The Future of the Republican Party

[Kowani]

depends, who is "republicans"
the party elite is aware of this fact and seek to utilize it for electoral gains (largely through dogwhistles) so they can engage in their mission of tax cuts, mass surveillance, police militarization and deregulation (though in fairness surveillance and police militarization is a bipartisan enterprise) but among the base it is a very different experience-there's no message discipline and there are a lot more people

When you say the elite is aware that their motivation is the preservation of white etc power am I to understand this includes all elites? Or are there some like the base off-message? As has been discussed in this thread the Republican elite is large and increasingly disparate.

i mean i don't have the resources to check literally every congressional/state republican's press office and there are a lot of them to where i presume at least some are off-message but they aren't really a faction that's exercising much ideological influence anyway

Are "populist" elites included in this?

absoluely-they're the worst about this-with the notable difference that (and this is key, really), they believe most of the bullshit, rather than just stroking it to gain electoral power

Are POC elites included?

some of them definitely are! people like candace owens or larry elder are very useful (i hesitate to say necessary because i think that overstates the case) parts of the "plausible deniability" train

If they are really aware of this then it sounds like you are describing a kind of secret club of people who become white supremacists (functionally) because they think it's a good way to hold on to power? If they hold such beliefs for this reason why would they not jettison those beliefs when the demographics change?

because unfortunately for them, they've locked themselves into a demographic spiral where they are unable to pivot

Are you not just inferring a racial or religious basis for right-wing beliefs because of the traditional makeup of the very wealthy in America?

im sorry, i have no idea what this means

a result of the second phase of the great party shift initiated by the goldwater campaign
snip
from here, the stage is largely set-to win in a primary, one needs to, at the very least, court people's racial animus (not racial prejudices)-and thanks to the racialization of many (ostensibly) non-racial factors of government, this is usually acceptable to the corporate backers because cutting things like welfare spending or shrinking the size of the government (even if its some regulatory agency no one's ever heard of!) satisfies both groups

How large is this constituency of racists?

substantial

Has it changed in size since the 1960s?

yes-its shrunk (as a proportion) but because a combination of what is essentially very efficient geographical positioning and voting restrictions, their electoral power is still very much there (though i will freely concede that their cultural power is much less than it was in the '60's)

If you are implying that the reason such beliefs still hold is due to some sort of institutional inertia

institutional inertia, the consequences of social geography, a propaganda wing active since 1947,

is it not the case that populist shifts in the Republican party will do away with that?

no-the "populist" surge is very much tied into status threat and white decline

Or is it that right-wing beliefs are necessarily racist?

not necessarily at all-it just happens that a lot of policies that we would consider right-wing are also very useful tools for upholding a racial hierarchy

I take your point on welfare but I'm drawing a blank on how the elimination of regulatory agencies satisfies this racist constituency?

admittedly, a slightly more roundabout point-government itself has been racialized (an effect going on since the 60's, again!)

no to both-there are tons of racist people in the democratic party as well
what happened was the party set its platform to attract these people-as well as the democratic party being associated with being the party of minorities (both from its demographic composition as well as the racialization of the policies it pushes)-to the point where it can no longer jettison those people from its platform because it will suffer either electoral losses or elites being replaced by someone more amicable to the racial animus

So how many racists are we dealing with here total ? It seems this argument lives and dies on the existence and size of this constituency for whom the preservation of white power is their single issue

and this is the hardest point to pin down-but while i think "single issue" is not fully accurate (these people would still like good roads and good hospital, for example, they are just perfectly happy to sacrifice them for symbolic conservatism), the problem is a combination of different study methodology and issue salience (though the latter is made less complicated by the prevalence of fox news and other right-wing media), but if i had to average it out...i'd say about 55% of the white electorate is on this train to varying degrees (it's likely higher but this is hard to measure and that's relatively conservative)

and i say animus because it is perfectly possible to not actually have any prejudices (though to be clear a majority of republican voters are explicitly prejudiced and this is a motivating factor as well) and still want a state that maintains the position of white people in the racial hierarchy

Is conservatism in America necessarily racist because white people are currently on top of the racial hierarchy?

i would argue that the answer to this would be "yes" but it's also irrelevant because the aim is to keep white people on the top of the racial hierarchy

I am not disputing that the Republicans courted Southern racists in the 1960s. But there are a number of leaps from that to your charge that the Republicans' reason for being remains the preservation of white supremacy. It is a lot of extrapolation from a slim set of facts.

sooo
the courting started in the 60's with goldwater
but it didn't stop there-things like nixon's "law and order" campaign, reagan's welfare strategy (and the gutting of government services, from ending revenue sharing with cities to his assault weapons ban), bush the first's willie horton campaign, etc-these are all part of the exact same project
but that time period is also accompanied by things which drive racists into the republican party-the racialization of government, the identification of the democratic party with minorities, the decline of manufacturing, immigration changes, obama-

I also don't understand your death omen for the Republican party - even granting your argument, why is it that Republicans will be unable to pivot from this racist white constituency to a multiethnic constituency? You reference electoral losses but can you explain further? Why would said racist constituency abandon the Republican party because the party expands its base in another direction? Who would they vote for?

a combination of several factors-firstly, the establishment figures in the republican party are very, very old. and the new generation of politicos coming to replace them look more like paul gosar than they do kevin mccarthy
but it is less "they would abandon the republican party" as it is a remake of the tea party wave in 2010 (or in a worst case scenario, violence)

What is the basis for the allegation that racism is more important to them than, say, economic self-interest or personal aspiration or cultural mores or nationalism? Or is this what you mean when you say racism?

i would first argue that all those things (maybe not personal aspiration) are intertwined
secondly-evidence. lots of evidence

Apols for all the questions but you have obviously thought this through so you seem a good person to ask

don't worry about it

[Saiwania]

I've looked at the Taliban's political platform and the GOP's and well, when you truly think about it: is the Taliban really so bad in comparison? I mean, they disagree with all the things social conservatives disagree with in the US. They check all of the boxes but with minor differences like their preferred religion.

[Rusozak]

I've looked at the Taliban's political platform and the GOP's and well, when you truly think about it: is the Taliban really so bad in comparison? I mean, they disagree with all the things social conservatives disagree with in the US. They check all of the boxes but with minor differences like their preferred religion.

Um, when your political party checks most of the same boxes as an ultra-conservative terrorist organization, your takeaway should be something telling of the party, not "maybe the terrorists aren't so bad."

[Kowani]

I've looked at the Taliban's political platform and the GOP's and well, when you truly think about it: is the Taliban really so bad in comparison? I mean, they disagree with all the things social conservatives disagree with in the US. They check all of the boxes but with minor differences like their preferred religion.

Um, when your political party checks most of the same boxes as an ultra-conservative terrorist organization, you're takeaway should be something telling of the party, not "maybe the terrorists aren't so bad."

consider who you're talking to for a moment

[Helidan]

My opinion on conservatism has always been that it is a useless ideology bordering on stagnation. The Republican Party I grew up with was just that. An annoying group of aging, wealthy politicians that railed against progress and common sense, but not insane lunatics who bought into every conspiracy theory they heard about on Facebook. To allow dangerous ideas like the current Republican Party, along with certain paramilitary groups to exist is a danger to the longevity of the United States. All it would take is some populist moron with delusions of grandeur to lead his equally moronic pals to fight something they deem "Un-American", and for whatever they attacked to fight back to cause major civil unrest and possibly rebellion. Worst case scenario is it cause a civil war, and not a clean, North v.s. South civil war like the Lost Causers dream of, but a Free For All, Crisis of the Third Century/Warring Kingdoms Period, Battle Royale where anyone with a gun, ambition, and a couple buddies could go, "Hey, I wanna try this whole ruling thing out." For the good of America, movements must be made away from the two-party system, with power being more centralized and put into the hands of those who actually know what they're doing, i.e. civil administrators, military officials, the educated, etc., and away from politicians whose only good qualities are their oratory abilities and corrupt natures. But that'll never happen, so why bother doing anything.

[Chan Island]

The future of the Republican is either as an authoritarian dictatorship that's done away with elections, or as yet another terrible group in the dustbin of history.

... But the democrats are useless so it'll definitely be the first choice.

[Alcala-Cordel]

The future of the Republican is either as an authoritarian dictatorship that's done away with elections, or as yet another terrible group in the dustbin of history.

I imagine it more like rabid, unrestrained capitalism with a government run by the lobby. But on steroids, because that's pretty much already happening.

... But the democrats are useless so it'll definitely be the first choice.

Useless to us, maybe. They're like that part of a ratchet that prevents things from moving in the other direction.

[The Reformed American Republic]

The future of the Republican is either as an authoritarian dictatorship that's done away with elections, or as yet another terrible group in the dustbin of history.

I imagine it more like rabid, unrestrained capitalism with a government run by the lobby. But on steroids, because that's pretty much already happening.

This, plus more rabid conspiracy theories such as open hostility to vaccines in general as well as other contrarian nonsense.

[The Reformed American Republic]

I've looked at the Taliban's political platform and the GOP's and well, when you truly think about it: is the Taliban really so bad in comparison? I mean, they disagree with all the things social conservatives disagree with in the US. They check all of the boxes but with minor differences like their preferred religion.

:facepalm: