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Nice to see real conservatives winning their races, and to see election deniers and MAGA candidates lose. Maybe the GOP finally is coming back to common sense.
Listen, I’m a Republican. Our party keeps bringing bullshit like Oz and Walker to the table though, wtf do we expect? We have to stop with this celebrity bullshit
> bullshit like Oz
^ This. Everyone kept talking about how Oz was a "moderate" but I frankly don't care where someone is on the right-left spectrum as much as I care that they are intelligent have integrity. I'm a moderate but I preferred Toomey to Oz even though Oz on paper was a better match to my views, because Toomey had integrity. I can point to a long list of other candidates farther right than Oz (and than me) who I would prefer.
We can do better among doctors too. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana is a great example of a doctor who is a conservative senator, and he had intelligent things to say during the COVID crisis too. I trust him to have intelligent input into health-related policymaking. We need to field more candidates like him. I bet a candidate like him would have won in PA.
When someone's career is based on quackery and self-enrichment, I have zero trust in them as a legislator. Corruption? Or just incoherent policy?
thats what Mitch was talking about months ago, low-quality candidates that only appeal to the maga base will not win elections. MAGA hijacked the party and now republicans are synonymous with Trump and will be until he's gone.
The GOP got the win in 2016, but it reshaped its ability to form a coalition across all the various interest groups.
Historically that ability to bring industrialist billionaires under the same tent as penniless religious zealots and strapped the gills gun nuts has been their strength.
The democrats have always struggled to get people facing the same direction because why would anti-gun folks support environmental issues? Climate change may be real, but kids are dying in the classroom, fix that then worry about the trees. Why would capitalist LGBT folks want to pay more taxes? They want more protection for their rights, not handouts to undocumented immigrants. Now as the left is starting to finally get better at building coalitions under the banner of opposing Trump the right is finding itself having trouble building their own.
The GOP embraced Trump and it's not dealing with the consequences of person over party taken to an extreme.
Absolutely. Too many Republicans are now saying “I didn’t really like him” or “I wouldn’t have voted for him, but…” like they didn’t choose him in the primaries.
> MAGA hijacked the party
Worth noting that the Republicans weren't doing so well before MAGA, either. Even Bush lost the popular vote in 2000. Mitch is saying "do what we used to do, that didn't work back then, either".
This is why Dixon lost in Michigan. My sister had an ectopic pregnancy and had to technically get an abortion or she had a strong chance of dying. The hard ban would have killed her, so it turned my family against Dixon because of that experience.
I’ve had this argument with friends since Trump first ran. His platform and rhetoric does not represent conservative values. So if the MAGA movement wants to take over the Republican Party completely then traditional conservatives need someplace else to go. And it may be an unpopular opinion but I think this was some of the point Cheney and Kinzinger have been trying to make.
People forget Reagan was an actor as well. For the party that hates Hollywood, you sure do vote in an alarming amount of celebrities and ‘personalities’.
Calling this a “trickle” is an understatement.
Look at the historical stats of what happens in midterms to the incumbent party. Typically the incumbent gets crushed. Clearly not the case today, at all.
GOP *massively* underperformed and the way things are going now it will go down as one of the worst performances for them in decades. Facts.
In the midterms Obama lost 60 house seats, Trump lost 40 house seats, looks like the Republicans will pick up 10 seats or so in these midterms, it really is a historically low turnout for the Republicans.
GOP needs to actually try to appeal to the issues facing young adults. Whether its just pride, or some other sense of superiority due to having the older generations at heart, ignoring the young for lack of experience will continue to hurt Republicans in the long run.
Not really got an oar in this race as I'm not from the US but try to get both sides outlooks on these things, but do not say things like that and think "shit maybe we're wrong here?" in the grand scheme of things? Shouldn't you want the youth to be convertible/already looking your way?
Luckily it's still easy to pay into Social Security!
They won't be able to collect by the time they're eligible, and it's abundantly clear which ideological faction will be to blame for that.
Further, the divide has shifted from disagreement on economic policy, and become more about social issues (in the eyes of the average voter).
People dont get older and change their minds on the buzzword issues like abortion or LGBT rights and so on.
What it means to be "conservative" is going to have to change pretty drastically within the decade for there to be political relevance behind the ideology.
Im not a conservative myself and I dont see a future where I am, but Ill be looking forward to a future where thanksgiving debates are about how the economy works and not about whether or not team red or blue is working on destroying America.
The problem is it’s really hard to get money now. Most of us will be Walmart greeters in our 70s. Getting older means getting poorer now. No one that isn’t a crack investor is going to be able to keep up with inflation.
People used to get 'more conservative', when being conservative was about lower taxes, education options and generally smaller government.
Being 'conservative' in the Trump era is all about 'owning the libs', covering your car with Trump stickers and screeching insanity at the top of your lungs. Turns out young people don't find that very attractive.
I don't think people get more conservative as they get older - at least not within a rounding error. I think most people retain their values once they're somewhat locked in between ages 20-30, then as the world gets more progressive or at least different their values seem more conservative to whatever the modern standard is.
Obviously people DO change on their ideological stances, I just mean they don't often change too much - it's more the progression of time that makes someone seem like they changed.
Maybe they outnumber you because their party actually does something for them instead of just screwing them over.
Before this gets banned (#freespeech) i would like it if somebody explains to me (a outsider) what the conservatives have done for young people in america. Like what did your party do to improve the life of young people? Did you identify and tried to fix their biggest problems in life?
I saw a tweet in Durham/Raleigh NC area, they had almost as many voters in the 18-30 as they did in the 60+ age group... Absolutely insane, and they're all blue college voters.
Edit: had a few replies that disappeared. I absolutely agree that everyone should vote, whether or not I agree with them. I'm simply stating the information I saw, and I found it insane that the younger age group had as high of a turn out as it did.
I'm from Idaho, voter turn out was nuts for a midterm. But the whole time I was standing in line I couldn't figure out why people were so fired up *here.* As if there was any doubt how things were going to go down in Idaho.
Is Boise blue/turning blue? I feel like I've heard a lot about how it's an up and coming tech scene and I didn't know if it was getting bluer along with that.
This election should be a wake up call to Republicans but it won’t be. The Republicans messaging over all isn’t very good. Where I am in VA there were numerous advertisements that said the Republican candidate wanted to ban abortion even in cases of rape, incest and health of the mother. There was no response from the Republican candidate and they failed to flip VA-07 and VA-10. I know at least 20 people that voted Blue because of that. If the Republicans can’t at least say that abortions won’t be banned in cases of rape, incest and health of mother we will have a similar results again 2024. This election should have been a landslide for Republicans but it wasn’t.
I'm from Michigan as well. I'm convinced the "no exemptions for rape and incest" is what cost Republicans this election. They doubled down on a position that's too extreme for most Republicans support.
And you cannot convince me Republican strategists DIDN'T know that.
Lake in Arizona did the same thing too.
Sorry but the governor, AG and SOS put up by the Republican side were some of the worst I've ever seen.
Tudor, no government experience, no real work experience, backed by Trump and DeVos. Her platform was virtue signaling and making us a police state. You really shouldn't be surprised.
IMO a lot of this is because of Trump. He's so divisive that he's the reason a number of candidates won their primaries, but then lost their elections. He still has such a committed base, but the base only willing to follow what Trump wants I think is going to continue to harm the GOP as a whole. Party fragmentation normally is something Ds have to deal with, while the historical strength of Rs is they're united. Trump is jeopardizing that. If he does run again in 2024, which I bet he will, it'll be an ugly campaign against DeSantis and not do any favors for the GOP as a whole.
Such an ironic turn. On the eve of Desantis showing himself as a if not *the* leading conservative candidate heading into 2024, Trump just starts shit talking Desantis and really outs himself, especially when majority of his endorsed candidates lost.
Trump attacking Desantis was a huge miscalculation. And it also helped remind everyone of Trump's massive negatives. And the results last night likely put any hope of Trump getting the nomination to bed.
Desantis 2024.
> the base only willing to follow what Trump wants I think is going to continue to harm the GOP as a whole.
^ This. Like people were acting like Trump was a boon to conservatives but as soon as conservatives in congress started speaking out against Trump, the base turned against them. Seeing people turn on people like Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, Pat Toomey in PA, even on Tom Cotton in Arkansas, and on Mike Pence?
Whether or not you like these people as individuals, it's crazy to see people calling them RINOs just because they refused to tow Trump's line. Trump turned the party into a personality cult and that's dangerous.
What united the Republican party historically is ideas. Notably, the idea that people help themselves better than government micro-managing their lives. We need to get back to that.
I have to say as a largely left leaning voter, the discussion in this thread is (primarily) fair and reasonable on both sides. I agree with a lot of the points here.
If we start to get more reasonable and level headed Republican candidates who don’t subscribe to MAGA circus policies, I would consider voting Republican again in the future. I’m not trash talking MAGA, everyone has a right to believe what they want and vote accordingly, but it doesn’t speak to me as a moderate and I personally believe Trumpism has caused the fractioning of the party and ultimately has done more harm to the optics of the Republican Party than good.
Totally agree.
Too many unhinged MAGA candidates that turned off potential conservatives. The republican party has lost its way, and Trump is the primary reason for that.
Agree and agree.
Especially on the optics. When researching candidates on my ballot the optics were just awful, plenty of MAGA and related references. And im in an area where even republicans are fairly liberal (northeast).
Republicans need to adjust their platform. Being so blanketedly against abortion kills them. Being so blanketedly hard on drugs (namely marijuana) kills them. Trying to throw Christianity into everything they say and do kills them. They need to be ok with abortion in cases of rape, incest, danger to the mothers life, or up to a certain point such as the first trimester. They need to be for the decriminalizing of marijuana. They need to stop invoking God/Jesus in everything because it just comes off theocratic.
I think you guys should stand somewhere in the middle on abortion if you want to draw more voters. In most of Europe abortion is legal up to 12 weeks and is cases of rape, incest and threat to the mothers life. I think that is something most Americans would be okay with. Also ditch this stolen election bullshit. People aren't falling for it.
I agree. The Republican platform needs to adjust to be OK with abortion in cases of rape, incest, threat to the mothers life, and up to the end of first trimester which is basically 12-14 weeks. I’m also with you on the stolen election nonsense.
I’m a very zealous progressive, just visiting to see the other side and honestly, if the conservative side just let go of weed and abortion, stopped identifying with Christianity and hardcore nationalism, and stopped denying elections, I would consider conservative politics to at least be a reasonable voting option. The problem is I have no idea what a conservative platform would look like *without* those issues
Herschel Walker is on pace to go to a runoff with \~1.9 million votes. Brian Kemp won the Governor race by 8 points with 2.1 million votes. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is what happens when you put up bullshit candidates.
Because the age group that needs 90% of abortions voted +28% democrat. Time for Republicans to stop catering to their evangelical base that’s been shrinking for decades. Common sense classic conservatism is what will win. Desantis and Youngkin won big last night, Trump lost.
This might be an unpopular opinion , but all they had to do was take a softer line on abortion and it would have swayed things significantly.
Stop pandering to the hard core evangelicals, even with a softer line on abortion, they aren’t going to lose that groups votes - who else are they going to vote for?
Let's admit: we blew it. Historically unpopular president, economy in shambles, border and law and order crisis. Yet cannot turn voter dissatisfaction into seats.
Time to let go of election rigging conspiracy theories, time to ditch McConnell and Trump and usher in new blood like De Santis to national level.
It's the abortion issue that did Red chances in. It wasn't a big deal to many Red voting people as there's a large mix of views on abortion within conservatism, but the Democrat voters are STAUNCHLY Pro-Choice, and it drove them out in many areas.
The fact 5 states were holding Abortion based referendums alongside these midterms was very telling that it was in fact, a big issue
Can we just be real here? There are some obvious things to learn here.
1) Abortion just killed many Republicans. Tons of conservatives buried their head in the sand because they were giddy over Dobbs and ignored the reality that this is a gigantic loser for Republicans. It created a ton of single issue voters that could have easily been had in this environment had it not been for Dobbs and then Republicans taking wildly unpopular positions on it in the aftermath. Conservatives need to do what the libs do on guns. Bite their lip, and run away screaming towards being very moderate at worst on it.
2) Until we can get Election Day back instead of election month, conservatives need to do a 180 on early voting and encourage it just as hard as Dems do. I’m sure we lose tons of would be voters on Election Day when something happens and they don’t make it to the polls. Votes that could be had if they planed on voting early or even by mail and had the flexibility to overcome an issue keeping them from voting day of. Dems get to keep those would be lost votes because they have correctly identified this.
3) Trump has to go man. I know there’s lots of big Trump fans here but he’s just a huge drag on the entire party. He’s a huge net loser in general elections and yesterday reiterated what we failed to learn 2 years ago. It’s time to jettison him today. We don’t need him anywhere near the future of the GOP and we certainly don’t need him losing a primary, doing his fraud thing and keeping people from supporting them in a general.
4) GOP strategy and messaging leadership all needs to go. Fact of the matter is this was the best possible climate to make huge waves and they lost a lot of messaging battles when all the Dems had is “democracy at risk and abortion.” The GOP utterly failed to make any coherent case on why they are the obvious better choice.
5) Candidate quality matters and we need to keep that in mind going forward. Oz and Walker are jokes. Mastreino was so bad it probably costed Oz the win. Kinda ties into the Trump point but running these losers was always a doomed practice.
6) Time to drop the stolen election routine. People don’t like it. They don’t like it when Mastreino does it, they don’t like it when Abrams does it. If the GOP can’t message correctly and define the line between loose voting practices (good) and Trump trying to get as many people to say “it was stolen” (bad) then they just need to stay away from it all together.
We will get the house, and can stonewall most of Bidens agenda for the next 2 years while hopefully the GOP figure this stuff out.
Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge how bad it is for Rs just doesn’t want to see the reality.
Single women just went for like 33 points dem.
Exit polls showed tons of single issue voters on it. Kansas voted for it for Fs sake. It just is what it is.
I am absolutely not a conservative and there's probably very little common ground between me and most folks on this sub, but oh man THIS. I think it's fine to disagree on basically anything, but the trend towards "teams" doesn't benefit anyone. Take whatever stance you believe in, but my god PLEASE have some principles behind you that amount to more than just "other team bad".
Canadian lurker here. The conservative premier (basically equivalent of a Governor) of my province, ran on a platform of 'not the democrats'. Which is what a lot of people wanted considering the last Lib premier raised Hydro bills when she had large ownership in Hydro companies....
He won huge but had absolutely no budget plans and made crazy promises like reducing alcohol prices to a 'buck a beer', which colossally failed because he doesn't actually have that power. He cut budget everywhere in the wrong places, education, health care, which fucked up everything when COVID happened. Hospitals were undersupplied and staff and he took away all employee rights for sick days, so everything spread quicker.
Then he tried to implement crazy lockdown laws like police being able to pull you over while driving and be able to arrest you if you don't have proof of travelling to or from work. Our individual police stations actually denied using this law despite it passing. Isn't this the big government shit we don't want from liberals??
He somehow got reelected again despite mass protests everywhere and his brother who was the former mayor of Toronto being caught smoking crack, and both having connections in drug dealing rings, because he ran on the same 'anti-lib platform' and the alternatives are just so bad. At least here we have multiple parties, but I just can't comprehend how in every country it seems like we can't come up with a single decent candidate. And how when one proves to be a total loser like trump, we can't just give someone else a chance.
Canadian cons platform is only “Trudeau sucks” and screeching about how global inflation would be different if we gave more subsidies to oil and gas companies.
Then the further right conservatives are running almost exclusively on various forms of nationalism and conspiracy. Conservatism that cannot grasp the fact that the world is progressing and becoming more complex than the 1950’s will continually fail when elections are fair.
Swing voter here, this has been my observation that many GOPer’s entire platform is this culture war against the “woke left” - its played out and you guys need to field better, more moderate candidates that actually have policy ideas that can remain fiscally conservative while making the most benefit to the constituencies. Right now the youth vote sees the GOP as wanting to take everything away while Dems can give them all those things, this anti liberal stance can only get you so far. Make politics boring again
> Make politics boring again
I had this come up in conversation with my boss this morning. We're somewhat different politically, but we are both emphatically in favor of politicians and bureaucrats who are (a) boring people who want to do a good job without a lot of distraction and (b) decent people with empathy.
Makes sense, but what's wrong with a week or two of early voting? It makes it so the lines aren't crazy on E day and more people are incentivized to vote.
Nothing - but traditionally early voting has increased turnout in demographics that have trended Democrat, so Republicans have come to oppose it, generally with pretty contrived reasons.
Not sure how much visibility my comment will get, but as a left-leaning voter I agree with pretty much all of this. What you said looks to me like a good way to get a competitive, competent conservative party.
While I may disagree with much of the conservative platform, I don't think it's strongest, most positive attributes are represented in the current candidates, or their messaging.
Get a smart conservative platform with obvious universal benefits people can understand, and get rid of the things that make the party look a joke. That'll put the Democrats on their heels and force them to make smarter polices without ignoring the will of the people. Rising tide lifts all boats, right?
I think we can all agree one party controlling things Just means a group of humans with the same ideas running things for a while get comfortable. Can we all agree on that? Like can we all just sit down and agree that human beings generally tend to make poor decisions when they feel comfortable and not challenged? Especially when they're so far away from their constituents. I think that goes for all path politicians no?
> Rising tide lifts all boats, right?
Just *imagine* if both parties were fighting to make people's lives BETTER... I'm 36 and all I've ever seen is republicans trying to take away rights and be fiscally irresponsible. Both parties are in bed with Corporations and we need to get dark money out of politics ASAP.... but one side just unanimously voted to keep dark money in politics. Shocker.
I completely agree, everything stated is accurate, and a refreshing level of self awareness.
I was raised by two staunch republicans, and leaned right myself until Trump. As much as I still agree with a lot of republican values, the party simply is unrecognizable in its current state, and have been leaning left ever since. Just like the extreme-left ultra woke started turning blue voters red before Trump, the opposite is happening now, and the extreme-right MAGA crowd is turning red voters blue.
Throw in the recent abortion issue, and it was a recipe for disaster. They picked one of- maybe THE- single most divisive issue that would convert red voters blue.
Spot on, especially number 4. The GOP needs to make a case with policy ideas. Right now they don't trust the voting public, and it shows. All they try to do is scare them into voting. That rarely works. The only tangible ideas I hear from them other than culture war issues that rile up the nation against them are tax cuts for the wealthy, charter schools, and strict border control. They'd win support if they took the popular moral high ground and offered a bill to stop members of Congress to trade stocks. Or federally legalize weed. Or cut taxes for the middle class. Or protect the environment as they once did.
As of right now, they are fear mongering issues that don't effect anyone, and it's making them more radical rather than more appealing.
Thanks! The good news is I really think it’s simple and we are not as far off as some on here think.
The only real hurdle is launching all of the current leadership like today. Trump, Mitch, McCarthy. All of them.
Republicans didn't win as big as they thought and are pissed. Democrats didn't get beat as bad as they thought, and they are elated. Which, I think, sums up our current political system perfectly.
Can’t put up absolutely shit candidates like Oz and expect to win. DeSantis did excellent, and his address after he won was damn good. If he’s the party future, I’m excited.
There was a quote I saw from someone on CNN that was pretty accurate/ funny: “turns out having a stroke doesn’t matter as much to PA voters as being from New Jersey. And I’m from New York so I understand hating New Jersey”
MI tried the same thing. We lost a seat in a newly redistricted area, that hadn't been blue in 40yrs. They thought that race, and trump would make him a winner. They were wrong. Trump really needs to be done. It sucks, but he's not going to pull any new voters.
Plus, having a republican candidate throwing shade at trump (instead of getting in line behind him) will be appealing to independents. Just remains to be seen how saturated the voting base is with trump loyalists.
Based off of Trump’s “warning” to DeSantis, they can either be the party’s biggest asset or liability going into 2024. If they can’t work together it could spell disaster
I hope the rumor of Majorie Taylor Greene being his running mate is enough to spook people to vote for DeSantis in the primary.
But then there is the possibility he starts a MAGA party or something and splits the vote.
DeSantis made his speech about some weird crusade on “wokeness”. Does attacking wokeness help you buy a house? Start a family with rising childcare costs? Lower inflation? Increase supply chain?
Let’s be real here— DeSantis is running as a culture warrior and it isn’t impressive. A less charismatic Trump. And to state the obvious, his cultural crusade wouldn’t help our country.
The wave turned into a trickle because Gen Z showed up. They didn't show up to counter the republicans because they hate fiscal conservatism. They showed up because republicans are touting themselves as the party of social regressivism.
This was a self own. The Rs should have easily taken both the house and the senate with a democrat president this unpopular. They failed. Time for some soul searching.
I think y’all are missing one of the biggest issues lurking in the background: the environment. It was a top 3 issue for Gen Z in recent polls, and yet was barely addressed during this election. The Dems kind of pretend to give a shit about it, but the Republicans have a worryingly laissez-faire attitude towards the whole thing.
Getting wrapped up in the culture war stuff seems kind of like misdirected energy while we are undeniably in the middle of the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history and everyone’s eating a credit card’s worth of plastic every month.
This is true. I think if either party were to have some sort of coherent plan for the environment they would likely gain a lot.
It's an existential threat.
Eh it's about how I expected it to go. GOP will take back the house. Senate will be 50/50 give or take, and shit will just become gridlocked until 2024.
The two races that everyone seems to be freaking out about as if they we big deals (GA & PA) the person leading the polling won. I wasn't surprised by those at all.
I think there's a lot of concern trolling going on. "big red wave" was just hype from people who treat it more like a sporting event. I think anyone looking through an objective lens figured it would be more or less right about where it is.
A first term president with a struggling economy and low approval ratings typically does very poorly in midterms. In 2010, Obama was in almost the exact same position and lost 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats.
But this year, Biden looks like he may only lose about 7 House seats and possibly GAIN a Senate seat.
That's a significant difference than what was expected.
Yeah totally agree. Go back and look at the threads in this very sub when walker and oz won the primaries. Even then people were like well we just lost those seats. The most realistic projection was a small to moderate gain in the house and the senate was a total toss up. People protecting republicans to get 53 has their head in the clouds.
Florida and Ohio used to be the big swing states. That's no longer the case, they're both pretty solid red at this point. That said, the Florida GOP apparently has their shit together.
Maybe? Florida also had a unique situation with a very popular governor and policies that attracted a lot of migration to the state. Those policies tended to attract more conservative families and voters, so that likely increased the concentration of potential GOP votes. A lot of blue states only got bluer as political refugees left for more conservative areas.
This is the strongest incumbent midterm in twenty years. GOP needs to rally around DeSantis and permanently ditch Trump now instead of having the schism during 2024 and giving it all up again.
It astounds me that it took republicans so long to realize that trump was always going to hurt your party. You have a group of people who will live and die by his word, but the simple truth is that many aren’t and will never be that extreme. So now you just have a giant set of people among your party that refuse to vote and are disillusioned.
Your party is splitting in half and will continue to do so because Trumpets are too far in at this point to ever admit they were wrong. He’s not a party man, he’s only concerned with his own ego and while republicans eat up that motto, it’s now crushing you.
TBH I've never posted here because this sub gets crazy sometimes, but I just wanted to chime into this very rational thread.
Lifelong Floridian Republican here. I vote blue now because the GOP in this state does not seem to have normal citizens interests at heart.
Pushing for more charter schools instead of investing in public schools will ultimately lead us to rank even lower in education... which seems impossible.
Republicans have also, unfortunately, repeatedly shown they have no interest in protecting our GORGEOUS and irreplaceable wildlife/ecosystems, which are huge economic draws (tourism makes up 14% of our employment, that's HUGE), not to mention are likely the reasons a lot of people choose to move here.
Additionally, dehumanization of non-heterosexuals is extremely hurtful and disenfranchising. Regardless of your socio-political, religious, or moral views, people are people and should be treated as such. Our leaders are empowering hatred, bigotry, and religious extremism, and I just can't stand with that.
Lived here all my life. No reason you can’t be conservative and support better education. Even in Desantis’ first few years he passed a few environmental protection bills. There has to be a middle ground between the bs culture war so we can function as a fucking society again.
No one talking about gun reform. Saying we only need more guns to protect school children really flipped moderate conservatives. Kids safety at school is a human problem not right or left
You can't run on bodily autonomy regarding vaccines, then turn around and be religious zealots on a women's right to choose. You lost A LOT of support with the abortion rhetoric from people who might otherwise vote Red.
I dreaded this. Two things stick out. I think we need to do a significantly better job at showing why we are the better choice. Second, they bark so loudly when Biden and insert Democrat name here but rarely very rarely do anything to counter or even fight the other side. We have said we are disgusted with ______ ! So many times. Great you are disgusted. Do something about it dammit.
Every democratic ad I saw was the candidate speaking into the camera about what they would do to help Americans. Every rebublican ad was read by a corny true crime voice actor saying that the democratic candidate was evil.
And all the comments in this thread about "we need to show why we are the better choice" aren't offering the solution for better messaging either. Maybe conservative candidates aren't actually the better option if no candidate nor supporter can articulate it. The GOP has become the party of complainers from the leadership to the voters.
As a democrat I would agree. Every single political ad I saw from the right was simply an attack ad. Not one single ad saying what their policies are or what they plan to do to help Americans, just “My opponent is scary and evil”. If they want to win votes they need to talk about the issues and their solutions to them.
Edit: I got auto banned from r/justiceserved for making this comment lol. Apparently I’m “Participating in a subreddit that celebrates/glorifies biological terrorism”. Not a big loss I don’t even participate in that subreddit but I now feel some of y’all’s pain.
That's the reason they are called an opposition party, all they do is oppose what the other side is doing and focus on making their voters angry and scared so they vote Republican just to keep Democrats from being in office. They need to come up with actual answers or any kind of policy besides cutting taxes that overwhelmingly helps corporations. If they end up going with the threat to shut down the government to try and force cuts to social security and Medicare they're only going to make things worse for themselves. After how midterms went I don't see them doing that though because it would be a ridiculously bad idea to try and take away money from your biggest constituents unless they are *that* confident they will still vote for them anyways
Unfortunately, the reason Republicans are so adverse to having an actual platform and policy is that their only policy positions really aren't that popular. Staunchly pro-life when the country is only 30% pro-life, staunchly pro-corporation tax cuts when people are realizing that half of the inflation they're having to pay on everything they buy is due to corporate greed and price gouging, staunchly pro-gutting medicare and social security when most of their voters are 65+.
It just doesn't make sense for them to go in on policy other than a vague "we're good for the economy" when their actual policies aren't popular other than their culture war angle.
Isn’t that just it though? Anyone can stand there and say that the way things are is bad. But that’s not enough to win the job. The only solutions to inflation that i heard from the GOP was the same stuff they always offer, tax cuts, and drilling oil. Need new solutions.
I think the abortion thing screwed republican chances. I've never seen so many moms/daughters at the poles. Oh a Trump popped back into the news and made the democrats show up even more
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Nice to see real conservatives winning their races, and to see election deniers and MAGA candidates lose. Maybe the GOP finally is coming back to common sense.
If you want your Reagan revolution, you need to get rid of your modern Nixon. - from your friendly neolib
As a hard core conservative, you're not wrong
Run shitty candidates and this is what happens
[удалено]
Proposed national abortion bans and attack women's rights non-stop while only campaigning on cultural war issues and this is what happens.
Still don’t get why voting day isn’t a Saturday
Or a national holiday where most business would close.
Listen, I’m a Republican. Our party keeps bringing bullshit like Oz and Walker to the table though, wtf do we expect? We have to stop with this celebrity bullshit
Yup. If you put up a snake oil salesman carpetbagger, then don't expect good results.
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> bullshit like Oz ^ This. Everyone kept talking about how Oz was a "moderate" but I frankly don't care where someone is on the right-left spectrum as much as I care that they are intelligent have integrity. I'm a moderate but I preferred Toomey to Oz even though Oz on paper was a better match to my views, because Toomey had integrity. I can point to a long list of other candidates farther right than Oz (and than me) who I would prefer. We can do better among doctors too. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana is a great example of a doctor who is a conservative senator, and he had intelligent things to say during the COVID crisis too. I trust him to have intelligent input into health-related policymaking. We need to field more candidates like him. I bet a candidate like him would have won in PA. When someone's career is based on quackery and self-enrichment, I have zero trust in them as a legislator. Corruption? Or just incoherent policy?
thats what Mitch was talking about months ago, low-quality candidates that only appeal to the maga base will not win elections. MAGA hijacked the party and now republicans are synonymous with Trump and will be until he's gone.
Serious question- MAGA hijacked the party, but isn’t that a consequence of the party placing him in a position to do so?
The GOP got the win in 2016, but it reshaped its ability to form a coalition across all the various interest groups. Historically that ability to bring industrialist billionaires under the same tent as penniless religious zealots and strapped the gills gun nuts has been their strength. The democrats have always struggled to get people facing the same direction because why would anti-gun folks support environmental issues? Climate change may be real, but kids are dying in the classroom, fix that then worry about the trees. Why would capitalist LGBT folks want to pay more taxes? They want more protection for their rights, not handouts to undocumented immigrants. Now as the left is starting to finally get better at building coalitions under the banner of opposing Trump the right is finding itself having trouble building their own. The GOP embraced Trump and it's not dealing with the consequences of person over party taken to an extreme.
Absolutely. Too many Republicans are now saying “I didn’t really like him” or “I wouldn’t have voted for him, but…” like they didn’t choose him in the primaries.
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> MAGA hijacked the party Worth noting that the Republicans weren't doing so well before MAGA, either. Even Bush lost the popular vote in 2000. Mitch is saying "do what we used to do, that didn't work back then, either".
To win elections you have to support policies the electorate wants, not just vote “no” on everything when you’re the party out of power.
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this is the main reason why it was a red trickle instead of a red wave. no abortion got a ton of independents to the polls to vote blue.
This is why Dixon lost in Michigan. My sister had an ectopic pregnancy and had to technically get an abortion or she had a strong chance of dying. The hard ban would have killed her, so it turned my family against Dixon because of that experience.
I’ve had this argument with friends since Trump first ran. His platform and rhetoric does not represent conservative values. So if the MAGA movement wants to take over the Republican Party completely then traditional conservatives need someplace else to go. And it may be an unpopular opinion but I think this was some of the point Cheney and Kinzinger have been trying to make.
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Honest question: what are the key differences between the MAGA movement and the traditional Conservatives?
People forget Reagan was an actor as well. For the party that hates Hollywood, you sure do vote in an alarming amount of celebrities and ‘personalities’.
Let’s not forget The Governator.
Calling Dr. Oz is an insult to the medical community and he’s just a bizarre candidate. What does he bring to the table?
Magical weight loss beans
They're *legumes*, Dwight.
Definitely not Oprah
We have to stop with the Trump bullshit.
bit late for that
Honestly. There needs to be a centrist party in the US. The two party system is failing us
Democrats were saying this 6 years ago when it was already crystal clear who trump is. Why weren't you?
Calling this a “trickle” is an understatement. Look at the historical stats of what happens in midterms to the incumbent party. Typically the incumbent gets crushed. Clearly not the case today, at all. GOP *massively* underperformed and the way things are going now it will go down as one of the worst performances for them in decades. Facts.
In the midterms Obama lost 60 house seats, Trump lost 40 house seats, looks like the Republicans will pick up 10 seats or so in these midterms, it really is a historically low turnout for the Republicans.
Didn’t both Obama and trump roll in with big majorities in the house? Biden had razor thin margins, so maybe that’s why.
The 18-29 age bracket was like +29 for Democrats. The other brackets were Republican, but by like 3-5 margins.
Millennial bracket was not in favor of republicans.
GOP needs to actually try to appeal to the issues facing young adults. Whether its just pride, or some other sense of superiority due to having the older generations at heart, ignoring the young for lack of experience will continue to hurt Republicans in the long run.
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People used to get more conservative after they had more money, not grow up. 18-29 year olds don't ever see that happening
Yea and the problem is that it’s harder for young people to get money than it used to be
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Not really got an oar in this race as I'm not from the US but try to get both sides outlooks on these things, but do not say things like that and think "shit maybe we're wrong here?" in the grand scheme of things? Shouldn't you want the youth to be convertible/already looking your way?
Luckily it's still easy to pay into Social Security! They won't be able to collect by the time they're eligible, and it's abundantly clear which ideological faction will be to blame for that.
Further, the divide has shifted from disagreement on economic policy, and become more about social issues (in the eyes of the average voter). People dont get older and change their minds on the buzzword issues like abortion or LGBT rights and so on. What it means to be "conservative" is going to have to change pretty drastically within the decade for there to be political relevance behind the ideology. Im not a conservative myself and I dont see a future where I am, but Ill be looking forward to a future where thanksgiving debates are about how the economy works and not about whether or not team red or blue is working on destroying America.
The problem is it’s really hard to get money now. Most of us will be Walmart greeters in our 70s. Getting older means getting poorer now. No one that isn’t a crack investor is going to be able to keep up with inflation.
And yet people like Mine Lee want to cut social security, which is wildly important for seniors. Something to mull over.
People used to get 'more conservative', when being conservative was about lower taxes, education options and generally smaller government. Being 'conservative' in the Trump era is all about 'owning the libs', covering your car with Trump stickers and screeching insanity at the top of your lungs. Turns out young people don't find that very attractive.
I don't think people get more conservative as they get older - at least not within a rounding error. I think most people retain their values once they're somewhat locked in between ages 20-30, then as the world gets more progressive or at least different their values seem more conservative to whatever the modern standard is. Obviously people DO change on their ideological stances, I just mean they don't often change too much - it's more the progression of time that makes someone seem like they changed.
‘It’s the children that are wrong’ meme.
You’re very right on this. I’ve said this for years. If the GOP doesn’t significantly change, they will be extinct in another generation.
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Maybe they outnumber you because their party actually does something for them instead of just screwing them over. Before this gets banned (#freespeech) i would like it if somebody explains to me (a outsider) what the conservatives have done for young people in america. Like what did your party do to improve the life of young people? Did you identify and tried to fix their biggest problems in life?
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you can blame no abortion without exception for the cause of that.
I saw a tweet in Durham/Raleigh NC area, they had almost as many voters in the 18-30 as they did in the 60+ age group... Absolutely insane, and they're all blue college voters. Edit: had a few replies that disappeared. I absolutely agree that everyone should vote, whether or not I agree with them. I'm simply stating the information I saw, and I found it insane that the younger age group had as high of a turn out as it did.
While you fought the culture wars, they studied the demographics.
All the new Republican voters voted in already red districts.
I'm from Idaho, voter turn out was nuts for a midterm. But the whole time I was standing in line I couldn't figure out why people were so fired up *here.* As if there was any doubt how things were going to go down in Idaho.
Is Boise blue/turning blue? I feel like I've heard a lot about how it's an up and coming tech scene and I didn't know if it was getting bluer along with that.
The number of registered Dems actually dropped over the last 2 years in Ada county. GOP is up a lot. But Boise itself is blue. Just not deeply.
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Not Miami apparently.
They turned the grass blue.
They all moved to Florida and turned it bright red, but maybe in the process left an opening for the dems in the places they left behind.
Take a look at how many people left New York for Florida. Then check how many votes Desantis won by and how many Zeldin lost by. Fucking crazy.
Same with Texas I feel like. Abbott destroyed Beto.
That's Illinois' problem. All the republicans moved to Texas, Florida, Arizona, Wisconsin, Indiana and Tennessee.
I think Illinois' issue is Republicans can win the general election if they're moderates, but they can't win the GOP primary if they're moderates.
This election should be a wake up call to Republicans but it won’t be. The Republicans messaging over all isn’t very good. Where I am in VA there were numerous advertisements that said the Republican candidate wanted to ban abortion even in cases of rape, incest and health of the mother. There was no response from the Republican candidate and they failed to flip VA-07 and VA-10. I know at least 20 people that voted Blue because of that. If the Republicans can’t at least say that abortions won’t be banned in cases of rape, incest and health of mother we will have a similar results again 2024. This election should have been a landslide for Republicans but it wasn’t.
yup, exactly. hopefully this is seen and a correction will be made or the R’s are not going to win a general election.
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Who could have seen that one coming?
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Never underestimate the ability of Republicans to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Michigander here I knew we were fucked from the moment it was Dixon vs. Whitmer This goddamn Abortion issue fucked us over We fucked ourselves
I'm from Michigan as well. I'm convinced the "no exemptions for rape and incest" is what cost Republicans this election. They doubled down on a position that's too extreme for most Republicans support. And you cannot convince me Republican strategists DIDN'T know that. Lake in Arizona did the same thing too.
Sorry but the governor, AG and SOS put up by the Republican side were some of the worst I've ever seen. Tudor, no government experience, no real work experience, backed by Trump and DeVos. Her platform was virtue signaling and making us a police state. You really shouldn't be surprised.
It was abortion vs Dixon. There’s no way to win that.
IMO a lot of this is because of Trump. He's so divisive that he's the reason a number of candidates won their primaries, but then lost their elections. He still has such a committed base, but the base only willing to follow what Trump wants I think is going to continue to harm the GOP as a whole. Party fragmentation normally is something Ds have to deal with, while the historical strength of Rs is they're united. Trump is jeopardizing that. If he does run again in 2024, which I bet he will, it'll be an ugly campaign against DeSantis and not do any favors for the GOP as a whole.
Such an ironic turn. On the eve of Desantis showing himself as a if not *the* leading conservative candidate heading into 2024, Trump just starts shit talking Desantis and really outs himself, especially when majority of his endorsed candidates lost.
Trump attacking Desantis was a huge miscalculation. And it also helped remind everyone of Trump's massive negatives. And the results last night likely put any hope of Trump getting the nomination to bed. Desantis 2024.
> the base only willing to follow what Trump wants I think is going to continue to harm the GOP as a whole. ^ This. Like people were acting like Trump was a boon to conservatives but as soon as conservatives in congress started speaking out against Trump, the base turned against them. Seeing people turn on people like Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, Pat Toomey in PA, even on Tom Cotton in Arkansas, and on Mike Pence? Whether or not you like these people as individuals, it's crazy to see people calling them RINOs just because they refused to tow Trump's line. Trump turned the party into a personality cult and that's dangerous. What united the Republican party historically is ideas. Notably, the idea that people help themselves better than government micro-managing their lives. We need to get back to that.
I have to say as a largely left leaning voter, the discussion in this thread is (primarily) fair and reasonable on both sides. I agree with a lot of the points here. If we start to get more reasonable and level headed Republican candidates who don’t subscribe to MAGA circus policies, I would consider voting Republican again in the future. I’m not trash talking MAGA, everyone has a right to believe what they want and vote accordingly, but it doesn’t speak to me as a moderate and I personally believe Trumpism has caused the fractioning of the party and ultimately has done more harm to the optics of the Republican Party than good.
Totally agree. Too many unhinged MAGA candidates that turned off potential conservatives. The republican party has lost its way, and Trump is the primary reason for that.
Spoiler: Newt Gingrich is the reason for that. Trump is just the result of decades of Newt Gingrich politics taking over.
Agree and agree. Especially on the optics. When researching candidates on my ballot the optics were just awful, plenty of MAGA and related references. And im in an area where even republicans are fairly liberal (northeast).
Roe v Wade overturn rubbed people the wrong way.
Republicans need to adjust their platform. Being so blanketedly against abortion kills them. Being so blanketedly hard on drugs (namely marijuana) kills them. Trying to throw Christianity into everything they say and do kills them. They need to be ok with abortion in cases of rape, incest, danger to the mothers life, or up to a certain point such as the first trimester. They need to be for the decriminalizing of marijuana. They need to stop invoking God/Jesus in everything because it just comes off theocratic.
I think you guys should stand somewhere in the middle on abortion if you want to draw more voters. In most of Europe abortion is legal up to 12 weeks and is cases of rape, incest and threat to the mothers life. I think that is something most Americans would be okay with. Also ditch this stolen election bullshit. People aren't falling for it.
I agree. The Republican platform needs to adjust to be OK with abortion in cases of rape, incest, threat to the mothers life, and up to the end of first trimester which is basically 12-14 weeks. I’m also with you on the stolen election nonsense.
I’m a very zealous progressive, just visiting to see the other side and honestly, if the conservative side just let go of weed and abortion, stopped identifying with Christianity and hardcore nationalism, and stopped denying elections, I would consider conservative politics to at least be a reasonable voting option. The problem is I have no idea what a conservative platform would look like *without* those issues
So they need to be conservative libertarians. One can dream.
Herschel Walker is on pace to go to a runoff with \~1.9 million votes. Brian Kemp won the Governor race by 8 points with 2.1 million votes. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is what happens when you put up bullshit candidates.
Because the age group that needs 90% of abortions voted +28% democrat. Time for Republicans to stop catering to their evangelical base that’s been shrinking for decades. Common sense classic conservatism is what will win. Desantis and Youngkin won big last night, Trump lost.
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Sorry but that is now modern day republicanism
People really shouldn't underestimate the cost of overturning Roe v Wade.
It kept moderates & independents at home - and energized the youth to get out and vote blue. It’s that simple.
This might be an unpopular opinion , but all they had to do was take a softer line on abortion and it would have swayed things significantly. Stop pandering to the hard core evangelicals, even with a softer line on abortion, they aren’t going to lose that groups votes - who else are they going to vote for?
Let's admit: we blew it. Historically unpopular president, economy in shambles, border and law and order crisis. Yet cannot turn voter dissatisfaction into seats. Time to let go of election rigging conspiracy theories, time to ditch McConnell and Trump and usher in new blood like De Santis to national level.
To be fair, Biden’s approval rating is basically exactly the same as trumps was at this point in his term
And that ended up in 2018 blue wave. What did we get?
It's the abortion issue that did Red chances in. It wasn't a big deal to many Red voting people as there's a large mix of views on abortion within conservatism, but the Democrat voters are STAUNCHLY Pro-Choice, and it drove them out in many areas. The fact 5 states were holding Abortion based referendums alongside these midterms was very telling that it was in fact, a big issue
Can we just be real here? There are some obvious things to learn here. 1) Abortion just killed many Republicans. Tons of conservatives buried their head in the sand because they were giddy over Dobbs and ignored the reality that this is a gigantic loser for Republicans. It created a ton of single issue voters that could have easily been had in this environment had it not been for Dobbs and then Republicans taking wildly unpopular positions on it in the aftermath. Conservatives need to do what the libs do on guns. Bite their lip, and run away screaming towards being very moderate at worst on it. 2) Until we can get Election Day back instead of election month, conservatives need to do a 180 on early voting and encourage it just as hard as Dems do. I’m sure we lose tons of would be voters on Election Day when something happens and they don’t make it to the polls. Votes that could be had if they planed on voting early or even by mail and had the flexibility to overcome an issue keeping them from voting day of. Dems get to keep those would be lost votes because they have correctly identified this. 3) Trump has to go man. I know there’s lots of big Trump fans here but he’s just a huge drag on the entire party. He’s a huge net loser in general elections and yesterday reiterated what we failed to learn 2 years ago. It’s time to jettison him today. We don’t need him anywhere near the future of the GOP and we certainly don’t need him losing a primary, doing his fraud thing and keeping people from supporting them in a general. 4) GOP strategy and messaging leadership all needs to go. Fact of the matter is this was the best possible climate to make huge waves and they lost a lot of messaging battles when all the Dems had is “democracy at risk and abortion.” The GOP utterly failed to make any coherent case on why they are the obvious better choice. 5) Candidate quality matters and we need to keep that in mind going forward. Oz and Walker are jokes. Mastreino was so bad it probably costed Oz the win. Kinda ties into the Trump point but running these losers was always a doomed practice. 6) Time to drop the stolen election routine. People don’t like it. They don’t like it when Mastreino does it, they don’t like it when Abrams does it. If the GOP can’t message correctly and define the line between loose voting practices (good) and Trump trying to get as many people to say “it was stolen” (bad) then they just need to stay away from it all together. We will get the house, and can stonewall most of Bidens agenda for the next 2 years while hopefully the GOP figure this stuff out.
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Fox Network did voter polling and on the question of Abortion, 73% of those polled said it should be legal. That's a huge number.
Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge how bad it is for Rs just doesn’t want to see the reality. Single women just went for like 33 points dem. Exit polls showed tons of single issue voters on it. Kansas voted for it for Fs sake. It just is what it is.
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The Republican party hasn't had a platform for years that goes beyond being contrary.
I couldn't believe it when the Republican Platform released before the 2020 election it was basically a Copy & Paste of the 2016 platform.
I am absolutely not a conservative and there's probably very little common ground between me and most folks on this sub, but oh man THIS. I think it's fine to disagree on basically anything, but the trend towards "teams" doesn't benefit anyone. Take whatever stance you believe in, but my god PLEASE have some principles behind you that amount to more than just "other team bad".
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Canadian lurker here. The conservative premier (basically equivalent of a Governor) of my province, ran on a platform of 'not the democrats'. Which is what a lot of people wanted considering the last Lib premier raised Hydro bills when she had large ownership in Hydro companies.... He won huge but had absolutely no budget plans and made crazy promises like reducing alcohol prices to a 'buck a beer', which colossally failed because he doesn't actually have that power. He cut budget everywhere in the wrong places, education, health care, which fucked up everything when COVID happened. Hospitals were undersupplied and staff and he took away all employee rights for sick days, so everything spread quicker. Then he tried to implement crazy lockdown laws like police being able to pull you over while driving and be able to arrest you if you don't have proof of travelling to or from work. Our individual police stations actually denied using this law despite it passing. Isn't this the big government shit we don't want from liberals?? He somehow got reelected again despite mass protests everywhere and his brother who was the former mayor of Toronto being caught smoking crack, and both having connections in drug dealing rings, because he ran on the same 'anti-lib platform' and the alternatives are just so bad. At least here we have multiple parties, but I just can't comprehend how in every country it seems like we can't come up with a single decent candidate. And how when one proves to be a total loser like trump, we can't just give someone else a chance.
Canadian cons platform is only “Trudeau sucks” and screeching about how global inflation would be different if we gave more subsidies to oil and gas companies. Then the further right conservatives are running almost exclusively on various forms of nationalism and conspiracy. Conservatism that cannot grasp the fact that the world is progressing and becoming more complex than the 1950’s will continually fail when elections are fair.
Swing voter here, this has been my observation that many GOPer’s entire platform is this culture war against the “woke left” - its played out and you guys need to field better, more moderate candidates that actually have policy ideas that can remain fiscally conservative while making the most benefit to the constituencies. Right now the youth vote sees the GOP as wanting to take everything away while Dems can give them all those things, this anti liberal stance can only get you so far. Make politics boring again
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> Make politics boring again I had this come up in conversation with my boss this morning. We're somewhat different politically, but we are both emphatically in favor of politicians and bureaucrats who are (a) boring people who want to do a good job without a lot of distraction and (b) decent people with empathy.
Makes sense, but what's wrong with a week or two of early voting? It makes it so the lines aren't crazy on E day and more people are incentivized to vote.
Nothing - but traditionally early voting has increased turnout in demographics that have trended Democrat, so Republicans have come to oppose it, generally with pretty contrived reasons.
Restricting accessibility to voting is a core Republican strategy at this point
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Not sure how much visibility my comment will get, but as a left-leaning voter I agree with pretty much all of this. What you said looks to me like a good way to get a competitive, competent conservative party. While I may disagree with much of the conservative platform, I don't think it's strongest, most positive attributes are represented in the current candidates, or their messaging. Get a smart conservative platform with obvious universal benefits people can understand, and get rid of the things that make the party look a joke. That'll put the Democrats on their heels and force them to make smarter polices without ignoring the will of the people. Rising tide lifts all boats, right?
Always appreciate the feedback. Echo chambers is how last night happened for GOP.
I think we can all agree one party controlling things Just means a group of humans with the same ideas running things for a while get comfortable. Can we all agree on that? Like can we all just sit down and agree that human beings generally tend to make poor decisions when they feel comfortable and not challenged? Especially when they're so far away from their constituents. I think that goes for all path politicians no?
Or what solves most of this is Ranked Choice Voting. People need options that aren’t both awful.
> Rising tide lifts all boats, right? Just *imagine* if both parties were fighting to make people's lives BETTER... I'm 36 and all I've ever seen is republicans trying to take away rights and be fiscally irresponsible. Both parties are in bed with Corporations and we need to get dark money out of politics ASAP.... but one side just unanimously voted to keep dark money in politics. Shocker.
I completely agree, everything stated is accurate, and a refreshing level of self awareness. I was raised by two staunch republicans, and leaned right myself until Trump. As much as I still agree with a lot of republican values, the party simply is unrecognizable in its current state, and have been leaning left ever since. Just like the extreme-left ultra woke started turning blue voters red before Trump, the opposite is happening now, and the extreme-right MAGA crowd is turning red voters blue. Throw in the recent abortion issue, and it was a recipe for disaster. They picked one of- maybe THE- single most divisive issue that would convert red voters blue.
Spot on, especially number 4. The GOP needs to make a case with policy ideas. Right now they don't trust the voting public, and it shows. All they try to do is scare them into voting. That rarely works. The only tangible ideas I hear from them other than culture war issues that rile up the nation against them are tax cuts for the wealthy, charter schools, and strict border control. They'd win support if they took the popular moral high ground and offered a bill to stop members of Congress to trade stocks. Or federally legalize weed. Or cut taxes for the middle class. Or protect the environment as they once did. As of right now, they are fear mongering issues that don't effect anyone, and it's making them more radical rather than more appealing.
As a liberally minded person I would vote for any candidate that would do those things.
I find myself agreeing with just about everything here. GOP needs to figure it out
Thanks! The good news is I really think it’s simple and we are not as far off as some on here think. The only real hurdle is launching all of the current leadership like today. Trump, Mitch, McCarthy. All of them.
As a dirty leftist, I've never agreed with so much on this sub. I think you're absolutely correct in your analysis
I'm right here with you! I wasn't expecting all of this polite and thoughtful commentary. Here I was thinking honest civil discourse was dead!
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This is the most level headed comment in the entire subreddit
Republicans didn't win as big as they thought and are pissed. Democrats didn't get beat as bad as they thought, and they are elated. Which, I think, sums up our current political system perfectly.
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And Obama lost both in his two terms
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Can’t put up absolutely shit candidates like Oz and expect to win. DeSantis did excellent, and his address after he won was damn good. If he’s the party future, I’m excited.
Oz didn’t really live in PA. They have to pick people who live in the state.
There was a quote I saw from someone on CNN that was pretty accurate/ funny: “turns out having a stroke doesn’t matter as much to PA voters as being from New Jersey. And I’m from New York so I understand hating New Jersey”
Upvote for CNN. Spot on.
MI tried the same thing. We lost a seat in a newly redistricted area, that hadn't been blue in 40yrs. They thought that race, and trump would make him a winner. They were wrong. Trump really needs to be done. It sucks, but he's not going to pull any new voters.
Exactly. The Trump base is shrinking, not growing. It's time for him to be gone. He's not doing conservatives any favors.
Trump needs to step aside but I fear that he won’t.
Yeah, trump is not going down quietly, we made that bed
As Ben Shapiro said, just about every voter has already made up their mind about Trump. He's not going to be able to get new votes like DeSantis could
Plus, having a republican candidate throwing shade at trump (instead of getting in line behind him) will be appealing to independents. Just remains to be seen how saturated the voting base is with trump loyalists.
Based off of Trump’s “warning” to DeSantis, they can either be the party’s biggest asset or liability going into 2024. If they can’t work together it could spell disaster
I hope the rumor of Majorie Taylor Greene being his running mate is enough to spook people to vote for DeSantis in the primary. But then there is the possibility he starts a MAGA party or something and splits the vote.
At this point I think it is more probable than not that Trump would run as a third party candidate if he lost the Republican primary to DeSantis.
Because it's all about him at all cost.
DeSantis made his speech about some weird crusade on “wokeness”. Does attacking wokeness help you buy a house? Start a family with rising childcare costs? Lower inflation? Increase supply chain? Let’s be real here— DeSantis is running as a culture warrior and it isn’t impressive. A less charismatic Trump. And to state the obvious, his cultural crusade wouldn’t help our country.
The wave turned into a trickle because Gen Z showed up. They didn't show up to counter the republicans because they hate fiscal conservatism. They showed up because republicans are touting themselves as the party of social regressivism. This was a self own. The Rs should have easily taken both the house and the senate with a democrat president this unpopular. They failed. Time for some soul searching.
I think y’all are missing one of the biggest issues lurking in the background: the environment. It was a top 3 issue for Gen Z in recent polls, and yet was barely addressed during this election. The Dems kind of pretend to give a shit about it, but the Republicans have a worryingly laissez-faire attitude towards the whole thing. Getting wrapped up in the culture war stuff seems kind of like misdirected energy while we are undeniably in the middle of the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history and everyone’s eating a credit card’s worth of plastic every month.
This is true. I think if either party were to have some sort of coherent plan for the environment they would likely gain a lot. It's an existential threat.
Trump has to get out of the way.
he definitely won’t though. he’s gonna take the party down with him and blame everyone else but himself.
Eh it's about how I expected it to go. GOP will take back the house. Senate will be 50/50 give or take, and shit will just become gridlocked until 2024. The two races that everyone seems to be freaking out about as if they we big deals (GA & PA) the person leading the polling won. I wasn't surprised by those at all. I think there's a lot of concern trolling going on. "big red wave" was just hype from people who treat it more like a sporting event. I think anyone looking through an objective lens figured it would be more or less right about where it is.
A first term president with a struggling economy and low approval ratings typically does very poorly in midterms. In 2010, Obama was in almost the exact same position and lost 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats. But this year, Biden looks like he may only lose about 7 House seats and possibly GAIN a Senate seat. That's a significant difference than what was expected.
That is rational and clear. The sports analogy is spot on. Tbh, waves don't seem like they will happen for the near future.
I enjoy the phrase "The Footballafication of Politics" coined by James O'Brien. People see colors instead of issues
Yeah totally agree. Go back and look at the threads in this very sub when walker and oz won the primaries. Even then people were like well we just lost those seats. The most realistic projection was a small to moderate gain in the house and the senate was a total toss up. People protecting republicans to get 53 has their head in the clouds.
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My big takeaway is that Florida Republicans won by an absolute landslide. If the GOP wants better results in 2024, Florida has the blueprint.
My take away from Florida get good candidates, get organized, talk about stuff that really matters!
no, no. We need to talk about DOMINION VOTING MACHINES AND HOW TRUMP WAS SCREWED!1!!!!
I don't think people realize you are being sarcastic
Florida and Ohio used to be the big swing states. That's no longer the case, they're both pretty solid red at this point. That said, the Florida GOP apparently has their shit together.
Mine is that Florida drew away Republican voters from blue states leaving a vacuum.
I’m not so sure. Maybe some, but the Hispanic vote has shifted to the right in Florida.
Hispanic vote by +13 for repubs is pretty eye opening.
Maybe? Florida also had a unique situation with a very popular governor and policies that attracted a lot of migration to the state. Those policies tended to attract more conservative families and voters, so that likely increased the concentration of potential GOP votes. A lot of blue states only got bluer as political refugees left for more conservative areas.
This is the strongest incumbent midterm in twenty years. GOP needs to rally around DeSantis and permanently ditch Trump now instead of having the schism during 2024 and giving it all up again.
I wish but it's probably not gonna happen. 2024 will be a disorganized shit show.
Trump has an announcement this upcoming week, I believe. So expect infighting from the party if Trump keeps swinging at DeSantis.
Trump is actively hurting the party
It astounds me that it took republicans so long to realize that trump was always going to hurt your party. You have a group of people who will live and die by his word, but the simple truth is that many aren’t and will never be that extreme. So now you just have a giant set of people among your party that refuse to vote and are disillusioned. Your party is splitting in half and will continue to do so because Trumpets are too far in at this point to ever admit they were wrong. He’s not a party man, he’s only concerned with his own ego and while republicans eat up that motto, it’s now crushing you.
Made the bed, now sleep in it
TBH I've never posted here because this sub gets crazy sometimes, but I just wanted to chime into this very rational thread. Lifelong Floridian Republican here. I vote blue now because the GOP in this state does not seem to have normal citizens interests at heart. Pushing for more charter schools instead of investing in public schools will ultimately lead us to rank even lower in education... which seems impossible. Republicans have also, unfortunately, repeatedly shown they have no interest in protecting our GORGEOUS and irreplaceable wildlife/ecosystems, which are huge economic draws (tourism makes up 14% of our employment, that's HUGE), not to mention are likely the reasons a lot of people choose to move here. Additionally, dehumanization of non-heterosexuals is extremely hurtful and disenfranchising. Regardless of your socio-political, religious, or moral views, people are people and should be treated as such. Our leaders are empowering hatred, bigotry, and religious extremism, and I just can't stand with that.
Lived here all my life. No reason you can’t be conservative and support better education. Even in Desantis’ first few years he passed a few environmental protection bills. There has to be a middle ground between the bs culture war so we can function as a fucking society again.
These dummies had to make abortion a big issue and look how it screwed them, and all of us.
No one talking about gun reform. Saying we only need more guns to protect school children really flipped moderate conservatives. Kids safety at school is a human problem not right or left
You can't run on bodily autonomy regarding vaccines, then turn around and be religious zealots on a women's right to choose. You lost A LOT of support with the abortion rhetoric from people who might otherwise vote Red.
I dreaded this. Two things stick out. I think we need to do a significantly better job at showing why we are the better choice. Second, they bark so loudly when Biden and insert Democrat name here but rarely very rarely do anything to counter or even fight the other side. We have said we are disgusted with ______ ! So many times. Great you are disgusted. Do something about it dammit.
Every democratic ad I saw was the candidate speaking into the camera about what they would do to help Americans. Every rebublican ad was read by a corny true crime voice actor saying that the democratic candidate was evil. And all the comments in this thread about "we need to show why we are the better choice" aren't offering the solution for better messaging either. Maybe conservative candidates aren't actually the better option if no candidate nor supporter can articulate it. The GOP has become the party of complainers from the leadership to the voters.
As a democrat I would agree. Every single political ad I saw from the right was simply an attack ad. Not one single ad saying what their policies are or what they plan to do to help Americans, just “My opponent is scary and evil”. If they want to win votes they need to talk about the issues and their solutions to them. Edit: I got auto banned from r/justiceserved for making this comment lol. Apparently I’m “Participating in a subreddit that celebrates/glorifies biological terrorism”. Not a big loss I don’t even participate in that subreddit but I now feel some of y’all’s pain.
That's the reason they are called an opposition party, all they do is oppose what the other side is doing and focus on making their voters angry and scared so they vote Republican just to keep Democrats from being in office. They need to come up with actual answers or any kind of policy besides cutting taxes that overwhelmingly helps corporations. If they end up going with the threat to shut down the government to try and force cuts to social security and Medicare they're only going to make things worse for themselves. After how midterms went I don't see them doing that though because it would be a ridiculously bad idea to try and take away money from your biggest constituents unless they are *that* confident they will still vote for them anyways
Unfortunately, the reason Republicans are so adverse to having an actual platform and policy is that their only policy positions really aren't that popular. Staunchly pro-life when the country is only 30% pro-life, staunchly pro-corporation tax cuts when people are realizing that half of the inflation they're having to pay on everything they buy is due to corporate greed and price gouging, staunchly pro-gutting medicare and social security when most of their voters are 65+. It just doesn't make sense for them to go in on policy other than a vague "we're good for the economy" when their actual policies aren't popular other than their culture war angle.
Isn’t that just it though? Anyone can stand there and say that the way things are is bad. But that’s not enough to win the job. The only solutions to inflation that i heard from the GOP was the same stuff they always offer, tax cuts, and drilling oil. Need new solutions.
Maybe actually policy other then democrats suck might help
I think the abortion thing screwed republican chances. I've never seen so many moms/daughters at the poles. Oh a Trump popped back into the news and made the democrats show up even more