Thursday, May 5, 2016

They’ll Still Be Around

In the last couple of days as the inevitability of Trump became clear, there have been a number of pundits and op-eds heralding, warning, and concern-trolling about the death of the GOP.  Just because the Republicans have nominated Donald Trump and are sick about it (see below), it doesn’t mean that’s the end of the party.

Erik Loomis at LGM:

While it’s very hard to see Trump winning, the Republicans will still control the House and many statehouses. They’ve baked their advantages into the cake that the GOP really isn’t “dead” electorally even in the short term outside of the White House. Even if they lose the Senate in 2016, they may well win it back in 2018. Others seem to go farther and really think the GOP is dying as a political party and a major realignment is happening. Here I am highly skeptical. At most, the GOP is “dead” in the same way that the Republicans were in 1964 or the Democratic Party was in 1988, which means not at all. For me, all that has really happened is that the base voter for the GOP has thrown off the elites. They don’t really care about corporate tax breaks. They care about their own white nationalist resentments and figured out that they don’t need Mitt Romney or another GOP elite to give it to him. They can choose their own daddies.

It may not be your grandfather’s GOP, or even your parents’ or your brothers’ any more, but it’s not going away.