What Do the Parties Look Like in the Future?

[Agonized-Statism]

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!

[Agonized-Statism]

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.

[Agonized-Statism]

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?

[Agonized-Statism]

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?

[Agonized-Statism]

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

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.

[Agonized-Statism]

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.

[Agonized-Statism]

I dislike taking wild guesses like the ones this thread asks

Wild guesses are awesome

[Agonized-Statism]

I dislike taking wild guesses like the ones this thread asks

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.