Atlantic: Trump Can't Reverse the Decline of White Christian America

[Technocracy Timmy]

Leftists don't accuse you of anything because you're harmless and you don't challenge their worldview in any way.

Exactly. McMullin-type ''conservatives'' only enable the left. They are so desperate to be liked by people who despise them and would love to be able to deny them a place in politics. They're masochists.

Eh, enable may not be the exact word. A good deal of leftists within the progressive base don't seem to like the idea of Demcorats cozying up to neocons and anti-Trump conservatives. It's a double edged sword.

[pbrower2a]

Actually, Asian Americans are more likely to become Republicans first, under any realignment. They voted 48-50% (50-50?) for the GOP in 2014 and their economic situation is strong enough that if social issues were taken off the table, they would be part of any GOP coalition in the future. I think Asians are just ticked off at the GOP's social issues (since a ton of Asians are highly educated and there's an education divide).

It's not remembered but Bush won 44% among Asians too. Coincidentally, the 44% in both Latinos and Asians matched his CA performance in 2004.

Don't forget another reason why we Asians vote Dem these days - because the GOP likes to perpetuate the "Perpetual Foreigner" idea. (Exhibit A: The "Watters World" Chinatown Segment. Exhibit B: Steve Bannon's "Too many Asians in Silicon Valley" comment." Exhibit C...you get the point.) Of course the GOP does this for the same reason they demonize other minorities - to attract more and more of the White vote...

Which ultimately supports your point - for the GOP to adapt, they have to drop the otherization of immigrants and embrace them, which is incompatible with Trumpist ethnic nationalism.

For many Asians, their intellect and learning comprise the core of their identity. The anti-intellectualism of Donald Trump and many other Republicans is a severe and unforgivable insult. Anti-intellectualism is the red meat of the Republican Party, and poor white people can't get enough of it.

[The_Doctor]

Leftists don't accuse you of anything because you're harmless and you don't challenge their worldview in any way.

Exactly. McMullin-type ''conservatives'' only enable the left. They are so desperate to be liked by people who despise them and would love to be able to deny them a place in politics. They're masochists.

I think we're a fairly principled set of people who definitely believe putting the alt right in power is a serious mistake. For my own part I believe eventually the Republican Party is going to be far more reliant on my support than the alt right. I'm comfortable that my northern technocratic Republican ideology will ultimately be the Party's, not the Trumpist alt right stuff. Our goal isn't to help liberals, its to reform the GOP and to fashion a better conservative movement.

And by withholding my support along with many other Romney-Clinton voters (I wrote in W), I think we've successfully imperiled the party's governing majority and weakened it. I'm pleased that the Republican Party is learning that selling out to the alt right nationalists isn't going to be a winning strategy for a governing coalition. Trump lost the popular vote and we helped in that along with minimizing any mandate the alt right has. Their struggle to unite a clearly divided party is a sterling example of why the alt right should never be part of any government or coalition. And in part our resistance is paying dividends.

The Southern Strategy and focusing on stuff that builds a whites only coalition is going the way of the dodo bird. It's time to actually build a post Nixon Republican Party that can win more than just the South and Midwest. And it should be a true pan racial coalition. This article only demonstrates this point.

I don't really care if the Left likes me or not. Seriously you guys think of us as being interested in their opinion. We just are in an alliance of convenience against Trumpy and the alt right. I'm fairly sure once the party is set right the McMullin types will resume fighting the Left. As we did since Reagan.

[SNJ1985]

Our goal isn't to help liberals, its to reform the GOP and to fashion a better conservative movement.

Even if that's true, helping the left is the only practical effect your efforts are having. You were in the driver's seat of the conservative movement in America for years, and this country has only gotten more and more left-wing as far as culture is concerned.

I'm not a Trump worshipper. He is far from perfect. For one, I wish he was more socially conservative. That having been said, I am glad that he has pushed the conservative movement in a more paleoconservative direction. There is a much stronger case for paleoconservatism being ''true conservatism'' than there is for neoconservatism; which, after all, is a product of former leftists' thinking.

[The_Doctor]

Our goal isn't to help liberals, its to reform the GOP and to fashion a better conservative movement.

Even if that's true, helping the left is the only practical effect your efforts are having. You were in the driver's seat of the conservative movement in America for years, and this country has only gotten more and more left-wing as far as culture is concerned.

I'm not a Trump worshipper. He is far from perfect. For one, I wish he was more socially conservative. That having been said, I am glad that he has pushed the conservative movement in a more paleoconservative direction. There is a much stronger case for paleoconservatism being ''true conservatism'' than there is for neoconservatism; which, after all, is a product of former leftists' thinking.

I'll write up a thread in individual politics but I'm not wedded to Reagan's ideology wholesale. I want elements of Reaganomics and cultural conservatism in this reformed movement but it's time we acknowledge the conservative movements are not doing a good job in stopping the advancements of liberalism in 2017.

I think in short the party needs to endorse a variation on the successful policies of the 1990s and marry it with a brand of social conservatism that's saleable.

I think Reagan conservatism did a solid job from 1980 to 2008 and stopped the very worst of the Left. I think we kept the country safe, led multiple economic expansions, significantly rolled back the social laissez faire attitudes of the 60s and coopted the Democratic Party's establishment. We also ended the Cold War and started the war on terror. These are not bad achievements.

Things are moving in the other direction again and we simply have to face up to it. Trump is not the answer but at this point neither is Reagan.

[Hindsight was 2020]

I like how TD and Thomas are both deep down admitting that Trump and the trifecta is more of a Jimmy Carter last hoorah then a new realignment

[The_Doctor]

I like how TD and Thomas are both deep down admitting that Trump and the trifecta is more of a Jimmy Carter last hoorah then a new realignment

I wrote an entire timeline around this so…

[Virginiá]

Even if that's true, helping the left is the only practical effect your efforts are having. You were in the driver's seat of the conservative movement in America for years, and this country has only gotten more and more left-wing as far as culture is concerned.

I mean, did you really think the left would never come back? Times change, and conservatives were not really adapting to the world that was changing around them. America has always undergone swings back and forth between competing ideologies and policies. You guys don't get to control everything forever, and neither do we.

And let's be honest, Republicans have essentially forfeited the Millennial generation anyway. The party didn't want to change at all to appeal to them, so they just shifted their focus solely to old people and essentially told young people to get bent. What did you expect to happen?

[Hindsight was 2020]

I like how TD and Thomas are both deep down admitting that Trump and the trifecta is more of a Jimmy Carter last hoorah then a new realignment

I wrote an entire timeline around this so…

Oh right you're the one who did that

[Technocracy Timmy]

I like how TD and Thomas are both deep down admitting that Trump and the trifecta is more of a Jimmy Carter last hoorah then a new realignment

I wrote an entire timeline around this so…

Oh right you're the one who did that

He also didn't have the Democrats taking back congress in 2018 or winning in 2020.

[Hindsight was 2020]

I like how TD and Thomas are both deep down admitting that Trump and the trifecta is more of a Jimmy Carter last hoorah then a new realignment

I wrote an entire timeline around this so…

Oh right you're the one who did that

He also didn't have the Democrats taking back congress in 2018 or winning in 2020.

So? Just cause I agree on the general principle doesn't mean I agree with everything he said

[Devout Centrist]

It's like the white nationalists don't even bother being unique anymore. When the boy started talking about plastic bottles I knew he was one of these types. His white nationalism and sexism is on full display here. It's awesome.

Ditto that signature in conjunction with everything else.

(also total lack of understanding of politics).

"His white nationalism and sexism is on full display here. It's awesome." - SilentCal1924

Lucky you, I think they sell white fleshlights now.

[SNJ1985]

Even if that's true, helping the left is the only practical effect your efforts are having. You were in the driver's seat of the conservative movement in America for years, and this country has only gotten more and more left-wing as far as culture is concerned.

I mean, did you really think the left would never come back? Times change, and conservatives were not really adapting to the world that was changing around them. America has always undergone swings back and forth between competing ideologies and policies. You guys don't get to control everything forever, and neither do we.

I don't think America becoming socially liberal was an inevitability that couldn't have been stopped. The youth in Poland are fine with voting for right-wing parties that oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, mass immigration, etc. I know Poland and the US are different countries with different cultures, but I think that shows that we could have done a much better job of trying to keep America socially conservative.

[Devout Centrist]

Even if that's true, helping the left is the only practical effect your efforts are having. You were in the driver's seat of the conservative movement in America for years, and this country has only gotten more and more left-wing as far as culture is concerned.

I mean, did you really think the left would never come back? Times change, and conservatives were not really adapting to the world that was changing around them. America has always undergone swings back and forth between competing ideologies and policies. You guys don't get to control everything forever, and neither do we.

I don't think America becoming socially liberal was an inevitability that couldn't have been stopped. The youth in Poland are fine with voting for right-wing parties that oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, mass immigration, etc. I know Poland and the US are different countries with different cultures, but I think that shows that we could have done a much better job of trying to keep America socially conservative.

Poland has always been a lot more socially conservative than the United States and Western Europe. Part of it is cultural, but their society is also a lot less open than ours.

[pbrower2a]

Even if that's true, helping the left is the only practical effect your efforts are having. You were in the driver's seat of the conservative movement in America for years, and this country has only gotten more and more left-wing as far as culture is concerned.

I mean, did you really think the left would never come back? Times change, and conservatives were not really adapting to the world that was changing around them. America has always undergone swings back and forth between competing ideologies and policies. You guys don't get to control everything forever, and neither do we.

I don't think America becoming socially liberal was an inevitability that couldn't have been stopped. The youth in Poland are fine with voting for right-wing parties that oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, mass immigration, etc. I know Poland and the US are different countries with different cultures, but I think that shows that we could have done a much better job of trying to keep America socially conservative.

Poland has always been a lot more socially conservative than the United States and Western Europe. Part of it is cultural, but their society is also a lot less open than ours.

A few realities about Polish history. in the early modern era Poland was in fact a great power between the union of Poland and Lithuania (Lithuania then containing much of what is now Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine) and the three partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. Austria, Prussia, and Russia chose to wipe Poland completely off the map, and in three acts of dismemberment they obliterated the whole of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After defeating Prussia and Austria in 1807, Napoleon established the Duchy of Warsaw, a partially-independent country  mostly in what is now all but the extreme west, north, and south of Poland.  At the end of the Napoleonic era, Prussia got a big chunk of what had been the Duchy, and as a reward for helping defeat France the Tsar of Russia got to establish himself as King of Poland. The Kingdom of Poland was steadily stripped of any Polish character in economic life and political reality.  The Poles had two failed rebellions against a Tsar that they did not want as a ruler, and the Tsar clamped down. Russia tried to make Orthodox Russians out of Catholic Poles -- which is just the thing for solidifying nationalism and religious faith.  Austria wasn't too bad for fellow Catholics who happened to speak Polish... but Prussia and Germany sought to turn 'its' part of Poland into more space for Germans. Imperial Germany funded a program to buy farmland from Poles so that Germans could settle in what had been Polish territory.

(Where I live, many Poles are descendants of people who sold their farms and took the proceeds of wartime pay of the Franco-Prussian War and settled in America, many as farmers).

After the dissolution of the Tsarist monstrosity in the Bolshevik Revolution and the defeats of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, Poland sprung back into existence, only to have to fight for its life against the Bolsheviks. It's hardly surprising that nationalism and resolute Catholicism would be big parts of Polish identity.

But that Poland would last roughly twenty years before two of the most demonic regimes to ever exist would decide to split Poland between them -- and so they did.

For six years, Poland was one of the most infernal places to have ever existed. Not to trivialize the Holocaust, as the Hitler consigned every Jew that he could get his hands on in western, central, and southeastern Europe -- the Nazis did everything possible to degrade Poles into slave labor under conditions that would make the chattel slavery of the American South look humane by contrast. To make such possible the Nazis murdered the educated elite among Poles immediately after conquering Poland at the start of World War II.

America, Britain and the Soviet Union could agree to restore Poland, but Stalin's vision of a puppet state with a Commie government and a socialized economy  would prevail because nobody could do anything about it except to flee or to offer some futile, doomed resistance. The godless state of Stalinist puppets would face one force capable of withstanding Stalinist terror -- the Roman Catholic Church. One could not identify oneself as a Pole, no matter what one's economic lot or level of education, except as a fervent Catholic.  In the 1980s the working-class and intellectual elites resisting  a weakened and discredited Commie state connected to a Roman Catholic Church that still held ultra-conservative ideas.

It has been nearly three decades since Poland cast off  Commie rule. Because "Left" in Poland now largely means either Commies or those people who made genteel, self-serving compromises with the Commies, there is practically no Left in Poland.  Polish intellectuals are as fervently Catholic as intellectuals almost everywhere else in the West are irreligious.