Serious Q for Republicans

[Virginiá]

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

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.

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

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.

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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.

[Virginiá]

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.

[Virginiá]

-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.

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.

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.

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.

Republicans don't need the minority vote as long as they can keep increasing their share of the white vote.

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.

[Virginiá]

-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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

[Virginiá]

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".

Such a broad brush you have there.

[Virginiá]

-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.

[Virginiá]

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

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.

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

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.

[Virginiá]

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

What does that mean, and how do you know?