12-14-2016, 09:15 PM
(12-14-2016, 10:12 AM)Anthony Wrote: In 1908 William Howard Taft was Teddy Roosevelt's hand-picked successor, confident that Taft would continue TR's progressive policies. But then, when TR returned from his travels in Africa, he had discovered, to his horror, that Taft had sold out to the very interests that TR had spent seven years battling against. This caused TR to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912; and when Taft prevailed, for TR to run as an independent, essentially guaranteeing a Democratic victory in the general election.
Similarly, if Trump betrays the Rust Belt populists, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin will turn blue again just as fast as they turned red in this election, and Trump will lose, providing the Democrats don't nominate someone who is wilder than a March hare - a very distinct possibility. That is if Trump doesn't get beat in the Republican primary, in which case Trump, with his ego, would probably run for re-election as an independent, thereby exactly repeating the 1912 scenario.
If historian Colin Woodard is correct and the Democrats' historical "destiny" is to basically to become what the Republican Party was in the beginning (Northern, protectionist, economically interventionist) The Republicans in the long term can never capture this demographic. The core of the Republicans' coalition are the regions Woodard calls The Deep South and Greater Appalachia, both of which are deeply opposed to the interests, beliefs, and social norms of Yankeedom, which encompasses much of the Rust Belt.
Minnesota is not strictly in the Rust Belt, but the 2012 Election, which saw the Republicans getting wiped out in the state legislature after overreaching and trying to push a nationalized Tea Party agenda that was offensive to a culturally "Yankee" electorate, is possibly a taste what will be in store for the GOP in the entire region when voters up here realize Trump was full of shit.
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain