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[Htown]

When a large portion of the electorate views their political party in the same way as their local football team, this is always going to be the case. Even when your team is losing, you still root for them.

putting it as "local football team" is drastically underselling it

it's actually about halfway between "local football team" and religion

 

[Shoeless]

But how do you actually sustain a party ideology like this if your base keeps, at worst, shrinking with every successive generation, or, at best, not growing as fast as the opposing ideology?

In the long run, if the Republicans keep treating their party as more of a religion, with strict requirements like racism, Christianity, heterosexuality, isolationism, and rich over poor, they're just going to keep shrinking in terms of actual population. At some point several decades from now, the sheer number of people that can't fit into this party because they're not white, Christian or heterosexual is going to be huge, and elections will be very one-sided. How do you increase your party's lifespan and numbers if defining characteristics are race, religion and hatred of anything that doesn't line up? If the Republican party keeps this up, 100 years from now, if they're still around, their base will easily be less than 50% of the American population, so unless they start really working the fraud angle, there's no way they'll be able to drum up enough votes, even if all of them show up on election day.

 

[Tye The Czar]

political creatures

Couldn't have come up with a better term. Hard to even see them acting or thinking like compassionate human beings.

I still yearn for the day when any sort of bribery from big businesses or "special interest" groups is grounds for instant expulsion.

 

[The Adder]

But how do you actually sustain a party ideology like this if your base keeps, at worst, shrinking with every successive generation, or, at best, not growing as fast as the opposing ideology?

It's an ablative armor of bullshit and backlash. Their base doesn't shrink because the party clings to their "ideals" for as long as possible, only abandoning one when the idea becomes so abhorrent that they must. They cast it aside and pretend that they never held those idas in the first place. The base follows along because there is a deep, possibly inexhaustible, well of offal for the GOP to draw from. Then every decade or so the base gets sick of being dragged into the future, there's a big pushback, and half the steps forward the party took are walked back while new blood is drawn into the fold.

 

[Toxi]

But how do you actually sustain a party ideology like this if your base keeps, at worst, shrinking with every successive generation, or, at best, not growing as fast as the opposing ideology?

In the long run, if the Republicans keep treating their party as more of a religion, with strict requirements like racism, Christianity, heterosexuality, isolationism, and rich over poor, they're just going to keep shrinking in terms of actual population. At some point several decades from now, the sheer number of people that can't fit into this party because they're not white, Christian or heterosexual is going to be huge, and elections will be very one-sided. How do you increase your party's lifespan and numbers if defining characteristics are race, religion and hatred of anything that doesn't line up? If the Republican party keeps this up, 100 years from now, if they're still around, their base will easily be less than 50% of the American population, so unless they start really working the fraud angle, there's no way they'll be able to drum up enough votes, even if all of them show up on election day.

The Republican base is already far less than 50% of the American voting population. Doesn't matter if the other members of the population don't show up to vote.

 

[digdug2k]

I don't really buy that the GOP is a monolithic structure. Its a coalition of groups. Evangelicals. Libertarians. Racist fuckwits. Rapists. Rich assholes. etc. All of whom should hate each other, all bound together by some strange, insanely intense sense of loyalty to the party. The Democrats are a coalition too, but without the loyalty aspect. They're more than happy to tear each others throats out. Publicly.

 

[combine42]

Interesting read. I guess tax cuts are the reason people vote Republican these days? I don't know what other reasons you could have to be onboard with that.

 

[water_wendi]

I don't really buy that the GOP is a monolithic structure. Its a coalition of groups. Evangelicals. Libertarians. Racist fuckwits. Rapists. Rich assholes. etc. All of whom should hate each other, all bound together by some strange, insanely intense sense of loyalty to the party. The Democrats are a coalition too, but without the loyalty aspect. They're more than happy to tear each others throats out. Publicly.

Republicans just had to deal with the Tea Party. A big difference right now between Republican and Democratic politicians is that GOP officials are in mortal fear of their base.

 

[The Adder]

Republicans just had to deal with the Tea Party. A big difference right now between Republican and Democratic politicians is that GOP officials are in mortal fear of the dumbest members of their base.

FTFY

 

[XMonkey]

I hope this is the beginning of a trend in commentators calling a spade a spade. We need to talk about the GOP for what it really is: a propaganda machine for the wealthy and a cult for everyone else.

This right here.

 

[Abinash117]

Republicans just had to deal with the Tea Party. A big difference right now between Republican and Democratic politicians is that GOP officials are in mortal fear of their base.

In a Trump is also a rejection of the Republican establishment.

 

[Y2Kev]

I think the news counterprogramming by the right is pretty impressive. It's so much more mainstream than what the kookoos on the left crank out. I mean if you watch Fox these days you get a healthy dose of Seth Rich, complaining about leaks, and Susan Rice "unmasking" controversy.

I don't really buy that the GOP is a monolithic structure. Its a coalition of groups. Evangelicals. Libertarians. Racist fuckwits. Rapists. Rich assholes. etc. All of whom should hate each other, all bound together by some strange, insanely intense sense of loyalty to the party. The Democrats are a coalition too, but without the loyalty aspect. They're more than happy to tear each others throats out. Publicly.

It's a lot more ethnically homogenous for sure. It's a lot easier to get rich people to agree with evangelicals on abortion, for example (rich people hardly care on the whole) than it is for, say, college-educated women and Hispanics to agree. Ideologically I don't buy that rich people should hate libertarians; rich people use groups like this that believe in "limited government" to push for tax cuts and deregulation. Movement conservatives are really the ones that get strung along.

 

[Abinash117]

I think the news counterprogramming by the right is pretty impressive. It's so much more mainstream than what the kookoos on the left crank out. I mean if you watch Fox these days you get a healthy dose of Seth Rich, complaining about leaks, and Susan Rice "unmasking" controversy.



It's a lot more ethnically homogenous for sure. It's a lot easier to get rich people to agree with evangelicals on abortion, for example (rich people hardly care on the whole) than it is for, say, college-educated women and Hispanics to agree. Ideologically I don't buy that rich people should hate libertarians; rich people use groups like this that believe in "limited government" to push for tax cuts and deregulation. Movement conservatives are really the ones that get strung along.

Like what Paul said. The GOP really is funded by the few very wealth groups of people. They really don't care about lower class people, who were convinced that supporting policies that benefit rich people will increase their prosperity.

 

[KDR_11k]

putting it as "local football team" is drastically underselling it

it's actually about halfway between "local football team" and religion

Local soccer team then.

 

[exmachina64]

I hope this is the beginning of a trend in commentators calling a spade a spade. We need to talk about the GOP for what it really is: a propaganda machine for the wealthy and a cult for everyone else.

Krugman's been saying this for years, so I wouldn't look to him as the bellwether of change.