Gregg wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 5:23 pm
The Republican Party is in a death spiral, it might not last past the 2024 election.
With each day the base gets more irrationally radical, pushing away what is left of a right-center membership and making it improbable that they they can ever win any fair elections. Even in red states their power is amplified or even propped up by stupid political tricks that cannot endure. Take Wisconsin, where statewide races are close contests, yet through extreme gerrymandering Republicans' have veto proof majorities in both houses and until this year had the majority of the State Supreme Court that allowed it. When a Liberal was elected to the Supreme Court this year, changing the majority control, Republicans began impeachment proceedings even before she had heard her first case.
Americans are sick of it, sick of the fighting and sick of a party that proves to them every day that yes they can go even lower. The Democrats might have problems, but the Republicans are doomed. Proving once again that everything Trump touches, dies, even 160 year old political parties.
I share your assessment of the current state of what used to be the Republican party. I never thought I would think of the Ronald Reagan/John Behner era as "the good old days".
However, I'm not as sure of the prognosis. People were making similar predictions after Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal, but the party bounced back, and not because their policies changed all that much. Peoples' memories of RMN just faded and new personalities came on the scene, such as the aforementioned Reagan and Behner. Tax cuts for the rich and the "Southern Strategy" never left the R's psyche.
The R's may not elect a President for a few election cycles, but they will continue to elect jackasses like emptygee and bobblehead. They will continue to control state legislatures through blatant gerrymandering.
Life will return to normal. The next time we have a recession or high unemployment while a democrat is in the WH, some republican will come along proposing massive tax cuts for the rich as a way to put America back "on the right track". This, even though, you, as an economist, know better than most of us, that the President doesn't have as much direct and immediate control over the economy as many people think he/she does. When the economy is good, the Prez gets to take the undeserved credit for it and when it is bad he/she gets more blame than warranted. But the opposing party will always take advantage of this phenomenon.
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