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Just as follow on, and in the spirit that everything related to Trump is culture war:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/19/politics/trump-voters-of-color-analysis/
Pull quotes:
This fact should be the smoking gun that we're not talking about the same thing that we used to with the term "racism". The american public pretends to believe that Trump was more racist than Wallace.
This is political realignment from the inside. It's slow, it could reverse or it could continue. I believe very strongly that the political coalitions are going to change composition quite a bit in the coming decade. I don't know what the issues will be, but the separation between the working class (see our discussion in last week's thread) and the middle class is becoming big enough to win elections on. The question is which party will get which side, and in what quantities.
As a point for discussion, if (and it's a big "if) the Republicans fully take up the flag of the working class, would that make them the left-leaning party?
I think we're not far away from explicitly race-based campaigns by Republicans in some blue districts. Imagine a Hispanic candidate, running as a Republican, campaigning for the following:
Jobs, not welfare
Traditional families
End of anti-Latino racism
Debate catch phrase: "I dare you to say Latinx one more time, Senator."
Hispanics and Republicans seem like natural allies on the culture war at least. All the woke stuff is Anglo imperialism. Successfully tarring Democrats as imperialists would also have the effect of demoralizing progressive white voters.
This has been the establishment right dream for a long time, not just in the US but in the UK and EU as well. The end result is an ever more 'left' leaning right wing. A secondary result is a more classical 'class' based political landscape.
The problem with that for the establishment right is that through the process of becoming more 'left' they alienate a part of their base. Which opens the door for, as we have seen: Nigel Farage and Brexit, Trump, and to a lesser extent the 'rise of populism' in Europe. Notably Le Pen, Swedish Democrats, AfD and so on. Some of these became a lot more notable than others. But regardless of anything else, giving these things space to operate poses a threat. In the case of Brexit and Trump, the entire right wing establishment had to reorganize itself. They still 'rule'. But it's a pitiable sight to see all of the Republican establishment career politicians mouth off about how much they love Trump when they very sincerely don't.
A more general question is what the point of the establishment right is in the first place. If it just exists for its own sake to maintain power, sure, make alliances, build bridges, co-opt the popular rhetoric of your opposition and steal their supporters. But what does that functionally entail? Becoming left wing? Does the right honestly have any power as a 'right wing' element in that form?
You can attribute the degeneration of right wing political ideals to a host of things. But at its core it is the same as when the left wing sees a degeneration in its political ideals. When reality meets ideals, reality wins and the political parties have to bend and contort their ideals so they can save face and continue to exist. The reality that faces the Republican party of the future is a white minority voter base. No more dog whistles about 'the boarder'. All you have left is class. And there's the final nail in the 'Republican' coffin.
America isn't going to be a majority 'middle/upper class' society anymore. It's instead moving towards ever greater stratification. With an ever growing underclass and an ever richer and diverse upper class. The 'jobs, not welfare' mantra is a middle/upper class ideal. The 'I'll give you money if you vote for me' mantra works much better on the underclass. This isn't a prophesy or anything. As I understand it, looking across the Atlantic, It's just California.
The goal of a functional Republican Party is to ensure we indeed have a republic, wherein no sector of society, public or private, can easily run the lives or abuse the rights of any other sector. That takes the identification of power and the disarming of it.
Since Reagan left office, that has meant the centrist wing abusing the business community through tax subsidies and breaks and strategic regulation to mold it into the picture of bad-faith capitalism while the right wing focuses on trying to ensure good-faith government.
I don’t have much faith that the Republican Party ever represented that, nor that it claimed to do so.
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