I don't think that the GOP would be able to get that kind of unity behind a total obstruction agenda. At least some of the GOP senators would still be from states that are purplish or trending toward blue, and at least some of the GOP senators might want to run for president some day. There's lots of ways that counter-majoritarian institutions might threaten US democracy in the years to come, but a party relying on a slim Senate majority to stymie everything can be punished at the polls two years later - so I don't think it's at the top of the list of threats.
That's a different situation than the one superdave described. When the GOP retook the Senate in 2014, they also held the House - so there was no chance that a Democratic House and President could combine forces to pass and promote popular legislation, and then pin obstruction on the Senate. More importantly, in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections, the GOP won the House popular vote by a substantial margin, and could thus claim some sort of public mandate for opposition. In superdave's hypothetical future scenario they'd be using the Senate to nullify a big loss in the most recent popular vote; the potential for political backlash would be different. Obviously, I'm not saying that the GOP would have some moral objection to exploiting the Senate to obstruct a majority party; rather, that their doing so could be electorally costly in pretty short order.
Hey, the woman I voted for won the mayor's race. First female mayor in 156 years (edit: i.e. "ever") And an out lesbian won a seat on council.
Republicans have baked-in institutional control of the Senate for the foreseeable future, a massive media rubber room, and a constituency that is marvelously impervious to any self-reflection whatsoever. They've successfully destroyed the institutions of the press and the government, not to mention the notion of objective truth. I honestly don't think they care one bit about what people think.
They have an advantage, but I think that if the 2020 election was held today, the Dems would take the White House, House, and Senate. Not every small population state is Republican, and the number of red states that seem to be trending toward flipping Dem currently seems at least as high as the number trending back the other way (although that could change). However, I do agree that the potential for rural, small population states to thwart the majority via the Senate is a growing problem, and more so because the Senate is responsible for approving a fully unaccountable and potentially increasingly partisan federal judiciary. That's why if the Democrats take over both branches of government, they should probably immediately grant statehood to DC, Puerto Rico, St. Louis, Brooklyn, and Martha's Vineyard (OK, maybe the last three would be a stretch). That attitude apparently didn't work out too well for Matt Bevin.
The Democrats also flipped Chester County, a Philly suburb. https://pennsylvania.totalvote.com/Chester/ResultsSW.aspx?type=COU&cid=03&map=CTY There were a couple of interesting factoids about 2016. One was a comparison of Hillary counties to Trump counties by gross county product. Hillary CRUSHED Trump. Another was a breakdown of the top (I think) 100 counties in the US by average income. Again, Hillary did very well. If this is a permanent realignment, it’s a weird one. The GOPs are dominating all the backwards looking areas, and the Dems are dominating every place that’s growing.
Virginia is the prime example. Highly educated population, growing incomes, suburban (to DC). Even within the state, the Northern part with the richest counties (Fairfax, Arlington, Loundon, Prince William) close to Washington is overwhelmingly blue now while the southern part, relatively poor, is trending red.
Go ahead GOP......Reverse the will of the People... Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers (R) told reporters that a joint session of the Kentucky General Assembly — which is controlled by Republicans — may eventually decide the winner of last night’s close gubernatorial race, “citing a provision in the state constitution that hasn’t been used in 120 years,” the Louisville Courier Journal reports. The state Constitution says “contested elections for governor and lieutenant governor shall be determined by both houses of the General Assembly, according to such regulations as may be established by law.” Stivers said his staff believes that might apply in this case.
Hello States of Puerto Rico, Pacifica America (The Territories in the Pacific) and perhaps even a Washington DC State. Ok, What name would Washington DC take if they became a State, I guess that they can not be Washington, maybe they can go with East Washington.
All I can find says 2/3rds in 2016, but measured by county. 3/5 in 2018. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/15/cha...t-modern-economy-republicans-left-behind.html This one says 2/3rds of districts. https://www.axios.com/hillary-clint...ump-4ef0e297-123c-4974-8af3-d211a288c45a.html
In my local election, the Republicans drafted a conservative Democrat to face the Bernie Bra** Democratic incumbent and it paid off. The takeaway is that the Democrats can indeed veer too far left to be politically viable. Big implications. **I just made that up. It's a female Bernie Bro. Get it? Where do I pick up my comedy award?
Only in swing and verging on swing districts. In the majority of the areas I've lived in (not where I live now) the reanimated corpse of Leon Trotsky-D would win over anyone with an R after his name.
Well, I was kind of getting at the opposite. My area is very far left and so the Dems duly nominated a very far left candidate. The Republicans nominated a conservative Democrat. Their math was Republicans + Conservative Democrats = success and they got it right.
I'm not hearing any Virginia slander from a Marylander right now. We are proud to hang these Thin Blue Line flags in Government House to honor our brave law enforcement officers. A local elected official prohibiting police from displaying a flag given to them by a grateful child is disgraceful. pic.twitter.com/PmPGzfSSF1— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) November 3, 2019 There has been a push to keep the name more recently including Washington, Douglass Commonwealth.
Most of the places I've lived the trick wouldn't work because just having an R after a name no matter of their politics would sink them. The last liberal Republican to win statewide office in MD was Mathias in I believe 1978.
They stopped pretending to care about democracy quite a while ago, so I'm not even a little bit surprised.