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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24473 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026

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The ‘future of the GOP’ discussion is mostly dumb, because the GOP is now thé big tent party and the democrats are now thé ideological party, opposite of mid-late 20th century when ‘I am not a member of an organized political party. I am a democrat.’ was a recognized enough statement to be attributed to more than one person. The GOP going forwards probably won’t have an ideology. Oh, there’ll be principles- support for fossil fuels to name one- but nothing like the democrats, or like Reagan of yore.

Now there’s some advantages to that- it means republicans can be competitive more or less everywhere.

The GOP isn’t really acting like a party which is competitive everywhere. It made gains in coal country, Alaska, and Montana while doubling down on blaming Coastal Elites. Very Trump. I don’t see how that converts into lasting popularity elsewhere.

Trump can’t carry turnout forever.

In 2024 the Republican party increased its performance virtually everywhere in America outside Atlanta and Utah. It's been the subject of some very famous maps

It's possible this is a high-water mark and maybe the GOP is losing and this redshift is all an affect of Trump. In that case I guess you'd be right. But it's not really in evidence. The Democratic Party remains extremely unpopular. Why couldn't a Republican Party sans Trump continue to win, say, a consistent 52-48 national victory.

Okay, that’s definitely more widely distributed than I was expecting. I know a lot of those counties already went heavily red but the New England stuff is really surprising.

I guess I really do put a lot of it down to Trump.

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