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[Zaratustra]

Daily Kos has a nice little breakdown along identity lines. The grand takeaway? There are not enough men or white people to control the nation anymore.

There's a lot of people that could have defeated Obama in an election right now. It's just that none of them are Republican.

[Cthulhu-chan]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100188256/the-religious-right-is-dead/

took long enough

I won't go playing a funeral dirge just yet, but one can hope...

[Nickasummers]

You know, there are things I agree with republicans on and disagree with democrats on, but it is hard to vote for either party when everyone acts like such babies when they lose an election. Last night, when the election got called for Obama, my one uncle got drunk and started talking about how he would lose his job and his house because of Obama. This morning I find out my other uncle and his wife, who lived in Texas years ago but has lived in Ohio since shortly after their first child was born, are talking about moving back to Texas and basically disowning their 2 children (20 and 18) if they don't move with them. My cousins have to choose between financial hardship when they are barely old enough to be expected to be responsible, or throwing away their relationships and friendships. Because ONE of the SEVERAL HUNDRED people who run this nation got elected yesterday. This is fucking stupid.

[Thad]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100188256/the-religious-right-is-dead/

took long enough

I won't go playing a funeral dirge just yet, but one can hope...

Yeah, this.

I saw a good article yesterday saying this is the last election where anyone can run on opposing gay marriage.  I thought it was the NY Daily News but I can't find it just now.  I'll concede a "maybe, and it's bound to happen sooner or later", but I'm not so optimistic.

I agree with the notion that the religious right is being marginalized -- but, well, remember all our GOP Will Eat Itself predictions 4 years ago?  We got the Tea Party instead, and while they're ostensibly Libertarian-leaning, in practice there's a pretty massive overlap with the fundamentalists.

And they're still there.  Yes, every challenger dumb enough to mention rape babies got smacked the fuck down, but the incumbents pretty much did what incumbents do and coasted to reelection.  ('Cept Brown.  And Brown was the most reasonable Republican left in the Senate -- I'm thrilled to have Warren replacing him, but as Tea Party darlings go Brown was the least offensive.)

I guess that, long-term, I still agree that the Republican Party is either going to shake off the religious right, or the religious right is going to back off its current pet issues and find some groups that it's still socially acceptable to hate.  Short term?  Those slippery fuckers have proven pretty resourceful and I wouldn't write them off just yet.

[Brentai]

Maybe not "going away", but the GOP talking heads are already nearly unanimous in its opinion that moral extremism has flipped from an asset to a liability.

[Bal]

The basic truth that they're all talking about is that conservative white men not only cannot win elections anymore, but that that demographic is shrinking not only as a percentage of the electorate, but as a group. Additionally, the spread on the groups that Obama managed to win over (women, minorities, young voters, etc) is wider than the spread of the groups Romney was able to take.

I was also watching a Wall Street Journal analysis that brought up an interesting point. Before the Democratic mantra with regard to big business was that you could win without them in your corner directly, but you couldn't win with them aligned against you. However that is exactly what just happened.

Obama's election success is really founded in getting people to vote who didn't used to, and despite what everyone said after 2008, getting them to do it again four years later.  In particular, at least from my perspective, I feel like Obama, and the Dems in general if they can keep this up, have a really serious advantage with new/young voters. Specifically, those of us (which is pretty much all of us here) who came to political maturity under Bush. Traditionally young voters, well, aren't voters, but seizing the huge dissatisfaction among young people, who tend to be socially progressive, with eight years of social stagnation and feeling helpless to do anything about it, and telling them no, you can do something about it, and getting them to the poles in droves is going to pay dividends for years to come.

Now, I'm not saying Obama has been the greatest champion for social justice these last four years, but I don't feel like I need a pair of those glasses from They Live so much anymore.

[Thad]

Maybe not "going away", but the GOP talking heads are already nearly unanimous in its opinion that moral extremism has flipped from an asset to a liability.

Yeah, they were four years ago, too.

Party leaders acknowleding a problem and primary voters acknowledging a problem are very different things.  Especially if the leaders change their tune every two years depending on whether the crazies are winning or losing elections.

(And it bears repeating that damn near every Tea Partier elected in '010 got reelected in '012.)

[François]

The basic truth that they're all talking about is that conservative white men not only cannot win elections anymore, but that that demographic is shrinking not only as a percentage of the electorate, but as a group.

Funny thing is, it's their own damn fault. Rich old white men have engineered a system that is designed to make it more difficult than ever* to become a rich old white man.

*: well, in my lifetime at least

[Bal]

I never said rich. The triumph of the GOP for the last 50 years has been successfully convincing POOR white men that they have their best interests in mind, and being "liberal" is second only to treason.

[Brentai]

By convincing them that someday they're gonna be rich old white men, themselves.

Funny thing though, when you spend several decades beating the youth down to the point where the idea of being rich someday can only invoke a bitter laugh, that tends to become a hard sell.

We will eat GOP.

[Royal☭]

Becoming more convinced that the American conservative mindset comes about by a history that teaches the biggest problem people were concerned about in the 18th century was taxes on tea, rather than anything to do with our peculiar institution.

[Shinra]

Daily Kos has a nice little breakdown along identity lines. The grand takeaway? There are not enough men or white people to control the nation anymore.

There's a lot of people that could have defeated Obama in an election right now. It's just that none of them are Republican.

Marco Rubio could have done it, or Romney could have done it if he hadn't repeatedly sided on the hardline against immigration. This year was the best chance they had to deseat Obama, and instead of looking at it as an opportunity to embrace people disillusioned after the Bush years towards conservatism, they convinced themselves this election was just going to be about turnout, and swung so far to the right that their only hope was white men.

In four years, though, depending on how recovery goes, you might be absolutely right. Without major, sweeping changes to the Republican party they might be irrelevant for some time. I think the right is going to have a hard time convincing their new tea party members that embracing moderate and reasonable policies is the only way they're going to survive.

[Royal☭]

The loss to Obama isn't what's surprising. What comes as more of a shock is that the GOP failed to not only take the Senate but actually managed to lose seats to the Dems. Plus it looks like they're going to narrow the gap just a little bit in the House.

[Shinra]

The loss to Obama isn't what's surprising. What comes as more of a shock is that the GOP failed to not only take the Senate but actually managed to lose seats to the Dems. Plus it looks like they're going to narrow the gap just a little bit in the House.

What really surprises me is how little of a difference huge amounts of superpac money made in this election. A lot of candidates who outspent their opponents by 2:1 or more ended up losing handily.

[Bal]

Maybe it's that 30 and under crowd again. We've all been bombarded with advertisement basically every waking moment of our lives, maybe saturation campaigning just doesn't work on us to the same extent.

[Brentai]

"The Day America Died"?  Really?  You know you're retracting ever further into your own asshole when, by all metrics, this is only your third most crushing defeat in the last decade (and by corollary, your third best victory), but this, THIS is the end.

[Zaratustra]

apparently this was the final hail mary because in 2016 everyone will be government-kept dollies that are unable to crap on their own and america will sail off the FISCAL CLIFF into a world that no debts are paid and Greece and boiling frogs and sheep.

[Brentai]

To be fair, we already can't crap without the President watching.

[Brentai]

Looks like the trend is drifting toward less obstructionism in the second term already.  The GOP establishment is waking up to a warm cup of the idea that just because they can effectively block every single thing the President does, doesn't mean they should.  The current mandate means that we can go right off the fiscal cliff and it'll get pinned 100% on the House.  It may even be BETTER for Obama to have a red House under him - after all, he's starting to warm up to his predecessor's tricks, and his predecessors FAVORITE trick has always been turning to the obvious scapegoat.

Of course, that's all neighing from the head of the horse.  Whether the head is going to be at all successful at leading the ass remains to be seen.

[Sharkey]

Daily Kos has a nice little breakdown along identity lines. The grand takeaway? There are not enough men or white people to control the nation anymore.

Kind of hilariously, this is pretty much the same conclusion arrived at by O'Reilly in his, er... breakdown last night.

Plus, you know, a lot of blatant racism and assorted ugliness added for flavor. Even for him that was just... wow.