The major problem is the kind of conservatives who would win elections are incongruent with the kind of conservatives who win primaries. Glen Youngkin (another good example of how a conservative can win) only got nominated because Virginia has a unique system.
This is a problem of the GOP’s own making, and I don’t really see a good way out unless someone other than DeSantis or Trump wins the primary AND goes on to win in 2024, which is a long shot on both counts.
I actually think Tim Scott is another good case for this. It's not clear to me he would currently be senator if he had to win a primary in the first place.
He initially got his spot after being appointed to it by Nikki Haley after Jim Demint resigned.
DeSantis as "jerk" seems more an alternate reality narrative spread by Democrats than much that's observable though. Many people contorted themselves in knots to be outraged by the Martha's Vineyard thing, which has otherwise completely disappeared from the cycle. And his positive vision is of a successful FL and he does make positive cases for his education reforms by focusing on literacy and math. He hasn't even taken the angry, bitter bait from Trump. Long story short is that the same people insisting he's a jerk were pre-ordained to always hate him, so it's easier to make up reasons.
He revels in trolling and triggering opponents as much as any modern Republicans. The outrage is the point. If you seriously believe there is no difference between Fox News headlines-leading altar boy DeSantis and the fake-compassionate conservatives like Bush or Reagan that's your pejorative, but he's not the first standard bearer worshipped by Republican elites who flop once entering the national arena. Motivated reasoning is hell of a drug.
Perhaps Yglesias would counter this argument by saying public attention to a highly political and highly public deficit argument would reduce the likelihood of productive compromise on the issue. Takes away the maneuvering room necessary for Secret Congress(TM) to work out a deal.
I have to laugh. In discussing 2024 with my father a month or so ago, the first name out of my mouth for a Republican that would make sense if the party wanted to tack away from Trump was Scott. I just don't see the base of the party really getting behind him, though.
On a separate matter, I did want to go into is the evangelical politics matter. Arguably, the Trump years gave them a foothold they lacked in prior administrations. They likely think that January 2017-2021 was extremely successful given the longer term results we've seen so far (and are likely to continue seeing from the current Supreme Court makeup).
I wouldn't expect them to go quietly into the night, regardless of shrinking religious participation. I suspect they'll still seek their pound of flesh quite fervently, looking to entrench their progress from the Trump years.
I don't expect evangelicals to go quietly into the night, either. But I think under George W. Bush they saw themselves as ascendant, believing they could broadly shape policy and culture around their goals. Today, I think they understand themselves as countercultural, and are more focused on carving out a space to pursue their moral worldview than on trying to build a whole society around it. For example, in 2004, they thought they could prohibit gay marriage because they had public opinion on their side; now, they want to stop the government from requiring their private institutions (not just churches but also schools and businesses etc) to conform to a consensus around gay equality that exists not just in policy but also in public opinion. They're in a defensive position rather than an offensive one, perceiving a majority of the public as against them, and that implies a politics that is less hopeful and more bitter.
Also, I think that in the GWB days there was a reasonably coherent conservative Christian vision about the future of the country. You could read about it from Richard John Neuhaus in First Things; Ross Douthat is like the ghost of this POV.
They weren't wrong that the social forces that have made gay marriage mainstream also worked against the family. I'm gay and I want kids and I'm annoyed that my cultural world regards kids as an expensive luxury.
The problem is that only Mormons actually have a family-centered culture. I can understand conservative attitudes towards gay people and women when they come from people who actually pull off the trick of having big happy families.
I genuinely respect the minivan! The Trump phenomenon seems to have proved the Mormons were sincere about the traditional family, but that Evangelical leaders are mostly hucksters driven by greed, prejudice and resentment.
This dovetails nicely with Josh's recurring cry of "have you noticed that Joe Biden might actually be good at politics?"
Being a candidate that turns off moderates and hypes up your opposition is bad, actually! T-shirt salesmen at Trump rallies have said they couldn't move anti-Biden merch the way they moved anti-Hilary merch.
Republican primary voters oughta learn a lesson from the candidate who won, not the one who lost.
I think this is a good question. And I've proposed this idea to several friends who have died on the hill that Trump is the worst thing ever for the country. If they really believe that and really don't want to see him nominated, then they SHOULD vote in the GOP primary (in states where this is allowed). It's what is best for the country after all, right? Right...
Depending on the state, plenty. Many states have open primaries. In 2008, John McCain won New Hampshire and South Carolina. But in those states, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee won among registered Republicans, respectively.
And the absolutely scandalous Democratic support for far right insurrectionists and election deniers is well documented. Josh’s shockingly, screamingly awful take on this subject a few months ago caused me to unsubscribe from the blog for a time.
There's a big difference between "Democrats voting in Republican primaries" and "people who haven't registered as Republicans in states where you don't have to register with a party to vote in primaries, voting in Republican primaries."
This is a difference, but I'm not sure it's a big difference. In open primary states, like South Carolina, there is no party registration at the primary stage. That is to say, whether someone is registered with any particular party is not collected in the primary. So otherwise-registered partisans can vote in either primary.
Obviously, you can compare the voter rolls to party registration, and in fact my original comment was incorrect; I said "registered" Republicans, but in truth it was "self-identified" Republicans, my bad.
The point is that open primaries can very easily be manipulated and diluted by members of opposing parties. It doesn't take a conspiracy or even much organization. I don't know the precise extent to which it actually happens (and it seems like data overall is lacking; doing the comparison I mentioned is probably not that easy), and in fact despite the high stakes of elections in the US, they don't actually attract that much attention or spending.
For example, considering the budgets controlled by the federal government, it doesn't follow that only $1-2 billion are spent on presidential campaigns, when winning grants control over trillions. According to the treasury, the Federal government has already spent $1.5 trillion in 2023.
I'm sceptical this happens in any sort of large numbers. Voting in an R primary means not voting in a D primary, which are contested in most presidential elections; as the lady from Idaho who wrote to Josh last year described, there's a pretty big stigma against participating in Republican elections when you're a Democrat; and when it does happen, I would assume the vast majority of it is Dems in deep red states voting for the less extreme of the Republican candidates, which I would view as a good thing.
Blue state Republicans won’t win a national primary. If they’re smart they won’t even compete. I still like Haley, but she timed her moves poorly and I think she’s a spent force. Pence just doesn’t have what it takes in general, and his love-hate thing with Trump is going to sink him.
Youngkin, Kemp, and Scott are a different story, and I like them all very much. But it seems like no one has name ID to compete with Trump, De Santis, and Pence.
The major problem is the kind of conservatives who would win elections are incongruent with the kind of conservatives who win primaries. Glen Youngkin (another good example of how a conservative can win) only got nominated because Virginia has a unique system.
This is a problem of the GOP’s own making, and I don’t really see a good way out unless someone other than DeSantis or Trump wins the primary AND goes on to win in 2024, which is a long shot on both counts.
I actually think Tim Scott is another good case for this. It's not clear to me he would currently be senator if he had to win a primary in the first place.
He initially got his spot after being appointed to it by Nikki Haley after Jim Demint resigned.
DeSantis as "jerk" seems more an alternate reality narrative spread by Democrats than much that's observable though. Many people contorted themselves in knots to be outraged by the Martha's Vineyard thing, which has otherwise completely disappeared from the cycle. And his positive vision is of a successful FL and he does make positive cases for his education reforms by focusing on literacy and math. He hasn't even taken the angry, bitter bait from Trump. Long story short is that the same people insisting he's a jerk were pre-ordained to always hate him, so it's easier to make up reasons.
He revels in trolling and triggering opponents as much as any modern Republicans. The outrage is the point. If you seriously believe there is no difference between Fox News headlines-leading altar boy DeSantis and the fake-compassionate conservatives like Bush or Reagan that's your pejorative, but he's not the first standard bearer worshipped by Republican elites who flop once entering the national arena. Motivated reasoning is hell of a drug.
You don’t think “where woke goes to die” is jerkish? It’s certainly not “a positive vision”.
The media lifetime of his MV stunt has no bearing on whether it was a dick move or not, so I don’t understand that point.
Desantis not taking the bait from trump is strategic, not a reflection of whether his overall persona is that of a jerk or not.
Perhaps Yglesias would counter this argument by saying public attention to a highly political and highly public deficit argument would reduce the likelihood of productive compromise on the issue. Takes away the maneuvering room necessary for Secret Congress(TM) to work out a deal.
I have to laugh. In discussing 2024 with my father a month or so ago, the first name out of my mouth for a Republican that would make sense if the party wanted to tack away from Trump was Scott. I just don't see the base of the party really getting behind him, though.
On a separate matter, I did want to go into is the evangelical politics matter. Arguably, the Trump years gave them a foothold they lacked in prior administrations. They likely think that January 2017-2021 was extremely successful given the longer term results we've seen so far (and are likely to continue seeing from the current Supreme Court makeup).
I wouldn't expect them to go quietly into the night, regardless of shrinking religious participation. I suspect they'll still seek their pound of flesh quite fervently, looking to entrench their progress from the Trump years.
I don't expect evangelicals to go quietly into the night, either. But I think under George W. Bush they saw themselves as ascendant, believing they could broadly shape policy and culture around their goals. Today, I think they understand themselves as countercultural, and are more focused on carving out a space to pursue their moral worldview than on trying to build a whole society around it. For example, in 2004, they thought they could prohibit gay marriage because they had public opinion on their side; now, they want to stop the government from requiring their private institutions (not just churches but also schools and businesses etc) to conform to a consensus around gay equality that exists not just in policy but also in public opinion. They're in a defensive position rather than an offensive one, perceiving a majority of the public as against them, and that implies a politics that is less hopeful and more bitter.
Also, I think that in the GWB days there was a reasonably coherent conservative Christian vision about the future of the country. You could read about it from Richard John Neuhaus in First Things; Ross Douthat is like the ghost of this POV.
They weren't wrong that the social forces that have made gay marriage mainstream also worked against the family. I'm gay and I want kids and I'm annoyed that my cultural world regards kids as an expensive luxury.
The problem is that only Mormons actually have a family-centered culture. I can understand conservative attitudes towards gay people and women when they come from people who actually pull off the trick of having big happy families.
I genuinely respect the minivan! The Trump phenomenon seems to have proved the Mormons were sincere about the traditional family, but that Evangelical leaders are mostly hucksters driven by greed, prejudice and resentment.
This dovetails nicely with Josh's recurring cry of "have you noticed that Joe Biden might actually be good at politics?"
Being a candidate that turns off moderates and hypes up your opposition is bad, actually! T-shirt salesmen at Trump rallies have said they couldn't move anti-Biden merch the way they moved anti-Hilary merch.
Republican primary voters oughta learn a lesson from the candidate who won, not the one who lost.
I oughtn't to intrude on an intra-Dem convo - but do you have to be really likeable, or just more likeable than Kamala Harris?
And Democrats keep propping them up. It's hard to take this "problem" seriously when the Democrats are really just pretending it's a problem.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/12/democrats-interfere-republican-primaries/
Quick question, how many Democrats are voting in Republican primaries?
I think this is a good question. And I've proposed this idea to several friends who have died on the hill that Trump is the worst thing ever for the country. If they really believe that and really don't want to see him nominated, then they SHOULD vote in the GOP primary (in states where this is allowed). It's what is best for the country after all, right? Right...
Depending on the state, plenty. Many states have open primaries. In 2008, John McCain won New Hampshire and South Carolina. But in those states, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee won among registered Republicans, respectively.
And the absolutely scandalous Democratic support for far right insurrectionists and election deniers is well documented. Josh’s shockingly, screamingly awful take on this subject a few months ago caused me to unsubscribe from the blog for a time.
There's a big difference between "Democrats voting in Republican primaries" and "people who haven't registered as Republicans in states where you don't have to register with a party to vote in primaries, voting in Republican primaries."
This is a difference, but I'm not sure it's a big difference. In open primary states, like South Carolina, there is no party registration at the primary stage. That is to say, whether someone is registered with any particular party is not collected in the primary. So otherwise-registered partisans can vote in either primary.
Obviously, you can compare the voter rolls to party registration, and in fact my original comment was incorrect; I said "registered" Republicans, but in truth it was "self-identified" Republicans, my bad.
The point is that open primaries can very easily be manipulated and diluted by members of opposing parties. It doesn't take a conspiracy or even much organization. I don't know the precise extent to which it actually happens (and it seems like data overall is lacking; doing the comparison I mentioned is probably not that easy), and in fact despite the high stakes of elections in the US, they don't actually attract that much attention or spending.
For example, considering the budgets controlled by the federal government, it doesn't follow that only $1-2 billion are spent on presidential campaigns, when winning grants control over trillions. According to the treasury, the Federal government has already spent $1.5 trillion in 2023.
I'm sceptical this happens in any sort of large numbers. Voting in an R primary means not voting in a D primary, which are contested in most presidential elections; as the lady from Idaho who wrote to Josh last year described, there's a pretty big stigma against participating in Republican elections when you're a Democrat; and when it does happen, I would assume the vast majority of it is Dems in deep red states voting for the less extreme of the Republican candidates, which I would view as a good thing.
Josh has been open about the Dem's financial support of far right candidates, so I was a little surprised by this particular take.
It seems to me the point about "we the voter" is being missed here.
Why are we voting in for these wingnuts .... on both sides.
What are we not getting from our government that we are electing these extremists?
Gaetz, Taylor-Green, AOC, Bush (by the way, I'm from Missouri, your welcome!)
Shouldn't we look more at us?
They are just doing what we sent them there to do .... represent our displeasure and extreme positions.
The general theme seems to be more elected official is the good one .... yours is bad.
Fix yours ....
When that goes on everywhere we get the mess we deserve.
Youngkin, Sununu, Haley, possibly Kemp and Hogan, even Pence will all present “sunny” versions of conservatism in the GOP primary.
Blue state Republicans won’t win a national primary. If they’re smart they won’t even compete. I still like Haley, but she timed her moves poorly and I think she’s a spent force. Pence just doesn’t have what it takes in general, and his love-hate thing with Trump is going to sink him.
Youngkin, Kemp, and Scott are a different story, and I like them all very much. But it seems like no one has name ID to compete with Trump, De Santis, and Pence.