MrRodgers
Posts: 10542
Joined: 7/30/2005
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The gap between expectations and political realities reflects two mistakes: The first is to overestimate the centrality of presidential contests to our system of checks and balances.
The second is to misunderstand the recent Republican electoral successes — which rest less on effective governance than on attacking government, and especially the occupant of the Oval Office.
Think back to 2008. George W. Bush’s exit was humiliating. The party’s approval ratings had fallen to modern lows.
The verdict was clear: The Republican Party had to change or die.
Only it didn’t do either. Rather than reform and moderation, the party started a campaign of confrontation and obstruction of the new administration.
In the context of a divided electorate, highly polarized parties and nonstop combat in an unending string of elections to fill national and state offices, presidential contests are less likely to usher in dominance than to invite opposition.
This structural edge applies to the House. Many Democratic votes are “wasted” in majorities piled up in cities. Republicans can maintain a majority even while Democrats win more votes. In 2012, Republicans had a more than 30-seat edge in the House despite receiving a minority of votes cast in House races.
The electorate is changing in ways that will weaken the Republican advantage in the future — in particular, it’s becoming much more diverse. But Republicans have managed to hold back this tide to some extent by making voting harder (with voter ID laws and the like) and by mobilizing their core voters even more aggressively. And they’ve mobilized them not in spite of their presidential disadvantage, but often by virtue of it.
They are not trying to win by losing. But they are doing just that, and this tells us a lot about how the contemporary Republican Party works.
Almost without fail, recent presidential losses were followed by a “backlash” election — in 1994, 2010 and 2014 — in which the G.O.P. swept to victories in Congress and statehouses.
The one revealing exception is 1998, after President Bill Clinton’s re-election. Republicans actually lost seats, forcing Newt Gingrich to resign as speaker of the House. The reason, however, was truly extraordinary: Republicans impeached the president of the United States.
The Republican National Committee has just released its latest post-mortem — it probably looks a lot like the post-2012 soul-searching exercise, the Growth and Opportunity Project, which encouraged moderation in tone and inclusiveness in policy.
But that blueprint is ignored. Instead, the party quickly regroups in opposition to the incoming administration. Most Republican voters hate Mrs. Clinton even more than they hated Mr. Obama. The conservative apparatus for sowing discontent with a new administration is in place, flush with cash and battle-tested.
For Republicans in and outside government, it will be a time not for facing up to hard truths but for doubling down on hardball tactics.
American voters choose presidents, not kings (or queens). American political institutions are, and were designed to be, a complex system of interlocking parts. The drama of presidential campaigns should not blind us to these longstanding and deeply rooted dynamics or to their perverse effect: They allow the Republican Party to thrive even as its presidential candidates do not.
More worrisome, they reinforce a dangerous spiral. The most effective Republican response to its own unpopularity in presidential elections is to take steps to make the American political system more unpopular still. HERE
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This does not bode well for the future of American govt.
< Message edited by MrRodgers -- 4/21/2016 4:29:00 PM >
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You can be a murderous tyrant and the world will remember you fondly but fuck one horse and you will be a horse fucker for all eternity. Catherine the Great
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
J K Galbraith
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Suggested reading for all republicans, right wing too. - 
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