Series: Populist Democrats vs. Libertarian GOP, California a swing state?

[Nightingale]

Now I'm asking this because while I can say the Democrats would be dominant even in urban Los Angeles due to Latinos voting Democrat 95% (by-and-large, Latinos are socially conservative and economically progressive), I don't know how it will affect voters in the more northern parts of California, esp. in San Francisco.

Would the Republican's social liberalism and middle-to-upper-class appeal in the Bay Area and other cities and districts without much Latinos be enough to make the Golden State a battleground in elections?

In an America where the Democrats turn populist-communitarian and the Republicans turn into a semi-libertarian party, how would California vote in the present day?

 

[Arkenfolm]

They'd be lucky for state elections, for national elections, California will still be solidly Democrat, unless the GOP as a whole takes the turn toward that sort of policies. And California Republicans (at the least the ones elected from what you're imagining would now be semi-safe GOP seats) would be derided as RINOs by many other Republicans, kinda like New England Republicans tend to be.

 

[GrasshopperKing]

So I assuming you're talking about a pretty recent POD? The party system you describe is pretty similar to the one in No Southern Strategy, but that's still in the 80s, before California became out of reach of Republican presidential candidates IOTL.

 

[Nightingale]

So I assuming you're talking about a pretty recent POD? The party system you describe is pretty similar to the one in No Southern Strategy, but that's still in the 80s, before California became out of reach of Republican presidential candidates IOTL.

Yes, a party system similar to that.

 

[Towelie]

California was a swing state before the waves of Latino and Asian migration. The fact that the state GOP fought that has hamstrung them ever since.

You'd also have to clarify how socially liberal this GOP is. If they go too far, they lose their base in California in pursuit of voters who tend to value urban service delivery and environmentalism especially and probably won't jump. Environmentalism is a big sticker in California, as seen by the fish vs. farmers debate. If the GOP is libertarian, they probably aren't virtue signaling on the environment, and they probably aren't getting Bay Area votes in excess.

The one true area of growth would come from Silicon Valley voters. There aren't nearly enough of them to matter.

Swing voters in suburban areas generally are receptive to tough on crime appeals. The Democrats would have that nailed down in this case, while the Republicans wouldn't.

Essentially, you would have a Republican party that is too socially liberal to appeal to social conservatives, not environmentalist enough to appeal to elite upper middle class voters, have no chance whatsoever with Latinos, and too soft on crime to appeal to suburban voters (especially Asians, who are very receptive to tough on crime appeals as Stephen Harper in Canada proved). The only area we haven't touched on is black voters. My gut tells me that Black voters aren't going to line up behind a Libertarian-ish party, even if that party virtue signals on criminal justice. The Democrats still are the party of the benefits dole in this scenario.

Why in the hell would this party have a chance? It abandons its base, and probably at most nets a few percentage of tech bro types and black voters.

 

[Booster Gold]

California was a swing state before the waves of Latino and Asian migration. The fact that the state GOP fought that has hamstrung them ever since.

You'd also have to clarify how socially liberal this GOP is. If they go too far, they lose their base in California in pursuit of voters who tend to value urban service delivery and environmentalism especially and probably won't jump. Environmentalism is a big sticker in California, as seen by the fish vs. farmers debate. If the GOP is libertarian, they probably aren't virtue signaling on the environment, and they probably aren't getting Bay Area votes in excess.

The one true area of growth would come from Silicon Valley voters. There aren't nearly enough of them to matter.

Swing voters in suburban areas generally are receptive to tough on crime appeals. The Democrats would have that nailed down in this case, while the Republicans wouldn't.

Essentially, you would have a Republican party that is too socially liberal to appeal to social conservatives, not environmentalist enough to appeal to elite upper middle class voters, have no chance whatsoever with Latinos, and too soft on crime to appeal to suburban voters (especially Asians, who are very receptive to tough on crime appeals as Stephen Harper in Canada proved). The only area we haven't touched on is black voters. My gut tells me that Black voters aren't going to line up behind a Libertarian-ish party, even if that party virtue signals on criminal justice. The Democrats still are the party of the benefits dole in this scenario.

Why in the hell would this party have a chance? It abandons its base, and probably at most nets a few percentage of tech bro types and black voters.

We don't vote for the Democrats and a strong government because of benefits (I mean, wow). We vote for them because a strong government is the only thing that, in 400 years, has ever protected us from terrorism and wide scale human rights abuse. And because the Republicans virtue signal to white racists constantly and think we don't notice.

There just aren't enough white voters in California for the modern Republican party to have a shot. You'd have to have a Republican aligned but explicitly anti-racist right wing party in California for them to even get a chance on their actual platform

 

[Ivir Baggins]

We don't vote for the Democrats and a strong government because of benefits (I mean, wow). We vote for them because a strong government is the only thing that, in 400 years, has ever protected us from terrorism and wide scale human rights abuse. And because the Republicans virtue signal to white racists constantly and think we don't notice.

There just aren't enough white voters in California for the modern Republican party to have a shot. You'd have to have a Republican aligned but explicitly anti-racist right wing party in California for them to even get a chance on their actual platform

And because there's no third party for the white right to vote for, they end up with the Republicans, and as a result scare away the right-leaning black and latino vote - am I right?

 

[Booster Gold]

And because there's no third party for the white right to vote for, they end up with the Republicans, and as a result scare away the right-leaning black and latino vote - am I right?

Exactly. There's plenty of right wing blacks and latinos, but the race issue has so infested everything that they vote Democrat by default, just like the non-racist whites vote Republican.

 

[Towelie]

Exactly. There's plenty of right wing blacks and latinos, but the race issue has so infested everything that they vote Democrat by default, just like the non-racist whites vote Republican.

Not sure about Latinos. Generally, public opinion surveys show Latinos to be more communitarian in outlook in regards to the scope and role of government, which makes their support for the Democratic Party fairly non racial, but there are substantial amounts of Latinos who vote Republican, especially in Florida with the Cuban exile population (my extended family, for example), or in Texas, where Republican state governments have actively gone out of their way to appeal to them (George W. Bush did this especially), and where rates of home ownership and conversion to Evangelical Christianity are much higher than the national average. Republicans in Texas could not rule if they did not have substantial Latino support. Republicans in California fought a losing battle on immigration and now are on the verge of extinction. The party is basically broke, they couldn't even get someone in the runoff Senate election this year (and they might have had a chance based off of how much of a vacuous identity politicking joke that Kamala Harris is), and they have no mechanisms for training political candidates worth much of anything, based off of the fact that in recent years, all of their candidates in major races have been private sector business people of dubious repute (Carly Fiorina from HP, Meg Whitman, Neel Kashkari of TARP fame).

As for black voters, there is probably more truth in that. I know that in some southern states, voting is more like in developing countries, along ethnic lines to a fault. As for right wing blacks, I always thought that socially conservative black voters were like Latinos in that they had communitarian notions of government, but I could be very wrong about that. Economically conservative black voters are most likely to be in the upper middle class, and are probably the most likely to vote Republican, but I think that the farther the Republicans get away from people like Bush and Rove, who actively tried to diversify the party and encourage black candidates for the party, and closer to Trump, who proved that there actually WERE missing white voters who could be won, the less this will be the case.

 

[Bmao]

California actually was a swing state until the early 90s; its where Ronald Reagan gained famed as a governor and California did vote Republican in every election from 68 to 88. What pretty much killed the Republican party in California was Pete Wilson supporting Prop 187 and destroying any chance that the growing Latino population would ever vote Republican again.

However, if the Republicans in California made efforts like George W Bush in Texas to win over Latino voters, well, California will still continue to trend Democratic, but it wouldn't be so one-sided as it is now.

 

[Panica]

How to guide to US policy-
Ease of Advocacy:

Welfare > Free markets
Welfare > Weed
Welfare > National Security
Ethnic Identity > Better economic program


Democrats will win.

 

[Nightingale]

How to guide to US policy-
Ease of Advocacy:

Welfare > Free markets
Welfare > Weed
Welfare > National Security
Ethnic Identity > Better economic program


Democrats will win.

I don't know how a socially conservative Democratic Party will support recreational weed and I think they should be (Scoop) Jacksonian interventionist while supporting a welfare state, but for the rest, I agree.

A socially conservative Democratic Party, while possibly similar to the OTL Republicans in that aspect, will certainly not turn reactionary with their minority voters in a populist New Deal coalition.

@Panica, are those "greater than" signs or arrows? I'm confused, as I sometimes use the "greater than" signs as arrows in bulleted lists for note-taking.

 

[Panica]

I don't know how a socially conservative Democratic Party will support recreational weed and I think they should be (Scoop) Jacksonian interventionist while supporting a welfare state, but for the rest, I agree.

A socially conservative Democratic Party, while possibly similar to the OTL Republicans in that aspect, will certainly not turn reactionary with their minority voters in a populist New Deal coalition.

@Panica, are those "greater than" signs or arrows? I'm confused, as I sometimes use the "greater than" signs as arrows in bulleted lists for note-taking.

Yes X greater then Y.

 

[Nightingale]

Oh now i get it. Give Americans the support they deserve, and they'll support your other plans 100%, e.g. military. Well not 100%, but for the most part, yes.