Post by The Horny GoatPost by BTR1701The term for people who used to be GOP before spending their time
advocating strongly for Democrats to win elections and pushing the
Democrat Party agenda is simply "Democrat strategist". Fine, free
country. But the media lie and call them GOP strictly for propaganda
purposes.
They call themselves Republican, and the media decline to re-label them
against their wishes.
Post by The Horny GoatWith all due respect isn't somebody who advocates voters vote Democrat
and does so him/herself not a "Democrat".
After the great realignment of the "Southern Strategy," yes, especially
if one did so consistently. It's that word "consistently" that's the
key. A large chunk of American voters identify as "independent," but
pollsters also recognize that most independents lean one way or the
other. However, there are those who may vote (and even register) one
way so as to have a say in the state and local primaries even if the
national politics of that party are not to their taste, because that
party dominates the state and local elections so much that the other
party almost never wins in the general elections.
Post by The Horny GoatPeople DO chane parties and one interesting poll concerning the recent
Canadian election is that only 70-75% of voters polled ended up voting
for the party they planned on voting for when the election was called.
Now Canada is not a 2-party state so there are more choices to vote
for (technically neither is the US but in practice none of the 3rd 4th
5th parties has a hope in hell of getting 5% of the popular vote
unlike Canada)
Exactly. Sometimes an independent or someone registered in X Party in
the U.S. has to ask themselves which faction of X Party is nominated in
a given race, and if they're O.K. with that faction. A moderate
Democrat may want to vote for a Mitt Romney type over a Bernie Sanders
type despite their party affiliation (assuming there's still someone
brave enough to run as an anti-Trump Republican in their area). A
moderate Republican may want to vote for a Joe Manchin type over a
pro-Trump type despite the party affiliation. The electoral math in
most parts of the U.S. turn what would be multiple smaller, more
specialized parties in your system into two larger, less wieldy parties
here.
My observation is that a significant minority of older people are
sticking with the label 'Republican' out of longstanding habit and
sentiment, but are anti-Trump. They think of it as a principled stand
against fascist upsurpation of their party of choice. But the reality
seems to be that despite what some of them may wish, the Republican
Party hasn't been the party of Eisenhower since Nixon went behind the
government's back to make a separate deal with South Vietnam in 1968.
It hasn't really been the party of Reagan for about 25 years. It hasn't
even been the party of Bush Jr. since Trump rode an escalator, and I
don't see things going back to the way they were before.
Some that still identify as Republicans seem to think that they can
campaign, not so much *for* Democrats, but *against* pro-Trumpers just
for an interim period until "Orange Julius Caesar"[1] is permanently
deposed from the de facto leadership of the GOP via prison, exile,
death, or abject humiliation, but there's been no shortage of imitators
eager to fill any vacuum he may leave behind as long as the faithful
keep sending in money. I think that in our two-party system, the
Republicans campaigning for Democrats are fooling themselves by clinging
to their old party affiliation. Some, as the late Colin Powell did,
have changed their registration to independent.
-Micky
--
[1] h/t Larry Wilmore