Republicans weigh response with eye toward future

If Trump loses the Nov. 8 presidential election to Democrat Hillary Clinton, his polarizing candidacy may reverberate well past 2016, tarring future Republican White House hopefuls,

The opposite is true. The main reason those repubs are slamming Trump is so he'll lose, making it easier for them to run in 2020.

They figure it will be easier to run against Hillary, whom everybody will REALLY hate by then, than trump, AND another dem that would run as well.

Repubs only have downhill open to them. Now maybe an serial ax murderer would draw some interest for the next election... Or perhaps a Nazi stormtrooper complete with authentic outfit (dolls would bring in some income, I suppose).

Or maybe we can get the corrupt Democrats out...if we only knew how....

if we only knew how....

Start by dropping the racism, bigotry, misogyny, class-discrimination and hatred, and shift to basing your platform on realistic economic policies, and you could even sway me, who is as liberal as anyone.

Interestingly enough, in the extremely short period of self-reflection by the Republicans after the last election, these very things were suggested. Yet four years later you guys tripled-down and choose a candidate more extreme than any in history.

America needs a third major party as a viable alternative to Tweedledum and Tweedledee. And Americans need to start thinking about elections in terms of policies and character rather than tribal affiliations.

More broadly, they may ask: What’s the right side of history?

It's sad that this was written as an afterthought- and even sadder that for so many Republicans it actually is an afterthought.

The power structure of the Republican party has been fundamentally authoritarian for decades now. Tom "The Hammer" DeLay forced ideological conformity for years - it worked great for winning legislative votes but in the long run I think it's stifled independent thought in the GOP. Then the Tea Party threatened break that power, but all it really did was substitute an even more stringent demand for ideological purity. Ever since conservative political talk has been dominated by discussion of "RINOs" and "cuckservatives" and general obsession with having the right ideology - and anyone who doesn't has "sold out the party". Ironically, the only real selling out of the party happened back in the 70s, when racist southern Republicans lost the battle on segregation and just decided that abortion was going to be the new thing they'd use to trick Christians into voting for them. Now that authoritarian power structure has been hijacked by a self-serving carnival barker who is flushing the party's chances at election down the toilet.

Hopefully, a few years in the desert will make the GOP establishment realize that getting comfortable with diversity of thought is the only way to long-lasting success for the country. It may mean a few lost legislative votes because the party will be more like the Democrats in that they're individuals harder to wrangle to all go the same direction, but in the long term that diversity will become a crucible in which people with real leadership ability will be able to rise to the top.

StrangerlandOCT. 16, 2016 - 11:50AM JST Start by dropping the racism, bigotry, misogyny, class-discrimination and hatred, and shift to basing your platform on realistic economic policies, and you could even sway me, who is as liberal as anyone.

Yup. These things are the strategies of the authoritarian GOP - eventually all authoritarian groups have to demonize outsiders in order to protect their ideology from alternate opinions. Get rid of this and start presenting policy proposals based on evidence and rational argument and you'll create a solid conservative party. Once Republicans have re-learned how to win debates with their minds, maybe we can even get radical and start looking at de-gerrymandering and fixing our voting system.

They say this every election cycle, and as we can see by the absolute circus that the party has become this time around -- and THEY chose Trump! -- nothing ever changes for them except the threat to their existence growing. Now they are already choosing which of the other scumbags that was vying to be president to line up.

GO HILLARY ! 1/20/17 - "Madame President" !

Start by dropping the racism, bigotry, misogyny, class-discrimination and hatred, and shift to basing your platform on realistic economic policies, and you could even sway me, who is as liberal as anyone.

But it's perfectly ok for the Dems to maintain their oppressive subliminal government dependency racism, alienate Christians because of their hatred for religion (the party of diversity and tolerance lol) reverse discrimination towards Whites, hidden racism and preferential racism and favortism for one group over another secretly undermining Blacks and Hispanics, but favoring Jews and Indians as a more prosperous group. As for policies, besides copying Obama's radical policies, what are her specific policies besides raising taxes and ignoring the national debt and screwing and crushing the middle class more than they already are.

Interestingly enough, in the extremely short period of self-reflection by the Republicans after the last election, these very things were suggested. Yet four years later you guys tripled-down and choose a candidate more extreme than any in history.

Hey, when you have the majority of the mainstream media on your side to lie cheat, intimidate, distort, you can move mountains and I have to seriously hand it to the Democrats, they are a lot sneaker than I thought. I knew they were always sneaky, but this bad, even that blew me away.