On controversy around Jan. 6 commission, WaPo syndicated columnist @GeorgeWill tells @GStephanopoulos: "We have something new in American history…a political party defined by the terror it feels for its own voters, that's the Republican party right now." https://t.co/lM8D2abTBM pic.twitter.com/Ig2uqfDcE1
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 23, 2021
I’m feeling strangely optimistic and upbeat in 2021:
- The Republican electorate has changed since 2006. At the ground level, White working class voters have become a greater share of the Republican base. Meanwhile, affluent, college-educated White suburban professionals have been migrating toward the Democratic Party.
- White working class voters tend to be socially conservative and moderate on economics. White college-educated suburban professionals tend to be more socially liberal and fiscally conservative. The change in the class profile of the median Republican voter is leading to a value shift.
- The GOP establishment wing is down to around 16% of the Republican Party. Liz Cheney’s demise is another indicator that the old Republican establishment is dying. It has been demographically swamped within the party by the influx of working class voters.
- We’re seeing an exodus of Republican establishment senators like Rob Portman, Roy Blunt and Lamar Alexander in what is highly likely to be a good cycle for Republicans. The possibility that Mark McCloskey could end up replacing Roy Blunt is a sign of this transition.
- As we discussed in the previous episode in February, White racial attitudes have hardened since George Floyd’s death. Evidence has continued to accumulate that Whites are developing a siege mentality and have become anxious about their position in American society.
- We’ve seen evidence in the polls that Republican voters are hardening on a number of cultural issues consistent with a spike in White racial consciousness: gun rights, immigration, Black Lives Matter, support for the police, etc. The trend is in our direction under Biden.
- In recent months, we’ve seen a strong backlash against wokeness. Critical race theory has been outright banned in several states. It is becoming increasingly mainstream to discuss topics like anti-whiteness and demographic replacement. The term “anti-white” is being used more frequently.
- Something like 70% of Trump voters don’t even believe that Joe Biden is a legitimate president. They believe the election was stolen from Trump. The legitimacy of the system has been severely undermined which has made millions of people more receptive to our message.
- Big Tech censorship and the Biden administration’s assault on civil liberties has made it much easier for us to argue that the political establishment is a menace to our rights.
- Normies now see Antifa, Black Lives Matter, the media and the political establishment as their enemies. This is another encouraging development as those people are also our enemies.
- At least in the 1st quarter of 2021, Corporate America has cut off the spigot of donations to the GOP, which is becoming more reliant on small dollar donations and thus more responsive to its base.
- Republican voters have become significantly more populist on economic issues than was the case in the recent past. This wing of the party isn’t a majority yet on economic issues but is currently hovering in the 30% to 45% range.
- The average Republican voter has moved closer to our positions on immigration, trade and foreign policy. The top foreign policy priority of Republican voters is protecting the jobs of American workers.
- There is a growing ideological consensus that the Republican Party needs to become a more working class party with a policy agenda that is more moderate on economics.
- Younger Republican voters are much less cucked on race and significantly more critical of OUR GREATEST ALLY. There is a big generational divide. Older people tend to be Reaganites.
- The people who are truly despondent about the state of the Republican Party are True Cons and Never Trumpers whose values are the exact opposite of ours.
So, there is a lot to be happy about.
If you look at just at the base of the Republican Party, you can see it is changing in a positive way from the ground up. The GOP establishment didn’t want Trump, but the voters gave them Trump anyway. They desperately wanted to wash their hands of Trump, but they are strapped in for Trumpism.
- The GOP is still clinging to its antiquated policy agenda. Mitch McConnell lost the Senate over the $600 stimulus check issue, but this defeat doesn’t seem to have phased the Republican Senate.
- The GOP is still “Standing With Israel” although they are able to do that because public opinion is so strongly pro-Israel.
- Congress is a gerontocracy full of old people who have been in power since the 1980s and 1990s and whose worldview hasn’t changed in decades. Political reality has changed. They haven’t changed. Realistically, our politics will change one death and retirement at a time.
- Republican senators are STILL drawing their “red line” on issues like preserving the 2017 tax cuts. They cling to all kinds of losing and unpopular issues.
- The entire galaxy of conservative think tanks who come up with the policies for Republican politicians hasn’t changed.
- Republicans are counting on riding another wave of backlash politics back into power in Congress where they show every sign of pushing their old unpopular agenda.
- The problem is concentrated at the top of the party among donors, party hacks, old politicians, think tanks, etc.
- The base has changed much more rapidly than elected Republicans and conservative institutions and the Republican policy agenda. Denial is slowly giving way to resignation and acceptance
It is possible to look at the sum of this and conclude that our politics is currently going through a transition phase. The Reagan era is over and Reaganite politicians are on the way out. Public opinion is changing in a positive way. Elderly politicians haven’t caught up with their voters.
Donald Trump left behind a lot of good and bad in his wake. The best part of his legacy is that ordinary people are simply much closer to us across a range of issues. We can and should work with that. We should focus on articulating our own agenda and bringing some of those disaffected people on board and rebuilding our own movement. We can leave it to the politicians to figure out how to win their own elections. Ambitious people have every incentive to run against and knock off these dinosaurs.
I don’t see that we are in a ‘Post-Trump Period’, or, if we are, someone has forgotten to tell that to the umpteen zillion Trump Voters; they who are anxious to vote for him again.
I know about this – I live in the middle of many of them…
I’m not so sure voting for him again would be a bad thing.
In fact, I think it is exactly the thing that needs to happen, short of an unabashed nationalist figure of some sort rising to prominence in the next 3 years.
Do you know of such a person? If not, then you have to see the forest (meta politics) and stop obsessing over the individual trees (Trump). There has never been a more divisive series of political figures in this country’s history (Obama-Trump-Biden). The swing back to the right (assuming that fair elections are permitted) will be earth trembling. Even 2022 swinging back to Republicans will send the left into convulsions. I know that many OD readers hate Republicans as much, if not more, than Democrats. But the “big picture” in all of this is being articulated quite well by Brad in other articles. The Republican ELECTORATE is becoming more populist and more dissident. More working class. Every swing back to the Republicans is a representation of this. The neocon establishment is losing power. Shed yourselves of old biases as the beauty of it unfolds.
Again, there are few non-establishment men (or women) with a high, popular profile and the same level of divisive potential as Trump. It isn’t what he actually does that matters. It is what the left PERCEIVES that matters. We would literally not be even having this conversation if Hillary Clinton, Jeb, or Ted Cruz had been elected in 2016. We would not be having this conversation if the mail-in ballot scheme had not been devised in order to get Trump out of office.
We have to stop stewing in these criticisms of the Orange Man, because if you don’t have a viable “other” to propel into a successful presidential run, you have to accept the usefulness of Trump with all his warts.
My suburb was BIG trump country.
In 2019 there’d be random MAGA trucks everywhere with trump flags…. By 2020 I barely saw any MAGA trucks in the suburban/rural area of my state.
And by 2021 NOBODY was repping trump publicly….
All the lawyer rednecks with the 125k dollar lifted trucks are only flying blue lives matter and american flags. I haven’t seen a trump flag/paraphernalia in ages
Normie cons in my area are all suburban gop shitheads… However the rural normies in my state are just pissed.
If you bring up trump at the rural white trash bar everyone will look at you like a wanna-be pulling up on a brand new Harley right off the lot.
The white trash in my state are jaded and checked out. The suburban shitheads are just shitheading about local taxes
I admire your optimism but I’m afraid I can’t see anything positive on the horizon. We’ve got millions of working class Whites more worried about the Chinese government than the Zionists in their own backyard. These people will never wake up.
The concern on that front is job losses. It is a valid concern
Both Ford and US Steel have cancelled Billions of Dollars worth of capital improvement projects in the US.
“The concern on that front is job losses. ”
Why can’t the average person see beyond a paycheck and the next beer can.
As long as they can drink beer and smoke their medical marijuana, they don’t care. They ought to see that jobs are tied into freedom. These people are more worried about getting some new stimulus check from the goverment.
“These people will never wake up.”
Until last year, Dear Ricky, I would have agreed with this statement, but, in my area, The Olde Confederacy, it is no longer the same.
People are awakening, have awakened.
You cannot mistake it.
> The term “anti-white” is being used more frequently.
15 years ago Bob Whitaker was telling people, “use the term ‘anti-white'” and people were skeptical.
Now? Now Democratic politicians like Tulsi Gabbard are using the term “anti-white.”
If people had just listened to Bob Whitaker 15 years ago we’d already be farther along. Better late than never!
Wasn’t he running for President, and then his own party dumped him, and started supporting Trump. They were sending out annoying long “robocalls” to people, which is a good way to turn people off.
Why hasn’t anyone pointed out that Princess Diana paid the coal for burning the coal? She wanted to fuck around with Bashirs, Pakis and Gypos instead of managing an estate and watching her boys…and paid the toll.
Someone please this out!
Like voting matters. Yeah Sheeples. Don’t notice that your country is being asset stripped and the white working class is about to be excluded from the new economy and starved ti death or incarcerated. There is going to be a Republican revival! Yay! MIGA! Look busy Jesus is coming!
@ KT-88 Agree. Voting is over. Politicians will continue to get into offices by offering up millions and promising to vote for bills and legislation in step with their parties. The whole theatrical charade will continue to let Americans think they vote for their “leaders”.
“Don’t notice that your country is being asset stripped and the white working class is about to be excluded from the new economy and starved to death or incarcerated. ”
Hey, c’mon now, KT, the country was already ‘
asset-strippt long ago, or, at least, the rural and smalltown part of it.
As to be starved to death or incarcerated – won’t happen.
Don’t forget, we are the ones who grow the food, and do not forget what will happen to those who try to incarcerate Rural & Smalltowners, for being who we are – skeet shoot.
How did the corona virus come to America?
I like Keith Alexander because he can connect the dots where the jews are concerned.