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It's too bad that Republicans can't change their platform at all to become more popular so that Democrats have competition. Republicans have a duty to their na

It's too bad that Republicans can't change their platform at all to become more popular so that Democrats have competition. Republicans have a duty to their nation to provide a counter balance of power and they cannot use dogmatism as an excuse for staying put.

justinzollars 6y ago
I'm in the camp that the Republicans are toast. The people in power today will never give it up. Especially with such power.
- CamperBob2 6y ago
  Aren't the Republicans in power today? Who else can they blame for losing it, but themselves? They knew who Trump was all along [1], but they stuck by him nevertheless. There are bound to be consequences for that kind of poor judgment. 1: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lindsey-graham-nominate-trump/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lindsey-graham-nominate-tr...
- majormajor 6y ago
  There's less of a media monoculture today than there was in an 80s and 90s, when the Republican perception of media persecution and bias really started to accelerate. Basically all of the resulting right-wing media empires that were built still exist! I'm unsympathetic to the "we need a right-wing social network where our death threats don't have to get moderated" argument, so let's see if a few more attempts that are in more good faith get blocked by Apple before I care too much there... The problem with how far these big chunks of their voter base have gone into extremism is that it really undermines their complaints about being treated unfairly. If I'd predicted even a year ago that people would get shot storming the capital over unsubstantiated claims of fraud that Trump himself had stirred for the better part of a year I'd have been mocked even by "moderate" Republicans as having "trump derangment syndrome" and told I was being unfair to Trump by assuming he would act so badly... and yet here we are. At some point we have to start dealing with Trump, and his base, for who they actually are now, not just in idealistic terms of "Repubs and Dems are the same, just on opposite sides."
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I’m in the camp that the Republicans are toast. The people in power today will never give it up. The people in power today in the Federal government are the Republicans, with the exception of the House of Representatives.
- blisterpeanuts 6y ago
  Except for the Senate run-off and of course the White House, the Republicans actually were quite successful in the 2020 election; they took back 9-10 seats in the House, flipped one Senate seat, and won many state and local elections. It may be that the people in power will make it harder in the future for the opposition party to win, but at a grassroots level there is still substantial traction for a moderate/conservative party.
  - germinalphrase 6y ago
    “there is still substantial traction for a moderate/conservative party” which the Republican Party has actively been moving away from since Newt Gingrich intensified the obstructionist power politics that both parties are on rails about.
    - blisterpeanuts 6y ago
      Trump foreign policy was to stay out of armed conflict and that's about as moderate a policy as you can get.
      - germinalphrase 6y ago
        Which is an atypical position for a member of his party, nor does it contradict the rhetorical and political hardening that had taken place since the 90’s.
- dang 6y ago
  Would you please stop using HN primarily for political battle? That is the line at which we ban accounts, because it destroys what this site is supposed to be for, namely curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
bzb6 6y ago
Republicans won an election and almost won this last one, they aren’t really that impopular, or at least not impopular enough to pretend they don’t exist
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  I think the issue is that both parties are empty husks. They don’t represent anyone outside special interests and party machinery. They neglect their duty. Congress doesn’t engage in deliberation anymore. So we end up ping ponging between two rats circling the drain. Their relative popularity is meaningless given how unpopular all of them are.
- zapita 6y ago
  The current situation can accurately be described as minority rule. Republican voters are greatly over-represented at every level of government. They get more state representatives and senators per voter than average; more representatives and senators in DC; more presidents; more judge appointments. In practice that means everyone else - voters who don’t vote republicans - are getting screwed out of fair representation. And the trend is only accelerating because each incremental increase in power is leveraged to entrench minority rule. For example: - Conservative supreme court suspended the Voting Rights Act, freeing states to deploy previously illegal voter suppression tactics against Black voters. - Senate majority leveraged to pack federal courts with partisan judges, making it harder to challenge voter suppression in court. - State legislature majorities leveraged to deploy extreme gerrymandering, further entrenching unrepresentative seats in the US house of representatives. - State legislature majorities leveraged to weaken voter protection laws, and lower the requirements for transparency in campaign financing. This in turn entrenches an electoral advantage in both state and federal elections (which are run by states). - Leverage state executive power to further weaken voter suppression. A recent example of this is the 2018 gubernatorial election in Georgia, where the Republican secretary of state was also a candidate, and purged record numbers of voters from the rolls in majority democrat districts; warned the public about a “suspected hacking attempt by the democratic party” on the official government website; oversaw record numbers of voters turned away in democratic districts; etc. In summary, the data shows that Republicans are simply not popular enough to justify their current hold of power. They owe their victories to a systematic strategy of minority rule, which is inherently anti-democratic.
majormajor 6y ago
The Electoral College and Senate are the worst thing for the Republican party and the country because it makes "radicalize a minority of the population" a viable strategy compared to "offer something to everyone."

justinzollars 6y ago

I'm in the camp that the Republicans are toast. The people in power today will never give it up. Especially with such power.

CamperBob2 6y ago
Aren't the Republicans in power today? Who else can they blame for losing it, but themselves? They knew who Trump was all along [1], but they stuck by him nevertheless. There are bound to be consequences for that kind of poor judgment. 1: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lindsey-graham-nominate-trump/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lindsey-graham-nominate-tr...
majormajor 6y ago
There's less of a media monoculture today than there was in an 80s and 90s, when the Republican perception of media persecution and bias really started to accelerate. Basically all of the resulting right-wing media empires that were built still exist! I'm unsympathetic to the "we need a right-wing social network where our death threats don't have to get moderated" argument, so let's see if a few more attempts that are in more good faith get blocked by Apple before I care too much there... The problem with how far these big chunks of their voter base have gone into extremism is that it really undermines their complaints about being treated unfairly. If I'd predicted even a year ago that people would get shot storming the capital over unsubstantiated claims of fraud that Trump himself had stirred for the better part of a year I'd have been mocked even by "moderate" Republicans as having "trump derangment syndrome" and told I was being unfair to Trump by assuming he would act so badly... and yet here we are. At some point we have to start dealing with Trump, and his base, for who they actually are now, not just in idealistic terms of "Repubs and Dems are the same, just on opposite sides."
dragonwriter 6y ago
> I’m in the camp that the Republicans are toast. The people in power today will never give it up. The people in power today in the Federal government are the Republicans, with the exception of the House of Representatives.
blisterpeanuts 6y ago
Except for the Senate run-off and of course the White House, the Republicans actually were quite successful in the 2020 election; they took back 9-10 seats in the House, flipped one Senate seat, and won many state and local elections. It may be that the people in power will make it harder in the future for the opposition party to win, but at a grassroots level there is still substantial traction for a moderate/conservative party.
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  “there is still substantial traction for a moderate/conservative party” which the Republican Party has actively been moving away from since Newt Gingrich intensified the obstructionist power politics that both parties are on rails about.
  - blisterpeanuts 6y ago
    Trump foreign policy was to stay out of armed conflict and that's about as moderate a policy as you can get.
    - germinalphrase 6y ago
      Which is an atypical position for a member of his party, nor does it contradict the rhetorical and political hardening that had taken place since the 90’s.
dang 6y ago
Would you please stop using HN primarily for political battle? That is the line at which we ban accounts, because it destroys what this site is supposed to be for, namely curious conversation on topics of intellectual interest. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

bzb6 6y ago

Republicans won an election and almost won this last one, they aren’t really that impopular, or at least not impopular enough to pretend they don’t exist

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
I think the issue is that both parties are empty husks. They don’t represent anyone outside special interests and party machinery. They neglect their duty. Congress doesn’t engage in deliberation anymore. So we end up ping ponging between two rats circling the drain. Their relative popularity is meaningless given how unpopular all of them are.
zapita 6y ago
The current situation can accurately be described as minority rule. Republican voters are greatly over-represented at every level of government. They get more state representatives and senators per voter than average; more representatives and senators in DC; more presidents; more judge appointments. In practice that means everyone else - voters who don’t vote republicans - are getting screwed out of fair representation. And the trend is only accelerating because each incremental increase in power is leveraged to entrench minority rule. For example: - Conservative supreme court suspended the Voting Rights Act, freeing states to deploy previously illegal voter suppression tactics against Black voters. - Senate majority leveraged to pack federal courts with partisan judges, making it harder to challenge voter suppression in court. - State legislature majorities leveraged to deploy extreme gerrymandering, further entrenching unrepresentative seats in the US house of representatives. - State legislature majorities leveraged to weaken voter protection laws, and lower the requirements for transparency in campaign financing. This in turn entrenches an electoral advantage in both state and federal elections (which are run by states). - Leverage state executive power to further weaken voter suppression. A recent example of this is the 2018 gubernatorial election in Georgia, where the Republican secretary of state was also a candidate, and purged record numbers of voters from the rolls in majority democrat districts; warned the public about a “suspected hacking attempt by the democratic party” on the official government website; oversaw record numbers of voters turned away in democratic districts; etc. In summary, the data shows that Republicans are simply not popular enough to justify their current hold of power. They owe their victories to a systematic strategy of minority rule, which is inherently anti-democratic.

majormajor 6y ago

The Electoral College and Senate are the worst thing for the Republican party and the country because it makes "radicalize a minority of the population" a viable strategy compared to "offer something to everyone."