Today's thought experiment of roleplaying a republican strategist for 2026 got me thinking: how would I handle the GOP if I remained a republican? I mean, I was a republican, but I left. But that begs the question, say I remained one, how would I have evolved with the party and where would I be with it today? I'm going to somewhat leave ideology out of it and focus on winning, but I will have a few frank moments where am blunt about where I feel like the party went wrong and crapped the best. With that said, let's begin. Btw, presidential elections will have maps but midterms won't, simply because i aint creating new spreadsheets based on old election data.
2008
*sigh*, so this was painful. I was a republican back then. I didn't like McCain. He was too close to Bush. What the republican party needed at the time was a reset, a clean break from the Bush administration and its problems. It needed to get back to the basics of conservatism, which involved distancing itself from Iraq, and wanting to balance the national debt. That's what I thought at the time. I supported Ron Paul in the primary. I was willing to cross the aisle for Clinton, but not Obama.
Anyway, with us basically locked into an unpopular Bush third term, with McCain promising to be in Iraq for 100 years if needed, and the country facing a massive recession not seen since 1929, and Obama being the hope and change guy, there wasn't much the GOP could do. Run a different candidate. Something more akin to the tea party. Again, Ron Paul caught my eye but the party was fundamentally uninterested in him.
Looking at the map, we couldn't do anything with this. The fundamentals were just too bad for the GOP. You would need Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, and Nevada just to barely win. It wasnt gonna happen, GOP enthusiasm was at rock bottom and the democratic enthusiasm was too high.
2010
So...in 2010, the GOP ran against Obama. Claimed he was expanding the national debt, that he was implementing socialism, and the enthusiasm gap flipped. Those college students who voted for Obama in 2008 stayed home, and republicans acted like the sky was falling under Obama. To be fair, it worked, 2010 was a massive victory for republicans, and I wouldnt change a thing. That "reset" or "back to basics" I wanted in 2008 came to be with the tea party, and yeah. It worked.
2012
Here's the thing. It's easy to campaign, it's hard to govern. The GOP was good at campaigning, but after it had to govern, enthusiasm dropped again.
I would argue the GOP brand was fundamentally unpopular. If I had to sum up why they lost, it would be rachel maddow's election night take. The GOP was out of touch with constituents and reality. I made a horrible mistake, thinking that the answer was to go back to basics and to run the tea party. Because when the tea party got in, they proved they couldnt govern worth a crap. Their policies were poorly designed to the point of being dangerous. They were pushing some narrative that the problem with unemployment was the people being too lazy and we needed to cut unemployment to give tax cuts to billionaires to create jobs. The republican party was pushing religious based governance not based in reality. And yeah, 2012 is the year that broke me as a conservative. It was the year I realized, not only is this a poor implementation of conservatism, but conservatism itself is bad.
What could have saved the GOP here? Honestly, I'm not sure. Elections are won by enthusiasm. The republican base is too far right for its own good. It LIKED the tea party stuff, if you abandoned it, you would lose those voters. You cant do the moderation thing dems like to do on the republican side, because the republican base WONT TURN OUT FOR YOU. It's what I always tell liberals and why i base my own electoral strategy on running far left. But at the same time, the reality of winning elections for republicans is that while they have a very energetic base, their brand is gonna alienate independents. And it seemed, at the time, that over time, that base would grow smaller and smaller as more older people died out, and would be replaced by more liberal younger people. The GOP was facing down a generational shift that threatened to dislodge them from power. And much like in 2008, I'm not really sure what they could have done. 2012 was more winnable than 2008 was, but it was still a hard nut to crack. Priorities that played well with the republican base alienated swing voters hardcore, who were still pissed off over the economy. And that brand of conservative economics that the base loved, swing voters HATED, because reality didnt match the brand the GOP was selling.
2014
While democrats were dominating nationwide, the GOP was able to carve out a political map that guaranteed them house control in 2011, so they did pretty well nationally. Even though democrats won the popular vote in 2014 in the house, that didnt translate to winning districts due to aggressive gerrymandering. They could take the senate because land voted, not people, but yeah, the GOP is mostly held together by this point by institutional advantages favoring rural voters that give them an outsized advantage in the electoral college. Their brand of politics does okay, but as we discussed, it's only popular among the core base. Swing voters HATE it. The core reason republicans could win was a combination of low enthusiasm from the democratic side, and aggressively abusing institutional advantages that made them the winner even in the face of steady coalitional decline. The reagan coalition was aging out. The likely path from here was actually the democrats having a realignment and the GOP needing to rebuild themselves back up as a moderate party.
2016
2016 started as 2008 part 3 for republicans. Jeb Bush, "please clap", more trickle down guys. Yay... More religious evangelism, yay.... I mean, as you can see, my own biases and character shine through, but you understand why I left and decided 2016 was time to end the reagan coalition once and for all? To be a republican by 2016 who was self aware and not a delusional radical was an exercise in self hatred. But....fortunately, we were in a self hatred competition and our opponents were the democrats. They nominated Hillary Clinton, one of the easiest candidates to attack ever. Who has about as much energy as McCain and Romney did herself. And while yeah, for all intents and purposes, she should have won, she managed to basically throw the election, especially as voters made up their minds in october/november.
And eventually, by election day, the map was this:
Remember this? I predicted this as a democrat. But yeah. The democrats kind of screwed up. They got cocky, arrogant, and ended up costing themselves the election. Yeah, kill all enthusiasm among your voter base (the opposite of what Obama did) and tell them they better vote for you or else. Brilliant! Yeah, they blew it.
And as a republican, I'd kind of feel like we just somehow got a gift here. A path back to electoral relevance when we should have been toast. I mean, I'd be lamenting the blue wall like most in the GOP would. But by election day, we got that mapp, and that at least gave us a path to success.
The fact is, 2016, everything went right for the republicans, and everything went wrong for the democrats. The swing vote wanted change, and the democrats repeated our 2008 mistakes by basically running a third term no one wanted. The obvious path was to push for a democratic tea party here, and they did the opposite of that. They ran to the center, trying to pick up McCain and Romney voters that they didn't even need.
Meanwhile, Trump was able to unite and strengthen the party. Trump brought new energy to the GOP. While the democrats embraced woke (seriously wtf were they thinking?!), the republicans could now be the more rational social issues party, arguing against tone policing and in favor of free speech. We could activate the christian nationalists. The white nationalists, who we certainly dont support but they vote for us anyway. And we somehow got the swing vote. By blaming immigrants and outsourcing for the lost jobs (again, roleplaying here), we could get the swing vote to give fiscal conservatism another chance! Oh yeah, it's all coming together...
Which brings us to the map. My own pathway would've been those 4.5 swing states I focused on: Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and ME2. If we could get all 5 of those we could get exactly 270. I'd also probably focus on Pennsylvania and Colorado based on this map, but probably not expect Wisconsin and Michigan.
In the real world, the map was all over the place. Clinton got Nevada, we got Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. The vote that really did it was the white working class vote the democrats alienated. Seriously, they went after voters they didnt need and abandoned the ones that they did. They miscalculated and it cost them hard.
And yeah, that's how I'd see 2016 if I were a republican. Much like I did in the real world, but just laughing at the democrats misfortune and wondering wtf they were thinking with such a terrible strategy. This was a totally winnable election for them. And it should've been the election the republicans imploded for good, leading to the rise of the 7th party system. Instead, their own strategy just breathed new life into the republican coalition, as they were able to appeal to their traditional voters but also appeal to disaffected swing voters who the democrats functionally abandoned.
2018
However, much like with the Obama years, once getting into office, the GOP has to govern. And if the GOP brand of politics isnt popular, no amount of campaigning will fix it. The democrats siezed on the opportunity to attack Donald over everything. Just like we did Benghazi in 2012 and 2016, they started screaming conspiracy theories about Russian involvement (note, that was real, but again, roleplaying a republican here). And to be fair, Trump was kind of stupid and boorish. We had our best guys trying to help him govern, and we kept him in line with GOP priorities, but RINOs like John McCain and Mitt Romney (ya know, the losers who cost us 2008 and 2012) obstructed the GOP where it matters and we failed to pass much. Still, we got tax cuts and the economy was good. Arguably we were distant enough from 2008 where we could prove republicans could do a good economy. And we could even do a lot of press events with donald saving factory jobs.
Still, people really dont like how boorish that guy is and how incompetent he is. It goes with the territory. Trump is gonna appeal to his base, but yeah, swing voters are gonna go the other way. Not sure what can be done here. It's the problem the GOP has had since the tea party took over. Bad at governing, unpopular politics that is unappealing once anyone has to deal with it in practice. Honestly the only thing keeping the GOP in the shape it was was the 2016 F up the dems did.
2020
OH NO! WHY?! So...the bottom fell out. The economy crashed, and Donald's in office. ANd he's doing stupid crap claiming that COVID would just go away. Honestly, the best we could do as republicans is what the real world republicans did. Paint lockdowns as a liberal thing and run on reopening the economy, virus or no virus. THis wasn't popular. It was also dangerous. By this point, the GOP was just basically letting people die to COVID in the name of the economy and hope it wins them an election. The GOP played their hand well, but yeah, with this map, there was only so much the GOP could do:
2008 part 4....here we go...
And again, keep in mind until we saw 2020, I thought 2016 was a fluke. I'd probably have the same idea as a conservative. With that said, I'd be satisfied with the fact that the GOP did as good as it did. It looked like a reversion to the 2012 style map honestly. The republican base loved Trump, some independents loved Trump. But yeah, we just cant win when a global pandemic happens during election year and your candidate is out there talking about injecting people with bleach.
The GOP may have staved off its imminent defeat by lucking into Trump, but the same problems remain. I mean, I would have to have no soul and no conscience in the real world to remain a GOP operative by this point. I'd be lying to the american people, with the lies becoming increasingly more dangerous. And by 2020, they were basically encouraging people to sit together and avoid pandemic protocols during an election rally? And then herman cain dies? I mean, again, this is just...dangerous. Real me has a conscience. I cant do that. Like really, this is getting to be some dark the end justifies the means kind of stuff.
Anyway, what could I do with this map? Repeat the 2016 strategy basically. Which almost worked, but it didn't quite work, because again, you actually have to govern and the GOP is terrible at it. They lie to the american people, misrepresent the science, and while it's very popular among their psychotic voter base, normies are terrified by the GOP. They can gain power out of power, but they cant maintain it. At this point, the only thing keeping the GOP going is the dems not realizing the gold mine they're sitting on, and not actually being competent at politics themselves.
A note about January 6th, demographic change, etc...
So I wanna be real with people. I dont support january 6th. I dont support great replacement theory. I dont support the GOP's right turn. I believe the democrats rightfully won the 2020 election and earned it.
However, in roleplaying as a republican here, I can understand why this party is getting desperate. it seems quite clear from 2008 on that this is a party that is in deep crap. They got an ever radicalizing voter base, they terrify the normies. Drive the moderates out of the party. It seems obvious that the only thing holding the GOP together is the dems not knowing how to do politics.
I can understand why the GOP would turn to authoritarianism as they have. I mean, the demographic time bomb has been apparent for them for a while. And they live in existential fear of losing their cultural hegemony. Between America becoming more demographically diverse, and the older generations aging out, it looks like all trump really did was delay the inevitable. I mean, for now, at this point, you could argue the GOP could win elections again because the dems arent doing much better. Im a democrat IRL, my opinions on them are pretty known. If I were to look from the outside looking in, as a conservative, I'd kind of realize they hold the keys to the future. They're checkmating us. THey are just blundering so hard themselves they dont realize they won.
And that's why the GOP took an authoritarian turn. They know their time is up and its only a matter of time before the dems get their own realigning election. So, the GOP strategy is to break democracy as much as possible to maintain their power. And the core voter base behind trump was willing to commit an insurrection to achieve that.
So at this point, the GOP is leaving the realm of fair electoral politics and going into authoritarianism.
2022
Mid terms. Clear pattern by now. Party that is out of power gains electoral strength, party in power loses it. Democrats got caught with a time bomb at just the wrong time. Republicans lost in 2020 due to the pandemic, but the democrats got the recovery. And that makes the job easy for us. We just complain about the economy and insist if WE were in charge, we wouldnt have these problems. It's lazy people who dont wanna work. It's all those checks. We got a crime crisis, we got a border crisis. Everything is a crisis. Everything is bad. It's all BS, but the people won't know that. And of course, it seems to be working. Republicans are up, democrats are down. But then....oh no. OH NO, NOT NOW. SERIOUSLY SCOTUS, DID YOU HAVE TO DO THAT NOW?! DO YOU HAVE TO REMIND PEOPLE HOW MUCH WE SUCK!? Yeah, they shot down roe v wade. It's been a campaign issue republicans have rallied around since the 1970s. But....it's the 2020s. It's NOT the 1970s. It's only the religious nuts who want this! Normies HATE this! And that's the problem with being a republican. The base is extreme, and the normies HATE the GOP when they actually do stuff because only like 30-40% of the country likes what the GOP stands for. The rest just vote for them because they dont like what the democrats are doing. However, the GOP cant abandon the base because then the base will abandon them and throw them out of power. But then because they have to cater to the base, they cant appeal to the moderates and swing voters who fundamentally agree with the democrats on social issues. And while this should be a very red year as people dont like the democrats either, it ends up being a lot more blue because the GOP reminded everyone how much they suck as well. The fact is, no one fundamentally likes either party in charge. Each party has its base, but swing voters just vote for the side they hate less at the moment. It's enough to keep the GOP relevant, as the democrats arent doing any better, but it's not doing the GOP any favors.
Can the GOP save itself?
I mean...this is the thing we really gotta ask. The GOP has that fundamental issue. THe base is too extreme, alienates swing voters. Normal politics that appeal to normies alienates GOP voters. The GOP is trapped. It cant appeal to normies without losing its base, it cant appeal to its base without losing swing voters, so much like the democrats it only wins when the other party is fundamentally unpopular.
Trump does bring new opportunities to the table, being able to unite the base around social conservatism while moving ever so slightly left on economics. He has a populist branding that the tea party conservatives dont have. He's the only guy who seems capable of bringing the party together, but even then, when he governs, he has the same issues as all of the others. Because he's fronting an extremist republican agenda, he's fundamentally unpopular in office, he has that 40% of the public that is ride or die on him, but that isnt enough to win elections.
Even worse, Trump is becoming more authoritarian. Although, the GOP seems willing to enable that. So it's going in a direction of trying to dismantle democracy. It's got the dark enlightenment billionaires behind it, it's got these neo fascist types, and project 2025 aimed at accomplishing generational change. At this point, the GOP sees its future in rigging the electoral system. It needs to win, get into power, and then break democracy enough where they win every time. They want to systematically disenfranchise people who they dont want to vote. This is why they're focusing on extreme gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. THey know they cant win reliably through fair electoralism so they're thinking "well maybe not everyone should vote." So yeah, they're to a point, after around 15 years of a demographic time bomb on their mind, and no clear answer for them to save their party, they're starting to eschew democracy instead. If only they vote, they can win. So now we're in a scary phase where they're trying to literally rig the system through authoritarianism where only they can win. Which is why they're so aggressive with ICE, they are using it to accomplish demographic change (keeping the white majority). It's why theyre focusing on voter ID and ending mail in ballots. It's why there may be another january 6th type coup this year. This is where the GOP is at. They're looking at the same problems Im looking at in this article and they're going "yeah, if we cant win democratically, then maybe its time to end democracy."
2024
This brings us to 2024, where donald Trump runs a much more fascist campaign saying things like "vote for me and you'll never have to vote again." And thankfully for them, Joe Biden's approval is in the toilet. People arent happy with him. He's old, he falls asleep, we had all that inflation. Remember inflation guys? Arent you angry about that? What about the crime crisis, which only exists because in 2020 crime was down because of lockdowns. Same with immigration. Arent things SOOOO BAAAADD?! And with that, Trump was able to have his mojo again. He was able to be the outsider, who if he were in charge things were better, seriously, remember how great his first term was? Just ignore 2020. Remember when prices were low? Dont you want that again?
Meanwhile the democrats were like "and when we finally defeat medicare"....oh no, Biden's brain broke in the middle of a debate. Or should I say...OH YEAH!
See, democrats have an issue of foisting fundamentally unpopular candidates on the public. They have the opposite problem. Democrats were the losing party last realignment, so they are experts at self loathing. The only thing keeping the GOP relevant is really the fact that they're in a self loathing competition with the democrats and the democrats have had decades of experience. No, a better world isnt possible, you better vote for us or else, and then when we lose, its your fault for not voting for us. Democrats are professional losers, conditioned by their losses when the republican coalition actually had real power. The dems, if they played it smart, probably could destroy the GOP for good. Run a progressive who fundamentally changes the values of the electorate through their sheer popularity like FDR did, and boom, you got a once in a generation transformational change that ends the 6th party system for good. But they dont do that so they keep giving the GOP a gift in the form of being able to pick up elections despite the obvious demographic issues they got going for them.
And thankfully for us democrats, they cant govern worth a crap either.
But this is 2024.
Anyway, here's Biden's map, but then they got rid of Biden since they knew this was looking apocalyptic for them, and then we got Harris.
But yeah. Oh my god, if I were a republican I'd have to wonder wtf they were thinking running the senile old guy who no one liked again. I mean, really, its like the only thing holding the GOP together at this point is democratic incompetence.
And yeah, as long as the GOP downplays all that scary project 2025 stuff and they let trump be trump in campaign mode, they can get in power again. But then we got harris.
Harris would have scared me a lot more than Trump, mainly because she had more popularity and enthusiasm with young people and initially, she was able to call out republican BS. Like calling us weird, wtf was that? We (republicans) ARE weird. Like, as a republican i wouldnt be able to deny that. We are the weirdos who wanna control people socially. And our economic ideas are just there to screw the working class and benefit the rich. The only thing catapulting us to relevance is the american people being fundamentally stupid (with us wanting to keep them that way) and democratic incompetence. ANd if the democrats become competent, well, they can win!
Fortunately, the democrats arent that competent, and Harris ended up listening to their own consultant class nonsense. Those guys are professional losers. They fundamentally dont understand politics. Anyway, being a republican from this article I guess I cant complain.
Anyway was executed as well as it could have been. And Trump got into office. However, despite his attempts to concentrate power, he's been unable to break the electoral system, he screwed up the economy and now in 2026 we got a blue wave upon us. Speaking of which...
2026
Oh god this isn't good. We really dont know how to govern. Trump might be the one guy to keep the coalition viable, but hes an idiot who literally cant govern. His tariffs are destroying the economy, he invaded iran, and hes being far too blunt with his authoritarian impulses. At this point, yeah, the best we can do is hit platner with everything we've got hoping we can keep maine, but it's kinda hard when trump is THIS BAD at this. It's like american politics are in a race to the bottom of who can govern worse and despite democrats dropping the ball, now its our turn to have a fundamentally unpopular dementia addled 80 year old running things and alienating people. And now because he exerts so much control over the party he's driving out the only sane people who can theoretically save it. AND NOW WERE PROBABLY GONNA LOSE THE SENATE!
If I were still a republican by 2026 I'd feel like that guy from license to kill who yells at franz sanchez (the bad guy) that hes ruining everything and then gets shot him. GOP leadership is literally that bad. The only thing that can save the party at this point is the dems just....sucking almost as bad, and then people forget how much we suck.
Conclusion
Honestly, you can see why I left the GOP. I have a brain, I recognized their principles werent for me, and honestly, they're insane. They are driven by an ever radicalizing base of extremists while alienating normies. If I were still conservative at this point, i'd be like, yeah, maybe if you just go to the middle...but instead they run to the extremes. It does give them some success, in years where democrats drop the ball. But then democrats win in elections republicans drop the ball.
We can also see where these authoritarian impulses are coming from. They are sitting on a demographic time bomb and they cant win without changing the voting demographics of this country, either through mass deportations of minorities, voter disenfranchisement, brainwashing the next generation, or taking away reproductive freedom ensuring more babies are born of the demographics they want. Which is...why they're so extreme. They cant win in the long term otherwise. The only thing keeping them relevant is the dems being just as unliked as they are, so the swing vote keeps bouncing between the two hoping one of them gives a solution to the economic angst they feel. The right never will. The left can, but won't. I would argue by rights, the future belongs to the democrats. But if they refuse to step up, we might be stuck in a pattern where we just flip back and forth. The 7th party system feels like an alignment no one wants. But we might be stuck with it, where no party wants to be dominant, or can't. The GOP wants to, but cant without force. The democrats can but dont want to. Or it might be that because the dems drop the ball, the republicans end up just eroding democracy and establishing a dictatorship around their ideas. Ideally, Id like to see the dems go full FDR but they are incredibly resistant to that.
But yeah, thats where we're at. Anyway, this was just a thought experiment. Trying to see things from the other side, since i used to be on the other side. And uh....yeah.
No comments:
Post a Comment