WaPo (Rubin): This is how much trouble Republicans are in

[TomCADem]

I agree with the author's baseline facts, but disagree with her conclusion. It isn't just Republicans are in trouble. Rather, due to the same dynamics outlined by the author, I think that Republicans are going to grow increasingly extreme and disconnected from facts and reality as they begin to hold the rest of the country in contempt. In other words, the Republican party will become increasingly a party defined by white resentment and protecting white male privilege.

I think Democrats, on the other hand, will face the problem of being a big tent party that is interested in governing. In the past, before the rise of cable news and social media, both parties worked from the same reality. Now, if someone like George Will or Steve Schmidt is a conservative, but generally believes in rule of law or science, do you go to the Democrats or the Republicans?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/opinions-this-is-how-much-trouble-republicans-are-in/ar-BB1aQ7xc?li=BBnbfcL

In 2016, 71 percent of the electorate was White. Then-candidate Donald Trump won 57 percent of them. In 2020, Trump again won 57 percent of them, but the White share of the electorate dropped precipitously to 65 percent. That is a big problem when you are only winning a quarter of nonwhite votes.

Democrats are second to none when it comes to self-recriminations and infighting — even when they win. Republicans are second to none in lack of self-awareness — even when they lose. We see both phenomena at play after last week’s election. Democrats have been rending their garments for a net-one gain in the Senate (so far), losing a handful of House seats and failing to pick the lock on Florida or Texas. However, it is Republicans who are in deep trouble.

The Republican Party last won more than 50 percent of the vote in 2004; in 2020, Trump looks like he will finish at least 5 million votes behind President-elect Joe Biden. If the number climbed past that to 7 million, Trump would be the biggest loser in absolute terms and lose by a larger percentage basis than Mitt Romney did in 2012.

The party has an even bigger problem: Its electoral map is shrinking. As late as 2004, the Republican presidential nominee won Nevada, Arizona, Virginia, Colorado and Georgia. When voting is concluded, in all likelihood Trump will have lost all of these. He picked up no state Hillary Clinton won, and lost by greater margins in Colorado, New Hampshire and Minnesota than he did in 2016. Although Republicans have hung on to Texas for now, their margins of victory have been dropping (16 points in 2012, nine points in 2016 and six points in 2020). It could well be on the same path as Colorado, Nevada and Virginia — once competitive states but now solidly Democratic. There is no competitive state for Republicans on the West coast (excluding Alaska) or north of Virginia on the East Coast.

[CrispyQ]

1. They've cultivated the zealots, loons, & racists for decades, & finally lost control.

Our tent should not expand to include repubs who don't like what happened to their party. Disaffected repubs should create their own party. I hope that is some of what The Lincoln Project is about. I'm grateful for any help they give us, but they need to form their own party, build their own infrastructure, not hijack ours. This ridiculous two-party, winner-takes-all system is so awful.

[brush]

2. We Dems have the best hand. The white demographic is shrinking...

each presidential cycle, as you noted, and it will continue and soon the nation will be a majority minority nation as the white population will be under 50% of the entire population. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to foresee the future of the republican party when that happens, or even before that happens.

We don't need disaffected republicans coming over to our party and bringing their conservative sentiments and attitudes on race. We're fine without all of that.

Our problem this cycle, which we have to rein in was the socialism taint (Sanders and AOC foolishly call themselves that) and the "defund the police" slogan, the stupidest slogan ever. We have to get on top of our messaging for sure and we'll be fine as the repug party's main demographic, white people, shrinks.