Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Campaign 2020 U.S. House Select Committee on the J6 Attack

It's clear that Republicans support the overthrow of government, when they don't win national elections.

I think this is the death throes of the Republican Party. As Trump said: "Republicans would never be elected again if it was easier to vote." The demographics are against them in the long run. Lawyers say: "When you have no facts, argue the laws. When you have no laws, argue the facts. When you have neither, pound on the table." January 6th was pounding on the table writ large.

If this is "the death throes of the Republican Party", what's going to happen to those millions upon millions of Republican voters?

Are they all gonna start voting Democrat because it will be easier to vote?

Will they suddenly realize that liberal policy is far superior to conservative policy?

Will no more conservatives ever be born? And will they find themselves vastly outnumbered by Democrats in every election everywhere?

I suggest that at the moment it's Democrats who seem to be suffering in the polls and appear poised to lose the next election Bigly!

And I don't see any way that the J6 commission turns anything around or changes any minds.

One major party or the other major party will always be an alternative. Only Republicans are in love with their party, independents dislike the GOP as much as they dislike the Democratic Party. The difference so far heading into the midterms is the GOP is the only viable alternative to the in power Democratic Party. Being the only viable alternative when one gets mad or frustrated with the party in power, leaves one with but one choice on who to vote for. The party out of power. It’s really quite simple.

Now I’ve heard about the demise or end of one or the other major party several times in my lifetime. After the Goldwater debacle, he lost 61-39 to LBJ, the democrats had a 68-32 advantage in the senate and a 295-140 house advantage. Pundits and forecasters were saying it would be 20 years before the Republicans recover if they did recover. However, 4 years later, Nixon was elected, the Republicans pulled within a 58-42 deficit in the senate and a 243-192 deficit in the house.

Watergate and the loses in 1974, the Republicans lost 58 house seats giving the Democrats a 291-141 edge and 6 senate seats that year, Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976. Once again, gloom and doom were being portrayed for the Republican Party. However, along came Ronald Reagan, he won the presidency in 1980, the Republicans took control of the senate for the first time since 1954 and gained 42 house seats, now trailing the Democrats 242-192. The GOP was written off twice but recovered nicely and it didn’t take 20 years.

Then during Reagan many books were written on the Republican presidential lock, now with the solid GOP south. That also never lasted 20 years as many had predicted. Bill Clinton came along in 1992 ending the 20-year GOP lock on the presidency early.

The thing here is when faced with the possibility of becoming a permanent minority party or possible irrelevancy, parties adjust or perhaps the majority party becomes complacent or doesn’t listen to the people at large, only to their base. Which it seems is what Biden has done so far during his tenure ignoring independents.

It would be wise for today’s Democrats to remember or realize, the Democratic Party base isn’t that of their fathers and grandfathers. The Democratic Party’s base averaged 45% of the electorate from FDR until Reagan. Democrats could be cocky back then and not worry much about independents. In fact, in 1961 and in 1964 the democratic base reached 51%. At least according to Pew Research. Then the democratic base fell to 35% during Reagan and stands now at 30%.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/interactives/party-id-trend/

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/interactives/party-id-trend/

I think in today’s age, regardless of party, one needs to keep an over the shoulder eye on independents. Don’t ignore them, they have the numbers to bite one in the butt big time. Latest party affiliation, independents 40%, Democrats 30%, Republicans 28%.

All I ask of today's independents is to look into what the economy was like for the average working stiff back then. Now add in measures to make that kind of economy (and upward mobility) accessible to our more marginalized segments of the American community.
I rest my case.
I think Will Rogers made a similar case in 1932.

There are problems. The main problem is that the Republicans want to be the ones calling the shots. They are claiming to do this to actually save our democracy AND constitution. You hear that all the time from them and they all believe that to be the case. On top of that there is the fact that they also think that is the only way to save the nation from the evil Democrats who are trying to destroy America!

The other problem is that the Democrats are simply not fighting back on this one. When was the last time you heard the Dems say that, right out loud and then explain it? This problem has to do with the Dems continuing to deal with the Republicans as if it was the same old Republicans they have been on the other side of forever and that is a major error in judgement. Instead they continue to deal with politics as if its the same old politics - its NOT!

If the Dems understood these two problems they might actually start to explain it all to the Republicans but that will never happen because the Dems simply (again) don't have the capacity to speak with one voice on ANYTHING! So, basically, they are allowing the Republicans to all speak with one voice telling their believers lies which their believers believe and there is NOBODY willing to point out where they are wrong! Instead the Dems are holding hearings on what some bad people did to congress on 1/6 and sending them all to jail. The other side just sees that those good Americans who tried to save the nation are being jailed for doing, exactly, the right thing.

I actually have no idea how to deal with this because I have serious thoughts that the Dems are just not up to the task and they are the only ones likely to be able to deal with it. If, however, it isn't dealt with there are big changes coming down the path!

I say the demographics are against them because the US voting population is becoming less White and less male, and the current GOP seems to be doing everything they can to kick non-White and non-males out of their "Big Tent". And even worse, many of them are siding with Putin and sedition! When a Party supports overthrowing the government, it's going to have a profound effect on their future. When a Party tries to overturn rights enjoyed by all for decades, it's going to have a backlash. When a Party enacts a bunch of laws attacking women, people of color, people with different sexual orientation, etc. those people are much less likely to vote for them.

Given the ability, state legislatures pass a bunch of laws that are actually unpopular. Often they have very bad consequences, like property taxes rising by 25% in the counties holding Disney World. Or women having to travel to other states to seek abortions, or else give birth to incest babies. Those affected voters are effectively being driven away from the Republican Party, while the people pleased by these laws were going to vote Republican anyway.

I’ve been hearing about how the changing demographics will be putting the GOP out of business for over 50 years now. But during that time span, say 1970 to today, the only thing that has changed in party affiliation, identification is the Democratic Party base as a percentage of the electorate has shrunk while the Republican Party base has remained fairly steady, going up a few points during Reagan and Bush, then dropping back to where it was prior to Reagan and Bush. Here:

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/interactives/party-id-trend/

The biggest change is in independents, 20% during JFK, up to 30% during Ford and Carter, then climbing to 40% today. Now these figures aren’t broken down via demographics, race, gender etc. But demographics are covered in each major group, Democrats, Republicans, Independents. This isn’t saying you are wrong, it’s that party affiliation/identification numbers aren’t showing it. The only thing for sure is independents are growing. I wouldn’t be surprise if independents pass the 50% mark in 10-20 years from now.

You do have another trend going, 4% of blacks voted Republican in 2008, 6% in 2012, 8% in 2016, 12% in 2020. Hispanics 27% voted Republican in 2012, 28% in 2016 and 32% in 2020. In 2020 41% of Hispanics voted Republican in Texas, 38% in New Mexico, 37% in Arizona with the national average of 32%. Whites, 55% voted republican in 2008, 59% in 2012, 57% in 2016, 58% in 2020.

Here's a good article that may help explain why Hispanics are drifting toward the GOP.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/14/opinions/republican-latino-voters-gest/index.html

Make of all of this what you will. I just think it’s a big mistake to rely on the change in demographics to make the Democratic Party the permanent majority party with the republican party becoming irrelevant. Independents and Hispanics will have much more say in upcoming elections as both groups are growing while Blacks have stayed stagnant and whites decreases in their portion of the electorate.

Isn’t it perplexing that Trump, of all the republican presidential candidates in 2020 received the highest percentage of the black vote than any other Republican candidate going back to Gerald Ford when Ford received 15%? That except for G.W. Bush in 2000 (35%) and in 2004 (41%), Trump received the highest percentage of the Hispanic vote since 1984 when Reagan received 37%.

I think the mistake is in setting goals of having ANY party be a permanent majority party and another party becoming irrelevant.
The reason it feels necessary to push Republicans into oblivion today is strictly due to the FACT that they are now on record as being ANTI-DEMOCRACY.

Think about it...Mexicans were crushed under the seemingly permanent majority PRI Party in Mexico for seventy-one years. They finally slapped the PRI down when Vicente Fox won the presidency.
The PRI CLAIMED itself a "revolutionary" party but it institutionalized and normalized the corruption that defined Mexico for the better part of the 20th century. Every screaming stereotype about stupid, lazy and corrupt Mexican officials traces its roots to old PRI customs and values.
It was the perfect fascist dictatorship, by virtue of being a camouflaged one.

If stomping democracy into the grave is considered an American value today by a majority of Americans, then a fascist dictatorship we shall indeed be.
And persons such as myself will wind up spending our last days on God's Green Earth watching the values our parents fought, bled and died for become the stuff of "enemy of the state rhetoric" and we get to watch our children bow and scrape to the very kinds of people who tried to exterminate my European ancestors.

Maybe I should be relieved that my German-Jewish immigrant father, who took two Nazi bullets to the neck in service to America in WW2, died thirty-seven years ago.

If he was alive today, this would kill him for sure.
He was a lifelong Republican who only strayed once when he voted for John F. Kennedy.

Yeah....democracy doesn't matter!
Let's ask all those newly minted Hispanic Republicans how they will feel living under an American version of the PRI, bigger, better armed, more corrupt, praying for fascism, theocratic, and guaranteed to sweep every neighborhood in the country to make sure that anyone who IS NOT "sufficiently fascist enough" gets two bullets to the head.
That's what the PRI used to do to anyone who wasn't sufficiently in line with them.

I don't think people understand what losing democracy means for their future.
Maybe we could exhume and reanimate Francisco Franco!

So when do you figger elections will be canceled and all of our representatives will be appointed by...

By whom...? The conservative supreme court? State legislatures? Will Republicans simply rule by decree? What if they make a law conservatives don't like...?

I have a pretty hard time imaging the dystopian hellscape you describe and how it would actually come about.

Do you remember how Trump lost the popular vote each time he ran? He and his shenanigans simply aren't supported by a majority of Americans.