So...as we saw in my previous article, elections are won by enthusiasm. However, I'd argue that republicans are somewhat less likely to bottom out on enthusiasm and tend to perform relatively strongly regardless, while democrats tend to either perform strongly or bomb. The reasons for this should be obvious if you pay attention to this blog for any length of time, but it's worth building an argument here given the DNC autopsy got me going in this direction.
Basically....it comes down to this. Republicans believe in their own branding, and are super enthusiastic about their party and its goals. The christian nationalists are truly religious psychos who want to see christianity imposed on everyone. The small government people actively want the end of social programs and tax cuts, believing that they'll make more money. On foreign policy, republicans vascillate between not wanting to be involved in war at all (the paleocon position) while simultaneously flipping to X country is the biggest existential threat and we need to blow them up to keep ourselves safe. We saw that recently with iran. Even as trump's policies raise gas prices and cause cascading inflation, the republican base will still insist it's all joe biden's fault, or that Trump is playing 5D chess or something. Admittedly, the GOP is straight up delusional, but the general gist of being a conservative is this. They have goals, the party tangibly works toward those goals, and the base is willing to vote for and fight for those goals. And because the GOP delivers on them, the party will fall on their sword for them. Some of it is delusion. As I said, I woke up, realized what they were selling was crazy, and abandoned them as a party, but those on the inside really believe in that vision of the country, and as we saw with thomas massie, they'll show up to throw out anyone who is seen as standing in the way.
Democrats? it's like we hate ourselves. We have no goals. We're constantly told we can't have goals or "purity test", that we're a "big tent", that we gotta compromise. We lecture voters about how the republicans show up no matter what, and we should too, but without the party being willing to put in the work to do it. They argue with voters and lecture them about what their priorities should be, and try to corral them into voting blue no matter who. And when voters clearly arent interested in what they're selling, they act like passive aggressive little craps going on about how we voted against our interests and dont know what's good for ourselves, and that if only we voted for them this wouldn't be happening.
Admittedly, then the dems lose, the cycle resets, and the republicans are on the clock before the public turns against them and elects democrats again, but they only elect democrats in opposition of republicans. No one really believes in the democrats, their branding, or what they're doing, because they barely have a branding, or goals. For as much as the right claims we want XYZ, and how fired up the republican base is on campaigning against XYZ, when you ask the dems if they want XYZ, they're like 'oh god no, I dont want any of that." I mean, they dont have clear goals and clear priorities. They're rudderless. As such, the second they take power and are forced to govern, not only do they lose independents who flip between the parties, but they tend to lose their own base, including young voters who are typically enthusiastic to vote for them the first time, only to be disappointed they dont govern properly in office. So dems stay home, republicans stay relatively fired up at all times, and republicans end up voting more consistently while dems have wild swings on enthusiasm.
I aint saying republicans dont have enthusiasm issues themselves. 2006/2008? Yeah. Lack of enthusiasm. 2012, lack of enthusiasm. Of course, in those cycles, they campaigned like democrats do, with the party held together by weak opposition to an opposing candidate who is seen as an existential threat, while completely unenthused by their own candidates, because those candidates dont represent their values. Of course, republicans recovered from this relatively quickly. In response to the republican failures of neoconservatism, the tea party was created and injected insane energy into the GOP. The dems just....never had their own tea party. And every time we try to, the establishment seems to fight it harder than they fight the other side. Which really makes you think whose side they're actually on. This has been the problem with the dems for the past decade, and is the primary lesson any "autopsy" needs to walk away with. Harris lost because she lost millions of voters who voted for Biden. Biden won around 81 million people. harris had 75 million. Where did 6 million people go? Well, some voted for Trump, but a lot of them just stayed home and didnt bother showing up.
The real question is, how do you get those people to show up for the dems time and time again? Dems think they can lecture us while projecting weird fantasies of conservatives showing up no matter how crappy their candidates are, ignoring that those voters actually are into that crap. Like, just because a candidate seems terrible to us, those guys have such a radically different value system that things that are repulsive to us...are things they like. They love that cruel, crass, orange jack###. LOVE him. Are so enthused by him that they make stores selling his merch, that his supporters by and put on everything. They turn their personal brand into a political statement. Meanwhile we libs think we're better for NOT having that level of enthusiasm when in reality half of us would rather not vote for our milquetoast, crappy candidates at all.
The fact is, we do politics wrong on a fundamental level. politics is a battle of ideas. We want to win, because we have a vision we want to see implemented. The biggest problem with the dems is a lack of a coherent vision or set of policies that attempt to implement it. They stand for nothing, chastise you if you actually do have those principles, and then insist you vote for substanceless candidates you'd almost kinda wish would lose to the GOP just to teach these idiots the lesson you've been trying to teach them for a decade now. Because after a while of dealing with the centrists, you're literally that spiteful toward them that you stop caring, because neither of them make your life better, and you kinda stop caring who wins. Which is why I hate them so much.
Really, do I really need to put it this plainly? I only vote democrat to stop the encroachment of literal fascism at this point. The standard democrat is so bland and substanceless, and the aggressive bullying campaign to try to force me to vote for them so offputting, that I'd almost rather NOT vote for these guys, just to teach them a lesson. That's where I was in 2016 and 2020. I'm only a bit more sympathetic toward them because I do realize that we need to beat the fascists.
BUT...as I stated in the previous article, if we cant seal the deal, flip the script, and run a change candidate who does realign the parties in a positive way, the republicans are just gonna win again. 2030 is likely to be a red wave. 2032 is a tossup, although historically I'd favor the incumbent there. And we're likely to be back in the same situation by 2032 if we really drop the ball, or 2036 if we dont. If we wanna avoid that fate, the alternative is a transformational FDR style candidate with a strong vision that becomes so popular people will crawl over broken glass to vote for the guy. of course, that actually means the kinds of transformational change the party has been trying to avoid for a good decade now. That said, it's not looking good. But yeah, that's what we really need.
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