The demise of the Republican Party is imminent

[Cary]

Koch money will keep it on life support for awhile but their coalition with white supremacists is a death rattle.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I think it will die a slow, painful death, and it will trudge around for a long time, zombie-like,

before it realizes that it's really dead. "I see dead parties. But they don't know they're dead."

[Nitram]

2. Liberals have been predicting the demise of the Republican Party for decades.

The GOP will shrink, change, and come back as pro-capitalist as ever.

[Funtatlaguy]

4. Too much greed, narcissism, and righteous indignation to go away.

[Nitram]

9. That's right! They'll always have a constituency.

They went too far out on the wrong limb, but they'll pick themselves back up, pour that wine into a brand new bottle, and fool a bunch of people again. The Who: We Won't Get fooled Again?"

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a vow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
And I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

[AJT]

7. I can't count how many times they've supposedly died.

They're vampires, they only die in the sunlight or with a stake through their heart(except they don't have hearts).

[Maeve]

11. It is still alive and well in Ohio

And in other rural states. It will, however, despite it's strongest desires, evolve, if just to stand against change (yeah, sort of self-contradictory, but that's politics!)

[Nitram]

13. There are pockets of resistance on the right all over the place. Little germs of reactionary

conservatism that will lick their wounds, lie low for a while, and crawl back out from under their rocks when their marketing guys have re-packaged the same damn thing in a brand new wrapping

[Garrett78]

35. They'll go back to using a dog whistle instead of a bullhorn.

And then all those anti-Trump Republicans who still worship at the altar of Saint Ronnie can rest easy again.

[rpannier]

51. Yep

We've been hearing that at DU for a decade now. When Obama won the Presidency we were told how they were finished

[Rizen]

3. Bigotry and stupidity are alive and well

and they vote. They've also set up the government to heavily favor electing Republicans. Never let your guard down; we have to take every election seriously.

[sunonmars]

5. Soon they will turn on Trumpy with viciousness...The will self-preserve themselves.

[AlexSFCA]

6. nah, stupid voters will keep them alive

[DFW]

8. Sadly, no. It is not.

As long as there is fear, jealousy and anger, there will be a Republican Party.

There is still a LOT of fear, jealousy and anger out there, by the way, and those people need SOME affiliation to identify with--we do not provide it, and nor do we want to.

[dalton99a]

10. No. It is the home for idiots, criminals, bigots and racists.

[Funtatlaguy]

12. And greedy assholes - in my family - ONLY care about low taxes.

[ooky]

29. And the irony is the Republican party

isn't lowering their taxes in any significant way unless they are 1%r's. They just lie that they are.

[Fuzzpope]

14. Fat chance.

Don't count on that. It's a priceless artifact of the 1%, dead, soulless, or not, it's going to mush on like a good beast and continue parsing misery ad infinitum.

You want rid of the republican party? Solve the perpetual conundrum of the human condition. The Republican party is a near-pure expression of man's dark side, there's no cleaving away the symptoms nor the disease within our current state of civilization.

[Garrett78]

15. No, it really isn't.

First of all, memories and attention spans are short. Gerrymandering and voter suppression are alive and well. We have a tyranny of the minority system that heavily favors Republicans. A good 40 Senate seats are basically out of reach for us. A majority of governors are Republican. A large number of states are completely under Republican control. There are, at most, 10 battleground states.

We're more likely to see Trump 2.0, a more savvy and charismatic demagogue, than we are to see the demise of the Republican Party.

This wishful thinking makes a regular appearance.

And then there's the family of "MSNBC Republicans in denial" who also say the same thing. They're in denial about their complicity in what their party has become, as if Trump happened in a vacuum (as opposed to being the inevitable result of 50+ years of increasingly cruel rhetoric and policy). I suspect they hope to assuage their guilt by forecasting the party's demise and replacement. They'd love to go back to the days of using a dog whistle instead of a bullhorn. They worship at the altar of Saint Ronnie, as if there's no linkage between Reagan and Trump. Idiots.

No, I'm afraid the Republican Party isn't going anywhere. Not anytime soon.

[roamer65]

16. It isn't the GOP anymore, it's now the Trumpist party.

It’s a party of cult.

[dlk]

17. We Can Only Hope These Anti-Democratic, Zealots Disappear into the Sunset-Soon!

They have wrecked and impoverished our country. We may never recover.

[Vogon_Glory]

18. I Don't Expect The Republican Party To Die But

I expect it to fracture. I suspect that it’s cooked in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic states(Good riddance!), but it’s got a lot of life left in the Deep South, Appalachia, and the Ozark states (I’m including OK as an Ozark State). The largest faction will be culturally Southern and religiously and politically reactionary.

It will NOT be a national party anymore.

[roamer65]

19. Very accurate assessment.

It will die out in states like CA, OR, WA, NY, MI, NJ and regions like New England and eastern PA.

I think they will lose states like AZ and CO.

[Garrett78]

25. Numerous districts within those states will remain red.

There are states that have been trending blue and states that have been trending red. Missouri and Ohio were once presidential battleground states. There are always shifts, driven in large part by demographics.

Our tyranny of the minority system will keep the Republican Party alive. There are more Senate seats unreachable for us than there are for Republicans. There's a good 40 seats they pretty much have in the bag. Too many states simply don't have metro areas substantial enough for us to win. We need to bring about some major structural changes, which is not easy.

[workinclasszero]

23. A rump party

The GOP got run out of the New England states, California and the west coast.

They are well on the way to minority party status for the coming years. I sincerely hope the Democratic party takes advantage of the Trump cults weakness while we can.

[Garrett78]

38. First of all, they aren't completely run out of the west coast.

Secondly, they have full control in numerous states.

We have the West Coast, Northeast and a few Northern states such as Illinois. We've both lost (OH, MO) and gained (VA, CO) ground in various places over time. No more than 10 states can be considered battleground states in presidential elections. And so it goes.

[Garrett78]

33. As long as we have a 2-party system, it will remain a national party or be replaced.

The Republican Party continues to have full control (governor and state legislature) in more states than our side does. And they have more Senate seats in the bag than we do.

Our system is designed to heavily favor the smallest and most rural states.

[Cary]

20. For all of you naysayers

The only way they defeat us is if we defeat ourselvess, as we did in 2016.

We are quite capable of that and our naysaying is where our undoing begins.

[Garrett78]

21. Disagreeing that the Republican Party will soon disappear has no bearing on Dem success.

[Cary]

24. Negativity breeds apathy and worse

I have no crystal ball. I just see a perverse ideology and a good sense of history. The only path for this perverse ideology's growth would be to add a.growing demographic, which would be quite demoralizing. The addition of white supremacists gave them a temporary boost. Thank Steve Bannon for that.

But it also sealed their fate, unless we defeat ourselves. We do have dysfunction in our coalition too. I respectfully suggest that some of us are too easily distracted and demoralized, and these people curiously defend their God given right to be distracted and demoralized.

Cut the crap. Republicans are dead enders.

[Garrett78]

31. They've been the party of white supremacists ever since the Civil Rights Movement.

They'll figure out that they need to go back to using a dog whistle instead of a bullhorn.

Again, disagreeing with your assessment has no bearing on Democratic success. On the contrary, it does no good to be in denial. There are major structural barriers that advantage Republicans.

Predicting the Republican Party's imminent demise is older than I am.

[Cary]

42. This iteration is different

This is not the mid 1960s. Demographics and norms have changed and continue to change.

I am not as confident in their ability to go back. They need to adapt and that will not be possible for them. The only path I see for their survival is in convincing enough of us that our path is hopeless.

I would hope that we were too smart to allow that but we allowed the election of Unindicted Co-Conspirator. Plus the negativity here shows me that many of.us have learned nothing.

[Garrett78]

46. If you think posts on DU disputing the imminent demise of the Republican Party...

...somehow makes Democrats less likely to win elections, I really don't know what to say. That's utterly irrational.

[Cary]

47. So because you feel that my thoughts irrational, that makes it so

Last edited Sat Nov 17, 2018, 08:46 PM - Edit history (1)

How much do the Kochs spend try to make us think we cannot win? How about the Russians?

Elections are won and lost on the margins.

It is not just the opposition to my proposition that I find negative, it is the substance of that opposition and the fatalistic notion of power aligned against us. And if you cannot understand my point then I assume that don't want to understand it.

[Garrett78]

48. We weren't really talking about winning elections. We were talking about the long-predicted...

...imminent demise of the Republican Party. Anyway, I could counter your argument by saying that being in denial about reality can make people complacent, but I'm not going to do that. Because the bottom line is that posts on DU have zero bearing on election outcomes.

As for those realities, our system heavily favors the smallest and most rural states. Republicans still have total control in a large number of states. They still have more power nationwide than we do. That's not a party facing imminent demise. It is, however, a party that is increasingly reliant upon gerrymandering, voter suppression and our tyranny of the minority system. But imminent demise? No.

[Vogon_Glory]

26. I Don't Expect It To Die Too Soon

This last election showed that Floridians have some wising-up to do. Also, I hate to say it, but it looks like Ohio and Missouri have been dyed perms-Red. I think Georgia and NC will be ours eventually, but not without a LOT of political effort,.

Texas is slowly turning purple. I said earlier that the Republicans Party is fracturing; I suspect that the Great Basin Republicans might split off in four to eight years as their disgust with the Republican Party’s corruption mixed with the Political Evangelicals’ religious bigotry reaches a boiling point (The Evangelicals have been waging culture wars against both the Catholic Church and what I still call the Mormons). The Great Basin also faces water shortages due to climate change.

The Great Basin Republicans won’t be Democrats, but they might turn Part-time allies.

[underpants]

22. It was dead in 2006

Money kept it alive but the media did more than money can buy. The media needs a horse race and they couldn't beat the dead horse into getting up so they pulled back the reins on the one that was still running.

[beachbum bob]

27. The damage can last a generation by the judges being appointed....

2016 was our wake up call too many hit the snooze on.

[backscatter712]

28. The GOP needs to be burned to the ground, then we need to salt the earth on which it stood.

Important tip for the next generation of conservatives: NEVER go full Nazi.

[dembotoz]

30. Like a monster movie..u think it's dead.

And then it comes back just like before

Maybe in ur state is is hurt bad...in my state they still control lots and lots

[Hoyt]

32. White wingers will not give up their privilege easily. Screw em.

[PCIntern]

34. I heard this in 1964. I swear!

That's what they said after Goldwater got trounced Four years later...Dick Nixon!

[Garrett78]

37. Yeah, this prediction has been a popular one for a long, long time.

[Gothmog]

36. With ActBlue, the GOP no longer has a funding advantage

I really love ActBlue

[borgesian]

39. I highly doubt it.

People were saying that after Obama won in 2012. Republicans are out of touch, they said. The demographics are not on their side, they said, and, despite that, well, here we are. People felt similarly after the Nixon years as well. Of course, Reagan won in a landslide in 80, ushering in 12 years of Republican rule. The average voter doesn't have a long memory. Most of the Repubs in the suburbs who voted for Dems this year won't become reliable Dem voters. They dislike Trump, not conservatism. It won't be the party of Trump forever, but their general ideological worldview isn't going anywhere.

[Garrett78]

40. And the vast majority of incumbents were re-elected as usual.

[disambiguation]

41. That coalition is a feature, not a flaw, of Koch money

This is just one article I found by Googling "koch nazi". I don't know anything about Timeline but the article if factual is telling.

[link:https://timeline.com/the-koch-family-s-nazi-ties-are-more-entrenched-than-you-think-37c645012da0|

[Cary]

43. The Mercers and Cambridge Analytica.

[NurseJackie]

44. "...death rattle..." --- Yes please.

The sooner the better, but even if I can't have it as soon as I'd like... I'll be content to simply take as much pleasure as possible in watching the GOP in its writhing death throes.

[George II]

45. I don't know if it's death is imminent, but they've been greatly weakened for a number of years....

Our job now is to make sure they stay weak for as long as we can.

[crazycatlady]

49. I thought that in 2008

They came back strong. Don't write them off yet.

[Cary]

50. They never "came on strong."

We didn't get out the vote.