Between Two Majorities | The Cordray Administration

[The_Doctor]

It depends on the economic and social ideology of the states in question. Their reaction to the ruling party's ideology and voters matter too.

For example in the upcoming era the minority coalition will be Republican, technocratic and probably highly appealing to a coalition of libertarian States and big urban states that have a decently large white population. So that's Idaho but also maybe the governor of New York will be a Republican. States like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio (after Richard Cordray) might move ro the Republican Party. Maybe the South will have some heavily Republican states. I don't know exactly.

In history, New England and the Midwest + New York formed the resistance to the southern dominated Jefferson-Jackson Democratic Party. (Actually the Midwest came for the ride later on but it was never that warm to J+J). Then the south formed the resistance and saw the liberal northeasterners join them (it was never exactly a clean geographic movement though). The industrial Republican Party dominated the country everywhere outside the South.

The New Deal era saw Interior West GOPers and Sunbelt Republicans unite against the liberals with auxiliary support in the Midwest and strong support in the upper New England states. Lo and behold the bedrock of the Reagan-Bush majority (except they lost CA, New England, and the Pacific Northwest and then the sunbelt).

Then the Democrats became the coastal party locked out of the Midwest (except Illinois) and the heartland. Reagan's cultural conservatism and economic libertarian ideology won the stretches of land beneath New York and ran all the way to Nevada except Illinois (the Upper Midwest went Republican locally but not for president until 2016).

In short the minority coalition will be situated on whatever states that used to be the strongest of their majority and haven't been co-opted by the majority ideology.

Under the Democratic populist ideology I expect that to play well in Dixie and the Midwest and given the Latino vote the Sunbelt. But I expect the Libertarian states to be royally ticked off so I see the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast and interior Great Plains go Republican.

I do believe the next great Republican realignment would wind up in New York/Pennsylvania and will be a strong Northeastern - Midwest - Interior states - Pacific NW majority but that's in the 2060s and way too difficult to write about.

[The_Doctor]

How would the Democrats possibly retaking the House in 2018 factor into your timeline, TD? That is seemingly becoming a very real possibility as time goes on.

Makes it a 2020 or 2028 realignment; it forecloses 2024. If the Democrats regain the House, either Trump will become a Clinton and the Republicans stabilize around him, leading to his re-election and maybe Pence in 2024 (unlikely*) or he loses, and the realignment is in 2020. Frankly, I'd be shocked and I'd be inclined to think of a 2020 realignment.

*For note, this was the original timeline plan for Walker and Portman. But 2018 was never intended to be a Democratic year, because I strongly believe geographic localities, gerrymandering, and intensity of partisanship will keep the House and Senate in GOP hands.

[The_Doctor]

For international elections, maybe the UK polls end up underestimating the Labour vote and Theresa May still wins but not by a landslide?

I don't know - but she'll win strongly because she has 3 factors going for her (1) the populist right has no other alternative but her (2) she heads the center-right (3) the center-left/left are squabbling. So she'll win big. My article will pretty much say that the center-right holds a veto over the far right. America's center-right let Donnie T. win and the populists win. But in other countries, the center-right has checked them (not consistently: India's populist right was allowed to win).

I haven't finished the article because I need to figure out a framework in which the Left wins. But consistently, from what I'm finding, the populist right's chances hinge on the center-right agreeing to go along. When they disagree, the Left wins. See: France, Hungary.

But, for example, Ecuador's an interesting example of the populist left winning, incidentally. A banker was beaten by a vice president of a very successful populist president. Trudeau might be another example.

[The_Doctor]

Wait...if a Democrat gets reelected in 2020 but the Crisis happens during his or her term, won't that discredit the Dems' economic message and screw up (or even stop) the realignment?

Potentially but I don't think the Democrats are gonna come back until the crisis so…

In general to my readers how does the timeline look 5 months in in terms of predictions leading up to May 2017? The five months article of Trump ends this month.

[The_Doctor]

How would the Democrats possibly retaking the House in 2018 factor into your timeline, TD? That is seemingly becoming a very real possibility as time goes on.

Makes it a 2020 or 2028 realignment; it forecloses 2024. If the Democrats regain the House, either Trump will become a Clinton and the Republicans stabilize around him, leading to his re-election and maybe Pence in 2024 (unlikely*) or he loses, and the realignment is in 2020. Frankly, I'd be shocked and I'd be inclined to think of a 2020 realignment.

*For note, this was the original timeline plan for Walker and Portman. But 2018 was never intended to be a Democratic year, because I strongly believe geographic localities, gerrymandering, and intensity of partisanship will keep the House and Senate in GOP hands.

Maybe Democrats do win the house, but Pence still wins the election in 2020 and everything happens like in the timeline? (maybe with republicans retaking the house in 2020)

That's plausible, yes.

[The_Doctor]

Given that Donald Trump is essentially Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter rolled into one, I have to ask this:

What do you think will be Trump (or Pence)'s version of the Iran hostage crisis? 

I thought of creating a foreign policy crisis but I don't really have an answer at this point. The United States will be definitely anti Russia post Trump -- the revelations around 2016 will make further Republican and Democratic Presidents hostile to Russia. George Friedman said in 2011 that our Russian obsession would last until 2025 and he's right. There's a reason President Cordray “succeeds” on Russia by the late 2020s.

Tangent aside the 1800 realignment had a foreign policy angle (France versus Britain) as did the 1980 one (Iran). 1860 and 1932 didn't, unless you count the Great Depression as an international event.

If there is a crisis it probably may in fact be a Republican President screwing to a terrorist attack or hostage situation or a bioterror/EMP plot. The Republican Party has been highly focused on dealing with Islamic terrorism. A crisis featuring a failure here would seriously undermine the Party's credentials. But the foreign policy crisis doesn't always correlate with the governing majority's priorities and so on so it could be random.

There is an outside chance that we could see a crisis testing the GOP's ability to handle an increasingly globalized and interconnected world meaning that said crisis could propel the Democrats into power. 1980 showcased how weak the Democrats were on foreign policy and shifted the national security card to the GOP.

[The_Doctor]

Are you still planning to work on a hypothetical Dem house map in this timeline?

You mean 2023 or 2025? There's been so many posts here so can you remind me?

[The_Doctor]

TD, wouldn't the next Republican President revamp a good amount of support in traditional GOP areas?

The pattern seems to be that the first minority coalition President (Grover Cleveland, Eisenhower, Clinton) all won by winning back states that made up the bedrock of when they were the former dominant coalition. Cleveland won the Jefferson-Jacksonian South, Eisenhower won the Lincoln-McKinley north, and Bill Clinton won large chunks of the Deep south and northeast from the FDR-Kennedy era.

How would this play out for the first minority coalition President in the Cordray era? They take back the interior plains in full, but what other areas of the Reagan-Bush era do they take back? I'm guessing they take parts of former Republican strongholds in Appalachia, the Deep South, and the sunbelt. Or do they instead lose most of the South, Appalachia, and sunbelt and instead concentrate much more on the Midwest and northeast?

I haven't forgotten this question or my AMA question from you. Just need time to put together things beyond a rapid fire answer.

[The_Doctor]

Also I hope to upload all my old articles by June so you can read the Walker timeline.

[The_Doctor]

Right now your timeline seems very bold on wwcs swinging dem. Aside from impeachment, what else itl will make wwcs trend D?

The debt/economic crisis what flips them, not impeachment. Neoliberal economics still reigns in the Republican Party despite a collapse in the party's ideological wing. These WWC's are not and never have been neoliberal; in fact they're its biggest victims, aside from minorities. They were hooked into the GOP coalition through populism and social conservatism.

That's what today's article talks about actually (the sixth party system defined).

[The_Doctor]

Right now your timeline seems very bold on wwcs swinging dem. Aside from impeachment, what else itl will make wwcs trend D?

The debt/economic crisis what flips them, not impeachment. Neoliberal economics still reigns in the Republican Party despite a collapse in the party's ideological wing. These WWC's are not and never have been neoliberal; in fact they're its biggest victims, aside from minorities. They were hooked into the GOP coalition through populism and social conservatism.

That's what today's article talks about actually (the sixth party system defined).

Alright, but what happens to FOX, breitbart, etc.?

After the crisis?

They become mainstream or die out. The next realigning presidency restores faith in institutions which allows the MSM to regain credibility. One of the things President Cordray does is create a new credibility for these institutions which is essential to a republic surviving.

The lack of faith in institutions is why Fox, Breitbart, etc are so popular in the US.

[The_Doctor]

I'll answer your questions after I post this article, immediately coming up.

[The_Doctor]

The Current Party System: Conservative Neoliberal Nationalist Populism

After much consideration, I have decided to classify the current party system as “conservative neoliberal nationalist populism.” This essentially is a nationalism that is noted by neoliberal economics, strident nationalism (sometimes aligned with neoconservatism, sometimes not), and a culturally conservative populism. This locates the Presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and Michael R. Pence into a continuum that explains each and every presidency. The great trouble I had was locating Trump’s Presidency but as Sanchez is to be credited in allowing me to have the revelation that President Trump is the logical end point of this conservatism (and provided a number of other thoughts that help inform this article).

First, we have to understand the origins of the current era’s conservative hegemony. The transition really begins in 1964 and ends in 1980, although the origins start in the 1950s.

First, the South broke away from the Democratic Party and began voting Republican, beginning in 1952. Remember, in 1952 and 1956, President Eisenhower won a number of Southern states. In July 1961, John Hightower (R-Texas) became the first Republican senator elected from the state (to fill Lyndon Johnson’s seat, ironically). Readers know the rest so I’m not going to restate the historical lessons. The point is, however, this. The how they accomplished this is important to review.

Republicans campaigned on the concerns of whites who broke for George Wallace in 1968 but finally folded into the Reagan coalition in 1980. Their concerns were not economic as much as they were cultural. First, it was civil rights in the 1960s, abortion in the 1970s and 1980s, gay marriage in the 2000s, and now transgender rights and illegal immigration. Regions like North Florida, the Deep South, and rural Texas have been responsive to this message, as have the culturally suburban white suburbs. This constitutes our first leg of the three stools of the Republican Party: cultural conservatives.

The National Review Republicans, however, were also part of this show. These Republicans were limited government advocates and arguably, the original neoconservatives. People like William Rusher and William Buckley founded the National Review as an answer to Dewey - Eisenhower liberalism. They were aligned with the cultural conservatives but they were more focused on reining in government’s excesses and fighting the Cold War. They were later the clearing house of conservative thought in the Reagan White House. Later, the Cato Institute joined these people. This constitutes the second leg of the Republican Party: economic limited government neoliberals with a dash of neoconservative nationalism.

Finally, the neoconservatives of the 1970s were crucial. After the failure of Vietnam, angry hawks joined the Republican banner, as the Democratic Party became increasingly the haven of peaceniks and “abolish the Defense Department” types. Straussian neoconservatives that had backed Henry “Scoop” Jackson’s two presidential bids now joined the Reagan campaign, providing the last stool of the Republican majority. They wanted to rebuild the military and stand against detente and the Soviet Union (and later provided the ideological support on the War on Terror). These neoconservatives favored a safety net, which is important to remember. This constitutes the third leg of the Republican Party: neoconservative / national security hawks.

The moderates were always there, but after 1980, they weren’t as powerful as they used to be. They were important balancing agents in 1989 to 1993 and 2001 to 2008, but they were at best, a half wing that was often weak, and was used to make the conservative majority palatable to the electorate.

Election 1980 brought these wings together and made them a grand majority. Every Republican President from Reagan to Trump would run and govern on the same formula. Identify an external enemy (Soviet Union and Communists, terrorists, and radical Islam to use the precise naming order). They would deregulate, cut taxes, and promote the ruling cultural conservative ideas of the time. They all did it in populist conservative tones and language. I am going to note that none of these conservative majorities were ever able to cut the entitlement and safety net, because of how entrenched they were (except for welfare reform, done on a bipartisan basis. Read more here).

The Republican majority era is divided into two halves; Reagan’s bipartisan Southern Democratic - GOP coalition and George W. Bush’s enduring (if collapsing) partisan GOP coalition. The first half was marked by an alliance between Southern Democrats and Republicans to push through a conservative agenda at the federal and local level. The second half is a straight up partisan GOP coalition.  

The second half is of interest to us. Starting in 1994 with Gingrich’s Contract with America (which satisfied the three stool requirement) and Fox News opening in 1996, the GOP moved from the Southern Democratic - GOP alliance to a purely partisan GOP majority centered in the Midwest, South, Great Plains, and the Interior West. Fox News and talk radio provided an ideological outlet and support for the emerging GOP majority that held together the base, no matter what. This was essential for the GOP starting in 1995 to provide cover against the liberal Democratic editorial firepower in the mainstream media’s editorial pages.

The election of George W. Bush is the “confirmation” presidency purely because Bush presided over the first sustained GOP majority since 1928 while also presiding over one of the the conservative era’s “titanic” moments - 9/11. The transformation from the Southern Democratic - GOP alliance to a purely GOP majority rivals the Lincoln Civil War Radicals transforming into the McKinley Republican majority of the earlier era. Bush campaigned as a neoliberal with populist themes and a boogeyman (starting in 2001). Between the War on Terror and socially conservative populism and neoliberal economics, Bush was the culmination and zenith of the GOP’s conservative reign.

The problem for the current Republican majority is that the Bush presidency saw two major wings destroyed. The neoconservative wing was destroyed by Iraq and then, the neoliberal wing was destroyed by the 2008 crash.

This meant only one thing. To recapture the White House they could either have embraced a conservative reformer Presidency (Jeb Bush or Scott Walker) or go for the one remaining wing that had cachet: the cultural conservatives. Enter, President Donald Trump.

Republicans in the 2016 primary consciously made a decision to reject both the neoconservative nationalists and the neoliberals in making Trump the nominee. Whether consciously or not, Trump seized on the one remaining wing that hadn’t been burned in the 2000s and used it to supercharge the Republican majority to compensate for the other wings.

Think of an airplane, for example. There are four engines two for each wing. Neoliberalism, neoconservative nationalism, and conservative populism and the moderates / libertarians forming the fourth wing. During Reagan and H.W. Bush, these wings were all working well. By the end of the Bush Presidency, neoliberals and neoconservatives saw their engines blown off. Moderates saw their half wing damaged but not blown off. The only remaining wing that worked was the socially culturally conservative populist engine. That now powered the entire plane.    
 
Trump used that one wing to land the plane at the White House and with GOP majorities. He campaigned on four things. He campaigned against NAFTA and TPP, he campaigned against the ACA, he campaigned on a wall, and he campaigned on conservative judges. Very little was honestly given over to advancing a policy set of ideas but his was a reactive conservatism. If you notice, point 1 is a strike against the neoliberal wing of the Party and a socially conservative populist talking point as well as a nationalist & American sovereignty type point.  Point two is for the neoliberal wing, who hated the ACA, plus the social conservatives. Point three was definitely for the consumption of social conservatives who hate the idea of unchecked illegal immigration (hi there). Four is the social conservatives, again. All of these platform planks supercharge the culturally conservative wing.

Trump deliberately blew off the neoconservative wing by holding a softer line on Russia and blew off the neoliberal wing by favoring NAFTA and TPP’s dismantlement. This was intentional. In fact, Trump’s abandonment of neoconservatives parallel the Democratic Party’s abandonment of hawks in the 1970s.

The attacks on the mainstream media are considered legitimate by this coalition, because cultural conservatism (and angry anti-establishment theme) is now the dominant strand of the Republican Party. The resentment of eastern establishment liberalism is now manifested in resentment towards the mainstream media.

The coming crisis as detailed in this timeline will confront a Republican Party that is working on only one sustainable wing. Like the Democratic Party of the 1970s that saw its New Deal economic wing depleted and its neoconservative wing defecting, the Republican Party will face the looming crisis not at full strength, but below half strength.

For all these reasons, we will call this era “conservative neoliberal nationalist populism.”

[The_Doctor]

Can I ask for your take on what will happen to the area in AR-3?

It's poor, rural, and white. It's 87% white. There aren't enough minorities to unite with enough southern whites to propel it to the Democrats. It should remain Republican although will get closer during the Cordray years. The Cordray coalition rests on some working class whites and minorities to form a majority coalition.

While we're on the subject, I assume that the area encompassing NC-12 is still titanium D, correct?

Yes. It's titanium D.

[The_Doctor]

If you really look at the supercharged cultural conservatives that make up the base of the GOP, they can be boiled down to three groups with their own concerns (with overlap of course):

1. Evangelical Christians (Abortion, LGBTQ issues)
2. Gun owners (Gun control)
3. Nativists (Illegal and legal immigration)

The issues that have been hammered away at to rally up the GOP base now caters primarily to these factions and their interests. How the GOP governs might be different, but how they campaign is centered around this culturally conservative trifecta.

In instances where economics or foreign policy confronts the above groups, it's done in a way that appeals to their cultural grievances first. Whether that's trade protectionism with nativists, Obamacare abortion provisions with evangelical christians, etc.

Yeah. I should point out this was not Trump's original plan. He campaigned in California and tried to talk about raising the minimum wage and didn't rule out raising taxes on the rich. But that was quickly shut down by his aides. Trump, in fact, is not a populist.

He tried to expand his base after the primaries and tried to project a more reasonable image. The problem for him is that the GOP voter base and the GOP apparatus is fundamentally at odds and the only way to reconcile them both is supercharged cultural conservatism.

I should point out that economic populism is not a viable strategy for Trump because of the apparatus, if you consider the fact most of official Washington GOP and state leaders and the like are still stuck in Reaganite three stool conservatism. So Trump can't really push the party in that direction because his political capital is pretty weak. So he has to rely on cultural conservatism.

Trump's victories in this timeline relate mainly to cultural conservatism (Justice Sykes, illegal immigration, passing an anti-media law, the wall, deportations). Trump likewise pulls out of the Paris Accords (big for cultural conservatives in the sense that it's important to their livelihoods) and is off hands on intervention unlike W. Not until now did I realize all of them are intensely popular with the cultural conservatives and only tax reform appeals to the neoliberals.

The AHCA is a very neoliberal product, which has little support even among the President's supporters which may be a big reason it's going down to defeat given how it's portrayed.

On that note, the next article will compare the timeline with reality to date.

[The_Doctor]

If you're bored how about race and ethnicity in the Cordray era? How the tensions compare to that of the Trump/Pence era and how we transition demographically from a white to multi racial society. Or does the definition of whiteness expand enough to keep the country majority white with intermarriage between whites/Asians and latinos/whites?

I think during the long Democratic hegemony Latinos will be reclassified as white. It happened to the Irish and Eastern Europeans; no reason it shouldn't happen to Latinos here as well. The honest truth is that white has always been an ever expanding definition and that's usually a political one at heart.

Intermarriage and interracial dating is up obviously. So either we become chill with the idea of a multiracial and multicultural society or expand the definition of white or both. They're not mutually exclusive.

Tensions will ease by the 2030s to 2050s as we move past the cultural conservativism that marks this current period. President Cordray will probably ease tensions with his landslide wins and remaking the nation's political consensus.

By 2040 with minorities making up 45-50% of the vote the Republicans and Democrats are competing for their votes on an almost equal footing. Republican partisans will eject Trump from the collective memory in order to win and will reject his legacy to maintain their competitiveness.

This isn't up for debate as an inevitable Republican strategy. There isn't an 80% white America voting for the GOP. They can't win the 35-40% of white Americans who vote Democratic and that means the Republican Party has to move beyond the southern strategy and the cultural conservatism (which carries the legacy of Dixiecrats).

[The_Doctor]

If it's wildly optimistic why is China negotiating with us on North Korea and why do we have two military subs and a carrier group in the area? 

Not sure why you picked that article of all of them to critique but the Chinese - US diplomacy on North Korea has been proven true. Trump has called it one of the biggest threats to the United States. He's also proven better at foreign policy than domestic policies and we haven't ruled out anything including military strikes.

Nobody wants military strikes but I don't necessarily buy that the US won't act unilaterally. We have before and will again and we will drag our allies into echoing our line.

I don't necessarily know if the outcome will be positive but I do think it will remain an option that we bomb North Korea. Neoconservatives have called to bomb Iran over its nuclear program -- why not try to take out the nuclear program of a rogue state that, if it loses it's patron, would be isolated completely?

That said it's very possible Trump does successfully end the nuclear program some other way.

[The_Doctor]

Do you think Asians will also go the same route that you're describing with Hispanics?

Eh not so clear how you define them as white.

[The_Doctor]

In Appalachia, are the historically Republican areas or the historically Democratic areas going to trend Dem faster?

Monongalia would obviously be one of the strongest Dem counties in WV, but I have no idea what anything else would do.

I guess the real question is which set of counties is poorer. If it's the downballot d southern WV, obviously it would be the region that puts cordray over the top. If it's the other region, we might see a very weird map from WV

Might be a mix between this



and



I'd assume the Appalachian border between Ohio and West Virginia would go blue, providing the key vote totals. Look at Joe Manchin's number's to see where the vote for the Democratic nominee in WV would come from. Whatever his 2018 numbers will be close to the same counties that Cordray wins in 2024. (Unless Manchin loses in a blowout).

Throughout Appalachia, a number of voters will switch from their GOP trends (that have been ongoing since 2000) and switch to the Democratic Party. This turns VA into an absolute beast with 60% of the vote going Democratic (I need to check Cordray's numbers in that state) because the Shenandoah Valley will go to Cordray adn coupled with North Virginia, it will make Virginia Titanium D. Further south, it would be a case by case basis. I expect as I said, coastal South Carolina to vote D while Interior South Carolina is still some shade of Republican. In MIssissippi, some white working class counties follow the Black Belt (as it's called) to form a majority. In Georgia, the vote runs through Atlanta and the suburbs plus some working class counties.

Appalachia is a historically Democratic stronghold. So the "Republican areas" that weren't Republican in 1996 will flip back. The Democratic areas that have survived to date will obviously still be strongly D. Any county Dole through Trump, however, will remain GOP.

[The_Doctor]

If the Democrats become the more hawkish interventionist Party, will this increase their vote share in the Deep South especially among southern whites? Historically the south is known for its very pro military attitude.

Yes - at the very least, in the border South.

The Democratic Party is slowly becoming the party of nationalism. The Russia scandal is energizing the Democratic Party's nationalism and Obama was a pretty pro-hawkish president. A lot of people mistook him for a dove but Obama authorized a ton of drone strikes, helped in the Gaddafi overthrow, almost went into Syria, and continued the war in Afghanistan. And of course, Obama struck a far more hawkish line on Russia and tightened sanctions around Iran. Obama also maintained Bush's national security apparatus including the secret spying and so on. All of Obama's actions are around the common theme of strengthening the United States' role as "First among Equals" and "Upholding the International Order." These are actions Republican Reagan and Bush would have endorsed.

One lasting result of the anger that the Democrats feel over Russia's interference is that the Party may shed its more accommodationist stature and start using warlike language in 2020 and beyond to confront what they deem as global threats to our internal security. See Emmanuel Macron's hard line towards Putin as a model.

Meanwhile, Trump is slowly embracing the policies of the minority coalition, which is to look askance at our global role. He wants to roll back sanctions on Russia, wants to end the Iran deal (which strengthens our hand), and wants to not intervene in Syria drastically. Trump sees a circumscribed role in global affairs and doesn't envision the United States leading the free world. This was a view very typical of minority Democrats from 1984 to 2008 and minority Republicans from 1948 to 1976. (Remember Taft Republicans?)

Trump is doing this in part because the populists in the GOP are more non-interventionist, since the neoconservative wing crashed and burned in 2008. The populists have the upper hand in the GOP and the neoconservative credibility is in tatters. (But notably: Democratic internationalist neoconservatism is NOT in tatters. It's their Republican brethren that have the credibility problem).  The populists are very wary of foreign entanglements because historically and today, they see the idea of shedding American blood for ungrateful foreigners as abhorrent and a waste of our treasure and blood. So Trump, by virtue of how he got to the Presidency and the GOP coalition running on the remaining solvent wing, is unable to really be a neoconservative President.

Remember how they all freaked when he bombed Syria? I saw a ton of populists angrily denounce him and I think that reminded Trump that he could not be a neoconservative President, even if he wanted to be. It's also one reason the Russia issue isn't damaging his base as much. They don't care what Russia does; in fact, they may even welcome a partnership with Putin to take out ISIS, viewing it as a shared endeavor where we're notably not the only one shedding blood. (Heck, they may even see Russian blood being spilled better than American blood).

So, the Republicans who are becoming less interventionist and globalist while the Democrats are moving towards assuming the traditional majoritarian role of "leader of the free world." Pacifist liberals are going to be very unhappy as the Democrats become more like the JFK muscular liberals and assert the United States pushing a dominant role on the global stage.

Politically, this will play well in areas of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia. I'm undecided on Tennessee and Alabama. I don't think the Party's newfound hawkishness will damage it in the Northeast, Northwest, or California. I think liberals, as a whole, are abandoning their 1980s and 1990s identity as a more pacifist ideology and are resuming their old Cold War  sensibilities. I would not be shocked to see a Democratic President in 2024 uttering the words "radical Islam" (while being more careful than Trump to respect Muslims; but that's the neoconservative in me talking maybe).

[The_Doctor]

You'll remember why the liberals were so spooked of international engagement. The memory of Vietnam and Iraq has kept the Left from being fully hawkish but I think Obama's presidency has expunged, to a great deal, that ghost and Russia's engagement in the 2016 election may push the Left towards a more hawkish identity.

The fear of failure by the United States abroad is more felt on the Right than the Left, which I personally find fascinating. The Left may be less fearful than the Right because they didn't shoulder the failures directly in Iraq and Vietnam was two generations ago. Obama's presidency provided a framework, in my mind, for Democratic hawks to push forward and aggressively promote American interests abroad, and maintain our hegemonic role. I think one thing is going to happen and that the United States will act as the head of a multilateral globalist coalition to advance the West's interests.

President Cordray certainly in this timeline does aggressively push the United States towards taking the lead on a number of initiatives. Hard to say whether he deploys military troops on a significant level but I definitely see Cordray not being unwilling to bomb a country or two to convey the American message while the Right screams.

[The_Doctor]

You'll remember why the liberals were so spooked of international engagement. The memory of Vietnam and Iraq has kept the Left from being fully hawkish but I think Obama's presidency has expunged, to a great deal, that ghost and Russia's engagement in the 2016 election may push the Left towards a more hawkish identity.

The fear of failure by the United States abroad is more felt on the Right than the Left, which I personally find fascinating. The Left may be less fearful than the Right because they didn't shoulder the failures directly in Iraq and Vietnam was two generations ago. Obama's presidency provided a framework, in my mind, for Democratic hawks to push forward and aggressively promote American interests abroad, and maintain our hegemonic role. I think one thing is going to happen and that the United States will act as the head of a multilateral globalist coalition to advance the West's interests.

President Cordray certainly in this timeline does aggressively push the United States towards taking the lead on a number of initiatives. Hard to say whether he deploys military troops on a significant level but I definitely see Cordray not being unwilling to bomb a country or two to convey the American message while the Right screams.

Appears that the majority president disaster before the minority pre-alignment president has heightened suspicion against their foreign interventions. Maybe it's a result of the minority party being in a period where their strength is increasing and thus able to get popular support for their criticism (amplifying the unpopularity the majority-aligned president gets from the aging majority policy failing on its own) but before they take the national security mantle?

Can you simplify this and give me an example what you mean? I assume you're talking about World War I and the 1920s isolationism, for example?

[The_Doctor]

Notes: So, first an announcement about the remaining articles. I’ve decided that there are a firm cutoff of three or four more supplemental articles. This has been one of the most enjoyable hobbies I’ve engaged in a long time but I think this work should stand on its own legs and we’ll see if it portends the future or not. I feel like GRRM writing a book on the Seven Kingdoms and all the political and factional intrigue and by now, “Westeros” has become a very large sprawling empire that is increasingly hard to keep track of.

These articles will be a 1) campaign finance and voter ID article about where we go in the future under President Cordray 2) this prediction article 3) the economics article and 4) a 2036 or 2040 article about New York Republican Gov. Elise Stefanik’s successful bid to win the Presidency. I think all four articles are highly relevant and 5) a map of the Majority in 2023 with a quick primer.


Prediction Update Through May 2017

So, our current article. I’m not going to quantify the right stuff gotten or what I got wrong, I’ll just try to list them.

On domestic policy the Trump Administration has listed tax reform, healthcare reform, and infrastructure as the main three priorities. That was what I guessed. What I got wrong is that I expected tax reform to come first and a symbolic repeal of ObamaCare later. The White House tried a frontal assault on the ACA and is losing. If you count RyanCare as the AHCA (and in my defense it cuts Medicaid and has been called RyanCare) -- well I was broadly right. It narrowly passed the House on the second try and is set to die in the Senate. The administration plans to do tax reform and infrastructure reform next but I'll get back to that. I was right about a Supreme Court Justice passing (wrong on the name) and nearly nailed the margin. Infrastructure reform's been delayed and I thought it would be done by now but it's definitely the third part of the agenda. I was wrong that the wall would be part of the budget in April (largely, some riders were attached but it was largely clean and it doesn’t seem with illegal immigration dropping that Trump will substantially build a wall).

I was right on the inaugural them (“hardnosed speech about defending American interests at home and abroad”) and the abortion executive order, plus the repeal of Obama's last executive orders (if you consider the Senate overturning them; Trump chose to have Congress repeal them, not do it by executive order). The deportations were on target although I stupidly thought Trump would never do a Muslim ban, although I did say he would bar people from high risk areas (“implemented the ban on immigrants from "high risk" nations”).

On foreign policy, the President definitely has done what I expected and withdrawn American leadership from around the globe in accordance with a new isolationism fueled by his populist base. Notably, he has pulled from the Paris Accords, will rip up the Cuban deal, and largely (aside from a bombing run in February) not challenged Putin's plans for Assad's Syria. I expected him to not do much on challenging China's trade policies but he didn't even label them a currency manipulator (I expected him to, but he didn’t). He also has withdrawn from TPP and restarted NAFTA talks (which will conclude around October). I also got that he would stay in the Iran deal to not weaken the U.S. geopolitical hand in the Middle East. As far as negotiating with China on North Korea that's definitely ongoing. All of this is in keeping with his cultural conservative base and America First Rhetoric. This was the area I was most spot on.
 
One thing I am miserable at is foreign elections (0-3 so far). I've concluded that it simply isn't my expertise and I don't have the experience or the expertise to talk about it. It's like an astronomer trying to talk about American political realignments so I’m going to admit defeat and leave it alone. Each nation is complex with its own history and timeline. I’ll stick with American elections.

The Russian storm that was projected for 2019 seems to be happening in 2017 and that leads me to make two guesses on a change to the range of plausible outcomes prediction wise.

First, Trump went underwater in February and didn't focus on starting with tax reform (a winning traditional GOP issue). He hasn't racked up a major legislative win and I certainly didn't expect a special counsel. Given that Trump's incompetence and inexperience has been deeper than guessed (this was my biggest mistake plus thinking Russia wouldn't become a major issue until 2019) I think that warrants two major changes that doesn't alter the timeline's 2024 end date.

I now believe impeachment or resignation may come before the midterms but as a result two things will happen. 1) President Pence will not be the Republican nominee in 2024. He would be constitutionally ineligible. So Vice President Haley or whatever would be the inevitable loser. This has a precedent in which President James Buchanan didn't run for a second term in 1860 but a realignment happened anyway. 2) It will fall on President Pence to enact the tax cuts and major Republican agenda items that require the heavy lifting and political capital that President Trump has been unable to commit to.

I notice I didn’t really fill in much of what Pence did as President, and that’s because I assumed it would all be front loaded with Trump. But now, I’m starting to think Pence will be the one to sign the tax reform and maybe infrastructure package in law. We’ll see. I could be wrong but my sense is that Pence will be the one who shepherds the GOP agenda through, not Trump. He seems a more able uniter, but if Pence is implicated, it could be Ryan who does the uniting. We’ll see how far the scandal goes.

I do think if President Trump remains in power that the Congressional Republicans will sustain significant losses in 2018, given how hardened the opposition is and how unpopular he is. Of course, he could right himself and we could see the original timeline playing out.  

The crassest reason I believe Republican leaders force President Trump’s resignation is that essentially he is too weakened, politically incompetent, and damaged to lead the party and enact the party’s agenda. They will be concentrated by the 2018 and 2020 elections and worried he presents a mortal threat to the GOP (the Bush Presidency will be fresh in their minds). He creates daily media battles forcing GOPers to duck and cover or go out to defend whatever happened. I think this becomes the biggest reason Pence becomes President. GOP leaders have pretext and they have a way to remove President Trump. They want the calm and stability of a President Mike Pence. Allan Lichtman has made this argument and I agree.  

If the Democrats win either chamber (or crucially limit Senate losses) in 2018 the realignment is probably 2020. I believe strongly that the Democrats won't regain the White House without a realignment election. It feels like we’re in a transitory period so I don’t think the Democrats will regain power until the new Democratic coalition comes into being.

Since Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 that's a good hint that it will be 2020 or 2024. The incumbent party usually loses significant ground margin wise after two terms. It hasn't happened since the election of 1904 in fact. (And McKinley was a popular vote winner in 1896).

Why I don’t think it will be 2020: I just believe since President Obama left us a strong economy that realignment is still a better bet for 2024, not 2020. It will take time for Obama's reforms to be wound down and the debt crisis to reach its apogee.

Overall as far as my timeline goes I'm pretty happy about the veracity of my predictions and educated guesses about where we've ended up five months in (and why).

If you need sourcing, see page 1-2 of this timeline. Feel free to ask any questions. As you can tell, I enjoy this hobby a lot.

[The_Doctor]

Great write up Nostradamus!

Do you think North Korea will be settled before the midterms? I think this will be crucial (along with the timing of the business cycle recession) as to whether or not the GOP retain the House.

No idea, but it won't affect the midterms. Trump's approval rating and the economy will be the big determinants.

[The_Doctor]

I also want to point out (I don't know if others previously did) that I fundamentally disagree with your predictions on international events. Or rather, I disagree with Friedman's predictions on international events. It's okay if you don't know this (especially since you have said that international relations is not your forte), but Friedman's work is generally dismissed as fantasy in the IR community. In fact, any prediction that far out in the future will be treated with a lot of skepticism, simply because of the inherent impossibility of making such predictions.

But I'll have my own take on the future regardless. My most important disagreement with you (and with some others on this board) is that I think China will not collapse. Quite the opposite; despite their problems, I think they are on track to be a second superpower that can rival the US.

1. I think that any notion of Chinese collapse is quite sensationalist and unfounded. First, the Chinese people are very nationalistic and want a singular China, even if they don't like the government at any given moment. Second, I would imagine that most provincial leaders (even if they wern't completely loyal members of the CCP - which they are) would know that a divided China would mean less influence and power in a globalized world.

2. Even without a collapse, China can (and will) face problems. One potential problem is that China could face the "Middle Income Trap," where their GDP per capita stagnates like Brazil's and Thailand's did. I think this is unlikely, mostly because China has a pretty good education system relative to most developing nations. (The rural areas do have a lot to be desired, but so does every developing country; in the urban areas, the education is pretty good by global standards.)

3. Others say that China will face the consequences of an aging population, just like Japan and South Korea, but at a lower level of development. I think that this can be mitigated via the proliferation of AI (China is one of the most forward-thinking countries in terms of AI) and possibly by increasing immigration. Overall I think that this problem will unfold slowly enough for the CCP to handle.

That doesn't mean that China will not face any problems. The current asset bubbles are a big one right now, and there's no certainty that China will avoid the Middle Income Trap or a demographic crisis. But I have confidence that China's relatively forward-thinking leadership will surmount these problems, just like America surmounted the Great Depression and went on to defeat Nazism. So it's likely that America will have the share the naming rights to the 21st century with the Middle Kingdom.

But hey, what do I know? Predicting the future is hard.

Well, I based my prediction based on a couple of articles I read about China's economic slowdown in 2015 and 2016, plus concerns about the state capitalism being overloaded with debt. I theorized this could lead to a global showdown but I could be just as wrong. They could run into the Middle Income Trap or other issues. But no, international relations is not my forte, which is why this timeline doesn't dwell too much on it beyond very general platitudes. My forte is American political life as it intersects with economic and cultural facets plus American history and that's my schtick. Beyond that, "there be dragons." (Or in other words, I'm not really qualified to speak on it).

I'll be honest, you could be right. I'm simply not qualified to respond to your points. I realized too late international events are not my forte so ... I'll let it be. 

Fortunately (?), the debt crisis I'm talking about in the United States can manifest in a variety of different ways and it's not reliant on China. In this timeline a general slowdown in the economy in 2021 can in fact spark the Illinois debt crisis. I just made China a catalyst but it's not necessary.

Predicting the future is pretty hard, I agree. That's why I stopped at 2024. Guessing anything beyond 2024 in terms of concrete details is a very tough gig.