The future of the GOP

What future is there for the GOP? Really, I've asked this before here but the question is dodged. Yes, demographics shouldn't dictate outcomes because groups don't blindly vote for candidates of their group. But when the opposite party wins over 70% of hispanic vote and OVER 90% of the black vote, it's clear you have alienated those two groups which in just a few years will become a majority. It doesn't help that women overwhelmingly have abandoned you and you people have deserted you. What do you do?

The GOP can turn a positive eye on immigration and welfare and all of that, but then it becomes the Democrat Party II. And people will vote for the real thing. Or you can radicalize and play only to your core values, but then you are basically conceding defeat forever. What is the course of action for the GOP?

I know a good answer would be to go libertarian but, on one hand, those same groups are hardly libertarian in economic and social issues. And two, American are growing too comfortable with the idea of the paternalistic powerful state to allow a shift towards the opposite.

Should we make the already existing one-party solution official?

It should be split up into its various constituents: the selfish wealthy, the religulous, the skeeters, real conservatives, racists, paleos, neos, etc. Hat's off to Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, and D. Eisenhower. Other than those guys, no honorable republicans come to mind. :)

thellama73 wrote: I expect the GOP will continue to drift left and abandon their principles...

This House bunch is the most conservative ever in the history of Congress.

The GOP isn't going to become the Party of Big Government. What I think is most likely is that an entirely new crop of pragmatist technocrats are going to rise to the top. The Dems have never been the party of science and reason. The fact that they have taken that mantle basically speaks volumes to the disaster that has befallen the Republican Party. The Republicans need to become the party of liberty and measured policy if they are going to survive.

//EDIT: And that does not mean that they should become Libertarians. Libertarians place personal and economic liberty above all else, but the pragmatist coalition cannot adhere to that absolutely as a Libertarian would.


Edited by Gamemako - November 07 2012 at 15:35

The GOP rejected a principled candidate in favor of an "electable" one.  Always remember that.

The GOP is going nowhere as long as they're still holding seats in Congress. It's only when they start losing elections massively that they'll want to change.

Edited by HarbouringTheSoul - November 07 2012 at 16:13

They will have to embrace their libertarian side and eschew their socially conservative side to have a hope of winning elections again.    Fighting against the pursuit  of happiness and freedom of decent, law abiding and tax paying citizens by telling them what to do with their bodies and whom they can and cannot marry just doesn't fly anymore today unless you are a 3rd world dictatorship or other totalitarian state, and will become less and less viable with each generation.  The only way for them to distinguish themselves is to TRULY embrace small government instead of paying lip service to it. 

Edited by kenethlevine - November 07 2012 at 16:30

ProgBob wrote: thellama73 wrote: I expect the GOP will continue to drift left You mean become very right wing instead of extremely right wing? No, that's not what I meant. thellama73 wrote: welfare, free healthcare, free education, etc. i.e. the sorts of things you might expect in a civilised country? You and I clearly have different definitions of civilization. thellama73 wrote: voting themselves into slavery Sounds like the sort of thing you might approve of. Might be a way of dealing with those lazy blacks you mentioned and the welfare scroungers. If you've read anything I've ever posted on this site, you would know that I abhore anything that takes away people's freedoms, whatever their race.

thellama73 wrote: I expect the GOP will continue to drift left and abandon their principles until they look even more like the Democrats than they do now. Sadly, the only way it is possible to win elections in this country now is to promise everyone free stuff-more welfare, free healthcare, free education, etc. In order to win the hispanic vote you have to let anyone who wants come into the country and stay forever while collecting government benefits. In order to win the woman vote, you have to concede that it's okay to slaughter babies. In order to win the black vote, you have to allow people not to remain unemployed while still collecting their free stuff. In my view, there is no point in winning elections if you can only do so by being the same as your opponent. I doubt if I will ever vote GOP again. We are a one party nation now and democracy has led, as it always will, to people voting themselves into slavery.

Wow.  I was fairly certain before that I didn't agree with your politics.  Now I am absolutely sure.  What a bunch of ridiculous stereotypes!

it's a great question; maybe they should take a play from the Clinton handbook and usurp someone else's ideas; ones that work and make sense broadly without abandoning whatever core values you still have, pretend you thought of it, and surprise everyone with a sudden modern appeal.

 

ProgBob wrote: thellama73 wrote: I expect the GOP will continue to drift left You mean become very right wing instead of extremely right wing? thellama73 wrote: welfare, free healthcare, free education, etc. i.e. the sorts of things you might expect in a civilised country? thellama73 wrote: voting themselves into slavery Sounds like the sort of thing you might approve of. Might be a way of dealing with those lazy blacks you mentioned and the welfare scroungers.

Well said Bob.  This idea of the Republicans drifting to the left is ludicrous.  Both the Republicans and the Democrats have continued to move to the right for the past 30 years.  Gone are the days of the Roosevelts, the progressives and a real sense of America as a society where people have duties to both society and to one another.

As for the last point, Logan, I know you would never approve of official state-sponsored slavery, but you do approve of a kind of indentured servitude (allowing people to basically contract themselves into slavery - the means may be different but the result is the same).