Was 2006 a turning point when it comes to American politics and especially the GOP

[OSR stands with Israel]

From 1980-2006 , The Conservative Coalition/GOP won most elections and had clear control over American politics with them setting the policy agenda for pretty much this entire period other than a brief moment in the early 1990s. Even Major Democratic Leaders such as Tip O Neil and Bill Clinton spent most of their tenure in power, reacting to the policy agenda set by the GOP and making compromises based on that agenda rather than the other way around. 

Democrats ran away from the word liberal as the word liberal was a bad word in that era and any Democrat who was painted as such would end up losing . The vast majority of Republican base pretty much went along with what the Republican establishment and the GOP was clearly run from a top down method in this era.

In 2006 this changed though as after years of one party rule by the GOP establishment, everything came crashing down for them. The base that pretty much had gone along with them started to revolt against the GOP establishment over immigration, and the Republican Southern-Western Coalition broke down beginning in the 2006 election.

Since 2006 , the Republicans have clearly been in a disadvantage when it comes to elections with two of their 3 wins coming with the Republicans not even running as Republicans(2010 them trying to rebrand as the tea party and 2016 Trump basically running against both parties). The base also since 2006 has pretty much been extremely distrusting of the GOP establishment and that has caused a reversion of the earlier Top-Down approach and now every Republican is pretty much afraid of being primaried while prior to 2006 this was not true as well.


Policy wise the country has moved a good deal to the left since 2006 while from 1980 to 2006 moved to the right so thats another change as well

[Stranger in a strange land]

What you're referring to isn't the 2006 election, but the end of the Reagan Era, sometimes called the Neoliberal Consensus or similar names: from 1980-2006, Ronald Reagan was the dominant figure in American politics (though much more so his ideology than him personally), and the Bushes and Clinton basically continued most of his policies to one degree or another. However, this broke down in 2003-2009 because of:
- The Iraq War
- The botched response to Hurricane Katrina
- The 2008 Financial Crisis
- Diverging views on immigration: the Left increasingly came to see it as positive in and of itself, while the Right regarded it as a problem, crisis, or threat

[Sir Mohamed]

Has the so-called neoliberal consensus ever really ended and Reaganomics been kind of "repealed"? It doesn't feel like that, tbh. Perhaps if Biden was able to get entire BBB through. That would have been the biggest turnaway from Reaganomics.

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

I think Bush Jr.'s second term in general was a turning point. Republicans would be stuck at 46-47% of the vote for four presidential elections afterwards and their one Electoral College victory was by a candidate who unequivocally repudiated Bush Jr.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Has the so-called neoliberal consensus ever really ended and Reaganomics been kind of "repealed"? It doesn't feel like that, tbh. Perhaps if Biden was able to get entire BBB through. That would have been the biggest turnaway from Reaganomics.

Reagan also never repealed much of the New Deal/Great Society either , he rather just changed the trajectory we were moving on .

[Hope For A New Era]

Has the so-called neoliberal consensus ever really ended and Reaganomics been kind of "repealed"? It doesn't feel like that, tbh. Perhaps if Biden was able to get entire BBB through. That would have been the biggest turnaway from Reaganomics.

Reagan also never repealed much of the New Deal/Great Society either , he rather just changed the trajectory we were moving on .

This. We are clearly on a different trajectory now, no "reaganomics repeal" necessary.

I'd say the transition started in 2006 or 2008 - the 2010 Tea Party wave was the "oh no, reaganism is dying!" reaction to that - then mostly a stalemate until 2018 - and I'd consider the transition completed after this election and its lack-of-wave.

[jojoju1998]

Has the so-called neoliberal consensus ever really ended and Reaganomics been kind of "repealed"? It doesn't feel like that, tbh. Perhaps if Biden was able to get entire BBB through. That would have been the biggest turnaway from Reaganomics.

Reagan also never repealed much of the New Deal/Great Society either , he rather just changed the trajectory we were moving on .

Reagan claimed he wasn't against the New Deal Programs per se, but rather the great society which he claimed, to have corrupted the New Deal's ethos.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Has the so-called neoliberal consensus ever really ended and Reaganomics been kind of "repealed"? It doesn't feel like that, tbh. Perhaps if Biden was able to get entire BBB through. That would have been the biggest turnaway from Reaganomics.

Reagan also never repealed much of the New Deal/Great Society either , he rather just changed the trajectory we were moving on .

Reagan claimed he wasn't against the New Deal Programs per se, but rather the great society which he claimed, to have corrupted the New Deal's ethos.

He didn’t end up really repealing it either though. What Reagan did was block grant much of it and put more requirements in place to get the programs rather that get rid of them .

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

Has the so-called neoliberal consensus ever really ended and Reaganomics been kind of "repealed"? It doesn't feel like that, tbh. Perhaps if Biden was able to get entire BBB through. That would have been the biggest turnaway from Reaganomics.

Reagan also never repealed much of the New Deal/Great Society either , he rather just changed the trajectory we were moving on .

Reagan claimed he wasn't against the New Deal Programs per se, but rather the great society which he claimed, to have corrupted the New Deal's ethos.

He didn’t end up really repealing it either though. What Reagan did was block grant much of it and put more requirements in place to get the programs rather that get rid of them .

Nixon did the block grants.

[dw93]

I think the Bush years were when the neoliberal consensus both peaked and was discredited. It peaked with the 2004 election, despite its closeness, and was discredited with Katrina, the nadir of the Iraq war, and the financial crisis. That said, Obama was more Nixon than Reagan in terms of changing the trajectory of the country in a sense that, at best, he took baby steps in moving away from the consensus. Time will tell what role Trump and Biden played in changing or attempting to prolong the neoliberal consensus. Will Trump be regarded as the Hoover/Carter that presided over the collapse of said consensus and Biden be the one to usher in a new era? Will a Republican elected in 2024 or 28 be the Hoover/Carter "end of an era" with glimpses of what's to come in the next? It'll be interesting to see.

[PSOL]

No, the social ramifications and rejection of the Iraq war was soon after the invasion. 2004 is a better year, even with Kerry losing primarily due to the party not having absorbing the popular movements of the era yet till Obama.

Many people either went on the street, voted in referendums against the war, or propagated those beliefs online in a countercurrent to the dominant line of the state. Over time the general view that the Iraq war was a bad idea gained an absolute majority.

I don’t really consider the Tea Party relevant to indicate a change in the party system, since it is basically a carbon copy of the 90s anti-government movement that was more anti-Democratic than anti-system.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

It wasn't just Reaganism dying, tbough. An equally large influence was the GOP realizing that decades of rhetoric about "freedom" "equality" and "justice" had actually had an effect, and much of the younger citizenry actually expected these things, even if they weren't wealthy, white, patriarchial, fake Christians. And then when Obama got elected in 2008, they panicked and the mask really came off.

I was an undergrad in college back then, and I attended the first Tea Patty meeting in our student union building - it was full of people who identified as Libertarians (or libertarians) or just as supporters of small government, or civil or constitutional rights. And yet, it was very clear that the one thing they all agreed on was that putting a black man in the White House was an unpardonable attack on their very existence . It was very clear what the right in American politics stood for, and I've seen nothing in the all the years since to indicate differently.

[jojoju1998]

I think the Bush years were when the neoliberal consensus both peaked and was discredited. It peaked with the 2004 election, despite its closeness, and was discredited with Katrina, the nadir of the Iraq war, and the financial crisis. That said, Obama was more Nixon than Reagan in terms of changing the trajectory of the country in a sense that, at best, he took baby steps in moving away from the consensus. Time will tell what role Trump and Biden played in changing or attempting to prolong the neoliberal consensus. Will Trump be regarded as the Hoover/Carter that presided over the collapse of said consensus and Biden be the one to usher in a new era? Will a Republican elected in 2024 or 28 be the Hoover/Carter "end of an era" with glimpses of what's to come in the next? It'll be interesting to see.

I would argue that the NeoLiberal Consensus peaked in the 1990s with Bill Clinton and the new democrats.

2004 was  a foreign policy dominated election.

It wasn't just Reaganism dying, tbough. An equally large influence was the GOP realizing that decades of rhetoric about "freedom" "equality" and "justice" had actually had an effect, and much of the younger citizenry actually expected these things, even if they weren't wealthy, white, patriarchial, fake Christians. And then when Obama got elected in 2008, they panicked and the mask really came off.

I was an undergrad in college back then, and I attended the first Tea Patty meeting in our student union building - it was full of people who identified as Libertarians (or libertarians) or just as supporters of small government, or civil or constitutional rights. And yet, it was very clear that the one thing they all agreed on was that putting a black man in the White House was an unpardonable attack on their very existence . It was very clear what the right in American politics stood for, and I've seen nothing in the all the years since to indicate differently.

Here's a hot take. America wasn't ready for a African American President in 2008 and it actually set back the realignment process by 8 years.