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[FearfulJesuit]

...six page breakdown...

This makes me wonder. Is the demographic cliff overrated, then? Perhaps the Republicans could have a real shot in 2016? I mean,

The majority of voters preferred Romney’s visions, values, and leadership.

It's just a matter of conflating polls on a specific question with a more general statement.  It's sloppy statistics.  I could easily show the opposite by conflating something like "who do you trust to care about people like you?" with voters trust democrats more on the economy.  News articles do this all the time, just learn to ignore it.

Personally I prefer what the numbers guys say then the wishy washy political writers (who are basically useless IMHO).  The numbers guys say that Obama only outperformed expectations a little, less then 2% of the vote.  There is no mystery to be explained by Romney being an exceptionally weak candidate although he might have been a bit sub-par.  Maybe you'd notice the difference if the republicans nominated someone exceptionally strong like Eisenhower next time, but I don't see anyone like Eisenhower around now that Petraeus is out of the picture.

But the "demographic cliff" thing is probably overblown.  The two party system has a strong tendency to produce two competitive parties.  I don't know what will make the republicans adapt but I suspect they will adapt because that's what centuries of history tells us they will do.  Hopefully they adapt by being less dickish in the future.

It's hard to imagine it happening soon, though...what they need to do is get rid of the Religious Right, but the Religious Right will very happily launch primary attacks and get out the vote to win them against more moderate Republicans, even if they know their candidate will pull an Akin and lose in the general. And that means that anybody in the GOP who starts saying that the Religious Right have to go will get purged.

What may happen is that the Religious Right will be slowly replaced as the Voice of God in American politics by social-justice urban evangelical types, who will migrate to the Democrats.

[Zangi]

I'm guessing shifting more to the right on the belief that the Republicans have not been Conservative enough... that is not considered adapting to the current 'hardships'... is it?

[RedKing]

If recent history tells us anything, it's that they'll adapt by doubling down on being dicks. And then try to move the societal midpoint to the right rather than adapting to the societal norms.

I mean, really...every loss since 1992, the lesson you hear them drawing is "we lost because we weren't conservative enough".
That's why the GOP of 1994 would look at the GOP of 2012 and go "Holy shit...are you people for real?"

...six page breakdown...

This makes me wonder. Is the demographic cliff overrated, then? Perhaps the Republicans could have a real shot in 2016? I mean,

The majority of voters preferred Romney’s visions, values, and leadership.

It's just a matter of conflating polls on a specific question with a more general statement.  It's sloppy statistics.  I could easily show the opposite by conflating something like "who do you trust to care about people like you?" with voters trust democrats more on the economy.  News articles do this all the time, just learn to ignore it.

Personally I prefer what the numbers guys say then the wishy washy political writers (who are basically useless IMHO).  The numbers guys say that Obama only outperformed expectations a little, less then 2% of the vote.  There is no mystery to be explained by Romney being an exceptionally weak candidate although he might have been a bit sub-par.  Maybe you'd notice the difference if the republicans nominated someone exceptionally strong like Eisenhower next time, but I don't see anyone like Eisenhower around now that Petraeus is out of the picture.

But the "demographic cliff" thing is probably overblown.  The two party system has a strong tendency to produce two competitive parties.  I don't know what will make the republicans adapt but I suspect they will adapt because that's what centuries of history tells us they will do.  Hopefully they adapt by being less dickish in the future.

It's hard to imagine it happening soon, though...what they need to do is get rid of the Religious Right, but the Religious Right will very happily launch primary attacks and get out the vote to win them against more moderate Republicans, even if they know their candidate will pull an Akin and lose in the general. And that means that anybody in the GOP who starts saying that the Religious Right have to go will get purged.

What may happen is that the Religious Right will be slowly replaced as the Voice of God in American politics by social-justice urban evangelical types, who will migrate to the Democrats.

It's less the religious Right that's the problem so much as the idelogical Right. There are a number of prominent evangelicals of the conservative persuasion who have essentially been saying, "Okay so maybe this whole 'getting involved in politics' thing isn't working out for us and we should get back to worrying about God."

That said, it would be nice to see religion in politics shift back to the social activists, like it used to be before the 1970's or so.

[mainiac]

If recent history tells us anything, it's that they'll adapt by doubling down on being dicks. And then try to move the societal midpoint to the right rather than adapting to the societal norms.

Hey, there is a first time for everything.  But I'd say that even today's GOP is less extreme then the democratic party of 1865.  But it only took 9 years for the democratic party to adapt to the new political circumstances and win control of the house of representatives.  It only took 11 years for them to retake the Senate.  They also decisively won the popular vote in the presidential race in 1876 (but lost due to the electoral college) showing that they could appeal to a lot of the population.

I'm guessing that if you told someone in 1865 that democrats would have this turn around, they wouldn't have believed you.  they also wouldn't believe that democrats would strongly wed themselves to working class and immigrant votes, two groups that would have hated slavery if it was still around.  Parties change because that's what the two party system demands.  I'm much more inclined to believe that republicans will adapt or go obsolete then believe the democrats will face no opposition.

[Aqizzar]

The difference is that in 18-fucking-65, politicians could be almost anyone they wanted to.  Ironically enough, transparency and honesty in intraparty politics has made the environment considerably less stable.  In the last twenty years, mostly the last five, politicians at every level and especially easily-run races like Representatives live in constant fear of not being good enough for "the base" and thereby losing their seat in a primary race.

The Republicans have no idea how to put this Tea Party genie back in the bottle, so you see them bending over backwards and coming up with ridiculous contortions like this fiscal cliff thing: "If we wait until the bomb drops and taxes go back up automatically, then we can make a deal with what Obama wants and call it a tax cut even though we're really just cutting taxes from where they were for a couple days to a point higher than where they were a week prior.  Then we probably won't get blown out of the water by some patsy from Freedomworks or the Enterprise Institute and can blame the whole thing on the Democrats at the next campaign."  They got the know-nothings out in droves like never before, and basically have to stall for time until either the know-nothings go back to paying no attention, or every Republican who could lose a primary does and we're basically left with a Near Republican party and a Super Republican party coexisting under the same name.

[mainiac]

If they double down on extremism then they become noncompetitive in a majority of districts.  That means they get used to losing.  The rich dude wing of the party doesn't want to lose so they look for an out.  The base still wants to win so when the rich people win the way to be relevant the base holds it's nose and accepts it.

This would mimic what the democratic party did after the civil war.  The base clung to their hatred of the government and their racism and became the old school bourbon democrats.  But they held their nose long enough to accept the populist democrats into the party even though some of them weren't even racist.  Parties exist to win so it's no surprise that two party systems make strange bedfellows.

Maybe you can't believe this would happen.  But keep in mind we aren't talking about this year.  We are talking about years into the future.  If the republican party becomes obsolete then over the years the party will change.

[FearfulJesuit]

Unfortunately, the Republican control of state legislatures has meant that for at least a little longer than it should be, their descent into lunacy will be masked by heavy gerrymandering (so they won't feel it until it's too late).

[mainiac]

Unfortunately, the Republican control of state legislatures has meant that for at least a little longer than it should be, their descent into lunacy will be masked by heavy gerrymandering (so they won't feel it until it's too late).

That could be a game changer.

[RedKing]

Maybe you can't believe this would happen.  But keep in mind we aren't talking about this year.  We are talking about years into the future.  If the republican party becomes obsolete then over the years the party will change.

This is more what I'm thinking (and hoping). The Whigs vanished because they clung to the past, became torn apart by internal schism and became irrelevant. Part of that schism and spall was the Know-Nothing movement, who have a pretty good parallel in the Tea Party and Birther movements.

The thing that really drove a nail in the Whig (and Know-Nothing) coffin was slavery. It split them right in half, which polarized them towards either the Democratic or Republican parties. I'm hard pressed to think of an issue that would split the GOP/Tea Party/Birther conglomerate, although I suppose the "fiscal cliff" might be a step in that direction--ideologues vs. people who don't like the idea of raising taxes on the rich (or seeing Obama get anything he wants), but don't want to see the country hammered economically.

[FearfulJesuit]

Possibly social issues? There have been several strategists saying it's time for the Republicans to start backing off on the social conservatism.

And keep in mind, when the Whigs died it was much easier to start a party because the media was much more decentralized and it didn't cost billions to run one. With the Republicans gone, where will they go? A few might peel off to the Democrats, sure, but...the Libertarians vs. the Constitution Party?

(A three-party Democrat/Libertarian/Constitution system would be interesting, but the Constitution virtually guarantees that any system like that will settle down to a two-party system in a decade or two. Personally I'd bet on the Constitution Party to die, as the electorate becomes increasingly liberal on social issues. We'd therefore basically return to the state of things as they were between the Gilded Age and the '70s: two socially liberal (or at least theoretically so) parties, one economically conservative, one economically liberal(ish), one possessing a vocal regional minority of social conservatives.)

[Aqizzar]

Unfortunately, the Republican control of state legislatures has meant that for at least a little longer than it should be, their descent into lunacy will be masked by heavy gerrymandering (so they won't feel it until it's too late).

That could be a game changer.

It's hard to appreciate exactly what the districting effect means without some numbers.  The shining example from the 2012 election is Michigan.  Michigan's popular vote went to Obama, so it should come as no surprise that a majority of Michigan voters cast for Democratic candidates for their Representative.  Specifically to the tune of about 2.3 million votes statewide for Democrat House candidates to 2.1 million votes statewide for Republicans.

The Representative delegation Michigan will send to the House in January is nine Republicans and four Democrats.  Yeah, it's that fucking blatantly screwed around.  And as long as that is allowed to exist, and decade-year elections continue to be strong Republican years (as they coincidentally have been since 1970), the Republican party can basically be as crazy as it wants and will probably never have to worry too much about maintaining a competitive number of seats.

[Angle]

I would like to point out California, as an example of what the republican death march to the right may actually end up looking like. California has been having the exact same thing for the past couple decades. The republican base decides that they would rather have someone who is ideologically pure than someone who could actually win office. They then proceed to elect these people in the primaries and watch them lose the actual election. If someone who isn't pure enough for them (I.E. someone who can win) is elected, they won't vote for them. They'll just stay home. Thus, they effectively take their own party out of the game. Anyone who actually wants to be elected become a democrat, cause they're the only game in town.

[FearfulJesuit]

But that state of affairs can't go on indefinitely. The Republicans will lose all their donors.

There perhaps is where a new party would come from- all those donors making a new party from the ground up.

[mainiac]

There is some talk of democrats doing mid decade redistricting to overturn some of the gerrymandering.  Cue Fox news calling it undemocratic...

[Lord Shonus]

I suspect that part of the problem with American politics is that the Constitution worked too well at keeping dictators out. Had this country possessed a Cromwell or Stalin of our own, I think that we'd be less prone to throwing "tyrant" around the way we do, which would lead to a less sharp political divide. The shadow of Hitler and the Soviet puppet states lying on Europe is likely to be a huge part of why they have less entrenched partisanship. Of course, the fact that most governments in Europe are less than sixty years old in their current form might play a part as well.

Either that, or my drunken philosophical ramblings are simply absurd.