I love this. It ain’t gonna happen, but I love this.
I think Haley’s long-term calculation is that enough Trump voters will have buyers remorse by 2028 - either because Trump lost once again or, if he wins, his second term is a catastrophe - that enough Republican voters will turn to her for the nomination. It’s a risky calculation. 30-40% of Trump voters are pure MAGA. The others might be gettable for various reasons. But who really knows?
Oh, the posts are all going to be positive today, aren't they? Well, me too. I won't believe that Nikki will do the right thing until I see it, but I'm willing to be pleasantly shocked. What is her path to future viability in any role if she helps burn the sucker to the ground? Its a gamble, and we see time and time again how these poor souls tie themselves to Trump, in spite of their knowledge of his despicable character, in the vain hope of being one of the last ones on the lifeboat. Its similar to the people who knew that Madoff was a Ponzi scheme, but truly thought it could go on and on until they were so rich that it made no difference to them personally. Tough luck for the rest of you, 'you' being America in this context.
How many of the Christies, Kellys et al are going to be speaking at the convention for Biden? I have the over under at 3, and it will not include Haley.
I agree that there will continue to be a Republican party. What it will stand for is the question. If Trump can take it over, I suppose it can always be retaken (but not until he's gone it seems). For it to change, I would think conservative media would have to change and start being for something other than just denigrating Dems; I am not sure they will do that, as it too profitable it appears.
I am glad you are voting Biden, but am still unclear as to what you mean/propose to not "give up on the Republican Party".
Why? The Whigs died. In any case, the Republican party that was interested in policy and practical legislation is as dead as a door nail. It currently has no principles except resentful authoritarian populism,. It will continue to be this way for a generation at least, since the energy of its young leadership is radicalized. What will actual (non-reactionary) conservatives do for the next 20 years? Hope the mob sees reason? Better to kill the beast and start a new party.
The reason why is because Democrats have spent billions on ads against Donald Trump, who has the most corrupt baggage of any politician in modern American history.
It may be that the R party will not die in terms of keeping the name. But the Republican party is no longer (and will not be for at least a generation) a philosophically coherent legislative non-authoritarian party. Cheney/Kinsinger Republicans will never again find a home there. It will be a cult. So yes, actual conservatives have to give up on the Republican party unless they want to get co-opted into its authoritarian grievance based isolationist silo. Anyone who tries to be included in it or influence it becomes radicalized. Note what has happened to Lindsay Graham. He has repudiated all principles in order to have 'influence'. Or JD Vance. Or Stefanik. Lankford has been hounded out for trying to legislate. Lost cause.
If you think that Nikki moving to the Dems just to defeat Trump is the solution, you're badly mistaken. If Trump loses, we will have 4 more years of "rigged elections" (if the possibility of the lessons learned in nullifying the vote count aren't used to work more smoothly) and possibly a fourth attempt at a Presidential run. After all, both of Don's parents lived into their 90s.
This is a person who bragged about executing a person without benefit of a trial and his followers cheered, even if they had no idea who that person was.
The only hope is the same amount of persons who came out in 2020 do so in 2024 (if not for the President, at least for the Congress). But I have big doubts that will happen.
Vermont is an open primary state. Haley’s win there is the result of a lot of Democrats and Independents voting alongside [some] Republicans in the Republican primary. This supports your thesis. Not only are there Republicans who long for a more sane politics, but many of us moderates and independents who would welcome a conservative counterweight in the Democratic Party.
I believe Vermont is also the most Democratic state in the country my registration. The flinty Yankee Republicans who voted against FDR 4 times have truly left the stage of history!
The United States is a two-party country and we will always be one. The Dem Party is too incompetent to obliterate the GOP.
Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and the Dem Establishment spent billions of dollars against Trump already. They barely beat him in 2020 by 43k votes out of 160 million voters (0.03%).
Trump will die at some point and it will lead to a power vacuum. The Republican Party will be fixed at some point and return to normalcy.
I don’t think MAGA will outlive its orange by much. My analogy is Jimmy Swaggart’s son trying to replace his father post scandal. Young Swaggart said the words, but lacked the gut-level emotional attachment that his father uniquely generated. Donnie Trump doesn’t have it, and Eric is even more boring.
Trump is a unique talent, but so are/were the clown car rulers of Brazil [Bolsanaro], Argentina, Hungary, Britain [Johnson], the Ford brothers in Ontario, etc etc, and then we can talk about the less civilized areas like Russia and the Philippines, but the point is that Trump cannot be blamed for the world in turmoil and the abysmal judgment of the electorate. Ours, and almost everyone else's. As many have explained, the unregulated internet has given mankind a nervous breakdown, and until that is addressed we will not be truly out of the woods when the Orange God King meets the Final Cheeseburger of Death, although MAGA itself will diminish as a threat to the republic, and will probably go out of existence. I don't see who is around to pick up his mantle, so to speak, with as much effectiveness, but admittedly, since Trump has been an open joke for decades amongst anyone with a passing acquaintance with New York tabloids, I didn't see him coming either. His appeal, such as it is, is not an easy thing to duplicate, though, and even with the early signs of dementia, he is a uniquely talented man. Its just not a talent that serves any useful purpose. Greene, Gaetz and the other shameless grifters don't quite have the act down. They are to Trump what Beatlemania is to the real thing. Or maybe your local Queen cover band. There was only one Freddie.
Well said, esp "the unregulated internet has given mankind a nervous breakdown." Trump would never have reached all of the Americans vulnerable to a strongman without his thumbs on his phone 24/7.
The country is a two-party state because, in the end, it always ends up one party against another. But ranked-choice voting could change which two parties are the ones ending up vying for the seats. (But that's why RCV isn't being adopted as quickly as it should be. Who would voluntarily cede even the possibility of losing power?)
Yep. There is a direct line from the anti-Federalists (who lost) to the Confederacy (who lost) to the People's Party (who lost) to Huey Long, to George Wallace and to Sarah Palin. They all lost. Trump has had one win and one loss. If he wins again, the US becomes something it's never been before.
I agree with the sentiment. But I think two caveats are in order:
1. Most of the Reaganites realize that the reason they began to succeed was because they courted the members of the South with non-democratic tendencies. Joining with the Dems is not going to be a return to power, not even if they form a new party in the wake of GOP collapse. For better or worse, the radical right will always be a part of their demographic.
2. Every "moderate" conservative I've talked to says that they are going to vote for Biden no matter what if Trump is the Republican nominee. If my experience is indicative, Haley doesn't need to bring them, they've already left. At least in national elections. I don't know who she would be appealing to in leaving the GOP.
Agreed with point 1. There is a curious revisionism that sees Reaganism as some sort of totally benign movement - but it was itself the result of the triumph of the conservative movement, which included a hell of a lot of illiberal tendencies.
I hate to point out a brutal reality particular to these political times, but if Nikki Haley did as suggested and tried to lead her moderate Republican supporters to the Democratic side in the election, she would be subject to violent retribution from Trump and the MAGAS, especially if Trump loses. Having to have 24/7 personal security for the foreseeable future would be the least of it; she, and her family, would be saying goodbye to any kind of normalcy and peace of mind.
I'm cranky today so I've been thinking that it simply isn't sufficient to be a Never-Trumper if all one has is a "classical liberal" spiel and a righteous, partisan aversion against voting for any Democrat - especially Joe Biden.
Apparently the latest poll indicates that 82% of Haley voters would go to Donald Trump so "fanciful wish" may be an understatement.
And before anyone even breathes it, No... Biden is not as bad as Trump; neither was Clinton. Thinking like that is what brought us to this moment. It helps exactly no one except Donald Trump and the Vichy collaborators, grifters, fascists and lunatics that are now in control of the GOP. Haley should not go quietly into that good night if she wants any kind of legacy worth pointing to.
I don't care if someone claims a passionate attachment to small government, conservative principles and a yearning for the good old days of Ronald Reagan and a respectable Republican Party. Wish in one hand and crap in the other and see which fills up first. If all conservative Never-Trumpers are going to do is bemoan Trump and then perform that both-sideism dance to avoid allying with Democrats or simply give up and not vote then they are worse than useless; they are complicit.
Damon is correct that a movement of moderate and centrist Republican voters to the Democratic Party would pull the party towards the center; although there would surely be some real discomfort and fireworks in the process. I'm not a Republican or a conservative and I'm often uncomfortable with the Democratic Party so I would sympathize. But in the end it may be the only avenue that preserves this republic. At this point I'd welcome any Republicans who abandoned this depraved, whorehouse of a party to at least become Democrat-leaning Independents.
Contemplating a second Trump presidency and what it would do to this country is depressing enough. But the impact it would have on an already precarious global order and the security and lives of Ukrainians, Eastern Europe, Taiwan, South Korea and our European allies would be catastrophic.
Asking her supporters to join the Democratic Party is a bridge too far. I think Nikki's better path is to say to her supporters: (1) Nothing will return the GOP to sanity but a crushing loss this year, or maybe a couple crushing losses. (2) She and they are not the RINOs -- Trump and his followers are the RINOs. They represent the furthest thing from true conservatism. (3) Their instincts are correct: Donald Trump will do everything in his power to turn this country into an authoritarian state and abandon our European allies to Russia. And that therefore (4) they should leave the party (for now) and become unaffiliated. Then vote for the only candidate who can defeat Donald Trump. And then hope and pray that the Republican Party once again becomes a party that they can join in good conscience. Is that likely? I have no idea. But it's the only way it can happen.
Never mind. Haley, a short time ago: "It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that.”
And now McConnell too. One more person in whose brain "country before party" does not compute.
Conservatism, Reagan said, was a three-legged stool: Fiscal conservatives, neocons and social conservatives. The only leg that's left is the social conservatives. The neocons are now the Dems and fiscal conservatism died during the pandemic and advancing climate change. What, pray tell, is true conservatism?
One can only hope Haley goes in the manner here desired. She will relinquish any hope of becoming President, but she will show herself as a genuine Patriot (capitalization intended, and with ironic reference to how the word is used by idolaters of the orange adolescent) who places the Constitution as the root of our system.
I will not vote vote for Trump no matter what but voting for Joe Biden is a heavy lift for me. I live in New Jersey which Biden will win anyway but I wonder if I have some duty to hold my nose and vote for Biden or if I should vote for a third party conservative to send a signal that there are still non Trump conservatives out there.
Again I applaud Damon for being the only voice I've heard on the national scene to suggest the anti-Trump GOP join the Democrats. As a liberal frustrated by some of the zealotry on the left (chasing AOC from a movie theatre as an example) we do need moderating voices in the party. In the suburbs in particular, former moderate GOP activists turned moderate Dems can really make a difference at the local committee level. No, they won't change fundamental positions, but there are many Dems that just "go along" with the silly stuff and if someone beings up an alternative view point, it could gain traction.
Absolutely your best blog ! Thanks, Damon.
I love this. It ain’t gonna happen, but I love this.
I think Haley’s long-term calculation is that enough Trump voters will have buyers remorse by 2028 - either because Trump lost once again or, if he wins, his second term is a catastrophe - that enough Republican voters will turn to her for the nomination. It’s a risky calculation. 30-40% of Trump voters are pure MAGA. The others might be gettable for various reasons. But who really knows?
Ms. Haley fails to understand there will be no more elections if Trump gets into power.
Oh, the posts are all going to be positive today, aren't they? Well, me too. I won't believe that Nikki will do the right thing until I see it, but I'm willing to be pleasantly shocked. What is her path to future viability in any role if she helps burn the sucker to the ground? Its a gamble, and we see time and time again how these poor souls tie themselves to Trump, in spite of their knowledge of his despicable character, in the vain hope of being one of the last ones on the lifeboat. Its similar to the people who knew that Madoff was a Ponzi scheme, but truly thought it could go on and on until they were so rich that it made no difference to them personally. Tough luck for the rest of you, 'you' being America in this context.
How many of the Christies, Kellys et al are going to be speaking at the convention for Biden? I have the over under at 3, and it will not include Haley.
"Burn the GOP to the Ground."
Wishy-washy centrist.
We can't give up on the Republican Party because the party will never be burned to the ground or die or anything like that.
(I was just making a little joke at Damon.)
I'm a big fan of Damon, but I think he's wrong on this.
Do you really think moderate Republicans can eventually gain control over today's GOP?
Good question. Looks like you're not getting an answer . . .
What do you propose other than losing primary races 70 to 30% and refusing to support Dems in the general election so that MAGA can rule?
I'll vote for Biden.
I agree that there will continue to be a Republican party. What it will stand for is the question. If Trump can take it over, I suppose it can always be retaken (but not until he's gone it seems). For it to change, I would think conservative media would have to change and start being for something other than just denigrating Dems; I am not sure they will do that, as it too profitable it appears.
I am glad you are voting Biden, but am still unclear as to what you mean/propose to not "give up on the Republican Party".
Another good question. I await an answer.
Why? The Whigs died. In any case, the Republican party that was interested in policy and practical legislation is as dead as a door nail. It currently has no principles except resentful authoritarian populism,. It will continue to be this way for a generation at least, since the energy of its young leadership is radicalized. What will actual (non-reactionary) conservatives do for the next 20 years? Hope the mob sees reason? Better to kill the beast and start a new party.
The reason why is because Democrats have spent billions on ads against Donald Trump, who has the most corrupt baggage of any politician in modern American history.
Can you flesh this out a bit? Not sure what you're getting at.
Question: Can Democrats win presidential elections by landslide margins and become so unbeatable that Republicans can no longer compete?
No.
Democrats had their best shot at winning a landslide election against Donald Trump, who has the most baggage of any politician in history.
And they lost.
And then they barely won in 2020. By 43k votes out of 160 million votes.
So, no the Republican Party isn't going to die.
It may be that the R party will not die in terms of keeping the name. But the Republican party is no longer (and will not be for at least a generation) a philosophically coherent legislative non-authoritarian party. Cheney/Kinsinger Republicans will never again find a home there. It will be a cult. So yes, actual conservatives have to give up on the Republican party unless they want to get co-opted into its authoritarian grievance based isolationist silo. Anyone who tries to be included in it or influence it becomes radicalized. Note what has happened to Lindsay Graham. He has repudiated all principles in order to have 'influence'. Or JD Vance. Or Stefanik. Lankford has been hounded out for trying to legislate. Lost cause.
If you think that Nikki moving to the Dems just to defeat Trump is the solution, you're badly mistaken. If Trump loses, we will have 4 more years of "rigged elections" (if the possibility of the lessons learned in nullifying the vote count aren't used to work more smoothly) and possibly a fourth attempt at a Presidential run. After all, both of Don's parents lived into their 90s.
This is a person who bragged about executing a person without benefit of a trial and his followers cheered, even if they had no idea who that person was.
The only hope is the same amount of persons who came out in 2020 do so in 2024 (if not for the President, at least for the Congress). But I have big doubts that will happen.
That $1 billion Biden ad campaign better work
Vermont is an open primary state. Haley’s win there is the result of a lot of Democrats and Independents voting alongside [some] Republicans in the Republican primary. This supports your thesis. Not only are there Republicans who long for a more sane politics, but many of us moderates and independents who would welcome a conservative counterweight in the Democratic Party.
I believe Vermont is also the most Democratic state in the country my registration. The flinty Yankee Republicans who voted against FDR 4 times have truly left the stage of history!
The Republican Party is never gonna die, Damon.
The United States is a two-party country and we will always be one. The Dem Party is too incompetent to obliterate the GOP.
Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and the Dem Establishment spent billions of dollars against Trump already. They barely beat him in 2020 by 43k votes out of 160 million voters (0.03%).
Trump will die at some point and it will lead to a power vacuum. The Republican Party will be fixed at some point and return to normalcy.
Well, the moderate Republican faction needs to get their shit together and fight back. We can't give up.
ALSO - we can't give up especially because the Dem Establishment won't stop Trump at this point. Trump is more popular than ever. Biden is toast.
I'll vote for Biden but we can't as a society give up on the Republican Partt
Trump has no good character to speak of.
I don’t think MAGA will outlive its orange by much. My analogy is Jimmy Swaggart’s son trying to replace his father post scandal. Young Swaggart said the words, but lacked the gut-level emotional attachment that his father uniquely generated. Donnie Trump doesn’t have it, and Eric is even more boring.
Trump is a unique talent, but so are/were the clown car rulers of Brazil [Bolsanaro], Argentina, Hungary, Britain [Johnson], the Ford brothers in Ontario, etc etc, and then we can talk about the less civilized areas like Russia and the Philippines, but the point is that Trump cannot be blamed for the world in turmoil and the abysmal judgment of the electorate. Ours, and almost everyone else's. As many have explained, the unregulated internet has given mankind a nervous breakdown, and until that is addressed we will not be truly out of the woods when the Orange God King meets the Final Cheeseburger of Death, although MAGA itself will diminish as a threat to the republic, and will probably go out of existence. I don't see who is around to pick up his mantle, so to speak, with as much effectiveness, but admittedly, since Trump has been an open joke for decades amongst anyone with a passing acquaintance with New York tabloids, I didn't see him coming either. His appeal, such as it is, is not an easy thing to duplicate, though, and even with the early signs of dementia, he is a uniquely talented man. Its just not a talent that serves any useful purpose. Greene, Gaetz and the other shameless grifters don't quite have the act down. They are to Trump what Beatlemania is to the real thing. Or maybe your local Queen cover band. There was only one Freddie.
Well said, esp "the unregulated internet has given mankind a nervous breakdown." Trump would never have reached all of the Americans vulnerable to a strongman without his thumbs on his phone 24/7.
Yeah, they should change their name to the Anti-Democrat Party. They don't stand for anything else.
The country is a two-party state because, in the end, it always ends up one party against another. But ranked-choice voting could change which two parties are the ones ending up vying for the seats. (But that's why RCV isn't being adopted as quickly as it should be. Who would voluntarily cede even the possibility of losing power?)
It's also not like she can't lead them BACK to the GOP if it's burned to the ground
“But it’s really Republicans from the states of the former Confederacy who have seized control of the party.”
That’s it in a nutshell.
Yep. There is a direct line from the anti-Federalists (who lost) to the Confederacy (who lost) to the People's Party (who lost) to Huey Long, to George Wallace and to Sarah Palin. They all lost. Trump has had one win and one loss. If he wins again, the US becomes something it's never been before.
Damon,
I agree with the sentiment. But I think two caveats are in order:
1. Most of the Reaganites realize that the reason they began to succeed was because they courted the members of the South with non-democratic tendencies. Joining with the Dems is not going to be a return to power, not even if they form a new party in the wake of GOP collapse. For better or worse, the radical right will always be a part of their demographic.
2. Every "moderate" conservative I've talked to says that they are going to vote for Biden no matter what if Trump is the Republican nominee. If my experience is indicative, Haley doesn't need to bring them, they've already left. At least in national elections. I don't know who she would be appealing to in leaving the GOP.
Agreed with point 1. There is a curious revisionism that sees Reaganism as some sort of totally benign movement - but it was itself the result of the triumph of the conservative movement, which included a hell of a lot of illiberal tendencies.
I hate to point out a brutal reality particular to these political times, but if Nikki Haley did as suggested and tried to lead her moderate Republican supporters to the Democratic side in the election, she would be subject to violent retribution from Trump and the MAGAS, especially if Trump loses. Having to have 24/7 personal security for the foreseeable future would be the least of it; she, and her family, would be saying goodbye to any kind of normalcy and peace of mind.
Way to throw a punch. Kudos.
I'm cranky today so I've been thinking that it simply isn't sufficient to be a Never-Trumper if all one has is a "classical liberal" spiel and a righteous, partisan aversion against voting for any Democrat - especially Joe Biden.
Apparently the latest poll indicates that 82% of Haley voters would go to Donald Trump so "fanciful wish" may be an understatement.
https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/the-road-to-the-general-election/
And before anyone even breathes it, No... Biden is not as bad as Trump; neither was Clinton. Thinking like that is what brought us to this moment. It helps exactly no one except Donald Trump and the Vichy collaborators, grifters, fascists and lunatics that are now in control of the GOP. Haley should not go quietly into that good night if she wants any kind of legacy worth pointing to.
I don't care if someone claims a passionate attachment to small government, conservative principles and a yearning for the good old days of Ronald Reagan and a respectable Republican Party. Wish in one hand and crap in the other and see which fills up first. If all conservative Never-Trumpers are going to do is bemoan Trump and then perform that both-sideism dance to avoid allying with Democrats or simply give up and not vote then they are worse than useless; they are complicit.
Damon is correct that a movement of moderate and centrist Republican voters to the Democratic Party would pull the party towards the center; although there would surely be some real discomfort and fireworks in the process. I'm not a Republican or a conservative and I'm often uncomfortable with the Democratic Party so I would sympathize. But in the end it may be the only avenue that preserves this republic. At this point I'd welcome any Republicans who abandoned this depraved, whorehouse of a party to at least become Democrat-leaning Independents.
Contemplating a second Trump presidency and what it would do to this country is depressing enough. But the impact it would have on an already precarious global order and the security and lives of Ukrainians, Eastern Europe, Taiwan, South Korea and our European allies would be catastrophic.
Asking her supporters to join the Democratic Party is a bridge too far. I think Nikki's better path is to say to her supporters: (1) Nothing will return the GOP to sanity but a crushing loss this year, or maybe a couple crushing losses. (2) She and they are not the RINOs -- Trump and his followers are the RINOs. They represent the furthest thing from true conservatism. (3) Their instincts are correct: Donald Trump will do everything in his power to turn this country into an authoritarian state and abandon our European allies to Russia. And that therefore (4) they should leave the party (for now) and become unaffiliated. Then vote for the only candidate who can defeat Donald Trump. And then hope and pray that the Republican Party once again becomes a party that they can join in good conscience. Is that likely? I have no idea. But it's the only way it can happen.
Never mind. Haley, a short time ago: "It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that.”
And now McConnell too. One more person in whose brain "country before party" does not compute.
Conservatism, Reagan said, was a three-legged stool: Fiscal conservatives, neocons and social conservatives. The only leg that's left is the social conservatives. The neocons are now the Dems and fiscal conservatism died during the pandemic and advancing climate change. What, pray tell, is true conservatism?
One can only hope Haley goes in the manner here desired. She will relinquish any hope of becoming President, but she will show herself as a genuine Patriot (capitalization intended, and with ironic reference to how the word is used by idolaters of the orange adolescent) who places the Constitution as the root of our system.
I will not vote vote for Trump no matter what but voting for Joe Biden is a heavy lift for me. I live in New Jersey which Biden will win anyway but I wonder if I have some duty to hold my nose and vote for Biden or if I should vote for a third party conservative to send a signal that there are still non Trump conservatives out there.
IMO, since your state will not determine the outcome, you are safe in voting 3rd party. But who do you see is the 3rd party conservative?
Again I applaud Damon for being the only voice I've heard on the national scene to suggest the anti-Trump GOP join the Democrats. As a liberal frustrated by some of the zealotry on the left (chasing AOC from a movie theatre as an example) we do need moderating voices in the party. In the suburbs in particular, former moderate GOP activists turned moderate Dems can really make a difference at the local committee level. No, they won't change fundamental positions, but there are many Dems that just "go along" with the silly stuff and if someone beings up an alternative view point, it could gain traction.