GOP Will Shit Itself

[KingRoyal]

Didn't we have a thread back in the old days about the how the GOP was done for after the election in 2008?

[Thad]

I don't know, but for a long time I expected the GOP would move in a more Libertarian direction.

Instead the Republicans became even more clownishly fascist and the Libertarians became even more clownishly fascist.

At any rate I think it's fair to say at this point that the Republican Party as we knew it is gone and I don't know what happens next but I don't see how there's any going back, no matter how badly the Kochs and Murdochs of the world want that.

[Yoji]

I remember hearing for a while about the idea of the GOP fracturing between a Trump wing and a moderate wing. I can definitely imagine some goons trying to pretend they had nothing to do with that Trump guy, but you can't shake the Devil's hand and say you were just kidding.

[Büge]

Didn't we have a thread back in the old days about the how the GOP was done for after the election in 2008?

Ah! Well. Nevertheless,

[Crick]

They've managed to keep themselves relevant through a combination of captured courts, gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, and a cult of personality. When Trump dies, one of those things is going to be gone, but they'll probably still have the other three.

That makes a lot of sense. I blissfully forgot about all the tricky court shit. Damn.

There's a wing of the party that's trying to pretend things can go back to normal; Haley is the current mascot. I don't think that works in a post-Dobbs world. You could argue that when Trump dies that means a decrease in his enthusiastic support but also a decrease in his enthusiastic opposition, and I think that's probably true to some extent, but Trump's policies are going to live on after him and, by and large, they're what the GOP's policies have been for the past 40-50 years and it's not going to be easy to go back to the days of plausible deniability. (It's hard to deny you're the party of white supremacy when your "moderate" choice won't say the Civil War was about slavery.) More than ever they're in a rock and a hard place where if they say what they're really about, it will repulse the majority of voters, but if they try to back away from all the crazy shit, the consequences will range from "losing a primary" to "angry mob tries to murder you".

I think this is where I'm at too. I think it's the policies put in place that are charging up some voters. Plus, here in the Midwest, a ton of younger people I know/talk to are pretty far left, and even people who grew up in fairly right-wing houses have moved more and more left. I would think that there'd be a kind of shift to a reform-type party in a few decades when enough older people die. Eh. Maybe that's wishful thinking.

On the more extreme side, I wouldn't be surprised if we have to deal with weird IRA-esque bombings and stuff from right-wing white nationalists scattered across the country. The remnants of these movements who're frustrated how things turned out.

[Thad]

On the more extreme side, I wouldn't be surprised if we have to deal with weird IRA-esque bombings and stuff from right-wing white nationalists scattered across the country. The remnants of these movements who're frustrated how things turned out.

Yeah, when people talk about a civil war I think that's what it's likeliest to look like. It's not going to be armies facing off in combat like in the 19th century; it'll be pockets of violence and guerilla attacks.

[KingRoyal]

I would argue that we are already at that phase. There's been a marked uptick in right-wing violence since 2015, and seems fair to say that some of it is deliberately the result of underground networks of militias

[Thad]

Arizona GOP chairman Jeff DeWit resigns after controversy involving Kari Lake

She recorded him offering her a bribe to get out of the race. And then, by his own admission, blackmailed him with some other, worse recording that she also has.

So yeah in case anybody was wondering if the AZGOP apparatus would get its shit together by 2024 the answer is no.

Not only do I think Democrats are going to do well at the state level this year, I'm willing to bet they flip at least one chamber of the state legislature.

[Thad]

There was briefly a story yesterday that the RNC was planning to declare Trump the presumptive nominee right now, before the primaries are over, and shift to general election mode, but then they walked it back.

Hard to say for sure what's happened, but a few guesses on my part:

Trump's going to be the nominee. Everybody knows it. Except, apparently, megadonors like the Kochs who are pouring money into Haley's campaign. The RNC would very much prefer for them to be spending money on other candidates that actually have a shot of winning elections.

Meanwhile, Trump underperformed in New Hampshire. He won handily, with an 11-point lead and an outright majority, but under the circumstances that's actually a pretty poor finish. He's the party's standard-bearer and effectively running as an incumbent; in that context, 43% of New Hampshire voters backing Haley is fucking embarrassing for him. And he hates being embarrassed.

So my guess is, the RNC and Trump both wanted to stop this from dragging out for another four and a half months, decided they'd just announce this is a waste of time and they're going to ignore the rest of the primaries, but then Trump saw the reaction and realized how weak it made him look and changed his mind.

But who the hell knows.

I'd also suggest that maybe people are, as usual, reading too much into Iowa and New Hampshire. Trump's underperformance may be a sign that his supporters are losing enthusiasm, but then again, everybody already knows he's going to be the nominee and it's fucking cold out there and who wants to stand in line in the snow just to vote in a primary election that doesn't even matter?

I wouldn't take for granted that just because people aren't showing up in January means they won't show up in November. Or that the vast majority of Haley voters won't back Trump in the general.

But this still isn't great news for him.

[Thad]

Santos' seat goes Democratic. By a significant margin. The race was expected to be close; it wasn't.

There's going to be a lot of horse-race doom-'n'-gloom over the next nine months, but Democrats continue to overperform in special elections.

It's probably better to be worried than to be complacent, but remember that, as uncertain as things may be, the results so far actually look pretty good.

[Mongrel]

+1 Dem in Congress also helps out with current obstructionist bullshit. I mean, obviously it doesn't tip the scales, but cuts the GOP's majority even slimmer.

[Mongrel]

oh no!

[Mongrel]

Related: Mike Johnson was supposed to rally the troops at a GOP presentation about holding on to their majority, instead he delivered a deranged ramble about declining church attendance

[Crick]

Are billionaires abandoning the GOP? They don't have a few oil ghouls or something to squeeze for the theocracy effort?

[Thad]

Are billionaires abandoning the GOP? They don't have a few oil ghouls or something to squeeze for the theocracy effort?

Part of it is that the Citizens United ruling has proven to be something of a monkey's paw wish for the GOP, in that donors are now much likelier to donate to individual candidates than to the party. (Last I heard, Charles Koch is wasting a whole bunch of money on Nikki Haley's campaign.)

But as much as anything it's transactional and it's a vote of no confidence in the RNC and the various state parties. Even people who are pouring money into Nikki Haley's campaign think the RNC is a bad ROI.

[Friday]

It's so weird to me that anyone would be donating to Haley. Like does Koch think that it's going to do anything? Trump is the candidate because you bowed down and courted his insanity and now you're welded to him forever. Even when he's gone, you think his base is going to go for anyone not at least 90% as insane as him? There's no going back to "reasonable" candidates anymore.

The base is now 100% behind the person who says the quiet part out loud the most. You can't go back to those who inside were the same, but knew to keep it quiet.

[Thad]

I really couldn't tell you what's going on in Charles Koch's head, but I kinda feel like the Haley campaign strategy is "hope Trump dies before the convention."

[Friday]

I guess it's possible that Koch (and Haley) think it's likely Trump is going to jail. That is the only reasonable possibility. And he might, I won't say it's impossible. I suppose then Haley would have a marked advantage (or even an insurmountable one) over DeSantis and all the rest who will immediately throw their hats back in.

[Thad]

Could also be they're playing a long game and trying to set her up as a future nominee.

Historically the second-place finisher has an advantage in the next primary, but I'm not sure how much historical trends are going to matter, really. I'm pretty skeptical that Nikki Haley has a chance in a GOP that's gone full masks-off with misogyny and white supremacy.

I think the establishment donors are probably under the impression that there's a way to go back to "normal", back to the way the GOP used to be, after Trump. I won't say that it's impossible, but I just don't see how it happens. I don't expect the fascists to just fall back in line behind more conventional Republicans like Romney again, let alone a candidate who's a woman and a POC.

[Mongrel]

"Hayley is hoping Trump dies or goes to jail and then becomes the de facto candidate, as the only one who stayed in" has been my take for a while too, and it's not a terrible strategy. Plus, Hayley can afford it if Koch is footing the bills, and Koch can certainly afford it, so the risks to both of them are fairly minimal, and Hayley will also personally benefit from a year's worth of publicity more than she will three months of it.