The death of the democratic party

is probably over-hyped. As an example, the 43 senators who intend to filibuster Gorsuch (all of whom are democrats, I believe) represent 53% of the country's population.

https://thinkprogress.org/senators-f...y-bb72b7e0c089

And the current democratic party senators received a combined total of almost 6 million more votes than the current republican senators.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...-too/93598998/

And we all know that Hillary got almost 3 million more votes than Mr. 46% of the popular vote.

But for the need to appease the slave states when the constitution was written things would be substantially different right now. Maybe the people who want to break California into six states have the right idea. I just wish my state would have a cooler name if that happened.

All true. All irrelevant. That's not a bug, it's a feature. I think the founders rightly thought that not allowing one or two highly populated regions to dominate without a certain level of support in the hinterlands would be necessary in the long term to hold the country together.

The Democrats had every advantage in 2016: An obnoxious opponent, a unified party establishment, oceans of cash and a toadying media. How then to explain the revenge of the flyover people? Arrogance. They fielded a candidate with the political acumen of Marie Antoinette, assuming ownership of an overwhelming portfolio of identity groups that were hers by right. Disdaining to campaign among the deplorables, she believed all that nonsense about being "on the right side of history", and paid the price.

I don't think the Democratic Party is dying. All they really need to do is drop the pretense of an intellectual elite shepherding a flock of identity groups and return to their traditional winning formula of taking from people we don't like to give to people we do like.

I think both parties are redefining their basic platforms and the next couple of years could be decisive. I googled "death of the republican party" and came up with several articles from reputable sources, all dated before the election and up through 2016. Their predictions were obviously off, possibly as much as any current predictions of the democratic party demise.

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Originally Posted by LDAHL

return to their traditional winning formula of taking from people we don't like to give to people we do like.

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Simplistic way of stating an erroneous assumption.

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Originally Posted by LDAHL

All true. All irrelevant. That's not a bug, it's a feature. I think the founders rightly thought that not allowing one or two highly populated regions to dominate without a certain level of support in the hinterlands would be necessary in the long term to hold the country together.

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Not sure how every city becomes one or two highly populated regions. Or why my presidential vote is only 1/7th as important as a resident of Wyoming's. Especially considering that CA, all by itself, is 1/6 of the global economy. Something seems a little off when the only importance of CA to the presidential race is in terms of fundraising value to the candidates since the CA election results every november are 100% certain.

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I don't think the Democratic Party is dying. All they really need to do is drop the pretense of an intellectual elite shepherding a flock of identity groups and return to their traditional winning formula of taking from people we don't like to give to people we do like.

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Or we need to figure out how to include the white folks from highly homogeneous/low population density areas as one of our identity groups. Since that demographic group seems to be largely uninterested in partnering with all the other groups whose backs the democrats have this would seem to be a difficult task. Perhaps a politician with more imagination than I possess can figure out how to do it.

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Originally Posted by jp1

Or we need to figure out how to include the white folks from highly homogeneous/low population density areas as one of our identity groups. Since that demographic group seems to be largely uninterested in partnering with all the other groups whose backs the democrats have this would seem to be a difficult task. Perhaps a politician with more imagination than I possess can figure out how to do it.

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But if identity politics derives its energy from the tension between groups, then a single all-inclusive group would be useless for political purposes.

True. If the republicans cant succed at demonizing those 'interest groups' they won't win many elections.

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Originally Posted by jp1

True. If the republicans cant succed at demonizing those 'interest groups' they won't win many elections.

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I wouldn't disagree that the worst Republicans share many attributes with the worst Democrats.