For the first time since FDR and the Great Depression, voters who identify as Republicans outnumber Democrats by a significant margin, according to data released this week by Gallup. Not just Gallup, either. Political analyst Patrick Ruffini noted Monday, "After the exit polls were reweighted to reflect the final popular vote result, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by 5 points in the AP VoteCast survey and by 4 points in the network exit polls."
Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1928.
So what changed?
In the last 16 years, we've had 12 years of hard-left Democrat presidents who got everything they wanted, legislatively, in their first two years and then took advantage of "the ratchet effect" to lock in their gains. Now we have more self-ID'd Republicans than Democrats for the first time in almost a century.
I submit that these two items are not unrelated.
And Another Thing: I'd also add that Democrats have grown addicted to playing chicken against Republicans — against the entire budgeting process, really — with their debt limit games. Continuing Resolutions essentially forced one GOP-controlled Congress after another to put Obama's 2009-2011 budgets on repeat, and now again with Biden's 2021-2023 budgets, even though Republicans were given control of Congress both times to put a stop to Democratic overspending and overregulation.
Maybe the GOP would have done better against Obama in 2012 if they'd nominated someone a little more Reaganesque and a lot less Mitt Romney. Of course, 2012 was also the last time Republicans nominated a nice guy candidate, and again, I submit that these two items are not unrelated.
Don't get me wrong — I'm not denying President-reelect Donald Trump the credit he deserves. But we were probably never going to get Ronald Reagan without Jimmy Carter's fecklessness, and we were probably never going to get Trump without Obama's overreach.
But part of being a successful politician — maybe the most important — is timing, knowing it's your moment, even when the odds appear impossible.
There was a brief moment in 2004, during the winning days of the Iraq War, when Republicans drew even with Democrats. Fake news coverage of Hurricane Katrina and Iraq descending into civil war on George W. Bush's watch undid that very quickly.
"The question that naturally will get asked next is whether this is a new equilibrium or a short-term mirage," Ruffini asked, just as I was forming the question myself. Ruffini also noted that "Partisan polarization is one big reason why now might be different. The 'ancestral' Democrat who identifies as a Democrat and votes for the party’s candidates downballot while being a de-facto Republican federally is gradually becoming extinct."
"If you voted for Trump," he concludes, "you’re more likely to just call yourself a Republican."
I'd add to that this caveat: "It depends."
If Trump is going to lock in GOP gains, he has to keep winning until we're almost sick of all the winning — i.e., he has to live up to his campaign promises. I joked (bitterly, once more) during the W years that Republican presidents are considered failures when they don't deliver on their promises, but Democrat presidents are considered failures when they do.
So just do what you said you would, Mr. President-reelect.
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P.S. I traveled back in time this morning to tell FDR the news that his midwit successors have totally sullied the brand he spent three-plus terms working so hard to define, and then I snapped this pic of him.
Dang, I should have gotten a selfie.
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