The wind in the Republican Party changes a lot more than the Democrat Party (dont mean that in a good or bad way). In 2008, you had a war hawk in John McCain. In 2010 you had a clean sweep of the Tea Party. In 2012, people thought the Tea Party would elect a guy, it turns out a moderate establishment guy Romney was nominated. Leading into 2016, people thought a moderate Republican would get the nod... instead they nominated Trump.
I look at the current election map and the Republicans are in deep trouble in the Senate. As bad as 2020 looks from a map perspective, 2022 looks worse. They need Biden to really blow it in his first two years to hold some of those seats. So if the Republicans lose in 2020 (and it looks like they will), you could see them fail to take anything back in 2022. If you get slaughtered for two straight elections, it's time to change.
I like Amash. I dont agree with him on everything, but give me a guy willing to stick his neck out and stick to principle over a group whose principles demend on their fear of one guy. I agree with your point on the Republicans pretending to be libertarians but never actually following libertarianism. that could be amash's downfall.
- SuperHenderson13
See I read that differently. I think we went through a very logical progression to get trump and it’s not just the GOP changing their identity on the fly to win elections. McCain was your pretty run in the mill post-Cold War moderate and establishment darling. The Tea Party was a movement that started off intellectually libertarian taking its cues from Ron Paul but was quickly high jacked by anti-Establishment know-nothings whos draw to Ron Paul was more due to his quirkiness than what he actually stood for. The Tea Party now full of rural white people projecting their values onto it became the basis for and eventually turned into the American Populist movement. Even as soon as McCain before they officially started calling themselves the Tea Party the transformation in the GOP was happening. He (probably correctly) picked an eventual Tea Party sympathizer and approved candidate as his VP in Sarah Pailin in order to get these people to turn out for him. Because remember, when he was running these people were loud about him being a RINO and not conservative enough.
Basically what I’m saying is this movement had enough clout as early as McCain to influence his VP pick, in 2010 they became a congressional electoral force. In 2012 the establishment dominated the primary, but I think that’s a lot more due to this movement not being nationally strong enough yet to pick a strong candidate that could create a bigger coalition. Still, Santorum had a good deal of success and Ron Paul did way better than he had any business doing (saying that as an ex Ron Paul supporter who still has a soft spot in his heart for him despite many recent trespasses). If the establishment hadn’t rallied around Romney early, I think that primary could have been closer. And then obviously by 2016 with evil genius political strategist Steve Bannon on board, they figured it out and got Trump elected.
If this were a flash in the pan, I’d concede to your point that the GOP could very well just change course again, but I see populism and Trump as a thing that was long coming and visible for people who were paying attention. It’s more worrisome that the resistance to it after trump won the presidency has been non-existent within the GOP. There is absolutely no one I can point to and say “there’s a principled Republican who was against Trumpism from day one who can reclaim the party and is high profile enough and still resonates with enough of the base to win a national election that saves the GOP”. Not one. Even if Romney weren’t too old, the populist base that violently attacks anyone who isn’t loyal would sink any attempt at a national campaign. If these people have it in them to trash Jim Mattis, they have it in them to eat absolutely anyone they want to alive and force the GOP to their electoral will.
The GOP has put themselves in a position where they’ve gone so all into the Nixon Southern Strategy that they need these people to win them elections, and in 2016 these people figured it out and are no longer capitulating to moderates. It’s a catch 22 for the GOP. If you stop pandering to the populists, you lose because you loose a sizable percentage of your already smaller than the Dems’ base. If you keep pandering to the populists you lose because most Americans hate populism and the moderates of your party will jump sides, and the populists by themselves aren’t nearly big enough to win on their own. The problem is so much bigger than just the GOP changing their party identity again. They need to reinvent their entire base, and I highly doubt the party has the balls to, or even wants to, lose the short term elections they will inevitably lose as they go through those growing pains.
