CDZ Is the GOP truly close to collapsing, or is that just media scaremongering? Honest question/concern.

[Billy_Kinetta]

I do not support various political candidates and organizations because I agree with them. I support them because they agree with me.

This is a cute conceit; however, you are voting for someone to lead you, someone who, in all likleyhood has no idea who you are. In this context, your agreement with them seems more plausible than their agreement with you.

Au contraire, I am voting for someone who agrees with my positions and interests, and who will work to forward them. I have no use for would-be "leaders", only effective elected civil servants who follow the commands of their constituents, buffered by actual constitutional law.

 

[Elvis Obama]

There are only two possible outcomes now. Either the Republicans will honor the will of their voters and nominate Trump or Cruz, or (assuming the delegate math allows for this possibility) they will reject these two candidates and choose their own candidate, like the good old days.

Either way they become irrelevant. An electorate seething with rage over what they perceive to be a betrayal by their party will not take kindly to having their expressed will overturned. A Trump-led Republican party will be a disaster for them. There will be a lot of defections, and should Trump lose and prove to have coattails as small as his... hands, again it will be incredibly damaging to their power and brand.

 

[eruntalon3434]

Either the Republicans will honor the will of their voters and nominate Trump or Cruz, or (assuming the delegate math allows for this possibility) they will reject these two candidates and choose their own candidate, like the good old days.

It's funny you say that. The last time the Republican party refused to nominate the candidate with a plurality of delegates, it was 1940. The leader was Thomas Dewey (who would later go on to defeat Truman, as everyone knows), but in the contested convention he was swamped by support for a guy named Wendell Willkie. Willkie had never held office, was best known for being a wealthy industrialist, and eight years prior had supported Roosevelt in his Democratic bid for President. He won the nomination mostly due to a very loud group of supporters. The parallels are striking, only back then it was the "outsider" who subverted the will of the Republican constituents, while this time the "outsider" is the will of the Republican constituents. Nothing new under the sun, I guess.

 

[Fishlore]

I do not support various political candidates and organizations because I agree with them. I support them because they agree with me.

This is a cute conceit; however, you are voting for someone to lead you, someone who, in all likleyhood has no idea who you are. In this context, your agreement with them seems more plausible than their agreement with you.

Au contraire, I am voting for someone who agrees with my positions and interests, and who will work to forward them. I have no use for would-be "leaders", only effective elected civil servants who follow the commands of their constituents, buffered by actual constitutional law.

Assuming that you are an average American citizen and not an insider elite, how would any candidate possibly know what your positions and interests are?

 

[IsaacNewton]

So... the state of the Republican Party... yikes. I don't keep up with politics on an in-depth basis, but for those who know, exactly how bad is it right now? Like, "the party might collapse" bad? It looks pretty awful from the outside, but the media has a vested interest in making things look worse than they are, if only because drama means ratings. I'm an independent, so I wouldn't exactly weep for the GOP's passing, but the prospect of a single dominant national party in the wake makes me understandably apprehensive.

If Republican collapse is a real possibility, would the third parties that aren't totally insignificant (which pretty much means the Green and Libertarian parties) step up to prominence in its place, or would an entirely new party form in the power vacuum?

The last time America was under a one-party system (defined in this case as a party that has no appreciable competition for the White House and consistently holds more than two-thirds of both Congressional houses), it was from 1817 to 1827, during James Madison's presidency and shortly after. In an era before the internet, before television, before radio, before the telephone, even before the telegraph, it "only" took ten years before national races became competitive again.

On the other hand, the founding of the country was still in living memory at that time. The way of doing things was much more fluid, and we were still having to figure things out as we went along. Change was easier. Now? Not so much. Would the near-infinite improvements in communications make a successor party materialize faster, or would the now-much-stronger power structures in Washington slow the process down?

No it's the real deal this time. That party is going to fracture at least in two and likely in a thousand pieces and has already begun this process.

There are a minority, a large minority, but a minority of conservatives that simply cannot accept the changes in American society that have taken place over the last 25 years and their angst has reached the boiling point. They will not compromise another inch.

Since American democracy is constructed on a foundation of compromise that position will not stand very long. The regular Republican estrablishment knows this but have been powerless to stop the riled up tea party segment.

So the end result will be that party splintering, the various angry segments going to their own party, and a more moderate Republican party rebuilding itself.

American democracy is intentionally built to actively resist radicalism of all kinds. It bends to accomodate all, but at some point it stops bending. We are approaching that point very quickly now though its been building for more than two decades.

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

I do not support various political candidates and organizations because I agree with them. I support them because they agree with me.

This is a cute conceit; however, you are voting for someone to lead you, someone who, in all likleyhood has no idea who you are. In this context, your agreement with them seems more plausible than their agreement with you.

Au contraire, I am voting for someone who agrees with my positions and interests, and who will work to forward them. I have no use for would-be "leaders", only effective elected civil servants who follow the commands of their constituents, buffered by actual constitutional law.

Assuming that you are an average American citizen and not an insider elite, how would any candidate possibly know what your positions and interests are?

Well, to answer simply, ever hear of a "telephone"?

 

[320 Years of History]

I do not support various political candidates and organizations because I agree with them. I support them because they agree with me.

Hear, hear!

I'd add only that in light of ours being a republic, I expect the person I elect to exercise his/her judgment on matters that don't fall within the ambit of that which s/he promised do/not do during their campaign, and also for which no new information has come to the fore.