Yankee Republicans on last legs

[WMS]

My projection has the dems moving more to the left. Basically they fully become the party of racial minority interest, postmodern lifestyle interests, nonchristians and genral leftist elemetns.

Ah, under that assumption things go the way you think.

So are we basically saying that regional-based communitarian and libertarian parties emerge to - on a regional if not national level - compete with a leftist Democratic party and a rightist Republican party?

[dazzleman]

Yankees on their last legs? I wish.

Welcome back, States.

[ag]

I don't think the old two-party system is under threat except in New England (possibly, also, in the Mormon triangle, but that's stretching). To put it simply, elsewhere each of the two main parties has enough strength so that the third party candidates might become "spoilers", taking votes from the dominant parties and therefore "electing" the locally weak party's candidates. This, of course, lowers there appeal to a lot of voters who might find them otherwise attractive, which makes it unlikely they'd succeed.

The strange situation in New England (and, again, to some extent in the Mormon triangle) is  that one of the two national parties is sufficiently locally decayed that in a three-way election it is  still unlikely to make it's candidates competitive. In such circumstances, it is ripe for being displaced as the second local party.

In the South there are always going to be blacks, and,  together with universtiy types there are enough of them to make a Democratic victory in a three-way race not unlikely. In contrast, I don't see a reliable Republican voting bloc in  New England anymore.  As Connecticut's Lieberman/Lamont race has shown, in a three-way race an (admittedly pathetic) Republican might be the distant third.  In contrast, even in Texas's four-way gubernatorial race, when the push came to shove, nearly a third of the voters voted for a mediocre Dem candidate. For the two-party system to be undermined in Texas, Dems reliable vote should drop to well below a third.

[GOP = Terrorists]

Or the Bloc Southern pulls off total domination like in today's Quebec. Add to that the NDP Greenies in the NE from ag's post...yeah, we could pull off our variant of Canadian party politics.

Nice as long as they want out of the Union like the Quebequois I'm down.  Please.. I'll even be the first to donate to get rid of them.

[dazzleman]

I don't think the old two-party system is under threat except in New England (possibly, also, in the Mormon triangle, but that's stretching). To put it simply, elsewhere each of the two main parties has enough strength so that the third party candidates might become "spoilers", taking votes from the dominant parties and therefore "electing" the locally weak party's candidates. This, of course, lowers there appeal to a lot of voters who might find them otherwise attractive, which makes it unlikely they'd succeed.

The strange situation in New England (and, again, to some extent in the Mormon triangle) is  that one of the two national parties is sufficiently locally decayed that in a three-way election it is  still unlikely to make it's candidates competitive. In such circumstances, it is ripe for being displaced as the second local party.

In the South there are always going to be blacks, and,  together with universtiy types there are enough of them to make a Democratic victory in a three-way race not unlikely. In contrast, I don't see a reliable Republican voting bloc in  New England anymore.  As Connecticut's Lieberman/Lamont race has shown, in a three-way race an (admittedly pathetic) Republican might be the distant third.  In contrast, even in Texas's four-way gubernatorial race, when the push came to shove, nearly a third of the voters voted for a mediocre Dem candidate. For the two-party system to be undermined in Texas, Dems reliable vote should drop to well below a third.

I think the New England Republican, like the southern Democrat, will be reborn in a different form.

The decline of both these political types results from our current alignment of political interests.  Simply put, there are well more than two major political interest groups that fit into two main parties, so there have to be alliances.  It is the current alliances, which have come into being since the 1960s, that have led to the decline, first of the southern Democrats, and then the northern Republicans.

In both parties, there are signs that the current alliances aren't going to go on indefinitely.  The only region of the country that has had one-party rule for an extended period of time down to the local level is the south, after the civil war.  This was an extraordinary circumstance, and the results of it were not good.

I don't expect any section of the country at this point in time to become a political monolith.  We have that situation in many of our cities, and it is highly dysfunctional.  While certain interest voters will keep voting for the same party blindly no matter how bad things get under that party, the broader bloc of voters will not.  And because things always get bad under extended periods of one party rule, regardless of which party it is, this will result in some shift in political alliances that lead to a rebirth of the two party system.

Politicans are like parasites.  Much as I don't like the Democrats, I have never wished for one-party Republican rule, because each party only serves its constituent voters well when faced with competition, and when threatened with losing their power.  If they are not threatened with losing their power, they will suck the taxpayers dry.  The relatively recent existence of a two-party system in New York City, at least at the mayoral level, has a lot to do with why the city is doing so much better than it was when the mayors were automatically Democatic.  The power of that parasitic political machine has been checked somewhat by the election of people from outside of it.

These things can't be predicted, but Democratic dominance in certain New England states, particularly Connecticut, is dependent upon a de facto alliance between rich suburbanites and poor inner city minorities.  This is not a match made in heaven, and it cannot be assumed that it can continue indefinitely.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Or the Bloc Southern pulls off total domination like in today's Quebec. Add to that the NDP Greenies in the NE from ag's post...yeah, we could pull off our variant of Canadian party politics.

Nice as long as they want out of the Union like the Quebequois I'm down.  Please.. I'll even be the first to donate to get rid of them.

Agree. Especially if they take the inner city blacks and mormons from the rump us with them.

[muon2]

I don't expect any section of the country at this point in time to become a political monolith.  We have that situation in many of our cities, and it is highly dysfunctional.  While certain interest voters will keep voting for the same party blindly no matter how bad things get under that party, the broader bloc of voters will not.  And because things always get bad under extended periods of one party rule, regardless of which party it is, this will result in some shift in political alliances that lead to a rebirth of the two party system.

Politicans are like parasites.  Much as I don't like the Democrats, I have never wished for one-party Republican rule, because each party only serves its constituent voters well when faced with competition, and when threatened with losing their power.  If they are not threatened with losing their power, they will suck the taxpayers dry.  The relatively recent existence of a two-party system in New York City, at least at the mayoral level, has a lot to do with why the city is doing so much better than it was when the mayors were automatically Democatic.  The power of that parasitic political machine has been checked somewhat by the election of people from outside of it.

These things can't be predicted, but Democratic dominance in certain New England states, particularly Connecticut, is dependent upon a de facto alliance between rich suburbanites and poor inner city minorities.  This is not a match made in heaven, and it cannot be assumed that it can continue indefinitely.

When I lived in MA in the 80's one of the fall-back positions for the GOP was the deep tradition of local control in much of New England. When too many state resources get diverted to the big cities there is usually a local backlash from outlying areas. If that tradition still exists it may provide a basis for a party centered on the local issues and away from the national issues.

[Colin]

I think a Bloc South could form since there really isn't very much liberal base in the South as a whole. If this Bloc South, for lack of a better term, is able to get between 20%-40% of the Black vote and the Republicans continue to get about 10% or so then you have virtually destroyed the only Democratic base in the South. If Bloc South is a populist party with old Dixiecrat leaning sans any sort of ethnic prejudice then it could easily win over a good amount of Southern blacks. Besides Blacks there are maybe about 10%-15% of Southerners who are American "liberals". This would be the only base for the Democrats in the South and even then I could see them voting for this Bloc South for economic reasons.

As for a regional party in the Northeast it could be very possible. I could see an NDP-style left-wing party do well enough to gain a presence. They would possibly win some of the more liberal CDs in Massachusetts, possibly Sanders old seat in VT-AT, possibly a Rhode Island district, and in New York City if they can cobble together a coalition with both the affluent left and minorities. On the state level a party like this already exists in Vermont, the Progressive Party which currently has six seats in the House of Representatives there and consistantly gets around 10% of the vote. They would probably be able to achieve second party status in Masschusetts as well as Vermont. They would probably gain a significant third party presence in places like Maine and Rhode Island with some pockets of support in urban areas of Connecticut and New York.

What is then likely to happen is akin to the provinces of Canada like British Columbia. The weak conservative party, the Republicans, will basically merge into the Democrats creating the more right-wing party, like the Liberals in places like BC and Quebec, with the leftist party forming the second party. I could not see this happening in the South though as a Southern party would probably be antithetical to the Democratic left as well as to the mostly populist "Bloc South".

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

I was presuming a bloc south MORE extreme than the national GOP on social/cultural issues while more protectionist/populist on economics(favoring things like farm subsidies, jobs programs and taxes to soak the rich. NOT liberal redistributionism)

[dazzleman]

I don't expect any section of the country at this point in time to become a political monolith.  We have that situation in many of our cities, and it is highly dysfunctional.  While certain interest voters will keep voting for the same party blindly no matter how bad things get under that party, the broader bloc of voters will not.  And because things always get bad under extended periods of one party rule, regardless of which party it is, this will result in some shift in political alliances that lead to a rebirth of the two party system.

Politicans are like parasites.  Much as I don't like the Democrats, I have never wished for one-party Republican rule, because each party only serves its constituent voters well when faced with competition, and when threatened with losing their power.  If they are not threatened with losing their power, they will suck the taxpayers dry.  The relatively recent existence of a two-party system in New York City, at least at the mayoral level, has a lot to do with why the city is doing so much better than it was when the mayors were automatically Democatic.  The power of that parasitic political machine has been checked somewhat by the election of people from outside of it.

These things can't be predicted, but Democratic dominance in certain New England states, particularly Connecticut, is dependent upon a de facto alliance between rich suburbanites and poor inner city minorities.  This is not a match made in heaven, and it cannot be assumed that it can continue indefinitely.

When I lived in MA in the 80's one of the fall-back positions for the GOP was the deep tradition of local control in much of New England. When too many state resources get diverted to the big cities there is usually a local backlash from outlying areas. If that tradition still exists it may provide a basis for a party centered on the local issues and away from the national issues.

The issue of local control is a big one here.  It's called the 'home rule' tradition.

At this point, with the state having been as flush with cash as it has been, the issue is not so much money but quality of life concerns.  Even though many liberals have criticized the home rule concept as promoting elitism, which it does to a degree, they have been loathe to actually do anything to override it, particularly with respect to education.  Ten years ago, the State Supreme Court ruled that the state's schools were unconstitutionally segregated and ordered the legislature and governor to come up with a remedy, but the legislature (Democratic) and governor (Republican) have ignored the ruling, since addressing it could only mean regionalizing the schools, which would be extremely unpopular.

So I think that most limousine liberals up here are OK with their tax money going to subsidize the cities, and will express sympathy with urban constituencies, so long as they can remain isolated from the problems of the urban centers.  An uptick in crime, or a push toward school regionalization, could break the de facto political alliance between wealthy white liberals in the suburbs and poor urban minorities.

[Colin]

I was presuming a bloc south MORE extreme than the national GOP on social/cultural issues while more protectionist/populist on economics(favoring things like farm subsidies, jobs programs and taxes to soak the rich. NOT liberal redistributionism)

I was thinking of it as a populist party, pure and simple. Old Dixiecrat ideology minus the racial hatred. Economically populist but with some more liberal focus but still very much opposed to the Republicans on economic issues. Socially, yes, they would be conservative but not much more than Southern Republicans, basically because you can't get much more conservative than guys like Inhofe, Coburn, and DeMint.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

I'm not saying they'd be more conservative than southern republicans socially its just that unlike the GOP they wouldn't do any pretense towards moderation.

[Colin]

I'm not saying they'd be more conservative than southern republicans socially its just that unlike the GOP they wouldn't do any pretense towards moderation.

Well I don't think the GOP in the south has any pretense towards it either considering the candidates that they have put up lately. They'd still need to fight for votes and Southerners, much to your suprise, might be turned off by a party acting too extreme.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Block South would be able to appeal to populist southerners so I doubt their position on cultural issues would cost them.

[Colin]

Block South would be able to appeal to populist southerners so I doubt their position on cultural issues would cost them.

True. Well I'm not debating you that they'd be socially conservative. They don't even have to be an independence party, though that would be really cool and would spice things up. They could be a regional protest party akin to the Reform Party up in Canada. But still it would be really interesting to have a pro-independence southern party.

[WMS]

Block South would be able to appeal to populist southerners so I doubt their position on cultural issues would cost them.

True. Well I'm not debating you that they'd be socially conservative. They don't even have to be an independence party, though that would be really cool and would spice things up. They could be a regional protest party akin to the Reform Party up in Canada. But still it would be really interesting to have a pro-independence southern party.

I agree with Colin.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Yep. Now if this pro-independence party could take the south of the union that would be an improvement. IT would castrate social conservatism in the US for all time.