Here is something I have been saying all along. Republicans may have won the battle with electing Trump but have, in the end, lost the war.
Before Trump appeared on the scene the Rs were already hemorrhaging Non-whites, women, the college educated and, most worrying for the Rs, the young. The New York Times has just put out a wonderful article detailing how the Rs started losing these demographics and how it has accelerated:
www.nytimes.com/…
Here are some excerpts:
Most strikingly, one-third of 2012 Romney voters who were under 40 in 2016 did not vote for Mr. Trump, but rather stayed home, voted for Mrs. Clinton or voted for a third-party candidate. Among the under-40 Romney voters who supported Mr. Trump in 2016, 16 percent appear to have defected from the party to vote for a Democratic House candidate in 2018. Of course, we don’t know how they will vote in 2020, but what this means is that in the past two elections Republicans may have lost more than 40 percent of Romney voters born after 1976.
Republican House candidates performed worse among 18- to 39-year-olds than they have in decades. The voters Mr. Trump and his party lost in 2016 and 2018 represent the future of American politics. If the Republican Party becomes the party of the past — that is, of aging white men with less education — it could make winning elections increasingly difficult.
(I would say nearly impossible. )
and
But it is the graying of the Republican coalition that is arguably the biggest threat to the party’s prospects. It is true that on average, older people are more reliable voters than younger people. But the partisan identities and voting behaviors that people adopt early in the life cycle tend to stick, becoming routines that people carry on for the remainder of their lives.
(and when the old white men are gone, no one will be replacing them.)
It’s been said that Trump is some kind of anomaly, I don’t think so. The Republican party has been slowly becoming the party of old white men for a while, out of touch with current America, he just accelerated the process. He exemplifies the mentality of the ‘gosh it was better back when’ and ‘this country is going to hell in a hand basket’ mentality of most of his supporters who are oldand gray. That is why they voted for him. He is one of them. And that is why they will support him no matter what. You never turn on one of your own.