How would you fix the Republican Party?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

To be fair, they seem to have brought the Latter Day Saints under the fold.

If they can ally with Mormons, I'm sure they can reach out to the Papists.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Instead they need to apply the social conservative tendency to a ethnically diverse and more urbane demographic.

That's abandoning the #1 American social conservative principle: make everything as WASP as possible.

Members of ethnic social conservative religions like Catholicism and Black Protestants are considered heretics. The American Evangelical Right wants no part of them.

And in order to fix the Republican Party, the Right needs to accept Catholics and Black Protestants them into their fold.

[King]

The Mormons are 3/4ths WASP.

And in order to fix the Republican Party, the Right needs to accept Catholics and Black Protestants them into their fold.

To many of them, that's telling them to disavow their faith. This is not an inclusive sect of people. Fundamentalists are a mean bunch and proud of it. They would rather lose elections until the Second Coming than defy what they are 100% certain to believe is God's will.

[Cassius]

I don't think becoming more 'libertarian', is the way to go, since libertarianism only appeals to a small section of the population, most of whom probably vote Republican anyway. After all, libertarianism is simply smoking dope and participating in gay sex orgies (no matter what some people like to think), it is, as an ideology, committed to shrinking the size and reach of the state, both, to put it bluntly, in the bedroom and in the wallet. Now, I'm not impugning libertarians, I mean, there are a lot of intelligent libertarians who've given a lot of thought to their philosophy, but, alas, when it comes down to it, libertarianism as the libertarians see it is no popular with the most people. Whilst its true that people don't like paying taxes, it is also true that they do like government spending; indeed, a lot of people, if pressed will choose more public spending over lower taxes. Moreover, a lot of people find libertarian opposition to the bailout of banks and large corporations rather frightening, given that their livelihoods and savings will most likely depend upon the continued survival of said banks and corporations. And, of course, let's not forget that most people are far less socially libertarian (and this includes the yoof) than some libertarians would like. Believe me, a lot of people like nothing better than giving criminals and. Illegal immigrants a good kicking (metaphorically), and this is definitely not confined solely to elderly, poorly educated white working class men. The GOP will not win elections by becoming a libertarian party.

If the GOP is to be successful, it really doesn't need to junk a lot of its policies (maybe opposition to bailouts), it simply needs to reframe its strategy around being a party that, whilst still being on the right, is actually interested in being a party of government. Now, that means an end to cretinous government shutdowns and brinkmanship over the debt ceiling. Really it would be better if the GOP simply voted to raise the debt ceiling, and kept its powder dry until Obama and the Democrats manage to hang themselves somehow. Of course, it also needs to turn down its anti-state rhetoric (which doesn't neccessarily mean junking its commitment to low taxes and lower public spending of course, just that it advertises them in a more low key, respectable fashion) which seems to either frighten or amuse a lot of people. It definitely doesn't need to become a socially libertarian party, given that that would create a lot of strife and would probably gain relatively few votes (I mean, most of the people who base their votes on how pro-gay marriage and pro-choice a candidate is probably aren't going to be that amenable to the Republicans anyway). Peversely, the more 'dull' and managerial the Republican party becomes (as it would, if it reframed itself as a party that was in favour of stability and prosperity), the more likely it will be for it to win elections, as opposed to being 'excitingly' populist or libertarian.

Of course, its easy to talk of how to 'fix' the GOP; that is easier said than done, given that, unlike their centre-right counterparts across much of the rest of the world, the party leadership has very little control over the party; it can't simply draft one national platform and whip its representatives and supporters into voting and campaigning for it, as, firstly, there is no particularly effective way to compell certain representatives to do this or that. Secondly, and more importantly, the party primary gives factions that oppose the leadership the opportunity to fight back, one that is far greater than in other countries, where candidates can, if neccessary, be parachuted in by the party leadership. The GOP (and the Democrats) is not a centralised, unitary party in the mould of the British Conservative party; instead, its effectively a loose confederation of tribes with no effective leadership to bring the different factions to heel. Thus, change is likely going to have to come from the ground up, and that may be difficult.

Instead they need to apply the social conservative tendency to a ethnically diverse and more urbane demographic.

That's abandoning the #1 American social conservative principle: make everything as WASP as possible.

Members of ethnic social conservative religions like Catholicism and Black Protestants are considered heretics. The American Evangelical Right wants no part of them.

And in order to fix the Republican Party, the Right needs to accept Catholics and Black Protestants them into their fold.

I'm fairly sure that Catholics have been well and truly accepted into the Republican party, given that the Republican Speaker and Majority Whip are both Catholics, many of the party's prospective 2016 Presidential candidates are also Catholics, and that the party won the support of nearly half of all Catholics in the 2012 Presidential race.

[King]

Yes, there are White Republican Catholics. I'm talking about ethnic Catholicism

[King]

What really needs to happen is Bible Thumpers need to start their own Bible Thumper Party, abandon the Republican primaries, making it easier for non-Bible Thumping Democrats and Republicans to be elected and work together while the 100 Bible Thumper seats in the House and 15 Bible Thumper seats in the Senate vote against everything important because Jesus.

Bible Thumpers were the drag of the New Deal Coalition that eventual got them bolted in the 1970s to the Republicans and now the Republicans don't know what to do with them anymore. Catering to their Third Position interests only makes liberal/conservative ideologies inconsistent.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Yes, there are White Republican Catholics. I'm talking about ethnic Catholicism

Catholics aren't an ethnicity, but ethnicities pratice differently. So I take it you mean Hispanic Catholics?

[Dixie Reborn]

The Republican party needs to racialize American politics and do everything possible to become the party of Whites, represent White interests and win >90% of the White vote.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

How on Earth are the Republicans not friendly to Catholics? Not only do they have about half of Catholic voters but the evangelical religious right voters even backed one as their candidate in 2012.

[IceSpear]

Is the Republican Party truly in danger?  I doubt it.  The utter clusterf**k that is the US economy is pinned squarely on Obama now, rightly or wrongly (wrongly), and the GOP had a deathgrip on one of the two houses of Congress and can and have ground Democratic Presidents to a total halt in terms of agenda.  None of this will change if Clinton wins in 2016, she will flounder as ineffectually as Obama has now that the GOP has realized that they can just...not pass anything.

The GOP's "deathgrip" on the House is vastly overstated. Supplant the 2006 or 2008 political environment into 2014 and the House flips easily, despite the gerrymandering.

[IceSpear]

The Republican party needs to racialize American politics and do everything possible to become the party of Whites, represent White interests and win >90% of the White vote.

It's interesting that the two people to suggest this were from Alabama and Mississippi. The GOP model there isn't going to work in the rest of the country.

[DC Al Fine]

I'm skeptical that the GOP can appeal to immigrants like the Canadian Tories or NZ's National Party can. The immigrants to both of those countries have a much higher % of "natural conservatives" since they are more Asian and have higher incomes compared to the largely Hispanic immigrants to America.

That said here is what I would do:

1) Don't Try to Be Libertarian
For all the talk about facing up to demographic trends, one of the most common solutions is even less appealing to the Hispanic working class than the current approach. Free market economics with libertine morals does nothing for a Hispanic Pentecostal tradesman making $38k/yr.

2) Selective Social Conservatism
The religious right needs to take a long hard look at what hills it wants to die on. The GOP should reduce their social conservatism to issues that will be viable long term or are needed to keep the religious right happy. I'd suggest abortion and crime are the best issues to retain.

3) Big Government Conservatism
People just aren't willing to vote against the welfare state. Rather than trying to dismantle, the GOP should try to put their own stamp on the welfare state, making it conservative-friendly. e.g. Subsidies for families with children.

[H. Ross Peron]

2) Selective Social Conservatism
The religious right needs to take a long hard look at what hills it wants to die on. The GOP should reduce their social conservatism to issues that will be viable long term or are needed to keep the religious right happy. I'd suggest abortion and crime are the best issues to retain.

What do you mean by crime? Crime has been going down in the last two decades so I don't think it is as big an issue as it once was. Indeed much of the push both within the social conservative community and more broadly is towards liberalization on crime-restricting the death penalty if not abolishing it, ending the Drug Wars, demilitarizing the police, and restricting mandatory minimum sentences/3 strikes laws to violent criminals.

[Indy Texas]

I'm skeptical that the GOP can appeal to immigrants like the Canadian Tories or NZ's National Party can. The immigrants to both of those countries have a much higher % of "natural conservatives" since they are more Asian and have higher incomes compared to the largely Hispanic immigrants to America.

It's worth comparing America's Asian populations to Canada's.

A lot of Asian-Americans are not first-, second- or even third-generation immigrants. Their ancestors came here in the 19th and early 20th century to perform menial work building railroads and doing laundry. Their economic ascendancy was analogous to that of groups like the Irish, but unlike "white ethnics" they, perhaps because of their obviously non-Caucasian physical appearance and non-Christianity, did not socially "become white" the way Irish, Italians and Poles gradually did.

The relatively recent Asian immigrants are arguably more receptive to the Republican Party. They didn't come here to do grunt work like the 19th century immigrants did. They're either highly educated "model minorities" or they're coming to join family that already lives here and often are successful business owners. And many of them are Christian - particularly the Korean-Americans.

Immigrants from the Indian Subcontinent are a harder sell for Republicans. Many of them grew up in India at a time when it was very socialist but also a democracy, so they don't associate Leftist economics with oppression the way Russian, European or East Asian immigrants might. And when you are from or spent a considerable amount of time in a country where poverty is commonplace and very visible, it's hard not to believe the government ought to do more to help people out of poverty. And a culture that still has a high degree of socioeconomic determinism via the caste system probably isn't going to buy the Republican mantra of, "Anyone can become a multimillionaire and if they're poor it's because they're lazy and not trying hard enough."

[All Along The Watchtower]

Is the Republican Party truly in danger?  I doubt it.  The utter clusterf**k that is the US economy is pinned squarely on Obama now, rightly or wrongly (wrongly), and the GOP had a deathgrip on one of the two houses of Congress and can and have ground Democratic Presidents to a total halt in terms of agenda.  None of this will change if Clinton wins in 2016, she will flounder as ineffectually as Obama has now that the GOP has realized that they can just...not pass anything.

Unfortunately true. The nice thing for the Republicans about believing what they believe- that the problem with America today is that the government does too much for most Americans (and not enough for business owners and other rich people)- is that once in office, they don't actually have to propose any new policies or even come up with actual ideas for policies. All they have to do is throw red meat out to their True Believers (like voting to repeal Obamacare every other week, or investigating Benghazi to find out WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, or..) and they'll get voted back in, time and time again. This is a party that, nowadays, prides itself on its lack of legislative accomplishments. You can't fix an organization when most of their members and leaders believe that the only issue is that they haven't doubled down enough on their current tactics.

[H. Ross Peron]

Basically be a "One Nation Tory" Party that actually accepts some form of UHC, generally supports at least a basic social safety net, embraces infrastructure spending, generally libertarian on social issues while being pro-life and supporting policies conducive to national cohesion.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

How on Earth are the Republicans not friendly to Catholics? Not only do they have about half of Catholic voters but the evangelical religious right voters even backed one as their candidate in 2012.

BRTD, I doubt most of the GOP primary voters knew Santorum is Catholic.  The crap that spews from his mouth is the same stuff the right-wing evangelicals have been at for decades.  Even living in the Philadelphia media market, I've always had to be reminded he's not a Protestant because he looks and talks exactly like one.  Not only that, but past Catholic candidates have been OBVIOUSLY Catholic.  The Kennedys, Kerry, etc. 

[King]

Yes, there are White Republican Catholics. I'm talking about ethnic Catholicism

Catholics aren't an ethnicity, but ethnicities pratice differently. So I take it you mean Hispanic Catholics?

Yes, Densest Man In The World. If you must have everything spelled out for you, yes, I mean Catholics who are apart of the fastest growing population segment in this country.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Go more moderate on social issues. Follow the Collins model. Be nice socially and you'll start winning back blue states. Most like your economic plans. It's just youre so awful with social issues that it turns people off.

There are economic plans?

Plus, exit polling from the last presidential (which is what we're really talking about here) shows that most people don't like the GOPs economic policies.

Plus ... "your" really?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Embrace people like Robert Kelleher.

Hey, they actually nominated him.

[TJ in Oregon]

How on Earth are the Republicans not friendly to Catholics? Not only do they have about half of Catholic voters but the evangelical religious right voters even backed one as their candidate in 2012.

BRTD, I doubt most of the GOP primary voters knew Santorum is Catholic.  The crap that spews from his mouth is the same stuff the right-wing evangelicals have been at for decades.  Even living in the Philadelphia media market, I've always had to be reminded he's not a Protestant because he looks and talks exactly like one.  Not only that, but past Catholic candidates have been OBVIOUSLY Catholic.  The Kennedys, Kerry, etc. 

As an aside on Santorum being Catholic, when I was in Cleveland Santorum went to Mass for the Feast of the Assumption at the Italian parish I used to go to when I lived there. (The Feast of the Assumption was a big deal in this parish; it was a several day long event complete with a solemn procession through the streets.) When I walked into the church only 15 minutes before Mass started, which is normally plenty of time, but not on the Feast of the Assumption when there are like 8 bishops and everyone's distant cousin back in town, I overheard two old ladies in front of me chatting and one told the other that Senator Santorum had just arrived. The other turned to her and asked "Is he Catholic?".

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What the hell is "obviously Catholic"? When I think of someone who's blatantly Catholic it'd be something like having statues of Mary around their house or always carrying a rosary or something, not something that applies to Kerry or the Kennedys. Actually they come across as pretty WASPy too at that. Great example of what I've been saying in that "WASP" is a meaningless term now, and that white is white as far as ethnicity is concerned.

As for Santorum, he really made no attempt to hide that he was Catholic and even talked about it while speaking at evangelical churches. The truth is, it's really not an issue of any non-neglible factor. useful idiot has pointed out before that for the most part the vast majority of politically active conservative evangelicals have no problems with Catholics. For example, Christianity Today is probably the most popular evangelical magazine in America. If you expect to find anything in it claiming the Pope is the Antichrist or anything like that, you're quite wrong. In fact if you do a google search of their site for "Catholic", the first hit is a list of any article tagged "Catholicism" and this is the second hit. Christianity Today is quite clearly not an anti-Catholic publication. Sure you might not think it's representative of all evangelicals and probably is considered heretical by your typical rural southern independent Baptist fire and brimstone fundamentalist church with about 50 or so members, but you can't argue such a place like that is equivalent to any megachurch in influence.

And I'm having a tough time seeing any real difference in how Catholic Republicans and Protestant Republicans act, amongst Minnesota Republicans there are plenty of both and I've never been able to differentiate. Sure they can vary depending on location or nature of the district, but whether one is Catholic or Protestant has basically no correlation to anything besides German/Scandinavian surenames. I didn't even know Tim Pawlenty was a former Catholic until his second term because it never was an issue, or even something mentioned in aside. If Pawlenty had stayed Catholic his political career would've been exactly the same as it was, right up to his hilarious disaster of a Presidential campaign.

[The Mikado]

The problem is that you guys are viewing demographics detached from the broader national scene.  There's no sign whatsoever that anything is improving, the USA is going to war in the Middle East again, eventually the "throw the bums out" mood is going to pose problems for Democratic presidential candidates even if the GOP has alienated large chunks of the country.  If Hillary Clinton does lose in 2016, it will be entirely on the backs of Obama fatigue and disillusionment with the Democratic Party, a powerful force that can go a long way to suppressing voter turnout.

That being said...if the problems with the modern GOP have a serious point, it's the obvious one that the modern GOP is absolutely unsuited to be a majority party rather than an opposition party.  This last sentence probably sounds incredibly obvious even to the Republicans on the site.  With a great many off the leash Congressmen on the GOP side getting reelected without any support from the national party due to their R+40 districts, they'll have no incentive to pass the agenda of President Christie or whatever, and there's no party discipline re: respecting the party leadership.  When random GOP Congressmen and maybe even Senators (Ted Cruz) spend the first few months of a President Christie's tenure bashing the president for being insufficiently conservative, the problems of the modern GOP will become obvious.

[Vosem]

Ideally I would of course make it more similar to my own political views, with a strong turn to the social left, but maintenance of their fiscally right-wing policies.

What do Republicans need to do to win elections more? They're doing just fine right now. They've controlled the House nearly continuously for the past 20 years and that isn't showing any signs of stopping; they've come at least within single digits in every presidential election since 1964. They control a majority of state governments, and that looks unlikely to fall apart anytime soon either. Of course, Republicans could maybe do a better job vetting statewide candidates -- there were some disasters in 2012 that could have been avoided. But overall, they're doing just fine right now and they'll continue to do just fine for the foreseeable future. Demographic trends are moving towards Democrats, but in a two-party system when Democrats become sufficiently unpopular their new voters (or old voters; whatever) will ultimately turn towards the Republicans and hand them power. It's comforting for some to cherry-pick data to demonstrate that there has been a Democratic majority since 1992; whatever floats your boat, guys.

[King]

There's no sign whatsoever that anything is improving, the USA is going to war in the Middle East again, eventually the "throw the bums out" mood is going to pose problems for Democratic presidential candidates even if the GOP has alienated large chunks of the country.

Except Americans love war as long as nobody dies. We can bomb them flat and nobody will question it.

I really don't see the Democrats at this point being as poor off as they were 4 years ago, or where the Republicans where in 2006.  There's no economic bubble to break the back of the Dems like the GOP in 2008.