There are people who will tell you that Donald Trump will be the death of the Republican party. And then others will tell you that’s bullshit, the GOP will go on forever. They’re both wrong. In politics nothing is forever, the Republican party doesn’t date back to 1776, they came along in the 1850’s to replace the Whigs, and if they die, another opposition party will spring up. And while Trump may harken the death rattle of the traditional GOP as we know it, he certainly won’t be the one who kills it.
Any political party, be it Whigs, Democrats, Republicans, Mugwumps, they ll exist and survive on one critical fuel. Ideas. They hold opinions and views that other people find attractive, and they offer the discipline and structure to bring those ideas to life. When a party’s ideas become antiquated, or toxic, they lose their supporters. And when that happens, the party withers and dies.
Going into the general election of 2008, the Republican party had a problem. They had lost three straight national elections, Clinton beat Pappy Bush in 1992, and Bob Dole in 1996, and Bush Lite lost the popular vote in 2000, and had to be bailed out by the Supreme Court. And while they won a majority in 2004, it was not the kind of majority that an incumbent President should have garnered. It couldn’t just be a matter of crappy candidates, after all, they had won with Bush Sr in 1988, and as for 2000? Hell, a win is a win. The GOP was no longer energizing the majority of the country with their messages and ideas.
This was the dilemma for the GOP. America was becoming younger, browner, and more liberal and tolerant. Younger voters were enjoying the benefits of things that their parents didn’t have, and understood that they shouldn’t be the only lucky ones to enjoy basic freedoms. The normal fix to this would be to update and modernize your ideas and messages, bringing in new voters, without abandoning your bedrock principles. But they couldn’t do that. Their bedrock conservative principles were inconsistent with the prevailing ideas, and the GOP’s older, whiter base dictated that it would be as much a generational divide as it was a clash of ideas.
This was the problem for the GOP going into 2008. They couldn’t attract new voters with their current principles and agenda, and they couldn’t modernize their agenda and principles without alienating the base that had gotten them to where they were. It was an untenable situation.
What do you do if you can’t win fair and square? You cheat. And the GOP found the only way of cheating that was available to them in their current circumstances. Gerrymandering. The GOP undertook a concerted, well organized and funded effort to spend whatever was necessary in 2008 and 20010 to win as many state legislative seats and Governorships as possible. Because it was the state legislatures who would redraw the district maps after the census of 2010, and the Governors would sign them. If you vouldn’t win on a level playing field, tilt the field so that the minimal number of votes would garner the meximum number of seats.
And it worked, like a charm. Rachel Maddow did a wonderful expose a couple of nights ago, showing how the Democrats in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, yet the majorities in the state houses would remain safely Republican. And it worked on the national stage as well, the GOP dominated states redrew the US House legislative districts so heavily that their House majority has withstood.But there are two major problems with gerrymandering, both of which are coming into play right now. The first is that gerrymandering is transitory. For it to be effective, it depends on a stable population base. And ten years is a long time. This problem is highlighted in states like Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and parts of South Carolina, the “New South.” As more high tech and innovative companies relocate and start up in the new south, they bring a much needed infusion of cash to those states. But they also tend to bring a whole new population of younger, more traditionally liberal voters to fill those jobs. Ten years is a long time, and over that time, the actual political makeup of these districts have changed. This was starkly displayted by the Virginia state elections of 2017, as well as partially responsible for traditionally GOP suburban districts flipping to the Democrats in 2018 in so many US House races.
But the second problem is even worse, and harder to fix. When the minority rules the majority, it can only do so for a limited time before the majority gets royally pissed. And when they get pissed, they tend to want to do something about it. But what can they do to fight thoe imperiously imposed lines? Get rid of the imposers. Every cycle, more and more states are getting initiatives on the state ballot to remove the power of redistricting from the state legislatures, and to turn them over to impartial panels to draw the maps. Redistricting won’t quash these initiatives, since they rely on the statewide vote, instead of a district by district vote for passage. And every cycle, another state or two takes the plunge.
This is not some kind of a sudden shock to the GOP, they’ve known that this was coming for years. In the “Autopsy Report” of 2013, following Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012 to Barack Obama, the report pointedly exposed the systemic problems the party faced with their strict ideology, and proposed practical solutions to upgrade the party into a more tolerant and welcoming environment, without compromising their principles. But the GOP is now an almost exclusively older party, and the leadership was loathe to take any steps that could risk alienating the reliable supporters they already had in order to attract new voters into the tent.
Funnily enough, it was Donald Trump himself that may have been the final nail in the GOP’s coffin as far as national relevance is concerned. If Trump had lost in 2016, especially if he was clobbered, the GOP would no longer be able to put off the massive overhaul it required. But Trump’s shocking win, with Russian aid or not, allowed the GOP to delude itself, and kick the can down the road. Not only did Trump’s election allow the GOP to continue to rely almost solely on its aging and shrinking base, it also had the effect of permanently alienating the very kinds of younger, more tolerant voters that the GOP would have to attract once Trump is gone.
No, the Republican party will not disappear on January 21, 2021 if Trump loses in 2020. But the democrats flipped nine Governorships in 2018, and as Trump deteriorates, the odds are high that they will flip even more in 2020. If that happens, the days of flagrant gerrymandering are over. Even states that retain GOP majorities in the state houses will be unable to get flagrantly gerrymandered maps signed off on by Democratic Governors. Trump will have alienated women and minority voters from the party for a generation at least. And if the GOP loses the power of gerrymandered districts, they will be unable to compete in the House. If that happens, the pressure on remaining GOP Senators will increase to get something done, or face the voters wrath. You can ask Dean Heller from Nevada about that one, and Martha McSally, whose ACA votes doomer her sun for the Senate in Arizona.
So no, the Republican party is not going to disappear overnight, and Donald Trump won’t be the sole reason it becomes trivialized in future national elections if it doesn’t turn around. But this is not necessarily something to rejoice over. As the first two years of the Trump Presidency have proven, democracy needs to strong, vibrant parties competing for it to be effective. Single party rule, no matter which party it is, can be destructive. If the GOP fades from the scene, it will be interesting to see what springs up to fill the vboid.
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