Talk Elections

What will party ideologies, coalitions, and so on look like in the future? As in, the next party system, and/or a few decades from now.

This views both the Trump era and what comes after it as a wilderness for both parties in America, a strange, transitional time with a lot of fluidity in party platforms. The GOP stabilizes when liberals defect from the Democrats, and position themselves as the ones to restore stability in a shaky mid-21st century economy. They promise a futuristic information economy with insanely low prices due to the costs of manual labor being slashed. The Democrats are seen as radical problem solvers, with the support of people hit hardest by automation and extreme weather patterns (California is a rust belt now). Social security is gone by this time, and some Democrats want to either resurrect it or bring about a social credit system.

I'd #boldly say the Republicans go back to free-ish trade some time after Trump and only occasionally run on overt protectionism (i.e. Bush steel tariffs), keep the anti-interventionism, and get more civic libertarian. If there is war, they support America acting alone for their interests only (Latin America-style engagements). They stay tough on immigration. Domestic oil prospers, keeping them afloat enough in Texas to make it a purple state rather than a blue one- Louisiana is considered an acceptable loss, 50+ electoral votes aren't. They blame America's decline on the welfare state and see automation as a force for good. The state parties differ in their platforms and appeal more to the regional culture, helping the GOP in Congress. Presidential primaries, on the other hand, tend to get more factional. They bounce back in the suburbs and sit somewhere between Romney and Trump in the Rust Belt. Asians vote Republican by about 55%.

The Democrats continue to run up numbers with black Americans and most hispanic groups, to the extent that the Southwest is their core region, and still win white progressives. They support laws requiring that corporations hire a certain percentage of humans, expanding welfare programs, and even universal basic income in the radical faction. The party holds the inner-cities and benefit from an increase in rural minorities. The die-off of boomers helps along in the Deep South. A combination of minority recruitment and inner-church social moderation helps the Democrats make margins closer with Protestants, while the continued shrinking of (white) Catholics leaves more orthodox believers and helps Republicans boost their numbers with that demographic.

Democrats benefit from demographic change at first in the 2020s and 2030s, but Republicans bounce back after rebranding. Basically, the GOP is the liberal party and the Democratic Party is progressive. Europe style.

Maps are welcome!

Too soon to say. I think the elections and events of the 2020s will determine what path the parties go down going forward. I think if someone like Warren wins in 2020, gets re elected, and has two decent terms, the Democrats will return to their populist, New Deal Roots economically, while the GOP moderates socially and serves as a check and balance on the Democratic party economically. If Trump wins in 2020 against Warren or Sanders, the GOP continues down the path it's gone down over the last decade, while the Democrats remain the party of Clintonite politics. If Trump beats Biden or Harris, the GOP stays as is while the Democrats go more left.

That's a fair answer. I go into these threads assuming it's a gun-to-your-head kind of thing. Think of it as the "For fun, let's try and predict the maps for the next six elections" thread, but for the party platforms. All good predictions, but it's also important to note that regardless of what happens in our elections, unrelated external factors will still pop up that effect our politics. It didn't matter whether President Bush or President Gore was in office, for example, Hurricane Katrina would have happened either way and still affected party politics. Basically, no matter who wins 2020, new "things" will happen in the future that will change the parties in the same way.

I can't believe how many people seriously believe libertarians are going to recapture the GOP after Trump.  A Euro Christian Democrat scenario for the GOP is much more likely, with both parties moving to the center on economics.  The business elite becomes divided by industry and views on trade/globalization as in the late 19th century and no longer systematically favors the GOP (think 55/45 either way depending on economic conditions).  

College grads with incomes below the top 1% ($500Kish per household today) become the new base of the Democratic party.  Democrats can count on at least 70% of the college+ vote and at least 80% of the postgrad vote in a close election by the late 2020's.  The exceptions being managers in manufacturing/resource extraction industries, small business owners, and some who are very religiously devout.

Manufacturing areas of the Midwest and Upper South will eventually deliver similar 70%+ margins to Republicans.  College towns will gradually lose population and political influence with declining birthrates.  This will eventually make New York and Illinois competitive and lock up the rest of the Midwest for Republicans.  Wealthier Boomer retirees in resort areas will be the other component of the Republican base and will eventually lock down Florida.

The Northeast also looks particularly promising for Republicans in the long run.  It will not require that much more white working class support to flip most of New England.  Massachusetts is clearly the most secure Dem state in the long run and Vermont could go either way, but the other states seem ripe for a populist Republican resurgence.

More controversially, I do think post-Trump Republicans will eventually capture >1/3rd of the nonwhite vote.  This will be a significant barrier to Democratic expansion in the South.  Only Georgia and Texas, with very significant Millennial college grad influence, will conclusively flip as Virginia already has.  North Carolina will be closely contested for a long time and eventually develop a mild Dem lean.  The rest of the Deep South will remain strongly Republican for a long time between increasing retiree influence and a slowly growing Republican share of the black vote.  Maryland may eventually be more competitive than Virginia.  

What remains to be seen is how well Republicans can keep agriculture and resource extraction industries in a strongly protectionist coalition when they generally stand to benefit from free trade.  So far, cultural issues and Green New Deal rhetoric are keeping these industries from seriously considering the Dems, but the dam may eventually break.  Between this, the Mormon vote, and the surprisingly strong influence of large cities, the inland West looks like the most fertile ground for Dem expansion down the line.  I expect Democrats to consolidate Colorado and Nevada, flip Arizona, routinely win the Omaha EV, and eventually flip Kansas.  They will eventually be able to get a senate seat or 2 out of the other Plains stats.  Utah should feature many competitive 3 way races going forward.  Alaska and Idaho might get more competitive.  However, I expect the new Republican coalition to gradually gain ground in Oregon, California, and New Mexico after 2020. 

One major unknown is who makes the strongest move on antitrust enforcement and when.  If e.g. a President Warren pursues this aggressively, it could erode the Dem advantage with big tech workers.

It's not a monotonic extension of 2016 trends at all.  I have Democrats peaking soon in California and New York, and Republicans breaking through enough with black voters to hold most of the South. 

Republicans become much more fiscally left wing, becoming the main party in support of protectionism, and they start to support universal healthcare and related fiscal left wing policies. However they become more reactionary socially.

Democrats stay put as the social liberal party, but fully adopt free trade as a policy. They also become more religious, while the republican party becomes more secular.

The current GOP coalition is not sustainable, and is only being kept on life support thanks to a very well-organized propaganda campaign to vilify the left and keep people in fear. Eventually the GOP will expand its base, because they must. How they do that, I have no idea. The demographic explosion in the Sunbelt is going to keep making former GOP strongholds into purple states. NC, GA, TX, and AZ are slipping away as cities like Charlotte, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Phoenix continue to grow.

The most likely scenario I can see is an emergent GOP movement in urban areas to counter Democratic one-party rule. These Republicans would be ethnically diverse and focus on business, development, and revitalization of urban centers. Social wedge issues would not be on the radar for them. Instead, they would challenge entrenched, corrupt Democratic political machines.

These urban Republicans would not get along very well with their rural counterparts, but needs must, and they will band together.

The Democrats have a much more demographically sustainable base, and probably won't change a whole lot.

Secular, but more reactionary...

Yes? Those things are anything but mutually exclusive.

When you say you expect Dems to get more religious, in a Buttigieg Christian left kind of way, or a Marianne Williamson kind of way? 

If the GOP goes full protectionist for good, I  think a lot of the earthy/hippie/spiritual types would eventually end up there and the Dems may (less confident on this, probably depends on abortion eventually being considered settled one way or the other) take on a more vocally Christian wing as they flip more of the South/Southwest?

Here's an interesting one: how do you think the parties will develop on crime? The GOP has long been known as the tough-on-crime party, a position they emphasized historically when they wanted to appeal to the suburbs and the well-to-do. While movements like Black Lives Matter in the liberal sphere have reinforced this, Democratic growth in the suburbs could potentially shake things up.

What does crime look like in the future? The trendy answer is less violent crime and more cybercrime, but economic downturns and wealth inequality could make people more desperate. Also, how will legislation develop on hate crime? How about drugs?

With BLM-type movements specifically, it depends on what future wedge issue(s) cause black voters trend R; I agree with Skill and Chance that this will happen to some extent. Although for the Republicans to win over 1/3 of the nonwhite vote they will need to make smaller gains among Latino, Asian, and multiracial voters too.

I'd like to think that the Dems will focus more on cybercrime and white-collar crime, while the GOP will be more concerned with property crime and drugs.

The R party keeps nominating Romney, Palins and Trumps whom cant appeal  to Latinos like Reagan, Bush, who were moderates on immigration. The lesson of Trump and Palin, it seems, they keep nominating people that say whatever they like off the top of their head. Without repropcutions. Romney 47% comment, Trump wants China to investigate Biden. Palin said mant offensive things. You dont have to be part of Freedom Caucus to mimick Palin.

Cruz will probably run for Prez in 2024; and fail. That is the future of the GOP party.

My guess is they both start to look like Hezbollah. That is to say, they will have associated paramilitaries, and may start providing social services as the state itself breaks down.

How does this translate geographically? What areas do you think Republican America and Democratic America will come to control if they're the ones doling out essential services in their turf?

Rural and exurban areas are Republican, cities are Democratic. Suburban areas will be a jagged patchwork of different fiefdoms. Recall the maps of regime vs. rebel controlled Damascus from a few years back.

Not that they are but what usually comes out of such a profile? Sounds violent.

Will the GOP ever move to the left on social issues (eg: LGBT Rights, Gun Control, Abortion)?

Probably not but you never know.

The younger generations overwhelmingly support a classical liberal stance on social issues, so I guess that's what happens when they take the reins. That's just with Millennials and Gen Z, though, and there's always a possibility that Republicans yet unborn could walk those positions back. People forget that society is constantly in flux.

I would say the Republican party has already moved left, or at least libertarian, on LGBT rights (At least outside of the south). Gun control and abortion, probably not, but I could see the Republicans start advocating for different types of birth control (you know, other than abstinence).

The Democrats seem destined to be the party of urban cosmopolitans, minorities, younger voters, the wealthy, and college-educated voters, while Republicans seem destined to be the party of evangelicals, the white working class, and rural voters.

Eventually there will be a "cosmopolitan and corporate" wing of the GOP consisting of urban and coastal elected officials looking to oppose the dominant Democrats. We're already seeing this with the governorships in states like Maryland, Massachusetts, and Vermont. As demographics cause rural Republicans to shrink in power, this new moderate wing of the GOP will break through and gain a real voice in shaping the national platform.

It will take a while, however.

But who REALLY lives in Vermont? But hey. You are the one who lives there.

So, Vermont has reverted to Larry, Darryl, and Darryl?

We will not not because the issues will be different. In 50 years the hot button issue could be : should AI have a right to vote, or should we make the moon station a state. I mean who knows.

Guessing what issues will become hot button is a part of this too. Of course there's black swan events, but there's plenty of things that can be projected forward in time. For example, though fracking has ended all the peak oil apocalypticism of the '00s, we know for a fact oil depletion is coming in the future. From there, we can make educated guesses about when that will happen and when there will be a response, and how that will affect politics at that time.

Best guess, lights-out manufacturing becomes a reality when robot dexterity technology matures in about two decades. Social security will die an agonizing death starting in the 2030s, and a big debate of the following decades will be about how to revive it, what to replace it with, or even if we shouldn't do either. From this, and with America's general economic decline in mind, I can predict that one or both parties will become more statist to address these problems by necessity. In broader terms, the economy will become a hot button issue again.

The Republican Party will go further down the road of white nationalism, until it is explicitly the party for white christian nationalists and those who love them. They won't be able to win the house or the popular vote, but will remain relevant nationally through the Senate and Electoral College. It will take several significant GOP electoral college loses for the coalitions to change.

The Reason Dems do very good with college-educated voters has much more to do with the age gap than an education gap.

History says 4, at MAX, would do it.  You guys’ projection of the GOP’s ideological journey leads to a party winning like 30% of the popular vote in 20-30 years.  Color me skeptical, regardless of how the GOP looks now or even in a decade.

Republicans continue growing with non-college Whites, but with White voters becoming more educated cycle-after-cycle there's still plenty of room for Democrats to grow in the suburbs.  However, what will eventually break Democrats' advantage in the popular vote will be when Blacks/Latinos in the rural South/West dramatically swing toward the GOP once the Democrats anti-climatically sell-out to the globalists. 

I agree, but what if Biden wins. Would there be a lot of opposition as well from inside the party itself?

If that happens, they might as well go down the EU far-right route where they turn center-left on economics.

Basically become stereotypical pre-1960s Democrats?

I disagree 100% with the gop

This also if say a dem president went hard on big tech where would they go can’t see them going to gop

This also if say a dem president went hard on big tech where would they go can’t see them going to gop

aren’t their a Quebec political party that is like this?

unless they go libertarian socially only and even then I see them at best gaining ground but not completely.

More likely is the Dems come to the right

I doubt it. I think both parties will be forced to move to the center on abortion (moderately pro choice for Dems, moderately pro life for the GOP), but the GOP will be forced to go left on all other issues, including guns.

Not sure about all other issues, but I think it's very likely that Republicans move left on climate change and gay marriage. They wouldn't support a Green New Deal, but would acknowledge that it is very real and that there is a need for action on it. Most young Republicans I know, myself included, support gay marriage, and crusading against it just makes the party look out of touch. What happened to Denver Riggleman was a disgrace.

You really think the next realignment will happen because the Dems sign a free trade deal with India in 2036, causing (presumably depopulated) Yazoo County to swing 25 points to the right, thus somehow transforming the electoral map? Seems flimsy to me.

Probably a lot more rigidly sectarian to the level Nothern Irish politics are. The GOP will be the party of Rural voters, older voters, white voters, Christian voters. On the other hand the Dems will be the party of... everyone else. Things are already trending this way.

I dislike taking wild guesses like the ones this thread asks, so I will utilize this space to make a consideration about racial and ethnic voting patterns.

Over the long term, which I will define as the last thirty to fourty years roughly, this is what has happened with them:
Non-Hispanic White voters have become clearly more Republican.
Black or African American voters have remained as overwhelmingly Democratic as they were then.
Hispanic or Latino voters have probably become somewhat more Republican.
Asian American voters have become much, much more Democratic.
(I have never seen data for Native Americans or Native Hawaiians but judging from county results they do not seem to have changed politics)

This is an ugly way to put things, but this "racial trade-off" has worked perfectly fine for the Republican Party in the face of the fact that Democratic-leaning minority groups have grown while the Republican-leaning non-Hispanic White majority has shrunk. Why couldn't the path forward for the Grand Old Party be more of the same?

Wild guesses are awesome

Yes, but they will make 90% of us look like fools or idiots within 10 years.
(At least judging by the few threads dating back to 2004 that I have seen)

You have to look at it less as a genuine prediction of the future, which is impossible because some events are unpredictable, but as a snapshot of the zeitgeist. I love reading through those old threads because they remind us to question conventional wisdom. These hypotheticals force us to step back and take a macro view, which also makes us question the emotional takes we see on, say, the 2020 part of the website.

Well that is always a good thing to do.
But it is also the reason why I usually do not even try to speculate about 2020, because the conventional wisdom (especially on this site) seems to be usually overconfident.

The percentage of Latino + AAPI voters has increased drastically in the last 30 years, from 4-5% in 1988 (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/05/10/politics-and-race-looking-ahead-to-2060/) to 18% in 2020 (https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/an-early-look-at-the-2020-electorate/). Asian voters "trending Dem" has mostly been due to 1) demographic replacement as new immigrants arrive in a different political climate + 2) generational replacement as the children of post-1965 immigrants have come of age. The Non-Hispanic White vote has trended Republican while the NHW % of the electorate has gone down.

I know.
I also believe that Republicans are continuously making some gains with children and grandchildren of previous Hispanic immigrants that are more or less offset by new Hispanic immigrants voting very strongly Democratic.

The Democratic Party is (and will continue to be) composed of racial/ethnic minorities and immigrants who live primarily in the cities and metropolises surrounding those urban centers, and suburban college-educated whites, retaining just enough of the white working class to ensure political dominance so long as whites retain a majority of the electorate.  It's a working formula for success, especially as the memory of Donald Trump's disastrous presidency (on par with Herbert Hoover) and his slavish congressional Republican enablers remains foremost on the minds of Americans.

Republicans meanwhile endure years wandering about in the political wilderness, having lost the confidence of the American people in their ability to govern responsibly, with only rural and exurban voters buoying them in their traditional political strongholds.  Although as memories of the Trump years gradually fade from public consciousness, they might have a chance in attracting support from up-and-coming minorities as more join the middle class and start to really build up their wealth, and catch up with whites.

Think of your traditional 1950s suburban families (just with darker skin-tones) in stand-alone houses with that nice green lawn, white picket fence, and a shiny brand-new electric Lexus being charged on the driveway.  They will be your political salvation -eventually.  It won't happen overnight, though, so you Republicans will have to follow the example of Democrats in the 1980s for a bit, and find your way as best you can, living in a world defined by a new political paradigm that we shall set, just like we had to do during the Reagan era.

How I think this could play out: Trump loses this fall. Biden will retire after one term, and his VP (either Harris or Duckworth) will choose a white male VP (Kennedy or Beshear?) and win against Cotton in 2024 and Hawley in 2028. By 2032, the memory of Trump has largely faded, and he may even be dead. That year, the Republicans finally win by nominating a moderate who beats the sitting VP and first got elected as a Governor or Senator in 2022, 2024, 2026 or 2028. Their ticket includes at least one woman or minority. Republicans sweep the Midwest (including Illinois) and the Northeast (with the exceptions of Maryland, Massachusetts and New York), and win the perennial swing states of Florida and North Carolina. Georgia and Arizona have turned blue, but Texas, New Mexico and Nevada are tossups.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/ZPxzJ

So Chicago crashes within twelve years? Good.

I don't care what people think. I liked living in Chicago and was there until they wanted me to live in suburban Connecticut. It was fun and nice there even on Florida pay ($85k).

It's difficult to predict where the GOP will go, but I think the Democratic party will continue it's current trajectory of neoliberal economic policies favored by their new base of UMC degree holders and social liberalism favored by their old base of younger and diverse working classes and students.  

The likeliest path for the GOP is to get lost in the wilderness after losing 2020 and 2024, which I'd obviously like to avoid.  It needs to simultaneously become more pro-worker/skeptical of corporate powers, address student debt, climate change and cost of living in urban/suburban areas, while remaining hawkish on immigration and geopolitics (China) if it wants to remain relevant.  Considering Ronna McDaniel is retaining the GOP's 2016 platform for 2020, I don't have much faith in the party leadership to read tea leaves and adopt to a changing world.


Well, even if the GOP does quite well in 2032 due to 12 years of Democratic leadership, Illinois and New Jersey will still be blue.  Optimistically I could see RI, CT and VT coming within 5 points and NJ within 5-10 points, but Illinois is going nowhere.  It will be much easier to keep Texas/Minnesota/North Carolina competitive.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. In addition to that, GOP might need to slightly moderate on immigration (pro-DACA, and if the border gets secured at some point then pro-pathway AFTER the border is strongly secured. Some exit polling bears that out) and racial issues. They should definitely not take the 1619 Project/the BLM organization route but acknowledging that racism is still a current problem, more criminal justice reform for nonviolent offenses, stopping the Confederate flag stuff, and stating that Black Lives Matter (while not endorsing the organization's platform) may help. GOP should remain the more vocally patriotic party though. Going libertarian (but not progressive) on most non-abortion social issues would probably do the best job of appealing to new voters while not losing their current socially conservative base. Economically, be anti-socialism/Medicare for All/Green New Deal/massive tax increases but doctrinaire fiscal conservatism is politically and practically infeasible. Be more open to infrastructure spending and maybe a basic public option for those who absolutely need it. Party's base would probably be working-to-middle class and somewhat more diverse than it is now.

Democrats will become the party of the upper middle class (outside of some ruby red GOP Southern and Midwestern suburbs) and poor, uniformly socially progressive (some more socially moderate and not as "woke" Black and Hispanic voters would go to the GOP in this scenario). Will maintain huge margins among Millennials and college educated white women. Candidates with Pete Buttigieg-esque politics (but with more non-white appeal) will be the norm. There will be a growing DSA-eque wing though, especially in very blue cities and college towns.

The resting assumption here seems to be that the GOP won't just *move on* from the effects of Donald Trump right away, in more ways than one; I agree with this.

With that as an assumption, however, this question necessarily becomes a two-parter: 1) What do the parties look like in the next 2-3 elections, were the effects of Donald Trump's Presidency are heavy, and 2) What do the parties look like in the mid-2030s and 2040s once Trump starts to fade a bit more.

For both scenarios, I think an ample comparison would be Trump as the Republican Jimmy Carter, Biden as the 1980 Reagan and Southern Democrats in the 1980s as "college educated White suburban Republicans/independents" today.  There were likely many Democrats who thought winning back "Carter-Reagan voters" was the way to go, and there were likely many Democrats who saw going after "Anderson voters" or whatever as more reliable.  Either way, the GOP was entering a high-water-mark situation that was never going to be sustainable past 3-4 elections, so EVENTUALLY things were going to break.

For the answer to Question 1 ... you're likely looking at it.  The Republicans (i.e., Romney voters) who defected to Hillary are unlikely to return in 2020, and it's actually pretty likely more will defect, also voting Democratic downballot to stop Trump in full.  I would imagine that if Biden is popular in 2024, these voters would stick in his camp and lead to *TRENDS* :) accelerating further into the 2024 election.  However, I also think this will coincide with "White working  class" voters shifting toward the Democrats, as well.  We all now seem to think of these "WWC voters" as rural, but they're usually not ... they're people in industrial PA and OH who voted for Obama and were never your rabid right wingers in the first place.  This is to say that the GOP has plenty of a "base" without Romney-Clinton types OR Obama-Trump types, and their time in the wilderness is not likely to include EITHER of these groups loyally sticking with them.  I think this will give Democrats majorities to pass significant legislation to move this country further left economically in the late 2020s and early 2030s, causing the party's popularity to necessarily wane a bit (as all dominant parties usually do), bringing us to Question 2...

... I think around 2032 or 2036, you will see a GOP that has successfully (or, more accurately, NECESSARILY) combined a softer, less offensive tone on cultural issues with a more egalitarian (but not necessarily "populist in rhetoric," like your Hawley types) economic platform to look a lot more like a pre-attention-whoring John Kasich.  In other words, it will be a pro-family, pro-law and order and socially conservative party ... but it won't be perceived as quite as reactionary or offensive to the vast swaths of the electorate that it currently turns off.  Additionally, it will certainly still be a center-right party on economics that largely favors business more than the Democrats ... but it won't be run by the Heritage Foundation and will at least recognize that ANY popular party needs to look out for a majority of Americans' economic interests.  (Sidenote: It's honestly much too hard to say what the parties will be saying about trade at this point ... too many global economic factors will be involved, and anyone who tells you differently probably only looks at trade through an emotional lens.)  I think this will cause the GOP to make slight gains among Hispanic voters (especially more assimilated ones), moderate Asian voters and indeed win back some suburban support.  With ALL of these groups, there will indeed be ceilings, including among White college grads (some are simply going to be loyal to the Democratic Party in the same way that Millennials are today...), and it'll be hard to sketch out what that will look like on the EC map, frankly.

Bottom line, is that I predict we will see current suburban trends accelerate through 2028 or 2032, but I ALSO think GOP trends among "WWC" voters will hit a surprisingly low ceiling, allowing a period of Democratic dominance that is perhaps more fragile than it appears.  Once significant legislation is inevitably passed by this Democratic government, you will see backlash, and the natural area for the GOP to gain back some momentum will be with groups that would otherwise be prone to support right-of-center policies (i.e., socially conservative minorities and well-to-do Whites).

Honestly, though ... go back and read posts from 2004, lol.  Nobody here has a clue.

This is all predicated on Trump losing. However, I don't expect Trump's 2nd to be any better than his first. I can see him losing Congress over the unrest intensifying and his economic mismanagement catching up to him by the end. It would still put us in the same boat for your predictions minus one Biden term. But what he keeps at least the Senate or someone else wins a third term?

In terms of talk of a ‘permanent Democratic majority’, it probably is unlikely, considering no party has held the White House for more than three terms since FDR and Truman, but it is not impossible. Looking at recent history, it is easy to think that the parties always balance out even if one is defeated in a landslide, producing two roughly even coalitions. However, this has only fairly recently become the case. The GOP was completely dominant from 1860-1932, because the country was polarised along sectional/ethnoreligious lines, and the GOP’s base, northern Protestants, were a clear majority of the electorate.

 I don’t think we’re going to enter a period of Democratic dominance akin to that, but America is at its most polarised since the Gilded Age. History teaches us that it is possible for one party to alienate such a swathe of the electorate to put them into long-term opposition. It has happened twice: after the Civil War and ‘Rum, Romanism and Rebellion’, and after the New Deal. It is conceivable the Trump administration could have the same effect, tarnishing the GOP brand for the rest of a large number of voters’ lives among many minorities, educated voters, younger voters and women.

Well the most one of the two current major parties has controlled the White House ininterruptly is 20 years (1933 - 1953). During that period Republicans were almost completely wiped out at one point and gained back both houses of Congress within ten years. In the Gilded Age the Republicans were dominant, true, but Democrats won the White House sometimes, controlled very easily 45% of the national vote, and controlled the House of Represenatives frequently. My bar for the expression "long-term opposition" is high.

Do you think that after being locked out of the White House for twelve years, that Republicans will finally get weaned off of race-baiting as a campaign strategy and tactic?

They would have no choice. Relying on the resentment of angry old white men is not sustainable. Unless they want to be permanently locked out of the House and the presidency, they need to appeal to some minorities and voters with college degrees.

Democrats move more progressive over time, but not to the extent of AOC. More of a Brian Schatz/Kamala Harris type of progressive.

Republicans become even further right after Trump. They become the party of QAnon.