Return of the Whigs
A New Path after the Fall
October 1, 2016
I could detail how the Democratic Party whose overall philosophies align with a far greater majority of the American public than the Republican Party has become the wimpy ineffectual political force it is, but the history lesson has gone on long enough.
The current Republican Party is the result of the political realignment of the fifties and sixties also true for the Democratic Party. If someone presents the counter argument to charges of racism when the GOP restrict voting rights, stating they are the party of Lincoln and mention all the Republican votes for the civil rights bills passing in the 1960’s – laugh at their ridiculousness. Starting in the 1970’s Republicans and Democrats became a new game. All the components were rearranged. The George Wallace constituency is essentially the same people later called Reagan Democrats, or now the Trump Base. I think I will go with Trumpers. Is the Republican Party of 2016 all Trumpers? No, a significant portion of the party exists in the Never Trump movement, yet Donald J. Trump is their nominee. The existential threat to the GOP of Trump for prez is not his race-baiting, misogynist attitudes, or even his pomposity; it is the fact he cannot and will not win. In spite of a cottage industry of pundit class people trying to make you believe, there’s a chance. (A Dumb and Dumber chance based on all observable data.) The Senate will also turn to a Democratic majority and the House will narrow. These are disastrous events for the Republican Party because being in power and selling access to their power is the whole game.
George Wallace and Donald Trump much alike
The blame game has already commenced but by New Years Eve, Times Square will not hold the finger pointers. The party is dividing into three identifiable groups, but that alone is not devastating. If the groups all continue to unite to vote Republican, life goes on. This decade is the beginning of the unraveling of the Reagan coalition just as 1970 witnessed the all out unraveling of the FDR coalition in the Democratic Party. These groups within the GOP have begun to defy, attack, and blame each other for losing elections. They identify the failing to pass policy agendas, as the fault of the other factions not being part of their purity base. I will give these groups labels. Labels are all being a member of a party really is. Identifying with a label and seeing one as aligning with that tribe in opposition to other tribes is party identity. In appearance without gaudy logo shirts and hats you cannot identify a Cub fan from a Cardinal fan. The GOP will divide into True-Trumpers, Latter Day Fundies, and CorpoPower Elites. Each faction will try to support the policy or candidate of the others, but no one or no policy can get full support of all three. Look at the deep bench that Trump crushed on the way to the nomination. (Yes deep bench, that’s a joke. It was a bench of slow white men taking on the Cavaliers) Take a look at the near winners. Ted Cruz’s group is the Latter Day Fundies. They like faith, an appeal to authority, and a strict moral code. Cruz rode that horse to second place. The CorpoPower Elite faction disliked Cruz. They were trying to get business done, and Cruz was bad for business. Of course to the Trumpers he was just Lying Ted. Then there is Little Marco he was the great Latin hope of the CorpoPower Elite.
Rubio repeated the same talking point over and over
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