The Future of the GOP

[BurtReynolds]

Rape exceptions to abortion is plain nonsensical from the anti-abortion perspective.

I mean, if you truly believe in ensoulment, then I’m not sure how you even justify living peacefully next door to a state that is providing abortions to your citizens. South Dakota babies are being murdered by Minnesota doctors, etc.

I doubt many would be ok with abortion happening a state over either, but acting on that has consequences obviously. Just because someone has a core belief about something doesn't mean they throw out all other factors. That one doesn't throw care to the wind and bomb an abortion clinic isn't a sign of hypocrisy or lack of belief.

[BurtReynolds]

And yet they are similar in one key way: they have both been exceedingly popular ever since Gallup added them as questions to their routine abortion polling in 2003. Which brings us back to

How a return to hardline abortion legislation and messaging play in a red state senate or governor race is obvious. How those stances might (or might not) impact state legislature races or purple state general elections, we’ll see.

You're the poll master, so I'll take your word for it, but so far it doesn't seem to have had much of an impact other than to energize Republicans.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.co ... index.html

[McParadigm]

but so far it doesn't seem to have had much of an impact other than to energize Republicans.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.co ... index.html

It is possible that abortion doesn’t end up being a major campaign issue. We won’t really know until it starts to become a local issue….when the Court’s decision becomes official and laws start going into place or being proposed. But an immediate aftermath voter motivation poll isn’t a good way to evaluate it. I would expect it to be a midsized political issue, and *maybe* elevated this first go round simply because it is the new thing, but never, like, “economy” sized.

But elections get won or lost in the margins. Nobody who is vehemently anti-abortion was in danger of voting Democrat. You may be motivating those voters, but if they were pro-life they were already yours to begin with…and they were already motivated.

On the other hand, it’s not at all hard to imagine a moderate suburban voter who is fiscally conservative, thinks cancel culture is real and dumb, supports gay/trans/etc rights but dislikes pronoun stuff, and dislikes abortion, etc…but is fundamentally repulsed at the idea of forcing a 16 year old rape victim to give birth.

Millions of women in this country have had abortions, and many of them feel the procedure “saved their life” in a way that isn’t reflected in medical terms. You don’t have to lose very many of those voters for it to get expensive in any election that isn’t deeply red to begin with.

To be clear, Burt, you are saying that it is ideologically consistent for an anti-abortion advocate to include rape victims in their assessment. I don’t disagree with that. But this is a thread about the future of the Republican Party, and that future isn’t just determined by what conservatives manage to agree with each other on. It’s determined by who can win elections, where they can win them, and the degree to which they had to moderate themselves in order to achieve that.

Here we are, talking about JD Vance as a possible “future“ of the party. He’s also a hardline anti-abortion politician in a state where abortion rights poll favorably, so it’s not impossible that his abortion stance might end up being the difference between getting 51% of the vote and getting 49%. The future of the party, thus, gets altered by an election.

So when I say that the short term for Republicans is trying to find a way to balance the red meat messaging to their base and the kind of language that will sway general elections, I’m just flatly stating a thing they will have to do. For some candidates, abortion may well be the difference between being the future of the Republican Party and just being someone who goes on Tucker Carlson a lot.

The party apparatus has pretty cynically thrown aggressive antiabortion language around for decades, exactly because they were safe to do so. They could say that stuff without it feeling like a threat to moderate voters, and without having to back it up with action, because they were powerless to act. They depended on that powerlessness to permit them an aggressive tone without drawbacks. Now that the rubber’s hit the road, it’ll be harder to navigate.

[BurtReynolds]

I agree with that mostly, except to add that recently both the Democrat party and non-Trump Republican party have consistently underestimated both energizing the base and putting forth an assertive platform, even if it's considered "extreme". Reactively pleading with voters to vote for them or else the bad guys will take over isn't a very effective message.

[McParadigm]

I agree with that mostly, except to add that recently both the Democrat party and non-Trump Republican party have consistently underestimated both energizing the base and putting forth an assertive platform, even if it's considered "extreme". Reactively pleading with voters to vote for them or else the bad guys will take over isn't a very effective message.

100% yes

[E.H. Ruddock]

Cawthorn conceded, but Ted Budd won a nomination. That guy is awful.

[B]

Cawthorn conceded, but Ted Budd won a nomination. That guy is awful.

I'm quite distraught by how many more Republicans voted in this primary than Democrats. Could it be because we didn't really have a big battle for Senate?

[BurtReynolds]

And so ends the age of Cawthorn.

[tragabigzanda]

FUCK ICE

[elliseamos]

Cawthorn conceded, but Ted Budd won a nomination. That guy is awful.

I'm quite distraught by how many more Republicans voted in this primary than Democrats. Could it be because we didn't really have a big battle for Senate?

more likely it’s because they’ve accomplished nothing with the White House and senate for two solid years

WHAT?!!
Infrastructure Week was lit.

[B]

Hard to do much with 6 Republicans on the court and 52 in the Senate.

[tragabigzanda]

FUCK ICE

[elliseamos]

Yeah it’s a bummer how the other party can create a big tent atmosphere based on xenophobia and guns but the Dems can’t bridge the gap from abortion to coal

Tent so big, we have to stop people from voting.

Tell me more.

[BurtReynolds]

Yeah it’s a bummer how the other party can create a big tent atmosphere based on xenophobia and guns but the Dems can’t bridge the gap from abortion to coal

Hard to build a big tent when moralism demands that everyone is some horrible combination is racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic, etc. Somehow the liberal purity spiral began to dwarf the conservative one around 2008. I don't know how you pull out of it if no one will reject that mindset.

[B]

You're right. There should be more room for people to hate each other in the inclusive group.

[BurtReynolds]

You're right. There should be more room for people to hate each other in the inclusive group.

Unironically yes, you puritan.

[BurtReynolds]

But have fun trying to build a coalition while unceasingly searching for and rooting out "hate" (disagreement) in your group like some kind of Spanish inquisitor.

[elliseamos]

The GOP purity test seems pretty well and done.

Pro-Trump.

[tragabigzanda]

FUCK ICE

[Bi_3]

But have fun trying to build a coalition while unceasingly searching for and rooting out "hate" (disagreement) in your group like some kind of Spanish inquisitor.

I’m not fully in Camp Burt, but I am fully onboard with this.

I’m done being angry with republicans. They have a different worldview than mine; I don’t agree with most of it. But they’ve built their army, they’ve amassed their power, and it’s pointless for me to harbor resentment towards them.

At this point I’ve got infinitely more ire for the Dems for their total lack of vision, strength, and messaging. “Hope” worked really well in the early aughts, and they were able to attach a litany of platforms and program ideas to that core message.

It seems that their one-word message now would be “outrage.” That’s a much harder idea to rally around, since it actively repels roughly 50% of the population, and the remaining half has to do some real mental gymnastic to understand how that might translate to policies that close wealth gaps, fix buildings and bridges, and provides a better quality of life for everyone.

trag gets it.

"morally pure losses over compromise victories" has already cost the country Build Back Better, the expanded Child Tax Credit, and just cost women the right to choose. Not the winning some might think it is.