2024: Is Wyoming a blue state yet? (user search)
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  2024: Is Wyoming a blue state yet? (search mode)
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Author Topic: 2024: Is Wyoming a blue state yet?  (Read 4947 times)
RINO Tom
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Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.52

« on: January 17, 2017, 10:01:07 AM »

2024: climate change has caused singnicant portions of the West Coast to become threatened by rising ocean waters, and the Beenie Bros of coastal northern Cakifornia and Oregon flock to Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park to reconnect with nature, causing the state to form a block in the new blue wall running from New Mexico through Colorado and now Wyoming 1!2!2!!

Though I suppose that kind of mass migration has a non-zero chance of happening.

Well, it happened in Vermont and to an extent Colorado.  It's not like the people in those states who kept them red just randomly changed their minds, the states' populations fundamentally changed.  Always possible, I guess.
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RINO Tom
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Posts: 17,002
United States


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.52

« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2017, 12:57:10 PM »

2024: climate change has caused singnicant portions of the West Coast to become threatened by rising ocean waters, and the Beenie Bros of coastal northern Cakifornia and Oregon flock to Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park to reconnect with nature, causing the state to form a block in the new blue wall running from New Mexico through Colorado and now Wyoming 1!2!2!!

Though I suppose that kind of mass migration has a non-zero chance of happening.

Well, it happened in Vermont and to an extent Colorado.  It's not like the people in those states who kept them red just randomly changed their minds, the states' populations fundamentally changed.  Always possible, I guess.

In Vermont, the people who were there previously did change their minds, to some extent.

To some extent, sure, but it's pretty obvious (when you look at both election results every four years and VT's population increases by census) that older Republicans dying off and more liberal transplants moving in had a more significant effect, IMO.  I mean, the whole "Take Back Vermont" thing would not have existed otherwise, right?
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RINO Tom
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Posts: 17,002
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Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.52

« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2017, 01:08:12 PM »

Yeah, Vermont's Republicans were by-and-large progressive. Colorado is a good example, though. Maybe California.

1) I think that's largely a myth, they had several very conservative ones, too.  When you have near one-party rule for a long time (pre-'60s), you're obviously going to have a wide range of ideologies.

2) Let's never forget that "progressive Republican" (and "conservative Democrat," for that matter) usually means "progressive FOR A REPUBLICAN" (and "conservative FOR A DEMOCRAT") unless there's some motive of rewriting history involved. Wink
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RINO Tom
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Posts: 17,002
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Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.52

« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2017, 01:35:33 PM »

They're obviously not the same party, that was SO long ago, LOL.  None of the issues are the same, there's literally not a single issue you could transfer onto today besides maybe class issues/support for business interests and immigration restriction, both of which Lincoln's GOP would, of course, be to the right of Jackson's Democrats, but I'll go ahead you're not interested in that fact.

Saying "they've flipped" is so intellectually lazy, dude.  Not to mention blatantly false.
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RINO Tom
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Posts: 17,002
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Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.52

« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2017, 02:29:59 PM »

Actually, most Republicans argued that THEY were the ones who were truly carrying forward the tradition of States' Rights and the Constitution, characterizing slavery as a complete abomination and bastardization of the Founders' intent.  After all, can we think of a more hideous attack on States' Rights and the Constitution than the Dred Scott decision, which Southern Democrats championed?  Proponents of slavery SAID they respected small government and States' Rights, but their actions suggested otherwise.  After all, the CSA was anything but a decentralized government, and it levied ridiculous taxes and seized private property for the war effort, measures that made Lincoln's actions look marginal.  Further, Lincoln's income tax was meant as a wartime measure that was to be repealed after the war (and it was); it wasn't until the 1890s that a Democratic Congress levied the first permanent income tax in US history.

Look, dude, I'm not saying liberals supported slavery and conservatives opposed it, but saying the opposite is just as ignorant.  To even project our modern politics onto that era is dubious, but to literally draw parallels with the two parties we happen to have is just insane.  Would Lincoln probably be uncomfortable with the GOP's "Southernization"?  Sure.  He'd also probably yearn for a GOP that won a higher percent of the minority vote (assuming we "2017ized him, and he wasn't a huge racist by today's standards).  However, being a man who championed free market capitalism, economic individualism, self-reliance and literally was a corporate lawyer for the railroads, I think he'd have just as much issue with Hillary Clinton's economic agenda.  Neither party is carrying a legacy of past parties, it's been 170 years!

As for "small government" vs. "big government," I thought most on this site had agreed that there's nothing inherently conservative or liberal about either.  I think motive is much more important.  Andrew Jackson opposed centralized government because it was too connected to money and business interests and left the poorest Americans in the dust ... similar rhetoric is used by Democrats today to attack Republicans who want to deregulate and decentralize.  What's more important, what they're doing, or why they're doing it?  The Republicans wanted a federal government that was organized and competent enough to allow talented American entrepreneurs to thrive and succeed, I think it's asinine to move that forward to say they'd want increased spending on welfare or higher taxes on "the wealthy," especially when our rates are astronomically higher than anything they would have put forward.

It's just silly to say anything like "the parties have flipped" or something like that.  It ignores such a complicated history.
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RINO Tom
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Posts: 17,002
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Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.52

« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2017, 03:23:56 PM »

The parties didn't flip, but they did reshuffle. Parties are the sum of the pieces of their coalitions.

The GOP (waayy oversimplifying) was the party of northern liberals, business interests, what we would now call evangelicals, and black people.

The Democratic Party was the party of immigrants, white southerners, poor rural farmers/populists, etc.

The parties changed over time because, say, white southerners and rural westerners traded places with african-americans and northern liberals. But the GOP still has business interests in its coalition, and the Democrats still have immigrant groups in theirs. (though the ethnicities have changed)

I doubt Lincoln would comfortably slot into either modern party because his party pulled from both of what make up the modern parties while shunning others. Same goes for Jackson.

As you said, this is oversimplified but definitely fair.
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RINO Tom
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Posts: 17,002
United States


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.52

« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2017, 05:32:40 PM »

Trump got 70-71% there?  Yea it'll swing 20 points in 2 cycles and be blue.

The topic was obviously mocking the left for making sweeping predictions of landslides. I tried to salvage it with a way that Wyoming might drastically change, in isolation of the rest of the nation. And that moved to talking about how the parties have changed over time because there is a possible configuration of the Democratic Party that would win that state. What exactly are you contributing here?

The parties didn't flip, but they did reshuffle. Parties are the sum of the pieces of their coalitions.

The GOP (waayy oversimplifying) was the party of northern liberals, business interests, what we would now call evangelicals, and black people.

The Democratic Party was the party of immigrants, white southerners, poor rural farmers/populists, etc.

The parties changed over time because, say, white southerners and rural westerners traded places with african-americans and northern liberals. But the GOP still has business interests in its coalition, and the Democrats still have immigrant groups in theirs. (though the ethnicities have changed)

I doubt Lincoln would comfortably slot into either modern party because his party pulled from both of what make up the modern parties while shunning others. Same goes for Jackson.

As you said, this is oversimplified but definitely fair.

Thanks. It does piss me off a little when sweeping generalisations of past party behaviour are made, usually to claim a universally beloved President for one side or the other.

Having said that, I do have a question. At what point do you think you can say that every president since X would feel completely at home in one of the modern political parties? I'm tempted to say Harding but it could be Taft. (not 100% sure about Wilson)

That's very hard to say.  Given that all (or nearly all) of them are *politicians*, I'm inclined to believe they would adapt to the political landscape, similar to what we saw with someone like Zel Miller (who went from being a fiery Southern liberal to a true centrist, all to save his own ass as his state changed its political philosophy).  I think it's more or less certain that every President after Hoover would absolutely still be in the party they were in, as people who become increasingly at odds with their party tend to stay in it, as switching is often a bad look.  Some would argue the switch from Romney to Trump was damn near insane for four years, yet hardly any Republicans have become Democrats; parties change, and they all knew that coming in.

Regarding Wilson, I think he'd be a Democrat today.  While his racism is out of line with today's Democratic Party, it was perfectly compatible with not just being a Democrat but being a progressive in his day, and I believe his basic outlook on the world and how society should be crafted has a lot more in common with many modern liberals than it does with any modern conservatives.
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RINO Tom
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Posts: 17,002
United States


Political Matrix
E: 2.45, S: -0.52

« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2017, 10:52:48 PM »

I don't take issue with it as much as we will have to wait and see.  Affluent Whites didn't even vote Democratic against Trump, the worst possible candidate for them running against one of the best possible Democrats for them, and they voted more Republican downballot.  They are still a Republican voting bloc.  Also, the original GOP had a very moralist (and, as uncomfortable as it is, RABIDLY abolitionist) evangelical voting bloc, which is clearly a key part of the GOP today, too.  Additionally, Northern farmers have been pretty consistently in the GOP for a very, very long time.

Post-Trump politics will tell a lot, but the Democrats' response to 2016 (an election where they FAILED to woo enough moderate GOPers to win) has been anything but embracing a "Rockefeller Republican" (for lack of better term) image, and in fact it has been quite the opposite (see Chuck Schumer putting the likes of Warren, Sanders and Manchin in the position to lead his party).
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