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[Twi]

The EFF are a pretty vile special interest group, after all.

What's wrong with the EFF?

To be clear, the EFF do support net neutrality. That post is just about the sloppiness of the draft specifically.

[FearfulJesuit]

This is an interesting study on demographic change as it relates to the American electorate. We all knew the future held trouble for the GOP unless they can get off the angry-old-white-people train, but these guys have figured out just how much trouble:

-Whites were 80% of the American population in 1980. Today they're 63%, and will switch from majority to plurality sometime in the early 2040s.

-When you look at eligible voters only, the day of reckoning is postponed, but not by much- the eligible American electorate will be majority-minority by 2052.

-We're about to hit a tipping point in a few very important states, notably Texas, whose eligible electorate will become majority-minority in time for the 2020 presidential election.

-Generational replacement is going to be an issue, too. Baby Boomers currently comprise 24% of the American population. Millenials (born after 1980) and those who come after them will become a majority of eligible voters in about 2030.

Is there a way out of this for the GOP? There'll have to be sooner or later. I would not be surprised if the Hispanics of 2015 are considered white by mid-century- an equivalent article a hundred years ago would have been proclaiming the end of white America as "swarthy" Italians and Greeks took their place. Nobody remembers this, because Italian-Americans have been so thoroughly assimilated into mainstream white America that the only remnant of their past status is bad Mafia jokes. If Hispanics are the next group to become "white", Hispanic voting patterns may change.

(For that matter, the GOP could win back a lot of the college-educated vote by ditching the anti-science rhetoric and getting serious about global warming instead of trying to ban evolution from public schools. Due to the primary system, though, I'd be surprised if they make a serious shot at this within the next decade.)

[EDIT: I am now tempted to create an electoral model based on the data here pairing Clinton up against various Republican candidates...]

[Angle]

The GOP is far too tainted in my eyes, and I suspect in the eyes of much of my generation, to ever really hope of winning my vote unless something crazy happens. We'll see, though.

[FearfulJesuit]

The GOP is far too tainted in my eyes, and I suspect in the eyes of much of my generation, to ever really hope of winning my vote unless something crazy happens. We'll see, though.

If something can't go on forever, it will stop. Eventually desperation to win the White House outweighs partisan scruples.

This could happen slowly, or it could happen quickly. One way it could happen quickly would be for the GOP to win the White House and at least one house of Congress, which hasn't been the case since 2006. The Tea Party would almost certainly take this as a mandate to completely screw the pooch. In the ensuing chaos, the Reagan coalition would collapse under the weight of its own infighting, and the Democrats would become the "default" party of the US. This is pretty much what happened to the Republicans in the wake of the New Deal- the political landscape changed so quickly that they didn't win a presidential election for 20 years.

The slow-mo version is what's already happening, and would look more like the collapse of the Democrats from 1968 onwards. One major difference is that the Democrats in the 1960s were a mishmash of disparate and ideologically diffuse groups, and the GOP was able to pick their Southern and blue-collar wings off. The modern GOP is pretty much only one demographic- white people, mostly over 40, usually not in cities.

Alternatively, the GOP could completely crash and burn in 2016 on the presidential level and finally hear the wake-up call. But I wouldn't count on it.

[Angle]

My point is that there's no way they could win my vote without pretty much ditching their entire ideology and probably alienating the overwhelming majority of their constituents, and even then it'd take a while and fairly extreme commitment, which is unlikely. I don't have that much experience, but I have reason to believe that much of my generation is in at least vague agreement. This means that there's little viable way for them to get into a position where they can get a significant potion of us to vote for them without having to cross a large chasm where practically nobody at all will vote for them. The longer they postpone crossing this chasm, they bigger and deeper it'll get, until eventually they'll find themselves dragged of the edge into the depths. I expect this to lead to the dissolution of the republican party, and eventually the fission of the democratic party to fill the resulting gap.

[SalmonGod]

Where do you live, Angle?  Here in Indiana... well... the generational drift from the republican party is still happening, I suppose.  But there's still plenty of republican-voting youth, and those who aren't are more likely to be driven towards tea party libertarianism than anything more leftwards.

[smjjames]

My point is that there's no way they could win my vote without pretty much ditching their entire ideology and probably alienating the overwhelming majority of their constituents, and even then it'd take a while and fairly extreme commitment, which is unlikely. I don't have that much experience, but I have reason to believe that much of my generation is in at least vague agreement. This means that there's little viable way for them to get into a position where they can get a significant potion of us to vote for them without having to cross a large chasm where practically nobody at all will vote for them. The longer they postpone crossing this chasm, they bigger and deeper it'll get, until eventually they'll find themselves dragged of the edge into the depths. I expect this to lead to the dissolution of the republican party, and eventually the fission of the democratic party to fill the resulting gap.

I don't see the Democrats fissioning anytime soon. What I think may be more likely is the Republicans shattering and other third parties rising.

Now, where is that chart of history of political parties in the US that was posted way back in the old thread (I think it was the old thread, definetly not this one)? I think it may be on wikipedia.

[GreatJustice]

The death of the Republicans is greatly exaggerated, unfortunately. While Hispanics are a growing demographic, over time they tend to stop identifying as Hispanic altogether and swing to the right in the process, something that can be seen by the Tejanos that are as ethnically Hispanic as anyone in Mexico but identify as "White" or "Mixed Race", are very possibly Protestant, and as Republican as the cattle ranchers.   Meanwhile, while I don't have strong data, I seem to recall the Millennial vote being very decisively split between those who got the vote when Bush was leaving office and those who got it near the end of Obama's first time, with the first group being overwhelmingly Democratic and the second tending towards being independent, less politically active, and far more open to certain Republican views. Hell, I seem to recall an exit poll that claimed 18 year olds voted more for Romney than Obama, though I'm a bit skeptical of going that far.

[Rez]

Republicans don't really have a platform beyond "we oppose Democrats" and that isn't enough when Democrats aren't terribly evil or incompetent.

I don't have that much experience, but I have reason to believe that much of my generation is in at least vague agreement.

You have reason to believe that your generation, across the country and millions of people, dislikes the GOP stance on issues?  Don't forget that we live and communicate with mostly like-minded people.  We exist in memetic echo chambers.

I don't see the Democrats fissioning anytime soon. What I think may be more likely is the Republicans shattering and other third parties rising.

Who knows?  I think that the loss of the chief ideological enemy would make the Democratic Party much more likely to schism along environmental, civil rights/entitlements, and security issues.  Without Republicans to vote against, how many more people will vote for the Green, Communist, or Libertarian Parties?

[Angle]

I do live in a fairly liberal area, yes - but keep in mind the realities that most of my generation faces. We can see quite well the immorality of the republican party. Most of us support gay rights and many other liberal issues, and the republican party most certainly does not. Couple that with the poor economic environment most of us face, and the republican party has certainly earned our ire. They've done a surprisingly good job of deflecting it or smearing the democrats, and the democrats are certainly plenty guilty themselves, but I think it'll come home to roost with the republicans soon enough.

[Rolepgeek]

The problem is, any viewpoint the republican party holds becomes tainted by associated, regardless of it's actual value. The 'religious' fanaticism is so intense and engrained into the minds of people associating Republicans with it that it's difficult to back them if, say, you like their economic practices and genuinely agree with conservative spending practices.

Plus, when you compare the dynamic between the parties, it's just awful. It seems to me from what little I know that Democrats would be right-wing, in a lot of other first-world countries.

Honestly, I would love if some more parties sprang up. Five, maybe. Five would be nice. A total of either five or seven parties of approximately equal size that don't polarize all their opinions could make for better representation and less utter absurdity.

Also, yes, this is basically a posting to watch post, mostly because I'm not quite educated enough about current politics to speak of it without just repeating things everyone already knows.

[Angle]

Well, we have a two party system as a consequence of our political structure, so until that changes we can't really have any other meaningful parties as anything other than internal factions of the big two. It dos sound nice, though...

[Rez]

snip

I see your point.  As rolepgeek says, the GOP has really put itself into a demographic corner by adopting evangelical Christianity and paternalistic socons.


How about that economic situation, though?  We're probably the least financially secure generation since the Depression and the Depression wasn't really accompanied by so much technological and societal change.

[Angle]

Indeed. Even my politically apathetic, Not That Liberal friend referred to our country as a Dystopia the other day, to my surprise. In all honesty, I may be overblowing the whole thing a bit - There's some wishful thinking in there. But I do think that the republican party is going to have a rough time of it.

[Frumple]

How about that economic situation, though?  We're probably the least financially secure generation since the Depression and the Depression wasn't really accompanied by so much technological and societal change.

What about it? The economic situation isn't entirely caused by conservative ideology, but... it's not terribly far from it. Much of the current problem has been caused by either warmongering or letting businesses do whatever the blazes they please, both of which are more or less cornerstones of the GOP platform. And a lot of things I've heard proposed are basically "How to bugger the economy and (especially) the consumer 101". Admittedly neither side has a monopoly on those sort of propositions, but it often seems the GOP is particularly fond of them

And hell, it's only been one of the parties that have been repeatedly threatening to completely destroy both the american economy and, to a large extent, the entire freaking world's. It's hard to turn to the party threatening nation-wide default for economic policy, y'know?