This is how realignments happen

[Dan '82]

[Bob Butler 54]

Mitchell looks to be playing short term echo chamber games.  Whatever his candidate says get boosted, whatever the other candidate says gets trashed.  Business as usual and not a sign of realignment.

Should Trump lose, I don't know what happens to the 'conservative' platform and ideology.  He would leave it in a mess.  There is the potential for something new to come out of it.  I don't know that he is a broad principle guy though.  Has he got any sweeping generalizations the like of 'government isn't the solution, government is the problem' that might define an era?  He seems to me like a guy who lives in the moment, might take good advantage of the current news cycle's opportunities, but makes a poor sea anchor.

[pbrower2a]

I have my explanation: the winning Party in a landslide ends up with incompatible elements within the Party. For example, the New Deal coalition of FDR depended upon blue-collar Northern workers, largely 'ethnic' and heavily Catholic and white Southern agrarian interests. So long as those interests rarely met they could vote alike out of shared distrust of Northern industrialists... and western agrarian interests. The 1952 election shows a large number of states going from Truman in 1948 to Eisenhower in 1952, many of which states would never go back to the Democrats (not counting the oddity of 1964) for at least 64 years. 56 if you count Indiana (a freak) and Virginia.

The Party that had been losing Presidential elections sought to form a new coalition for its victories and got one.

Now consider the 1980 and 1984 blowouts involving Reagan. After 1976, Democrats have never since won Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, or South Carolina, states that Hillary Clinton can win only in a 40-state blowout not likely to happen this year. Dukakis started to build a winning coalition for Democrats but fell short. Bill Clinton won big, but without Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, or South Carolina, with which he should have been a good cultural match. He did win a raft of states that Republicans usually won between 1952 and 1980: California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Illinois, Michigan, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

So what happened? The Reagan landslides lumped together the well-educated, secular, socially-liberal but low-tax Rockefeller Republicans with the white racists of the Deep South and the Christian fundamentalists of the Mountain South. The Rockefeller Republicans were incompatible with the white racists of the Deep South and the Christian fundamentalists of the Mountain South. Western agrarians? So long as they rarely had to meet the racists and the Protestant fundamentalists they could stay in the same party with the white racists of the Deep South and the Christian fundamentalists of the Mountain South.

[pbrower2a]

The Democrats are nowhere near getting a presidential landslide this time. 2020, following a disastrous term of Donald Trump -- maybe. Let him get embroiled in scandals (he is the definitive crony capitalist, so that is a near-certainty should he be elected), preside over an economic meltdown analogous to 1929-1932, or get involved in a nasty little war that breaks badly for America, and perhaps America gets a late-wave Boomer Democrat (Amy Klobuchar?) as President in a landslide reminiscent of 1932. Such a landslide indicates a coalition of ethnic minorities, the educated intelligentsia, and blue-collar workers. Try figuring what the 50 or so electoral votes Donald Trump would get in his re-election bid if you want a real analogy.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-15-2016, 10:42 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: The GOP will split. One faction will become something akin to European Christian Democrats. The other faction will become something akin to European White Nationalist / Neo Fascist / Neo Nazi parties.

Which of the two do you see as dominant?

[Mikebert]

(09-15-2016, 10:42 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: The GOP will split. One faction will become something akin to European Christian Democrats. The other faction will become something akin to European White Nationalist / Neo Fascist / Neo Nazi parties.

This view has a monochromatic aspect.  Do you really see the dwindling white identity group choosing to split and weaken their power? 
I do not have a good idea of how parties could realign.  But this is a good topic that we should explore.  But we have to deal with the reality of race as well as the two dimensional political grid.

The grid has the two axes for social and economic ideology, and you could add a third axis with race/ethnicity.  But that would create eight "quadrants" many of which would be unfilled.  So I don't like that visual.  How would one characterize the American electorate taking into consideration that something like 70%+ of center-right white men vote Republican while the same fraction of center-right black men vote Democratic? Both have the same location on the two-dimensional political axis, yet they vote very differently.

It is my belief that this "third axis" is why American politics has been different from European politics, that is, why American exceptionalism, as the Marxists first put it, exists.

[pbrower2a]

(09-15-2016, 10:42 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: The GOP will split. One faction will become something akin to European Christian Democrats. The other faction will become something akin to European White Nationalist / Neo Fascist / Neo Nazi parties.

My 1000th post on this site.

Unlike you (but based on how the demise of one big party usually works out in American history) I predict that the Democratic Party will pick up some more conservative elements as the Republican Party fades into irrelevance as the American Independent and States' Rights parties did, those two Parties eventually becoming semi-fascist. The bloated and unwiieldy Democratic party will then split between Social Democrats and Christian Democrats because of incompatibility between some constituencies.

America does not need more people on the Left; it needs some genuine conservatives who recognize that the little man needs a stake in the system if there is to be any semblance of domestic tranquility.

[Eric the Green]

I Predict disaster if Trump wins; near disaster if Republicans win the Senate, and virtual disaster if they keep the House. What other predictions matter?

If Trump wins, I give up on Amerika.

[pbrower2a]

Donald Trump as President? I can see America becoming a giant, right-wing simulacrum of Venezuela.

[Anthony '58]

2016 will not be a realigning election. At the absolute most, half a dozen states will switch parties in the Electoral College - and some of them might simply revert from the Obama pattern to the George W. Bush pattern.

2020 offers much better odds: Increasing numbers of Latino voters will put Arizona and perhaps other states in realistic play - or, if it destined to be a Republican-favoring realignment; say, if there is another major terrorist attack in New York City, it could put New York, New Jersey and Connecticut on the table; and if Trump's Malthusian populism has taken over the GOP on a permanent basis, that could turn Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin red.

And with an eye on Eric The Green, there will be both a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction and a perihelion/opposition of Mars and the Sun in 2020.

The last time both happened in the same year? 1860.

[Eric the Green]

1861, actually; but who's counting

Actually, 1961 too. Kennedy calls us to begin; then invades the Bay of Pigs. Lessons learned.

[Eric the Green]

(09-15-2016, 09:09 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Donald Trump as President? I can see America becoming a giant, right-wing simulacrum of Venezuela.

That's about it, with the added proviso of Chavez with his finger on the button.

[Anthony '58]

(09-16-2016, 10:15 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: 1861, actually; but who's counting

Actually, 1961 too. Kennedy calls us to begin; then invades the Bay of Pigs. Lessons learned.

But there was no perihelion/opposition of Mars and the Sun in 1961.  There was one in 1956, and the next one was not until 1971; then in 1988, and again in 2003.

Back to the original post though: Trump's support for this maternity leave thing doesn't shock me one bit.  The "New Right" - which includes such burgeoning movements as Five Star in Italy and Alternatives For Germany in that country - has absolutely no problem with government doing such things as feeding the hungry, healing the sick (whether they're rich or not), and sheltering the homeless - just so long as those hungry, sick and homeless are natural-born citizens of their own country.

Because they are Malthusian nationalists - not Social Darwinists.

[pbrower2a]

2020 will be a realigning election should Donald Trump win in 2016, or else it will be as empty an election as those held in Commie states. His demagoguery will ensure that many who will have voted for him in 2016 -- and he will remain in contempt to practically everyone who voted against him in 2016. At the best one will have Jimmy Carter without the integrity and moral compass. Whoops -- except for integrity and moral compass, Jimmy Carter was a dreadful President! Donald Trump will be unable to win a free and fair election in 2020, in which such a word as "realigning" will follow either a military coup, a revolution, or a catastrophic military defeat. By catastrophic military defeat I mean one after which Atlanta has an impressive Carnival (like Rio), in which Japanese becomes a mandatory language of instruction in Seattle, or in which Canadian elections matter greatly in Grand Rapids and Lansing because Michigan has become a province of Canada.

Should there be another free election, then count on the next Democratic nominee to bring up nostalgia about the steady hand in foreign policy of Barack Obama and his astute stewardship of the economy. Yes -- we can do it again!

Donald Trump will push many Southern whites to what they were in 1976 or 1992 -- capable of voting for moderates. They will be able to vote for blacks who imitate Barack Obama (good model for whites, too!) Donald Trump will have discredited the American Right. Republicans who got too cozy to him will be burned badly. The Senate, which Republicans will have held since 2015 and the House, will then go Democratic. Whether the House goes Democratic after the 2018 or 2020 elections will be very much in question.

There is another possibility -- dictatorial as Donald Trump is and as authoritarian as the Republican Party is, it might choose to rig the election by such a piece of electoral chicanery as mandating that people vote as their employers 'request'... in which case the United States of America has become a fascist Evil Empire and elections are as free as they were in the old Soviet Union. But consider that by then America might have some Wars for Profit (like invading Venezuela to seize its oil) will be going badly. Figure that all alliances that America has will have disintegrated. Consider all the dangerous enemies that the USA could have. A hint: Japan kicked American a$$ for a few months, and lost because it was an Evil Empire.

Long before the first term of Donald Trump is over America will have much civil unrest. We will see lots of images of Donald Trump with unflattering facial hair taken from such characters as... well, I can think of three obvious candidates. You might see him in a red suit -- and I don't mean Santa Claus.

[Eric the Green]

(09-16-2016, 10:33 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote:

(09-16-2016, 10:15 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: 1861, actually; but who's counting

Actually, 1961 too. Kennedy calls us to begin; then invades the Bay of Pigs. Lessons learned.

But there was no perihelion/opposition of Mars and the Sun in 1961.  There was one in 1956, and the next one was not until 1971; then in 1988, and again in 2003.

Don't know what you're talking about. Sun-Mars opposition happens every two years, as I mentioned to you before. Maybe some are closer to the Earth than others (I remember 1971 was very close), but they are all about equally significant, astrologically-speaking. The weeks after the Mars stations are the critical times. Remember, Mars has a two-year orbit, not a 15-17-year orbit.

So, I'm not sure what you mean. An "opposition" refers to Mars coming closest to the Earth, with the Sun opposite Mars with the Earth in between (like a lunar eclipse, with Mars instead of the Moon). This happens every 2 years. Perihelion means closest to the Sun, and does not imply an "opposition." An opposition involves the Sun, Mars and Earth. How close Mars is to the Earth also depends on how close the Earth goes in its orbit to Mars, and most of all how close Mars is to the Sun when it's also closest to the Earth.

The Jupiter-Saturn conjunction was late in the year 1861, in October. The Sun Mars opposition happened in July 1860. The closest recent relationship to a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of a Sun-Mars opposition was in 1961, when the opposition occurred on Dec.29 1960 and the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction on Feb 19, 1961. The Mars station direct also happened in February 1961.

So maybe you mean an opposition that happens when Mars is also close to perihelion. But I could not find any websites that list the times of Mars perihelions. An astrological ephemeris does not list it. Where did you get this info?

Jupiter reaches conjunction to Saturn on Dec.21, 2020. Sun opposite Mars happens on Oct.13. The Sun is in trine to Mars (120 degrees away) on Dec.11.

Quote:Back to the original post though: Trump's support for this maternity leave thing doesn't shock me one bit.  The "New Right" - which includes such burgeoning movements as Five Star in Italy and Alternatives For Germany in that country - has absolutely no problem with government doing such things as feeding the hungry, healing the sick (whether they're rich or not), and sheltering the homeless - just so long as those hungry, sick and homeless are natural-born citizens of their own country.

Because they are Malthusian nationalists - not Social Darwinists.

They are Social Darwinists too, because they want to unleash business to its own devices and give it lots of breaks, just like Reagan whom Trump cites as a predecessor. And they are racists, which is what Social Darwinism is all about too. Yes, umm, they ARE Social Darwinists. Big time. And you can't lump Trump's deplorables in with any Europeans. Americans are just a lot dumber.

Trump is not a realignment. He's just a deplorable; a symptom of system and electorate breakdown.

[Eric the Green]

(09-16-2016, 12:14 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(09-15-2016, 06:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I Predict disaster if Trump wins; near disaster if Republicans win the Senate, and virtual disaster if they keep the House. What other predictions matter?

If Trump wins, I give up on AmeriKKKa.

I fixed your typo.

OK, thank you. Funny, but not so funny.

[Tim Randal Walker]

Discussion of swing voters.