the end of runaway selection?

In a few previous posts, I've compared modern Republican politics with the biological phenomenon of "runaway selection," in which features found to be highly desirable by potential mates evolve with great speed, often resulting in features that would be detrimental if not for their attractiveness. (Simple example - peacock tail feathers. Without them, peacocks run faster and fly more efficiently. But they're not as attractive to peahens and thus don't contribute to the next generation's gene pool.)

There comes a point at which the detrimental impact of a display structure exceeds any selective benefit it imparts on the bearer. Peacock feathers can only get so long before the birds are unable to live long enough to mate.

If one considers the evolution of the Republican Party since Reagan, we've seen an accelerating move toward increasingly extreme right-wing positions. It was no longer enough to be a mere conservative - a candidate had to be way more conservative than any primary challenger. The central selective pressure for this came from right-wing echo chambers, first on the AM radio band and later on social media.

I've been waiting for the tipping point - the point at which Republicans would find it impossible to win a primary without appealing to an increasingly extreme base, but equally impossible to win a general election with the kinds of views needed to appeal to that base.

I honestly hoped we'd hit that in 2018 with Democratic victories in the midterms, only for that hope to be dashed by Trump's performance in the 2020 election. (He lost, but not as badly as he should have.)

I then hoped it would be hit following the January 6 insurrection. People could see red-hatters who appeared to be afflicted with rabies storming the capitol. They could see the former president living in La-La land. But the fact that so many Congressional Republicans refused to hold TFG accountable again sank my dreams.

I don't think we're at that tipping point yet, but the absence of a real red tide following yesterday's election fills me with hope that it might start to appear in 2024.

Trump isn't going to shut up. Republicans who want to challenge him will have to appeal to his base. But that means open rejection of physical reality and acceptance of abhorrent policies that, even six years ago, would have been dismissed as too fringe for national discussion.

The Republican base is starting to cause Republican candidates to lose elections. This looks promising.

Please let it be so.