(07-20-2018 12:07 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Trump has made painfully obvious the disconnect between the GOP base and the GOP itself. Trump turned the GOP from the party of free trade to nationalist, protectionist, and economically isolationist 140 characters at a time. Watching how effective Trump is at gutting the GOP not just of its dead weight (Boehner, Ryan, etc) but also the few card carrying serious people in town (Mark Sanford, Rand Paul in the campaign, etc) ... if this guy pulls off another 4 years there won't be a GOP. There'll be a Trump party. And that might as well have a line scratched through the middle and "Populist Party" scribbled underneath. Because that's what it really is.

Right now there is a cadre of issues where a libertarian / constitutional / old school Goldwater / fusionist platform can be made. And to make a platform you need big slices of the electorate that can broadly agree with one another. Right now there is no voice in the room for:

- States rights .... on a cadre of issues from health care to cannabis to education.
- Free trade
- Military non-intervention
- An actual sensible post Cold War foreign policy centered around "we'll maintain Bretton-Woods for YOU ... if YOU individually aren't a prick and pay for the cost of defending you. And we're flexible about how you pay. It can be gold. It can be cash. It can be onshoring business and manufacturing to the United States. We're flexible." An example: We give the British a bunch of our older but still capable Carrier Fleet support vessels. Since they can't afford them. In exchange, the British permanently cede Diego Garcia to the United States.
- An actual sensible post Cold War diplomatic policy centered around replacing the United Nations with something more in line with the Commonwealth of Nations.
- Domestic expansion. This is a long game, but to play the long game you must first begin the game. Alberta. Saskatchewan. If you get those, BC and then extend I-5 to Junea and Anchorage. Guam. The Northern Marianas Islands. There's options o'plenty.
- Balanced budgets
- Entitlement reform ... because eventually "save the programs from bankruptcy" will be a powerful political force. And boy that'd be a nice time to sneak an opt-out clause in like Chile has with their social security program.
- Privacy ... not just from FB or Google but the NSA too.
- Taxes .... set aside what rate to make them or how to levy them ... just having a tax code people can under-f*cking-stand would be enormously popular. You should be able to do your taxes on one sheet of paper. State and local governments manage to do that just fine.


Now the problem I see with this ... is any new party needs a charismatic leader who can rally everybody together but who is also pragmatic enough to paper over differences while some cohesion happens. You need a Nigel Farage more or less. And I don't see that person out there politically in the existing landscape. All the people with the credentials either don't have the name ID (Justin Amash, Thomas Massie, etc) or simply aren't charismatic (Rand Paul, Gary Johnson, etc).


Related: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/...son-219006

Back when I was just saying "No way will I vote for Hillary" and well before I had any need to add "No way will I vote for Trump" had a long text conversation with a good friend where I argued that we were on the cusp of a major party shake-up.

The collapse of the Whigs and emergence of Republicans was huge but we've had smaller yet very significant changes in the past.

The GOP which once polled 30-35% of black voters swung Democrat for Kennedy and locked in after the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That pushed the anti-Civil Rights crowd out of the GOP. The 1972 election saw the "warhawks" displaced from the Democratic party. 1980 saw the shift of evangelicals to the GOP.

The GOP is a very messy coalition right now.

The old-time pro-business GOP that really has no interest in issues like gay marriage or abortion except to make sure they say nothing about either that will cost them revenue can't feel comfortable.

The traditional isolationist has no place to go between a warhawk GOP that wants to impose Democracy by force (instead of covert action, circa Eisenhower era) in any place that has economic or strategic value and a Democratic party afraid to not quasi-declare war lest they lose elections. Hillary for example was a major hawk.

The traditionally western Republican who favors small fiscally responsible government and thinks what you do in your private life is your concern doesn't fit well with the borrow and spenders who share your vision on taxation but not spending and certainly doesn't fit with the evangelical wing.

The evangelical wing which was once a major supporter of social security and mostly a supporter of collective bargaining, now has ditched that and focuses on abortion and what gay people do and would really like to regulate what shows up when their wife wants skin care tips and searches for facial.

There is such a vast disparity in the logic and priorities of the GOP constituency that I'm not sure how it survives much longer without some sort of shifting.

The traditional pro-business Republican is who I think defects first. Post-Bill Clinton the Democratic party has been pretty close to their positions, Obama era didn't change that much unless you sell insurance or sell pharmaceuticals.

Just going to be really hard to hold the current coalition together.