For those who don't think that nearly all of Rural America can end up voting like much of the South in the long-term: you're wrong.
I don't think the trends we have undeniably experienced will progress indefinitely to the point where we actually see this ridiculous urban-rural divide maps (that by then would have the GOP consistently getting its ass beat over and over) before something fundamentally shakes up our nation's voting patterns ... this seems to be absolutely crazy to this site.
I spent a large chunk of my childhood in one of these rural WWC Midwestern counties that atlas loves to fetishize about. I can’t possibly imagine what would make these voters shift even somewhat significantly more Dem. Nicole Galloway got BTFO in said county and she’s the only successful Missouri Democrat left on the bench and she couldn’t even crack 35% in the vast majority of rural counties against possibly the worst non-Todd Akin Republican statewide nominee in decades.
A realignment would make those voters shift more Dem.
It wasn't so long ago when you could have made the same argument for many major suburban counties in this country.
"Orange County hasn't gone Democratic since FDR, I can't imagine what would make these voters vote Democratic"
"The Atlanta suburbs have been titanium R since the 1980s, there's no way they'll ever vote Democratic!"
"Northern Virginia has been the backbone of the Virginia GOP since the 1950s, there's no way it could ever vote Democratic!"
You and I are both smart enough to know that most of the GOP’s collapse in those suburbs is simply due to diversification. Sure, a large chunk of white voters shifted, but I would argue it was less that existing white people shifting their votes than it was new, younger, liberal whites moving in.
The point is, you either think one of the following if you think there won't be a VERY significant realignment in the next few decades:
1) The GOP will eventually collapse as a party due to getting absolutely SMOKED in Presidential elections due to largely only winning rural areas and select suburbs ... the math just isn't there for them to win ANY elections without getting a LOT of suburban support.
2) Population trends will take a surprising turn, and people will stop abandoning rural areas, small towns and mid-sized cities for urban centers and suburbs of those urban centers. I don't see that happening any time soon, as it has been going on for decades.
For the GOP to continue to be a competitive major party along with the Democrats, ONE of those things has to be false. Period. It might not be in 2020 (obviously) or even 2030, but eventually the GOP will run out of votes. We simply are not going to reach this point where the Republican Party happily loses election after election after election due to simple math but keeps on fulfilling this forum's stereotype of how trashy the party is, haha. It will HAVE to adapt. I don't have time to do this for all of the states, but here is Illinois' Presidential results:
Clinton (D-NY): 54.4% (2,977,498)
Trump (R-NY): 39.4% (2,118,179)
Conversely, if you simply took the populations of the counties Clinton won and the populations of the counties Trump won and added them up, this is what you would get:
Clinton (D-NY): 70.6% (9,034,953)
Trump (R-NY): 29.4% (3,767,070)
Even in a blue state like Illinois, Trump relied on TONS of voters in counties that Clinton won. His votes (and the votes of all Republicans) are still ever so reliant on metro areas. If the trends we see continue - both in terms of Republicans losing ground in metro areas AND metro areas continuing to grow at the expense of rural areas - the GOP will collapse. Period. Period, period, period. This forum so vastly overestimates how many rural people there even are. SOMETHING is going to shake things up before #1 above happens (because we all know #2 is not happening). Republicans will eventually need to engage in things that will stop fanning the flames of the folks you are describing above. They simply have to. This will likely provide an eventual floor to how badly Democrats do with "WWC" voters, especially if we use the more accurate and meaningful definition of "White working class" to refer to Whites with average and below average incomes. Not all "WWC" voters are rural, racist hicks; there are plenty in places like Youngstown, OH that do NOT have a baked in, life long loyalty to the GOP; a GOP in 20-30 years that isn't acting like our current one - which I believe I provided a coherent argument for why it simply can't afford to - might not have quite as intense of loyalty as Trump does with your "Obama-Trump" crowd.
