Between Two Majorities | The Cordray Administration

[Deblano]

Very scary. A bleak future awaits for the United States in this timeline.

[Deblano]

Would the late 2010s ITTL be considered similar to the late 1970s aka a period of "malaise"?

[Deblano]

Trump strikes at North Korea Regime; Disables Nuke Program

(October 2017) -- (Washington, D.C.) -- President Donald Trump struck at the North Korean regime in a surprise attack at dawn (Pyonyang time) and disabled the nuclear program that the regime had built. After months of warning and negotiations between the United States and China, the Americans had decided to unilaterally disarm Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear capabilities.

Just in time TD

Even if we haven't attacked North Korea yet, the fact that TD predicted US-NK tensions being extremely severe during OCTOBER 2017 sent chills down my spine.

[Deblano]

Speaking of future realigning presidents, there was one thing I was thinking about.

As we both agree on, the last political realignment took place around the 1980s, with the election of Ronald Reagan who would be remembered among the GOP as a bold, firebrand conservative. While Reagan certainly energized the conservative movement, a lot of people note that Reagan did some remarkably "un-conservative" things during his Administration. That line of thought goes something like the following below:

"People claim that Ronald Reagan was some hardcore conservative, but he is the same man who despised nukes, increased taxes in the late 80s, passed amnesty, enacted gun control, and exploded the debt."

Since Richard Cordray in this timeline is the "progressive realingner", in a similar vein that Reagan was the "conservative realigner", could we see the progressive realigner do some major, rather centrist/conservative actions that weaken his/her image of being a bold, hardcore progressive? If so, what could some of those "not so progressive" actions be ?

[Deblano]

Every single realignment in American history has had a segment of the former majority shift to the new majority. That’s partly why it’s called a realignment. The idea that no former Federal republicans will vote for the new realigning Democratic majority is pretty silly.

Ah, but what if it's not the WWC that's the segment that shifts? Already, we're seeing upscale suburbanites trend from Republican to Democrat. Many had been staunchly R before, so they would count as part of the "former majority." Or perhaps upscale white Republicans don't shift but upscale Hispanic and Asian Republicans do (e.g. if the Republicans go full and explicitly Bannonite), ensuring that both groups go from 70-30 D to being as D as Blacks?

These are both alternative possibilities for the realignment, don't you think?

Yes these are alternative possibilities (not Latinos and Asians voting as D as blacks since that would make the GOP’s path to 270 damn near impossible in 2036 ). We won’t know who these groups are until they shift post crisis in 2024 (or 2020).

Romney-Clinton voters were primarily Swing voters and not ardent Republicans until Trump. 9 Romney-Clinton counties voted Obama in 2008 and many McCain-Romney counties that voted for Clinton last year were pretty close in 2008 (my home of Orange County only went for McCain by 3-4 points for example).

White working class voters do seem to have the most to lose in a crisis and are more easily incorporated into a populist Democratic Party than upscale republicans. Perhaps it’s my own bias here, but having lived in Huntington Beach and having connections to even more upscale republican Newport Beach, I just can’t see it. I could see them voting for a Cory Booker Third Way-ist Dem Party but a more populist economic centered Cordray one? Not happening unless they stop thinking money is the end all be all to life. I wouldn’t bet two pennies on them doing that.

That's why I suggested the Latino and Asian-centric realignment. Just like whites, many Asians also see money and success as the end all and be all (as I brutally experienced this Christmas ), and I suspect that it's the same for many upscale Latinos too. However, unlike with whites a fully Bannonist Republican Party will not be very friendly to them. While the WWC will lose more than upscale minorities in a strictly economic crisis (which working-class minorities getting doubly screwed), a racial crisis will target minorities regardless of economic status.

Which brings up another point: not all crises have to be strictly economic. They can have racial or other cultural dimensions to them as well. The Civil War - the Crisis - was about slavery, after all.

I'm also banking on a possible foreign policy crisis.

After all, last realignment had the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

[Deblano]

Considering the deterioration of US-Russo relations (both due to Trump's ties with Russia and Russia's geopolitical moves), do we see a Second Cold War under the Cordray Administration?

[Deblano]

I wonder what politics is like in Virginia during this timeline (i.e. governorships, senate seats, congressional seats, etc.)

[Deblano]

Four elections with a Democrat landslide and a divided opposition?

It seems like in your write up the Democrats will end up being like the LDP of Japan, while the Republicans become like the divided Democratic Party of Japan, frequently suffering losses and winning once in a blue moon.

[Deblano]

I agree 100% that we are the second coming of the Disjunctive "Carter-esque" Presidency, but I disagree with the idea that a major economic crisis will spur a coming realignment (at least I hope not because I need to find a job ). There could be a mild recession like in the late 1980s if the stock market slumps.

I think what we are seeing with the stuff like the government shutdown is a sharp deteriorating of Trump being the outsider, populist, dealmaker who would come in and shake things up. Instead the government shutdown intensifies a general feeling of malaise within the United States. Like in 1978, 2018 shows a United States that has a complete lack of confidence and a general sentiment that it's status as the main superpower is coming to a bitter end.

[Deblano]

Heaving read through this timeline on a few occasions over the last several months, this timeline seems seems to have the 2017-2018 era as less eventful than what's actually been happening so far with daily Trump scandals. With a wave fairly likely in 2018, isn't it likely that some sort of crisis hits in 2019 and 2020 is the realignment election much like 1980 and 1932?   

To be fair, this TL did have Trump bomb North Korea in October 2017, so I wouldn't exactly call that uneventful lol.