidency, their power at almost every level was driven to depths that were at times far lower than what Democrats suffer from now. Clinton's first midterm and Democrats imploded, not to recover for a long time. Point is: if there is a genuine shift in the electorate, how much power a party has at the time won't really matter.

And this is a discussion about a long-term event. That it hasn't materialized endless results right now doesn't make it less significant. This topic is pretty much centered around something that we have acknowledged won't happen for years. The least you could do is not make fun of something that quite frankly isn't as stupid or meaningless as you think.


For as simplistic as you think we're being, you're being equally simplistic in ignoring the significance of what it means for a party who is heavily reliant on old people to lose more old people every 4 years than the opposition.

Will you stop acting like Clinton voters were "elites"?

-Romney-Clinton voters were mostly elites.

That's the point: White people with college degrees aren't "elite," they're very mainstream.

Yeah. Who exactly is he talking about? Not the guy in that Identity Theft moving with Jenny McCartney...

I'm sure the Dems numbers will go up in 2018 with controlling Governors Mansions and Congressional Seats.

CT hasn't gone Republican in a Presidential Election since 1988 and it has been solid Dem at the Congressional Level since the 2006 mid-term elections. Same thing with IL in that a Republican Presidential Candidate hasn't win the state since 1988. I think if the Hispanic Population keeps growing as a % of the states population that IL might be enough for a Generic Dem Presidential Candidate to keep the state in the D Column for a long while even with Cook County losing overall in migration numbers.

Not enough religious white people-maybe.  Not enough white nationalists- no. Not enough nationalists-maybe.

The GOP alienates big business-I don't see that.
Law Firms-Attorneys donate to mostly Dems anyway.
Newspapers-Articles written in newspapers that are political are mostly written by Dems.
Media-Mainstream Media has always voted for Dems.
Technology-Maybe, but Silicon Valley is Dem anyways.

Immigration-He supports Immigration Reform-yes.
Medicaid Expansion-Yes he supported Medicaid Expansion in his state.
SSM-He supports traditional marriage but is not hardline against SSM like other Republicans are on the topic.  He attended a gay friends wedding.
Common Core-He likes the ideas of the program but not the program itself.
Abortion-He did defund Planned Parenthood in his state but supports exceptions on the topic like rape and incest.

See that might be a problem in the future for Republicans in that are people are moving to cities which are Dem and suburbs around the cities which is where the least Conservative parts of the Republican Party are located. People aren't moving to counties which Cruz won and that trended towards Trump. Republicans might have to have modify their policies on the Federal Level sooner or later because of where people are moving to currently.

generation x is going to balance out. plus you still got the generation before

What does that mean, and how do you know?