I live in a county that went 70+ percent for Trump. Trump style republicans are running against old guard Republicans and winning big. I see a grassroots change that you may be missing. Another future many don't talk about is what happens when someone with Trump's approach, but who is more capable along the lines of Putin, comes along. Last random thought - remember conservatives are fundamentally distrustful of government. A policy of disruption is sufficient to meet that goal. All else falls away in course.
Isn't their platform basically becoming "arrest, prosecute, and execute liberals or insufficiently loyal conservatives"?
I hate to sound alarmist, but when you hear people like Lin Wood saying the penalty for Pence failing to overturn the election be "execution by firing squad", you have to think they want to get back to their 50s utopia by force.
I wonder how much of Republican success is due to policy shifts vs. propaganda. Even if democrats take your recommendations, I doubt they would make much inroads due to the effectiveness of Fox News/NewsMax/talk radio, etc. Republicans have such a huge advantage in their propaganda machine, I doubt Democrats would make much inroads. These outlets have been hugely successful in instilling the attitude that "if a liberal thinks something is right, it must be wrong", that I think any change on the left would just result in the right adjusting their messaging accordingly. As long as Republicans are happy to keep their heads down when they have power, they can mostly split the middle and clean up amongst their base.
Great article, thanks Matt. It's all a little crazy making. I wish I knew what real conservatives think, but when I talk to them everything is whataboutism's. Even when you're purely asking. It's almost impossible for a conservative to stake a claim in anything right now, except immigration. I loved that point bc I see it anecdotally all over.
Except our economy actually NEEDS some low skilled workers for things like farm labor - having higher skilled immigrants isn’t necessarily better for the economy. It just depends on what a particular economy needs.
I hadn't heard of Demeny voting before - it sounds interesting. However, I was also intrigued by the essay Kelsey Piper wrote a year or two ago for Vox arguing for voting age 0 - if a kid can physically use the voting machine, their vote can count (though with most young kids, they'd probably spoil their ballot, and a good fraction of kids would either vote effectively randomly or in line with their parents; it would be hard for a candidate to succeed with compelling advertising in children's cartoons, since adults are still the majority of the electorate).
Children actually voting seems much more reasonable to me. I'm thinking about the demeny thing and envisioning apocalyptic matrix style vote(r) farms. :/
It's pretty similar to the policy-preferences of those who describe themselves as "neo-reactionary". I can't for the life of me figure out where the tax break for nannies figures into it, though.
I could see a case if you call nannies "childcare". The weird bit is "Tax break for hiring nannies" directly after "remove all tariffs and subsidies." Tax breaks are inherently subsidies. Maybe "remove most" or "remove all tariffs and subsidies on trade" is what this person meant.
What? No. Neoliberalism is steeped in free trade, open markets and competition. Many of these things are not neoliberal minus the tariffs and subsidies. Forced savings is extremely anti neoliberal as well as capping immigration.
On a separately note, I deeply worry about misrepresentations in liberalism and neoliberalism. I see them everywhere. It's like when people talk about "capitalism". Almost no one seems to have the same definition. Neoliberalism is similar because you and I have a different definition and at least we're reading both reading Slow Boring.
One through-line in your thinking (to me) is that crime is a huge problem in society. Drugs especially (a-la Singapore). Many drugs like marijuana are extremely common, even among law and order supporters. Would you legalize marijuana? (Psilocybin mushrooms, ketamine?) High punishment for drug offenses would put many decent people in jail. Lots of people serving them (drug dealers) to death. That's extraordinarily harsh for many recreational, low-harm drugs. Care to clarify your stance on drug policy?
Oh ya definitely. It sounds very ideal. At the same time, I do not think I want to live in a complete surveillance state. While I have had my bike stolen twice bc I live in cities, I also have a fancy bike lock now.
Overall, my tendency is not to fear crime too much. Sort of the opposite of you, but I understand where you come from. Not having to worry could free up many economic and societal gains, that is for sure.
I honestly think that the GOP has a ton of stuff on their agenda that they're just biding their time on. If in 2024, they win the Presidency, then they will almost certainly have a comfortable house majority and 55+ senate seats. By that point they'll have enough votes to ward off defections and pass a sweeping agenda, similar to Democrats in 2009
But if they aren't talking about it publicly what makes you think there won't be massive disagreement when it comes time to put rubber to road. I mean, 08 Obama didn't campaign on an individual mandate, obviously. But debating the merits of actual healthcare policy was a huge part of democratic politics. Consensus nisbhard to forge/find in secret planning meetings
"But what we saw in 2018 is that you can’t enact major legislation without people noticing and it getting talked about a lot, and even a distinctly watered-down version of the Ryan agenda led to a Democratic landslide in 2018. "
Not buying it. I hear over and over again that the Democrats won their landslide in 2018 because they "ran on healthcare." Sure, that's what they talked about. But that's not what the midterms were about: they were all about Trump.
First, healthcare had been taken off the table by McCain et al's defeat of ACA repeal way back in July 2017. It had disappeared from the Republican agenda long before Nov. 2018, Ryan or no Ryan.
Secondly, and more importantly: Seriously? I mean, look at the vote totals for midterm elections historically:
2002 71M
2006 78M
2010 84M
2014 76M
2018 112M
Just like 2020 showed a historically unprecedented leap in voter participation, so did 2018 for a midterm election. And that was because the Republicans tried (and failed) to repeal ACA and Democratic candidates talked about improving healthcare? Um, no. Or . . . could it be that both 2018 and 2020 happened when Donald J. Trump was President?
For better or worse, the person of Trump activated voter interest and participation in a way we have almost never seen.
I largely agree with this, and I feel like the Trump factor is underexamined in this conversation about the broad trajectory of the GOP. Trump is a pretty awful leader and politician, but as a shiny object he’s really first rate. Among other things, I wonder how viable a “do basically nothing” strategy can be for the GOP without Trump constantly dominating media attention.
Writing down a tentative pair of linked predictions, with some precentages, so I can get better! Dems lose both senate seats (60) => McConnell can't muster majorities for much of anything, appointments are slow/blocked, house passes generous messaging bills that Biden admin bangs on table about and Mitch refuses to bring to floor. At the same time, healthy household balance sheets, CARES + lame duck stimulus support, and loose fed policy make the economy great again, again. Dems win 55+ share of national congressional votes (80, contingent on losing senate) in 2022. Like the mirror of Douthats column: What could Democrats win by losing Georgia? Am I totally alone in imagining that a dem loss today might be politicly beneficial in '22? With running against Mitch's obstruction of an (hopefully!) increasingly popular Biden Admin being a better hand to play vs. running on all the accomplishments a federal trifecta with 50 Senators can get?
How much of this is related to the fact that Congress has been split the past two years? Mitch doesn't want to bring up unpopular bills if they're just going to fail in the House anyway.
Yglesias' comment above is that "McCain... save[d] them from themselves." IIRC that was on ACA repeal. But yeah, good question about some of the other stuff that Matt listed--did Mitch not bring it up because he would lose the more moderate members of his caucus, or because he didn't want to distract from judgeships and such?
It’s not my money, but I feel like this would be a good post to make public, so that more Republicans (who I imagine are less frequent subscribers here) would see it? Anyway, Mike Konczal had a good post on this, regarding the internal recriminations Democrats love to do while Republicans curiously haven’t been—not even (this is after his post) now that they lost in 2020. https://medium.com/@rortybomb/why-are-there-no-good-conservative-critiques-of-trumps-unified-government-e849663fed10
I think the point missing in this article is that any Republican that says Trump did something wrong (didn't pass the right legislation, regulation, etc.) or even lost in 2020 gets hit by the Trump bus. Having seen how painful that it is, they're not going to do it.
Interesting take. I have to say that I am gambling heavily on your being wrong on the "moderation" hypothesis. Republicans likely aren't "moderating" in any meaningful way on their economic ideas; Trumpists merely wish to limit their destruction of the welfare state to making the center-left majority of America suffer.
This was actually probably clear the moment Paul Ryan proposed ending Medicare for younger generations, and keeping it for the old. The new iteration of GOP orthodoxy is the only way these 2000's-era ideas (which their critical donor base very much believes, if anything more than ever) can pass.
It would probably be even more politically wise for them to take a Boris Johnson turn and genuinely outflank the left on economics, but this is a movement largely predicated on revenge and resentment against the "other". Without its desire to hurt, disenfranchise, and dominate, it is nothing. GOP trickle-down economics may fail when put front and center, but like everything else in Trump's hands, it's a sometimes-useful weapon.
Rs are recognizing that "economically liberal, socially conservative" is the actual preference of their voters and aligning to it, rather than to the "economically conservative" (i.e. libertarian) preferences of their donors.
If Joe runs in 2024, I think there's no way a guy like Don Jr. beats him. If it's Kamala vs. the Original Donald, though, I'd say all bets are off.
Last but not least, as a former Republican, I continue to be astounded by how shameless the Republican Party has become. Just no pretext of giving a shit about the Constitution any more.
My comparison for the Trump years is the Carter presidency. Trump is no Carter (he does not even have the ounce of good character). But, I think he represents a disastrous current state that will require a return to "normality" in the future.
I believe the bleeding of the suburbs will end up being instrumental in the 12-16 year wilderness Republicans are walking into. The old donors will leave the scene. The "rising stars" are do-nothing maniacs like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Much more interested in prosecuting fictional deep-state wars than governing. They will lose purple districts. Because incumbent, moderate politicians will get primaried. Meanwhile, the bench will get crazier and crazier. This will repel donors, and the vicious cycle continues.
In 2032, they'll be ready for a Larry Hogan / Charlie Baker like figure to do their version of a Clintonian pivot and win back the suburbs. You can't run a party on a downwardly-mobile base and the most reactionary billionaire types. You are going to need a bench of mid-level elites (i.e. well-educated people, sub-ten-millionaires) to drive substantive agenda items.
There is so much conversation about the "working class future" of the GOP. But it will have no chance if they can't get some actual elite firepower from Nassau County and Northern Virginia. The working class voters will be lower propensity when they have to vote for personality-bankrupt cowards like Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton. Trump is an ignorant, lazy fool of the highest order. But at least he knows how to play the hits. His successors are as exciting as the warm ham sandwiches they eat for lunch. This "coalition" will have a short life.
For the Democrats: Support "broadly popular" policies. Display competence in governing. Have a strategy for how to handle the known tradeoffs that come with a broad coalition. If they can do this, the next 16 years belong to them.
Do you think Trump supporters see Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, and Ted Cruz as "personality-bankrupt cowards"? I think they see them as principle ideological conservatives who are willing to make unpopular stands for things these unhinged voters think are important.
A scary part of living in a democracy, imho, is that I think a non trivial number of voters do actually believe this....prob far from a majority of those who vote for him, but I'm less confident about it being 'no one', unfortunately...
People like you and I don't - but as a professor at Texas A&M University, I have seen many undergrads who seem genuinely enthusiastic about him, in a way that I rarely ever did with Trump.
The way that everyone eventually fails Trump and publicly loses his good graces (as Sessions did in 2017 and as Pence is about to do tomorrow) doesn't speak well to Hawley, Cotton, and Cruz's prospects of picking up Trump's crown.
I agree that the path to a clean inheritance for any of these people is hard to see now. Eventually someone will be the new face (no one lives forever), but I doubt it will be a clean inheritance when it comes to that. I do rate the chance of a Trump 2024 primary win as below 50, but mostly because there are many exits (financial ruin, infirmary/death, a republican 24 hopeful discovering they have a spine and hidden wellsprings of charisma or leadership), and still only a bit below, maybe 40, at that. I'd put higher odds on Jr in 24 than any republican senator.
I half agree. I do think it's possible for trumpy voters to see these folks as principled idealogues and also see them as personality bankrupt. I enjoyed the first several Sarah cooper videos and agree with Josh Barro's analysis that part of what made cooper's videos funny is the fact that they allow people who otherwise wouldn't to take Trump less seriously which unlocks parts of his appeal. That charisma, that Mark Burnett (among others) saw as a vehicle to fame and riches, is real with Trump. But I don't think hawley, cotton, pompeo, cruz have any of that kind of energy, personally. Of course it would be more meaningful to heat that from a trumpy voter whose perspective I can't claim to emulate that well.
They're also try-hards. Something Trump supporters love about him is he is the same whiny New York developer idiot that he always was. The old "Donny from Queens" aspect. Ted Cruz is like that guy you knew who changed his personality with each new girlfriend or friend group. He is an empty slate with no natural constituency. People put up with him because they hate the other side, but don't expect any of these people to carry Twitter water for him.
Yes, someone said that Trump skillfully projects the idea that the truth doesn't matter and that both of you are in on the joke, whereas Cruz always seems like someone who's trying to trick you, someone who's acting sincere but really isn't.
Yeah, there is a core % that would agree on that. But I presume the rustbelt swing voters are less friendly to these guys. Not ever sure why they liked Trump, but he definitely had a distinct, recognizable brand. These guys are the wet noodles of charisma.
I think this is a little to rosy a picture for dems. Sure this may be true in terms of national popularity, but political power is not remotely distributed fairly. So maybe the generic republican is only liked/voted for by 40% of the population nationally (even that number is a little low) but given the results of the 2020 elections, there will not be any changes to the political system, so republicans are gonna gerrymander everything they can to hell, and keep having power. Also even if the new-age GOP adopts less corporate friendly policy, that would not mean they lose their rich donors. Those donors still have to chose between the two parties, and a more corporation hawkish GOP is still much better than the Dems who like the welfare-state, like regulations, and believe climate change is an issue we should do something about. Those donors still hate all that stuff.
3) Republicans lose Texas, and are effectively shut out of the presidency unless they moderate on actual behavior (not just issues).
4) Democrats will need to moderate on tech regulation, because that will be the big thing that the next crop of elite donors are interested in. The far left already accuses them of being too friendly to big tech.
When Reagan won in 1980, the idea of Republicans controlling congress seemed crazy. I think the Democrats find themselves in a similar position now. They can capture a broad coalition, and with Texas, are the de-facto presidential winners. They'll have headwinds in congress. But if they can have a few generations of competent lawmakers, they will easily outflank the Marjorie Taylor Greene party with the vast swathe of voters.
The GOP is behaving like a party that wants a ceiling at 30%. They haven't arrived yet, but I believe they are headed there if they persist.
I don't think 1 and 2 are happening any time soon. The "gerrymandering backfire" only happens when you design a bunch of 55-45 safe seats, and 8 years of population redistribution turns them into 49-51 losses. I suppose it's possible that the next decade will have population changes that are more unpredictable than the ones of previous decades, but you can also avoid it just by being a tiny bit less greedy (draw nine 57-43 seats and two 20-80 seats rather than ten 55-45 seats and one 3-97 seat) or by having the courts allow sneakier map-drawing methods that are safer against predicted demographic changes. And I would be surprised if remote worker trends do much to change the blue-urban/red-rural trend (though perhaps it'll allow St. Louis and Detroit to get more tech workers that want urban amenities without New York/San Francisco prices).
Kenny. I appreciate your thorough gravity, and bringing me back to earth on this one.
I think there are a couple rural states that could really see the remote worker opinion shifts (if I am going to go all the way on my idea). Here goes: Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. It's not huge, but massively changes the senate trajectory. Here are the cases:
1) Montana, nice rural getaway, has been "in-play" for liberals here and there.
2) Idaho, scooping up California tech refugees. Boise has changed quite a bit.
3) Wyoming. Obvious choice when Colorado gets too expensive.
I think the case for Montana and Idaho is quite interesting - Boise really does seem to be shaping up to be the new Portland (though we'll have to see how much dense urban development is liberalized to allow it to become that); and Montana, as you note, has been close to being a swing state several times. I'd be very skeptical about Wyoming, given that it's one of the reddest states currently, but I suppose Wyoming is in fact the state where two of my blue-voting friends have relocated for the duration of the pandemic (from Texas and New Hampshire).
My general thought on all this is that the geography shapes partisanship more than partisanship drawing people to the geography. When you walk past your neighbor (and a dozen strangers) every single day on the way to get coffee and go to work, you think about them (and the shared infrastructure you just used) very differently than if you only see people through the windshield of a car, and can't rely on police or firefighters or paramedics to help you within 45 minutes. An individual's partisanship will survive for a while when they're in a new place, but over time it will likely be gradually shaped by their environment. (I suppose it's theoretically possible that at a certain point, identity becomes more shaped by online environment than by the experience of the physical body - but the physical body is the one that is in the geography subject to government jurisdiction, while the online environment isn't so connected to local or regional electoral politics.)
I'm waiting for someone to make the case that the Dems aren't friendly enough to Big Tech.
Like, having the most powerful and innovative tech companies in the world headquartered here is a good thing, and people are weirdly reluctant (on both sides) to admit that. (I mean, would anyone have a problem with Amazon running our vaccine distribution right now?)
Yeah, I tend to agree. It's fashionable to hate big companies in public. Economists talk about revealed preference, and almost every big city mayor / governor in this country wants Amazon to come and build HQ 3 in their city.
I won’t write a whole dissertation, but I do think this is a product of the GOP becoming more democratically accountable to the new Trumpian base after the realignments of the last 4 years. These people want hardball and culture war; they don’t care that much about Christianity or tax policy.
I don’t think their elected representatives have given up on the latter two, nor will they (unless Hawley became somehow not a phony on some of his anti corporate rhetoric — 95% confidence he will remain phony for at least the next four years). It’s essential for donor $ and a still-sizable portion of the base. But Trumpism will be what makes the tweets and TV commercials until it’s shown that economic conservatism is an asset in a Republican primary the way they believed it was in 2011-12.
I think an interesting counterfactual is if our presidential matchups ended up something like (1) Romney pulling out a big victory in 2012 over Hillary Clinton, and (2) Obama blowing out Trump in 2020. I think those results would leave people, somewhat obviously, less convinced of right-wing populism as a useful electoral tool. But Obama being a high quality politician and Hillary Clinton being a fairly low quality politician created a space where it seems like Romney-ism is a loser while Trumpism is a winner. Maybe the electoral college makes that true. But I think it is possible to “overlearn” from 2016 (and even Trump’s near win in 2020) if you lose sight of the fact that Romneyism lost with a retail politics deficit while Trumpism won while holding a retail politics... tie?
I don't think Romney's problem was that he wasn't likeable. His problem was that he came across to all the white working types as a rich guy that supported things that rich people like. McCain and Romney both. Maybe Obama would have looked different if he had had to deal with a Trump type candidate.
I’m not saying Romney was an unlikeable guy, although he was successfully portrayed as an out of touch aristocrat. Some personality quirks of his made that easier than it may have been for another candidate. But nevertheless, I think he was a very good candidate — Obama was just a generational political talent.
I know a lot of republicans that agree with you. And a lot of them feel that Romney was treated just as poorly as trump even though trump really is a terrible person. That’s their train of thought.
Their primary goal is getting re-elected. They have to avoid being primaried by the base so we see those in safe red seats like Cathy Mcmorris Rogers in eastern WA snuggled up with snakes like Devin Nunes. At the same time she runs her small town girl ads to keep the old timers in town comfortable. Actually talking about policy isn’t needed in greater Ritzville as the majority were born Republicans.
The policies will follow those in the safest seats just as it has followed Trump. You have to start by winning the primary. Eastern Oregon once had a powerful New Deal Democrat rep. He got booted in the primary during the early years of the Reagan shift and the seat has been Republican since.
Matt, would you be able to send me a copy of your paper: The Case for Fox News Studies?
It's 9 pm eastern, how is there no Georgia election open thread?? I want one of my eight dollars back.
I live in a county that went 70+ percent for Trump. Trump style republicans are running against old guard Republicans and winning big. I see a grassroots change that you may be missing. Another future many don't talk about is what happens when someone with Trump's approach, but who is more capable along the lines of Putin, comes along. Last random thought - remember conservatives are fundamentally distrustful of government. A policy of disruption is sufficient to meet that goal. All else falls away in course.
Isn't their platform basically becoming "arrest, prosecute, and execute liberals or insufficiently loyal conservatives"?
I hate to sound alarmist, but when you hear people like Lin Wood saying the penalty for Pence failing to overturn the election be "execution by firing squad", you have to think they want to get back to their 50s utopia by force.
I wonder how much of Republican success is due to policy shifts vs. propaganda. Even if democrats take your recommendations, I doubt they would make much inroads due to the effectiveness of Fox News/NewsMax/talk radio, etc. Republicans have such a huge advantage in their propaganda machine, I doubt Democrats would make much inroads. These outlets have been hugely successful in instilling the attitude that "if a liberal thinks something is right, it must be wrong", that I think any change on the left would just result in the right adjusting their messaging accordingly. As long as Republicans are happy to keep their heads down when they have power, they can mostly split the middle and clean up amongst their base.
Great article, thanks Matt. It's all a little crazy making. I wish I knew what real conservatives think, but when I talk to them everything is whataboutism's. Even when you're purely asking. It's almost impossible for a conservative to stake a claim in anything right now, except immigration. I loved that point bc I see it anecdotally all over.
Except our economy actually NEEDS some low skilled workers for things like farm labor - having higher skilled immigrants isn’t necessarily better for the economy. It just depends on what a particular economy needs.
I hadn't heard of Demeny voting before - it sounds interesting. However, I was also intrigued by the essay Kelsey Piper wrote a year or two ago for Vox arguing for voting age 0 - if a kid can physically use the voting machine, their vote can count (though with most young kids, they'd probably spoil their ballot, and a good fraction of kids would either vote effectively randomly or in line with their parents; it would be hard for a candidate to succeed with compelling advertising in children's cartoons, since adults are still the majority of the electorate).
Children actually voting seems much more reasonable to me. I'm thinking about the demeny thing and envisioning apocalyptic matrix style vote(r) farms. :/
That's all very interesting. What do you call this set of policy ideas? Is there a summation you give?
--
May I ask about particular policy ideas and why you believe them?
It's pretty similar to the policy-preferences of those who describe themselves as "neo-reactionary". I can't for the life of me figure out where the tax break for nannies figures into it, though.
I could see a case if you call nannies "childcare". The weird bit is "Tax break for hiring nannies" directly after "remove all tariffs and subsidies." Tax breaks are inherently subsidies. Maybe "remove most" or "remove all tariffs and subsidies on trade" is what this person meant.
What? No. Neoliberalism is steeped in free trade, open markets and competition. Many of these things are not neoliberal minus the tariffs and subsidies. Forced savings is extremely anti neoliberal as well as capping immigration.
On a separately note, I deeply worry about misrepresentations in liberalism and neoliberalism. I see them everywhere. It's like when people talk about "capitalism". Almost no one seems to have the same definition. Neoliberalism is similar because you and I have a different definition and at least we're reading both reading Slow Boring.
30 years ago neoliberalism meant Pinochet. The meaning has shifted, on twitter it basically means 'Obamaism'.
(But I ended up deleting this because it's not quite apt. Point is scf0101 is an authoritarian on a Franco - Beijing Consensus sort of axis)
One through-line in your thinking (to me) is that crime is a huge problem in society. Drugs especially (a-la Singapore). Many drugs like marijuana are extremely common, even among law and order supporters. Would you legalize marijuana? (Psilocybin mushrooms, ketamine?) High punishment for drug offenses would put many decent people in jail. Lots of people serving them (drug dealers) to death. That's extraordinarily harsh for many recreational, low-harm drugs. Care to clarify your stance on drug policy?
Oh ya definitely. It sounds very ideal. At the same time, I do not think I want to live in a complete surveillance state. While I have had my bike stolen twice bc I live in cities, I also have a fancy bike lock now.
Overall, my tendency is not to fear crime too much. Sort of the opposite of you, but I understand where you come from. Not having to worry could free up many economic and societal gains, that is for sure.
I honestly think that the GOP has a ton of stuff on their agenda that they're just biding their time on. If in 2024, they win the Presidency, then they will almost certainly have a comfortable house majority and 55+ senate seats. By that point they'll have enough votes to ward off defections and pass a sweeping agenda, similar to Democrats in 2009
But if they aren't talking about it publicly what makes you think there won't be massive disagreement when it comes time to put rubber to road. I mean, 08 Obama didn't campaign on an individual mandate, obviously. But debating the merits of actual healthcare policy was a huge part of democratic politics. Consensus nisbhard to forge/find in secret planning meetings
"But what we saw in 2018 is that you can’t enact major legislation without people noticing and it getting talked about a lot, and even a distinctly watered-down version of the Ryan agenda led to a Democratic landslide in 2018. "
Not buying it. I hear over and over again that the Democrats won their landslide in 2018 because they "ran on healthcare." Sure, that's what they talked about. But that's not what the midterms were about: they were all about Trump.
First, healthcare had been taken off the table by McCain et al's defeat of ACA repeal way back in July 2017. It had disappeared from the Republican agenda long before Nov. 2018, Ryan or no Ryan.
Secondly, and more importantly: Seriously? I mean, look at the vote totals for midterm elections historically:
2002 71M
2006 78M
2010 84M
2014 76M
2018 112M
Just like 2020 showed a historically unprecedented leap in voter participation, so did 2018 for a midterm election. And that was because the Republicans tried (and failed) to repeal ACA and Democratic candidates talked about improving healthcare? Um, no. Or . . . could it be that both 2018 and 2020 happened when Donald J. Trump was President?
For better or worse, the person of Trump activated voter interest and participation in a way we have almost never seen.
I largely agree with this, and I feel like the Trump factor is underexamined in this conversation about the broad trajectory of the GOP. Trump is a pretty awful leader and politician, but as a shiny object he’s really first rate. Among other things, I wonder how viable a “do basically nothing” strategy can be for the GOP without Trump constantly dominating media attention.
Sorry for the duplicate, everyone.
Writing down a tentative pair of linked predictions, with some precentages, so I can get better! Dems lose both senate seats (60) => McConnell can't muster majorities for much of anything, appointments are slow/blocked, house passes generous messaging bills that Biden admin bangs on table about and Mitch refuses to bring to floor. At the same time, healthy household balance sheets, CARES + lame duck stimulus support, and loose fed policy make the economy great again, again. Dems win 55+ share of national congressional votes (80, contingent on losing senate) in 2022. Like the mirror of Douthats column: What could Democrats win by losing Georgia? Am I totally alone in imagining that a dem loss today might be politicly beneficial in '22? With running against Mitch's obstruction of an (hopefully!) increasingly popular Biden Admin being a better hand to play vs. running on all the accomplishments a federal trifecta with 50 Senators can get?
Don't get me wrong, I'd take the Senate seats if it were up to me!
How much of this is related to the fact that Congress has been split the past two years? Mitch doesn't want to bring up unpopular bills if they're just going to fail in the House anyway.
Nancy is happy to bring up lots of popular bills that will fail in the Senate - can't he come up with similar things?
But why did nothing other than a tax cut happen 2017-2018?
Yglesias' comment above is that "McCain... save[d] them from themselves." IIRC that was on ACA repeal. But yeah, good question about some of the other stuff that Matt listed--did Mitch not bring it up because he would lose the more moderate members of his caucus, or because he didn't want to distract from judgeships and such?
It’s not my money, but I feel like this would be a good post to make public, so that more Republicans (who I imagine are less frequent subscribers here) would see it? Anyway, Mike Konczal had a good post on this, regarding the internal recriminations Democrats love to do while Republicans curiously haven’t been—not even (this is after his post) now that they lost in 2020. https://medium.com/@rortybomb/why-are-there-no-good-conservative-critiques-of-trumps-unified-government-e849663fed10
I think the point missing in this article is that any Republican that says Trump did something wrong (didn't pass the right legislation, regulation, etc.) or even lost in 2020 gets hit by the Trump bus. Having seen how painful that it is, they're not going to do it.
Interesting take. I have to say that I am gambling heavily on your being wrong on the "moderation" hypothesis. Republicans likely aren't "moderating" in any meaningful way on their economic ideas; Trumpists merely wish to limit their destruction of the welfare state to making the center-left majority of America suffer.
This was actually probably clear the moment Paul Ryan proposed ending Medicare for younger generations, and keeping it for the old. The new iteration of GOP orthodoxy is the only way these 2000's-era ideas (which their critical donor base very much believes, if anything more than ever) can pass.
It would probably be even more politically wise for them to take a Boris Johnson turn and genuinely outflank the left on economics, but this is a movement largely predicated on revenge and resentment against the "other". Without its desire to hurt, disenfranchise, and dominate, it is nothing. GOP trickle-down economics may fail when put front and center, but like everything else in Trump's hands, it's a sometimes-useful weapon.
Rs are recognizing that "economically liberal, socially conservative" is the actual preference of their voters and aligning to it, rather than to the "economically conservative" (i.e. libertarian) preferences of their donors.
If Joe runs in 2024, I think there's no way a guy like Don Jr. beats him. If it's Kamala vs. the Original Donald, though, I'd say all bets are off.
Last but not least, as a former Republican, I continue to be astounded by how shameless the Republican Party has become. Just no pretext of giving a shit about the Constitution any more.
My comparison for the Trump years is the Carter presidency. Trump is no Carter (he does not even have the ounce of good character). But, I think he represents a disastrous current state that will require a return to "normality" in the future.
I believe the bleeding of the suburbs will end up being instrumental in the 12-16 year wilderness Republicans are walking into. The old donors will leave the scene. The "rising stars" are do-nothing maniacs like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Much more interested in prosecuting fictional deep-state wars than governing. They will lose purple districts. Because incumbent, moderate politicians will get primaried. Meanwhile, the bench will get crazier and crazier. This will repel donors, and the vicious cycle continues.
In 2032, they'll be ready for a Larry Hogan / Charlie Baker like figure to do their version of a Clintonian pivot and win back the suburbs. You can't run a party on a downwardly-mobile base and the most reactionary billionaire types. You are going to need a bench of mid-level elites (i.e. well-educated people, sub-ten-millionaires) to drive substantive agenda items.
There is so much conversation about the "working class future" of the GOP. But it will have no chance if they can't get some actual elite firepower from Nassau County and Northern Virginia. The working class voters will be lower propensity when they have to vote for personality-bankrupt cowards like Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton. Trump is an ignorant, lazy fool of the highest order. But at least he knows how to play the hits. His successors are as exciting as the warm ham sandwiches they eat for lunch. This "coalition" will have a short life.
For the Democrats: Support "broadly popular" policies. Display competence in governing. Have a strategy for how to handle the known tradeoffs that come with a broad coalition. If they can do this, the next 16 years belong to them.
Do you think Trump supporters see Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, and Ted Cruz as "personality-bankrupt cowards"? I think they see them as principle ideological conservatives who are willing to make unpopular stands for things these unhinged voters think are important.
lol. no one thinks Ted Cruz is principled.
A scary part of living in a democracy, imho, is that I think a non trivial number of voters do actually believe this....prob far from a majority of those who vote for him, but I'm less confident about it being 'no one', unfortunately...
People like you and I don't - but as a professor at Texas A&M University, I have seen many undergrads who seem genuinely enthusiastic about him, in a way that I rarely ever did with Trump.
Point taken.
The way that everyone eventually fails Trump and publicly loses his good graces (as Sessions did in 2017 and as Pence is about to do tomorrow) doesn't speak well to Hawley, Cotton, and Cruz's prospects of picking up Trump's crown.
I agree that the path to a clean inheritance for any of these people is hard to see now. Eventually someone will be the new face (no one lives forever), but I doubt it will be a clean inheritance when it comes to that. I do rate the chance of a Trump 2024 primary win as below 50, but mostly because there are many exits (financial ruin, infirmary/death, a republican 24 hopeful discovering they have a spine and hidden wellsprings of charisma or leadership), and still only a bit below, maybe 40, at that. I'd put higher odds on Jr in 24 than any republican senator.
I half agree. I do think it's possible for trumpy voters to see these folks as principled idealogues and also see them as personality bankrupt. I enjoyed the first several Sarah cooper videos and agree with Josh Barro's analysis that part of what made cooper's videos funny is the fact that they allow people who otherwise wouldn't to take Trump less seriously which unlocks parts of his appeal. That charisma, that Mark Burnett (among others) saw as a vehicle to fame and riches, is real with Trump. But I don't think hawley, cotton, pompeo, cruz have any of that kind of energy, personally. Of course it would be more meaningful to heat that from a trumpy voter whose perspective I can't claim to emulate that well.
They're also try-hards. Something Trump supporters love about him is he is the same whiny New York developer idiot that he always was. The old "Donny from Queens" aspect. Ted Cruz is like that guy you knew who changed his personality with each new girlfriend or friend group. He is an empty slate with no natural constituency. People put up with him because they hate the other side, but don't expect any of these people to carry Twitter water for him.
Yes, someone said that Trump skillfully projects the idea that the truth doesn't matter and that both of you are in on the joke, whereas Cruz always seems like someone who's trying to trick you, someone who's acting sincere but really isn't.
Yeah, there is a core % that would agree on that. But I presume the rustbelt swing voters are less friendly to these guys. Not ever sure why they liked Trump, but he definitely had a distinct, recognizable brand. These guys are the wet noodles of charisma.
I think this is a little to rosy a picture for dems. Sure this may be true in terms of national popularity, but political power is not remotely distributed fairly. So maybe the generic republican is only liked/voted for by 40% of the population nationally (even that number is a little low) but given the results of the 2020 elections, there will not be any changes to the political system, so republicans are gonna gerrymander everything they can to hell, and keep having power. Also even if the new-age GOP adopts less corporate friendly policy, that would not mean they lose their rich donors. Those donors still have to chose between the two parties, and a more corporation hawkish GOP is still much better than the Dems who like the welfare-state, like regulations, and believe climate change is an issue we should do something about. Those donors still hate all that stuff.
Probably true, looking for ways to be optimistic these days. Still, the way I could see this happening:
1) Republican gerrymandering backfires: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/10/gerrymandering-midterms-democrats-house-seats-579890
2) Remote worker trends re-distribute engaged, educated, formerly urban / near suburban voters.
3) Republicans lose Texas, and are effectively shut out of the presidency unless they moderate on actual behavior (not just issues).
4) Democrats will need to moderate on tech regulation, because that will be the big thing that the next crop of elite donors are interested in. The far left already accuses them of being too friendly to big tech.
When Reagan won in 1980, the idea of Republicans controlling congress seemed crazy. I think the Democrats find themselves in a similar position now. They can capture a broad coalition, and with Texas, are the de-facto presidential winners. They'll have headwinds in congress. But if they can have a few generations of competent lawmakers, they will easily outflank the Marjorie Taylor Greene party with the vast swathe of voters.
The GOP is behaving like a party that wants a ceiling at 30%. They haven't arrived yet, but I believe they are headed there if they persist.
I don't think 1 and 2 are happening any time soon. The "gerrymandering backfire" only happens when you design a bunch of 55-45 safe seats, and 8 years of population redistribution turns them into 49-51 losses. I suppose it's possible that the next decade will have population changes that are more unpredictable than the ones of previous decades, but you can also avoid it just by being a tiny bit less greedy (draw nine 57-43 seats and two 20-80 seats rather than ten 55-45 seats and one 3-97 seat) or by having the courts allow sneakier map-drawing methods that are safer against predicted demographic changes. And I would be surprised if remote worker trends do much to change the blue-urban/red-rural trend (though perhaps it'll allow St. Louis and Detroit to get more tech workers that want urban amenities without New York/San Francisco prices).
Kenny. I appreciate your thorough gravity, and bringing me back to earth on this one.
I think there are a couple rural states that could really see the remote worker opinion shifts (if I am going to go all the way on my idea). Here goes: Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. It's not huge, but massively changes the senate trajectory. Here are the cases:
1) Montana, nice rural getaway, has been "in-play" for liberals here and there.
2) Idaho, scooping up California tech refugees. Boise has changed quite a bit.
3) Wyoming. Obvious choice when Colorado gets too expensive.
I think the case for Montana and Idaho is quite interesting - Boise really does seem to be shaping up to be the new Portland (though we'll have to see how much dense urban development is liberalized to allow it to become that); and Montana, as you note, has been close to being a swing state several times. I'd be very skeptical about Wyoming, given that it's one of the reddest states currently, but I suppose Wyoming is in fact the state where two of my blue-voting friends have relocated for the duration of the pandemic (from Texas and New Hampshire).
Which do you think will have a greater impact:
1) Tech workers liberalizing the states they move to
2) The culture of the states they move to conservatizing the tech workers who move there?
My general thought on all this is that the geography shapes partisanship more than partisanship drawing people to the geography. When you walk past your neighbor (and a dozen strangers) every single day on the way to get coffee and go to work, you think about them (and the shared infrastructure you just used) very differently than if you only see people through the windshield of a car, and can't rely on police or firefighters or paramedics to help you within 45 minutes. An individual's partisanship will survive for a while when they're in a new place, but over time it will likely be gradually shaped by their environment. (I suppose it's theoretically possible that at a certain point, identity becomes more shaped by online environment than by the experience of the physical body - but the physical body is the one that is in the geography subject to government jurisdiction, while the online environment isn't so connected to local or regional electoral politics.)
I'm waiting for someone to make the case that the Dems aren't friendly enough to Big Tech.
Like, having the most powerful and innovative tech companies in the world headquartered here is a good thing, and people are weirdly reluctant (on both sides) to admit that. (I mean, would anyone have a problem with Amazon running our vaccine distribution right now?)
Yeah, I tend to agree. It's fashionable to hate big companies in public. Economists talk about revealed preference, and almost every big city mayor / governor in this country wants Amazon to come and build HQ 3 in their city.
I won’t write a whole dissertation, but I do think this is a product of the GOP becoming more democratically accountable to the new Trumpian base after the realignments of the last 4 years. These people want hardball and culture war; they don’t care that much about Christianity or tax policy.
I don’t think their elected representatives have given up on the latter two, nor will they (unless Hawley became somehow not a phony on some of his anti corporate rhetoric — 95% confidence he will remain phony for at least the next four years). It’s essential for donor $ and a still-sizable portion of the base. But Trumpism will be what makes the tweets and TV commercials until it’s shown that economic conservatism is an asset in a Republican primary the way they believed it was in 2011-12.
I think an interesting counterfactual is if our presidential matchups ended up something like (1) Romney pulling out a big victory in 2012 over Hillary Clinton, and (2) Obama blowing out Trump in 2020. I think those results would leave people, somewhat obviously, less convinced of right-wing populism as a useful electoral tool. But Obama being a high quality politician and Hillary Clinton being a fairly low quality politician created a space where it seems like Romney-ism is a loser while Trumpism is a winner. Maybe the electoral college makes that true. But I think it is possible to “overlearn” from 2016 (and even Trump’s near win in 2020) if you lose sight of the fact that Romneyism lost with a retail politics deficit while Trumpism won while holding a retail politics... tie?
I don't think Romney's problem was that he wasn't likeable. His problem was that he came across to all the white working types as a rich guy that supported things that rich people like. McCain and Romney both. Maybe Obama would have looked different if he had had to deal with a Trump type candidate.
I’m not saying Romney was an unlikeable guy, although he was successfully portrayed as an out of touch aristocrat. Some personality quirks of his made that easier than it may have been for another candidate. But nevertheless, I think he was a very good candidate — Obama was just a generational political talent.
I know a lot of republicans that agree with you. And a lot of them feel that Romney was treated just as poorly as trump even though trump really is a terrible person. That’s their train of thought.
Their primary goal is getting re-elected. They have to avoid being primaried by the base so we see those in safe red seats like Cathy Mcmorris Rogers in eastern WA snuggled up with snakes like Devin Nunes. At the same time she runs her small town girl ads to keep the old timers in town comfortable. Actually talking about policy isn’t needed in greater Ritzville as the majority were born Republicans.
The policies will follow those in the safest seats just as it has followed Trump. You have to start by winning the primary. Eastern Oregon once had a powerful New Deal Democrat rep. He got booted in the primary during the early years of the Reagan shift and the seat has been Republican since.