Between Two Majorities | The Cordray Administration

[Virginiá]

This is very good TD. I haven't finished it all yet but most of it (I just started a couple days ago). Keep up the good work!

(ftr there were a few mistakes - eg, VA holds no state senate elections in 2017 besides those special election(s). They do that every 4 years - next time is 2019, and New Mexico Democrats already took back the state house this cycle)

[Virginiá]

Depends on the public interest. And thank you!

I'd be highly interested in reading that.

[Virginiá]

Wow, TD. Glad this TL is still going strong ! You've done a really fantastic job, and quite frankly is probably my dream TL if I ever had one.

I had a couple questions:

1. Do you ever envision Republicans making significant inroads with Hispanics and/or African Americans? As it stands, the GOP has basically tanked with Hispanic voters for as far back as polling goes, and without being able to do this it makes a large part of the country permanently walled (pun intended) off to them in the future.

2. What would be the makeup of the GOP's base in Virginia that makes the state flip in 2036? At current rates, Virginia seems poised to end this decade with approx. ~4% drop in NH whites, to about 60%, and we might assume that between 2020 - 2036, we see a total of at least ~7% more, putting Virginia at just a few points majority non-Hispanic white. I only point this out because it really does look like Virginia is slipping beyond the GOP's grasp in all but large landslide elections.

[Virginiá]

Whites: 52% of electorate; 64-35% Republican
African Americans: 22% of electorate; 74-25% Democratic
Latinos: 16% of electorate; 55-44% Democratic
Asians: 5% of electorate; 43-56% Republican
Others: 5% of electorate; 55-44% Democratic.

Totals: 48.18%   Democratic, 50.82% Republican.

You see substantial gains for the GOP among Latinos and African Americans, and the GOP wins back Asians outright. Coupled with a strong performance among upscale whites, the GOP takes Virginia's 13 electoral votes. I suspect, quite honestly, the Republicans will actually do better among minorities, because as you can see, taking 64% of NH whites in this election barely gets them to 51% of the vote. They actively have to make the Latino vote a swing bloc and dent the African American vote and take the Asian vote to just get to 51%.

Thank you so much for the post!

I think your strategy for the GOP breaking the Democratic lock on minorities seems relatively sound, at least long-term. So long as the Democratic Party pushes redistributive and social welfare policies that lean on resources from the well-off, it will always make large, reliable bases of support among upscale voters difficult, right? I don't know if you saw it, but post-election polls show African American Male support for Democrats slipping even during the Obama era. Since 2004, it's been a constant shift to the GOP. An upscale minority+male voter problem could fit your numbers for VA 2036.

In a state such as Virginia, this issue seems pretty ripe for Democrats. If racial divisions are lessened among the parties and the GOP rebounds among the more affluent, it's bound to make Virginia a difficult state to hold on to for as long as the GOP did. My only issue is that I'm not sure racial issues will be papered over in this kind of timespan, nor am I convinced college educated/upscale whites will necessarily abandon (or resist) the Democratic Party in the numbers needed, but then again, as you may know I lean pretty heavily on generational/less-dynamic theories of voting behavior.

Keep up the good work TD!

[Virginiá]

What do you think the chances are that we experience this shift in a way that is akin to what Reagan experienced, where his presidency marked the beginning of a new era but he didn't actually sweep Republicans into power in Congress and at the state level. In fact, aside from the impressive but somewhat temporary Senate gains, Republicans were in really bad shape at the state level and in the House for his presidency. He was lucky to have the right circumstances that allowed him to push favorable policy. If the realigning Democrat was to get a split or even GOP Congress, given how toxic things have become, he/she would be unlikely to get much done and likely face a bevy of investigations and smearing akin to what we've seen with Obama, no?

I guess what I'm saying is, do you think the chances of all the pieces coming together at the same time are high, or is it possible this realignment takes place over a period of years like it did with Republicans in the 80s/90s?

Also, if you have the time, I'm interested in your view of why it happened that way for Republicans as well. In 1994, it seemed like everything kind of just fell apart at once. I always assumed it was at least partially to do with the fact that incumbent presidents tend to act as a weight around their party downballot, and once the opposition takes back over, an appropriate contrast to the new order is made and acts a trigger, which can be worsened by politicians who start switching teams upon realizing what is going on.

[Virginiá]

So I don't think the New Democratic majority will look like 1980 where the Reagan Revolution only picked up the senate and presidency and didn't take back the congress until 14 years later. The GOP will be so stubborn and rigid in their ideology that they will refuse to back down until they American people sweep them out of power and keep them there until they're forced to moderate or die as a political party.

This is what I mean. They aren't going to be amicable with Democrats, and the parties are too ideologically polarized to the point where there are no large groups of liberal Republicans that Democrats can lean on to pass parts of their agenda. So if Republicans manage to block Democrats from forming a true governing majority and enacting liberal policy, isn't that kind of wasting the limited time Democrats have to enact their agenda? If Republicans manage to obstruct for the entirety of the Democratic reign of the White House, then at least slightly adjust with their own president, they would then manage to prevent any significant movement to the left on policy in a short span of time. If you look at the time since 1980, Republicans have not had a whole lot of time with a unified federal govt to go "full conservative" - there has often been either a Democratic president or a Democratic chamber(s) of Congress to hold them back somewhat, and I wonder if Democrats could find themselves in a similar situation.

Of course, given how polarized voting behavior has become and the large majorities Democrats are racking up & holding among younger generations, perhaps it is impossible to have a repeat of the past ~37 years (in reverse).

[Virginiá]

I don't think I have anything left to add. Thank you for your views on that, TD & TT

[Virginiá]

True. I meant more who would be the next Lincoln/FDR/Reagan figure to lead the Democrats into a new era in 2020 if that were to be the case.

Al Franken would be my guess.

I love Franken, but things like this would really take him down a notch imo:



It's funny, and reasonable in comedy, but by doing that, he kind of sealed the deal on presidential ambitions if you ask me. It's one thing to get by in a Senate/House race or less, but presidential races have an absurd amount of focus and judgement that far outweighs any other race.


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@TD: What do you think of this?  http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/12/richard-cordray-house-democrats-meeting-238318

Possibly strategizing for a gubernatorial campaign?

[Virginiá]

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.

It's pretty decent so far, but I still think the midterm is going to be a lot harder on Republicans than your TL prediction. We are already seeing consistent figures for various poll questions that indicate a potential wave situation. In fact at this point, if a wave doesn't happen, it would almost seem more like luck / good timing, rather than a more fundamental/structural reason.

[Virginiá]

Also to TD's second point on Local Races, they can tend to break FOR the white house party because they are somewhat more detached from national politics, which is one of the many reasons Rauner has a great chance of winning if Pritzker is the nominee, which seems likely.

How local? While it can definitely be argued that high-profile gubernatorial races can set themselves apart somewhat, there is at least one study showing legislative losses correlating somewhat with approval ratings of the incumbent party:

https://www.vox.com/2016/9/5/12712932/american-state-government-federalism

And the premise does make sense - the politicians who are relatively unknown to the people are the most vulnerable to feelings for the incumbent president. Personally I believe the incumbent's bad image rubs off on the majority of his party, whichever office it is, but I concede that some are effective at crafting their own brand. However, this only works if they get noticed and have the money to remind people who they are.

I think the leanings of the state matter quite a bit as well. An unpopular Republican governor in a deep blue state in a midterm under a very unpopular Republican president is going to have a very tough race. Likewise for a Democrat in a reversed situation. Opposition party members need to actually be popular and well-known to survive in enemy territory.

Also, looking good TD

[Virginiá]

@TD: I had a question - what if the crisis ends up being created by Trump himself sometime before Nov 2020? This isn't to say what you thought might happen in the early 2020s doesn't happen, only that the blowback against Republicans from the first crisis brings forth large Democratic majorities and a unified federal govt in 2020, which is then used to solve the 2nd crisis before it balloons out of control. The end result is that looking back, we come to see the Trump crisis as what set things in motion.

What do you think?

Wouldn't the GOP Senators just obstruct and force the Democrats to govern like a minority coalition in that scenario? That could be enough to prevent any major legislate accomplishment from going through and going into 2022 on favorable grounds.

They could, but it's not entirely clear if Democrats would allow Republicans to do that next time around. The filibuster has been abused beyond recognition by Senate Republicans as it is, and the idea of a procedural tool that can grind legislation to a halt has come under fire on both sides now. Democrats may feel (rightly, imo) that Republicans again attempting to obstruct their agenda is the final straw, and that either the GOP stops the abuse or the filibuster goes and they come to see a flood of progressive legislation that will be very difficult to roll back. If Senate Republican leadership believes the threat is credible, it is possible they back down, as they know from PPACA that once new social programs take effect, they are very hard to roll back.

Further, if there is no more filibuster, the crisis might then be solved before it inflicts permanent damage. It's even possible the crisis itself prompts Democrats to blow the filibuster up, particularly if they think Republicans are purposefully trying to increase the damage to the country just as a selfish partisan tactic.

[Virginiá]

For the filibuster - personally I don't hope for it to be gutted by any means. I just want it to be defanged to the point where if the minority wants to block a bill, it should take substantial effort and endurance to the point where it can only be done sparingly, and in all other cases only be able to slow a bill down to varying degrees. Simply put, it should be neutered just enough so it can't impose a de facto 60 vote requirement. If that was what was originally intended, then a simple majority wouldn't be the constitutional requirement, no?

I think if the filibuster ever were reformed, it would be in that way. After all, it's not like it hasn't been changed over the years. The only requirement to make the changes stick I think would be that Democrats either hold the Senate for a long time, or hold some other power when they don't have the Senate, such as the House or the White House. This way, there is never a single 2 year period of time for at least, say, 15 - 20 years, where Republicans control everything and thus may feel emboldened to fully gut the filibuster since Democrats changed it themselves. That is why this would best be done when the realignment happens, as it would help ensure it becomes tradition. Of course, Democrats will not know how the future will play out when/if they change it, so it's always going to be risky.

Either way, imo, the current situation is simply untenable.

I think if the Democrats are in office during the crisis then they'll be promptly booted out for somebody like Rubio in 2024 then 2028 is the realignment when supply side economics doesn't solve the crisis. This kind of crisis didn't boot Reagan or Roosevelt out of office since they came in during the crisis and could rightly blame it on their predecessors and Lincoln's GOP didn't receive backlash while in office because most Democrats were rebelling against him in the South (but as I noted above, they kept the political era from 1865-1896 very polarized before the GOP solidified it).

Would a recession count as a crisis? If so, what about the 1981 recession? It was bad, but things were able to clear up and Reagan was able to win reelection by a much greater margin than his first time around. Obviously any sort of crisis will be a black mark but if it is neutralized as a significant problem and the incumbent president has some charisma, they seem to be able to rebound in some instances.  I suppose in the question I proposed, it would depend on when that 2nd crisis hit in the Democrat's first term.

However, if history is the only issue here, I would note that there really haven't been enough realignments to be able to say that it is unlikely, as we may not fully understand the possibilities of how they can play out since there have not been that many of them yet.

Also, I think 2008 was obviously time when we should've restructured our economy as we did in 1980 and 1932 and for the life of me I cannot understand why our congress took the lazy path out and just bailed out the system. Maybe they were so frightened that they panicked and did whatever they could to stop the bleeding in the short term but yeah.

Well, under Bush I don't see how a new way of thinking would have been able to flourish, for obvious reasons. Even under Obama, I mean, aside from the big man himself, there were just too many Congressmen whose idea of how things worked followed the same dominating theme of the Reagan era. Simply put, there was not enough support for a new system even if they had the resolve to try a whole new approach.

[Virginiá]

The Cordray Dems only have a 2/3s Senate majority (and the ability to change the constitution) for two years, and the 2030 midterms actually affect things by giving the GOP the ability to filibuster again.

I would have to believe at this point, the filibuster rules would be altered to make obstruction harder to continue and thus used more sparingly. If Democrats believe they will be in power for a decent amount of time, they will probably feel less constrained in changing the rules. However I suppose what happens with that depends on how hard the GOP fights the new order.

Who's going to be in that base? Groups that might have been receptive to the GOP in the past but are recently turned off by Trump and the evangelical base are a good place to start. Hence, Cuban-Americans as a GOP group.

That's a good point, but to be fair, younger Cubans were never receptive to Republicans to begin with (afaik). In this sense, I feel like the members of this demo the GOP could peal off wouldn't be much different than other Hispanics/minorities - wealthier, more upscale voters of this bloc.

How easy would it be to do Puerto Rico? In a Dem alignment I could see it becoming a state.

This I am very bullish about. Making DC and Puerto Rico a state would have heavy partisan appeal, as it would add 4 more Democratic Senators (assuming PR is reliable in that regard), and it would solve a moral problem, in that Americans lacking proper representation would finally get it. At the very least, DC should be an easy pitch to party leadership. No doubt DC leaders will do that once a major shakeup in Congress occurs. I think the larger the majority is at the time, the more likely it will be, as it will be easier to put together the votes. After all, it would be no different than admitting a state for both of them. Just a bare majority required (aside from cloture). Four new reliably Democratic Senators would be a big deal.

I also wonder about enlarging the House. The population size of each district is only getting bigger, and the House was never really meant to be like this, so I feel like that could have a shot. I imagine it would depend on an analysis of who stands to benefit in the short-term.

[Virginiá]

I'm skeptical of a wave in 2018 without a realigning election in 2020 because the foreshadowing and realigning down-ballot gains are usually similar. E.g., I don't expect a Democratic wave in 2018 with a Republican victory in 2020 because it's impossible for the Democratic Party to gain 6-8 seats in 2024 in the Senate to mirror past realignments.

What if it happens anyway and the result is that Democrats don't get to pick up a slew of seats due to unfavorable timing? The realignment should predict that the support, vote-wise, is technically there to make a sweep, but if by chance the map just doesn't permit it, then it doesn't mean the realignment didn't happen.

[Virginiá]

The problem is these people don't form a majority bigger than the Republican one. In fact because they're so clustered in the cities and coastal areas they don't add up to a significant enough bloc to destroy the old majority. This is exactly why Hillary lost. She ran up the score with this bloc and so did the Democrats. The problem was Trump and the Republicans dominated the wide swath of states and rural areas from central Pennsylvania to Phoenix.

But the old majority is currently resting on the backs of an aging base. <ages 44 is basically 60-40 Democratic right now (and <34 is more like 65D-35R). If you fast-forward 15 - 20 years and figure that the youngest people then are at best just as Democratic as they are now, or at worst, maybe breaking even, you have a solidly Democratic electorate due to those voters ages 55+ being significantly reduced. The math alone suggests this voter base should be more powerful than the Republican Party's is right now, assuming there isn't too much erosion as they age.

Fundamentally I agree with you that the Democratic Party needs to chip off a bloc of voters from Republicans to complete it, but I struggle to imagine a future where Millennials and at least part of genz do not naturally cause a huge shift in the political system regardless. I mean, it's not like they aren't spreading out into the suburbs themselves. If they didn't, the 'burbs would turn into ghost towns due to no population replacement