Trump: GOP will become "workers' party"

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Trump is Teddy Roosevelt with less likability and with an electorate that is less susceptible  to his off-color style (aka, unlike Teddy, he'll lose); the GOP wasn't like Trump/Roosevelt before, and it won't be like Trump after he's gone (just like it went back to normal after Teddy/Taft).

For the final time, until the Democrats offer a cozy home to affluent Whites and the business community, they're going to remain Republicans, regardless of infighting (there have always been factions, for Christ's sake) ... and the Democrats are NOT going to offer that sanctuary.  Period.  They are a party of the truly poor, minorities, government employees, public unions, academia and social justice warriors; not one of those groups is going to be okay with shifting in an even more neoliberal direction, as evidenced by the Democratic Party of 2016 arguing over how much taxes should go up, how much we should restrict free trade and how tough we should be on Wall Street.  Progressive economic thought is winning right now, and Trump is reacting (just like economic conservatism was winning in the '80s and '90s and Clinton reacted), but there's literally zero chance that the GOP moves further left than the Democrats.  Zero.  And that's what would have to happen for this realignment that some of you Dems are having wet dreams about.

For every move the GOP has made "left" fiscally, the Democrats are about ten steps ahead and show no signs of slowing down, even with (for some reason seen as at all moderate) Hillary.

I don't think Republicans will move left long term but Democrats will absolutely move right and it's already started. You see that in Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's opposition to free college because "then rich people will get free college too". Similarly, I've met many leftists and SJWs who think minimum wage laws shouldn't apply to small (ie immigrant and minority owned) businesses because they can't compete otherwise. There's been talk of means testing Social Security and when people discover that that means taking away benefits from White people, that talk will only get louder. Free trade is an odd one. That's like a Bernie personal opinion and a lot of his supporters cling to it because it demonstrates a concrete different he has with Hillary. Really though, polls show most Democrats support free trade. As the party becomes more foreign born and less union, those pro-free trade numbers will only increase.

This.  And if Trump does relatively well (particularly if he does better than Romney), we really could see Republicans become the party of the economic left over the next 20 years.  The final and most uncertain part of this would be the Sanders/Warren people bolting the Dems over their moderation and eventually ending up in the GOP.  The parties have switched positions on economics before and it could happen again.

LOL, okay, I can't do this again; believe what you will.

I don't see the Democrats becoming more economically liberal than the GOP, and I agree with the poster who pointed out that real realignment is not likely to come from Trump because Trumpism doesn't have other politicians behind it (unlike, say, the Tea Party). 

What Trump HAS done is exposed the GOP as a party that is not monolithically a "small government" party.  Indeed, it has shown the GOP to be, clearly, a majority-statist party, with a number of their statists quite OK with what "pure" conservatives and libertarians might view as "Nanny Statism".  I think we are at the end of the road where Movement Conservatives can honestly assert that the reason the GOP loses is because it's candidates "aren't conservatives".  I would suggest that the last two GOP nominees were, in fact, to the right of the ideological midpoint of the GOP.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

It's a little bit of a relief that Trump supporters (outside of this forum) aren't much crazier about universal health care than Cruz supporters (and less so than Kasich supporters. Perhaps small-government conservatism will prove to be a stronger force within the GOP than many here are predicting.

I am curious here.  My wife has just been diagnosed with cancer.  Even with good insurance, I am still facing significant out-of-pocket costs.  If I didn't have the insurance I have, I doubt my wife would have had the favorable prognosis she has received after surgery.

So what is the conservative plan for folks like me, had I been unemployed and there had been no Obamacare?  I'd really like to know.  You can say "Medical Savings Accounts", but how would that help me in my situation; I'm almost 60 and my wife and I have a 10 year old who also has medical issues.  We live quite modestly, and I don't complain about what I earn because I've made those choices, and my wife has made those choices for the benefit of our youngest son (we have 2 grown sons as well).  But, frankly, if I had lost my job and my health insurance, I don't see any way in the world my wife would have had the treatment she received.  We wouldn't have had the money, and she'd have been left to die.  Please tell me I'm wrong, but please don't tell me that America is a generous nation.  That's only true until a specific request for help is made, as least as far as we have been concerned.  If I'm as self-reliant as I can be, it's because I've seen how good others are at not giving a crap enough to provide tangible help.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

It's a little bit of a relief that Trump supporters (outside of this forum) aren't much crazier about universal health care than Cruz supporters (and less so than Kasich supporters. Perhaps small-government conservatism will prove to be a stronger force within the GOP than many here are predicting.

I am curious here.  My wife has just been diagnosed with cancer.  Even with good insurance, I am still facing significant out-of-pocket costs.  If I didn't have the insurance I have, I doubt my wife would have had the favorable prognosis she has received after surgery.

So what is the conservative plan for folks like me, had I been unemployed and there had been no Obamacare?  I'd really like to know.  You can say "Medical Savings Accounts", but how would that help me in my situation; I'm almost 60 and my wife and I have a 10 year old who also has medical issues.  We live quite modestly, and I don't complain about what I earn because I've made those choices, and my wife has made those choices for the benefit of our youngest son (we have 2 grown sons as well).  But, frankly, if I had lost my job and my health insurance, I don't see any way in the world my wife would have had the treatment she received.  We wouldn't have had the money, and she'd have been left to die.  Please tell me I'm wrong, but please don't tell me that America is a generous nation.  That's only true until a specific request for help is made, as least as far as we have been concerned.  If I'm as self-reliant as I can be, it's because I've seen how good others are at not giving a crap enough to provide tangible help.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

How in the ever-loving name of Jesus tap-dancing Christ do you think lowering people's tax rates, even as much as a couple dollars a week (real money to most people), is going to address the kind of catastrophic health care coverage Fuzzy talked about? How on earth would address those working and earning too much for Medicaid but too little to afford free-market insurance?!?

There are alternatives to single payer and the "low tax savings accounts" silliness you proposed. Still, you want anecdotes? Fine. I had a Canadian friend who broke his leg in PA and adamantly refused to be admitted to the US healthcare system--particularly it's insurance scheme--and chose to have his friends drive multiple hours back across the border before he went to the hospital. I have Canadian friends and they (gasp) get news up there and am familiar with our "system". And yet none of them--not even the conservatives--would dream of exchanging it.

For that matter, how has Romneycare worked in Massachusetts? Any great call to repeal it? Didn't think so.

Quit using talking points. Your post is bad, and you should feel bad.

Had Romney not ran away from his signature accomplishment and proposed reasonable adjustments/reforms to Obamacare, I may well have voted for him in 2012.  As I live in Florida, that may have helped him out, dontcha think?

I am touched by the concern shown in posts here.  My wife has had a good report; the surgeon believes that they have removed all the cancer, and she will be going for radiation treatment as precautionary.  (She is now in the category of "cancer survivor" and all that implies.)  

I would also mention the situation of my 10 year old son, which is more common.  He is actually my grandson, who we have had to adopt through the Foster Care system, due to "system failure" (to put it mildly) on the part of my son and daughter-in-law.  He requires medication for ADHD (which would cost $200/month out of pocket) and asthma (about the same).  Again, because he has my excellent medical insurance, I'm in good shape here.  And on top of this, because he was adopted through the Foster Care system, he has Medicaid through age 19, which will cover him in whatever state he lives in (though not at the level of my health insurance).  If worst came to worst regarding my job, he'd at least be covered through age 19, even if I move to another state.  

So I am blessed here, but I am also painfully aware of what his situation would be if I did not have these resources for him as well.  If I had no health insurance, and no Obamacare, I might be able to get by with Florida Kid Care, maybe, but not at the level I'm at now.  And that's the level he needs, optimally.  If we had no health insurance, I'd be sunk.  I don't know that I'd be able to afford "family" health insurance, especially at my age.  I don't know what his "preexisting conditions" would cause me.  Perhaps he'd be one of the ADHD kids who receive no needed medication, while their parents pat themselves on the back for not "drugging" their kids as they fail in school.  (Perhaps my religious conservative friends will demonstrate to me how more corporal punishment will get such kids to "pay attention".)  I see this all the time; one of my son's peers has ADHD, but his parents cannot pay for the medication, and the other boy struggles in the school environment.  That boy didn't struggle anywhere near as much when he was on his
medications.  I would kindly suggest that this unmedicated child impacts his entire class.  I don't even want to think of how much dental visits would cost me if he needed extensive dental care.

I am sure that there are a number of registered Republicans who are in the situation I have been (to date) spared from.  The folks whose level of safety are improved by Obamacare.  The folks who Donald Trump talks about as "dying in the streets" without something affirmative done for them.  (Trump recognizes this is a problem, unlike seemingly every other Republican.)  What, then, is the plan for folks like me sans my healthcare?  How do "medical savings accounts" help me, when my real ability to save is seriously limited?  (I should mention that I've worked 2 jobs for the last 6 years for the most part.)  How does it help others in my situation?  What is the conservative definition of "lowering the costs"?  If the cost of a Mercedes Benz is cut by 2/3, I still couldn't afford a new one, so tell me just how this works.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here.  But since 2010, I've heard conservatives (indeed all Republicans) talk about repealing Obamacare, but the only solution I've heard is "lowering costs" and "medical savings accounts" that Steve Forbes can afford, but I can't.  If folks really want to do nothing, leaving everything to the "free market", than I would have more respect for them to just say "Tough noogies!" and remind me that death isn't a preventable accident than the responses I get from the Cruzes and Rubios of the world that would be OK with my wife, my son, and myself doing without hoping for the best.  So I guess I am calling out folks who want to repeal Obamacare and replace it with "lowering the costs", "medical savings accounts" and "market-based solutions" to explain how that would have provided for my family, given the situation we could have been in.  They really do need to explain themselves, if only for the sake of intellectual honesty.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

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The problem is this. I've lived under a single payer system and been in a situation similar to yours. My grandmother fell and injured her back. It took a year and a half for her to get treatment because of the wait list. She died, shortly after her name came up.

Single payer sounds great but doesn't work. The answer is lower taxes so that people like you can save to protect your families. Obamacare is unaffordable for most people.

I recognize that heathcare is "rationed".  I recognize that in many single payor systems, an elderly woman needing surgery (for example) will have a long wait, and if it's your grandmother, that's never cool. 

But in America we "ration" healthcare by price.  Money talks and b------- walks.  Let's not kid ourselves.  For millions of Americans needing healthcare, there's no wait; there's just a "no way".  Turning people away from medical procedures they need does cut down the waiting lists.  I am painfully aware of how many other folks needed the lifesaving surgery my wife received due to my being blessed with excellent health insurance, but didn't get it because they didn't have the access to healthcare my wife and I have.  (And we don't have this access because we're such good people; I like to think I'm virtuous, but lots of virtuous people die for lack of medical care in America every year.)

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

He could transform the once donor class party to the party of "hard work" pays. Global economic forces have pummeled blue-collar workers more relentlessly than almost any other segment of society, forcing them to compete against hundreds of millions of equally skilled workers throughout the world. No one asked them in the 1990s if this was the future they wanted.  They put trust in liberal democrats and have been stabbed in the back for the sake of globalism.  I think the left somewhat recognizes that the blue-collar worker voting against them could put a halt to their globalist agenda and the identity politics seems to be the tactic right now.  They hope that these voters aren't smart enough to figure it out and vote against their own interest.  Afterall, they've did it in the past. 

Well, it was George H. W. Bush who negotiated NAFTA (albeit Bill Clinton finishing it up), and George W. Bush who gave us CAFTA.  We can thank Bill Clinton for the WTO (replacing GATT); this is a bi-partisan "gift" to America.  The bi-partisan opposition to these initiatives is telling as well; it's a coalition of Tea Party and Movement Conservative Republicans and the more Liberal Democrats.