Future focus of the GOP

[SillyAmerican]

Granted, any attempt to deny the nomination of the person that ends up with the most delegates may irreparably damage the party, so I'd like to set that aside for the moment. The question I'd like to pose is this: moving beyond 2016, do you see the GOP embracing the populism of Trump, the conservatism of Cruz, or the pragmatism of Kasich? And why?

[Stranger in a strange land]

Granted, any attempt to deny the nomination of the person that ends up with the most delegates may irreparably damage the party, so I'd like to set that aside for the moment. The question I'd like to pose is this: moving beyond 2016, do you see the GOP embracing the populism racism of Trump, the conservatism of Cruz, or the pragmatism of Kasich? And why?

FTFY. And that.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

If they embrace populism, it's the end of the GOP as we know it. Will the democrats become the party of business and free trade?

Perhaps it's time the two parties finally swapped all policy planks

[RINO Tom]

If they embrace populism, it's the end of the GOP as we know it. Will the democrats become the party of business and free trade?

Perhaps it's time the two parties finally swapped all policy planks

Simply not happening.  Has Trump shifted the discussion in a more populist direction?  Absolutely.  However, Sanders has moved the Democratic debate WAY left, and Hillary is more than okay with it.  The Democrats would have to have an incentive to move into a more pro-business area, and their voters don't want that, much more so than conservatives don't want it.

As long as the GOP is generally advocating for lower overall taxes, cutting some wasteful spending and for reducing regulation, business will largely remain in its corner.  The business community might be frustrated with a more Trump-esque GOP, but they'll take it over a more Sanders-esque Democratic Party.  There's no conceivable way that Democrats move anywhere close to the right of the GOP on fiscal issues in the foreseeable future.  Just as there's an environmentalist/SJW wing of the Democratic Party that doesn't see eye to eye with many minority groups, the GOP will likely have a Trump faction and a ... normal Republican faction.

I'm still of the opinion that the Trump phenomena is specific to, well, Trump.  This isn't a trend.  After Trump loses and Hillary continues and expands Obama's fiscal agenda, Republicans will be screaming for fiscal restraint and lower taxes/regulations to recover the economy.

[Comrade Funk]

They need a Republican Bill Clinton who will push them to the center and ignores the screaming of the extremist TRUMP base. Idk if they have one yet and their base is probably too extreme/dumb to accept one.

[Pandaguineapig]

There isn't going to be another trump in 2020  because his model needs to provide that 1. People still think someone like him can win after trump gets crushed in November 2. They are charismatic enough to create a blind following among low information voters and 3. Receive 2-5 billion dollars worth of free coverage before any votes are cast

[SillyAmerican]

There isn't going to be another trump in 2020  because his model needs to provide that 1. People still think someone like him can win after trump gets crushed in November 2. They are charismatic enough to create a blind following among low information voters and 3. Receive 2-5 billion dollars worth of free coverage before any votes are cast

Yeah, but it almost sounds like you're arguing that a populist shouldn't be able to win. By all "reasonable" accounts, Trump shouldn't be doing as well as he is doing. So at some level, his message is working, and it's getting the support of a fairly large chunk of the GOP electorate (well, large enough to cause the establishment folks grief, anyway). I think the danger lies in possibly giving Trump too much of the credit. Perhaps it's just that voters are sick of business-as-usual politics, and Trump just happens to have very good timing and some easy to understand talking points.

[Pandaguineapig]

There isn't going to be another trump in 2020  because his model needs to provide that 1. People still think someone like him can win after trump gets crushed in November 2. They are charismatic enough to create a blind following among low information voters and 3. Receive 2-5 billion dollars worth of free coverage before any votes are cast

Yeah, but it almost sounds like you're arguing that a populist shouldn't be able to win. By all "reasonable" accounts, Trump shouldn't be doing as well as he is doing. So at some level, his message is working, and it's getting the support of a fairly large chunk of the GOP electorate (well, large enough to cause the establishment folks grief, anyway). I think the danger lies in possibly giving Trump too much of the credit. Perhaps it's just that voters are sick of business-as-usual politics, and Trump just happens to have very good timing and some easy to understand talking points.

or without a charismatic strong man to corall the low information voters that they go back to typical voting patterns, as seen with all congressional incumbents winning so far

[Seneca]

If Trump wins the general election, the GOP becomes the party of Trump (what you call "populist").

If Trump loses the general election, the movement conservatives embodied by Cruz retake control of the party.

If the GOP steals the nomination from Trump, the party goes the way of the Whigs.

[SillyAmerican]

If the GOP steals the nomination from Trump, the party goes the way of the Whigs.

Out of curiosity, if none of the three candidates reaches the magic 1237 delegate count on their own, and a Kasich/Cruz (or the less desireable, for me anyway, Cruz/Kasich) ticket somehow comes to pass to reach the 1237 mark, would that constitute the GOP "stealing" the nomination from Trump?

[hopper]

They need a Republican Bill Clinton who will push them to the center and ignores the screaming of the extremist TRUMP base. Idk if they have one yet and their base is probably too extreme/dumb to accept one.

Yeah the timing is wrong right now for the Republicans to have their Bill Clinton type. It took the Dems 3 Presidential Elections Losses to nominate Clinton though.

[Senator-elect Spark]

If Trump wins the general election, the GOP becomes the party of Trump (what you call "populist").

If Trump loses the general election, the movement conservatives embodied by Cruz retake control of the party.

If the GOP steals the nomination from Trump, the party goes the way of the Whigs.

[pbrower2a]

If Trump wins the general election, the GOP becomes the party of Trump (what you call "populist").

If Trump loses the general election, the movement conservatives embodied by Cruz retake control of the party.

If the GOP steals the nomination from Trump, the party goes the way of the Whigs.

You have that right.

The hazard for the Republicans is that America has large numbers of people in debt to their noses just to get the job qualifications that they have. People heavily in debt in respect to their means tend to want an expansionary economy with inflation to reduce the burden of their debt -- and that is left-wing. Creditors tend to be on the Right, with small-scale net creditors being conservatives (they want an economy vibrant enough that they don't have to sell assets just to survive, but they don't want inflation, either. Big creditors with respect to their employees are typically reactionaries who want debt to hurt and make debtors even more dependent upon their employees (think of sharecroppers or workers in bad company towns, like pre-UMW coal mining hell-holes). 

"You load SIXTEEN TONS, and what do you get/
Another day older and deeper in debt!
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go/
I owe my soul to the company store!"   

In the 1950s America was well suited toward slightly right-of-center governance because workers actually had investments in housing, life insurance, savings bonds, and savings accounts. Today such is nostalgia. The American Right largely has the support of people with  the demographics of the old German Nationalist Party in Weimar Germany -- big landowners, financiers and tycoons, and business executives.

[Kingpoleon]

I can see a mixture of both Trump and Kasich. Scott Brown, Ben Carson, and Chris Christie are an ideologically diverse group. Brown and Christie are obviously the Kasich wing of Trump's supporters and the majority of them. Carson is the Cruz wing of Trump supporters. If in 2016 Trump loses, I can see Scott Brown immediately angling for the 2020 nomination.

[Vosem]

The future of the GOP is probably some sort of watered-down Paulism (much like the future of the Democrats is watered-down Sandersism). Cruz, of the current three candidates, would probably feel most at home in such a party, though it has certain aspects of _trumpism.