I think it’s interesting to note here that in 2008, 2012 and 2016, the electorate has voted for the guy promising most loudly to end the wars. That’s relevant to the death of what’s being labeled here “conventional conservatism,” what I call Zombie Reaganism.
It’s really clear that both parties are in favor of neoliberal economics, heavy foreign intervention, and social liberalism. This is what we’ve gotten from both parties since at least the mid-1990s, with some slight shading.
Zombie Reaganism is an impossible sell to Americans at large because the problems we face today aren’t the problems America faced in 1980. We no longer have a 90% (or whatever) top marginal tax rate, so yelling about tax cuts doesn’t move many votes. Reagan governed the world’s leading industrialized country. Trump governs the world’s leading de-industrialized country. There was broad cultural consensus in 1980 regarding who our leading adversary was (the American Left’s repeated collaboration with the USSR notwithstanding), whereas America’s current leading adversary today has a big chunk of America’s elites in its thrall. Etc.
I just had a conversation with a close friend who knows much more about politics and political science than I do. He has been much more bullish on Trump’s chances this year than I have been. Now that I’ve changed my mind, he says he has looked at early voting figures in Texas and concludes Trump is very likely to lose. He’s been right about the last two election cycles, so I trust his judgment.
It’s not manly to make a prediction, then take it back, so I will stand by it. But I have real doubts.
This argument basically boils down to the right in America being tired of winning. Maybe, but I’ll believe it when I see it, especially given the disappointment on the right in the wake of both Bush administrations.
Isn’t it just saying that fear is a great motivator? Who could argue that? 95% of media these days is about aggravating fears. Because it’s effective and easy. However, it was easier to stoke conservative’s fears when the Supreme Court had an empty seat. But acknowledging that doesn’t mean the Right is tired of winning, just that the current fears are more abstract and require more stoking to keep at a fevered pitch.
Yeah, it’s a fair question and may prove to be true. And you can see where liberalism in America kind of ran out of gas after LBJ’s successes.
Scuttlebutt seems to be that lots of NeverTrump and NeverTrump-adjacent folks have been won over by President Trump’s successes, mostly those who questioned how conservatively Trump would actually govern. But scuttlebutt doesn’t win elections.
Even if it’s not just “not scared enough,” I don’t think “tired of winning” is quite right. If you add the disappointment in the Bushes and who got elected after them, it gets more clear. It’s not getting tired of winning. It’s getting tired of winning and it still not making an ounce of difference.
Yeah the 2012 election taught me the hard lesson that we no longer live in a center right country. The Reagan era and the triangulation of the Clinton years is over. We now live in a center left country. To be more to the point, we live in a country somewhat centrist on political economy, though open to the left on those matters, combined with rapidly liberalizing attitudes on “social issues.” The one social issue where the Right still arguably has some edge is guns, but even that is slipping.
Mi Papa es 61 years old. This year he registered to vote for the first time in his life. With the express goal of keeping Trump in office. That’s one small vote. There are many many more like him. Trump shall win. Callin it. That is all. Good Lord’s Day everyone.
I live in Texas. I know that - like most large cities across the land - ours (Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio) have rotted into a Democratic cesspool. But, Texas [ahem] is big, and Trump voters will belly-crawl nekkid through broken beer bottles in order to vote for Trump.
It’s Donald Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton all over again. It’s George H.W. Bush overcoming a 17-point deficit to beat Michael Dukakis all over again. It’s the final days of Ronald Reagan versus Jimmy Carter, when all of America broke for Reagan at the same time. . . . Game. Set. Match. Checkmate. Trump will win a smashing electoral landslide on Tuesday.
I think we live in a country that is economically liberal and socially conservative, and what they’ve gotten for 30 years is a government that’s economically conservative and socially liberal.
What socialism we have in America is generally well-liked (Social Security, Medicare), and the Democrats aren’t winning any votes with sex changes for 8 year olds. People vote for Democrats because Democrats say they’ll fix health care. No one is crawling across broken glass to vote for the guy who says he’ll cut corporate tax rates and cut Medicare.
Yeah, Gorsuch authoring an opinion saying that discrimination against homosexuals is sex discrimination was a real black pill week for me personally.
I called BS on Gore winning Tennessee, his and my home states, as soon as the media first tried to hand it to him. That was better than sports comeback.
I’ve met and heard lots of people voting for Trump this year ago who didn’t last time. Though I’m frustrated and even angered by many so-called Christians I know voting for Biden, I don’t think they voted for Trump last time.
I’m worried and scared more, but only because of the media, and they are even less concerned about being accurate now, rather they are intentionally influencing.
My worries seemed ungrounded.
I still think Trump will win.
I think the Left is more out of touch than four years ago. Though I risk that myself. I suspect there’s lots of room for turnout numbers to swing it either way. A surprisingly large turnout can overcome about anything, in any direction.
I’ve not followed the legislature races. That ought to be more important, I think.
I’ve watched the media and polls pretty closely. The Drudge Report which used to be conservative but became pretty liberal has been pushing stories for months that Trump was behind. But recently he has snuck in a few hedge your bets stories. I have googled Trump win once a week for a couple of months. The stories were all about how Trump cant win but this past week they starting changing as well. Either the liberal press is just hedging their bets or the public polls don’t match the internal polls. The fact that Biden is campaigning in Minnesota also is a sign. I’m predicting President Trump takes Texas, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Penn, North Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin along with all the other red states for the win. He might take Minnesota too.
Why does believing Trump is behind make someone liberal? I certainly didn’t mean to give that impression with my map. Perceiving what is happening, and what is best to be happening, are separate.
I’ve been listening to The American Mind podcast for the last few months. In their latest episode they make what I think is a great point. That is that a large percentage of people on both sides in this election believe that they cannot possibly lose unless there is rampant fraud. That does not bode well for the country post-election.
Both teams have been prepping their sides to reject the election results. For Team Blue, it’s voter suppression and Russia. For Team Red, it’s illegal aliens, ballot harvesting and dead people voting.
Both teams’ leaders should have come together in the aftermath of 2016 and found some ways to shore up the election system against both sides’ fears. But they didn’t. And here we are. Both teams prepping to reject the results of an election is game over for a democracy. If the election winds up close, especially a narrow Trump win, things could get ugly.
The Trafalgar Group polling predictions (the guys who called 2016 right contra most others) are intriguing as again they seem to be a lone voice predicting a Trump win. Here he answers some criticisms on CNN:
It does seem incredible that almost all pollsters would not have learned and corrected for what seem to be very basic 2016 mistakes. But institutional incompetence (and/or bias) is very real. I’ll cast my lot with Trafalgar on this one.
Yes, but all that might mean is that the social undesirability attached with telling people you are voting for Trump is even greater this time round. Will be interesting to see.
