Once Trump is out of power, will the Republican Party return to its

[no_hypocrisy]

conservative base or will it remain under the influence of Trump and HIS base?

[TCJ70]

1. When he has an approval rating of around 85%...

...among Republicans, there’s no difference between the groups you named.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. And that's the number while Trump's in power.

My question is once he becomes a private citizen again and another Republican runs or is in power, is that Republican a conservative or a Trumper?

[watoos]

5. Oh yes, I have seen that statistic a lot lately.

What about this scenario? What if Trump had 100 million followers when he was elected and had an approval rating of 85%? What if Trump only has 70 million followers now but still has an approval rating of 85%?

Trump is just as popular, right?

[Voltaire2]

3. Trump is a symptom not a cause.

[Docreed2003]

9. +1

Obama said that and I agree a thousand percent. The GOP fomented and brewed this crap for decades, DT is just the culmination of that for the world to see.

[Ilsa]

4. I'm wondering if they will split into

Regular Republicans and Rude Republicans. Both can be hateful, misogynistic, and brainless, but the trumpers are a nasty bunch.

[ck4829]

6. It's going to go dynastic

Donald Trump will personally select an heir and the base will go along with it.

The Republican party won't be able to escape from that.

[DetlefK]

7. The GOP cannot get rid of Trumperism, because they have whipped their voters into a frenzy.

It began with the Tea Party, when the GOP discovered that they can make their base louder and more loyal by playing to outrage.

The price the GOP paid was that many moderate Republicans were pushed out of the party in primaries and replaced with unhinged Tea Party fanatics (aka Freedom Caucus).

Then the GOP discovered that they can gain political power with a craven, unprincipled President like Trump. The base became even more enraged and toxic.

The price the GOP paid was their principles.




Current republican voters don't give a shit about republican principles.
They care about abortion, the gay, the alien and the gun. They care about blaming some nebulous conspiracy, the deep state, for the problems that they have brought unto themselves.

What would happen if the GOP decided that they suddenly don't like it when Presidents swear in public?
That they care about fiscal prudence and the deficit?
That they care about carefully negotiated international agreements?

The republican voters would abandon them for extremists. Republican voters don't want sensible policy. They want outrage, hatred, thrill!!!

[watoos]

8. When Barack Obama was elected president,

Republican leaders met and vowed to oppose everything that he and Democrats proposed. They vowed to make everything political, the country be damned. Republicans vowed to obstruct Democrats, to name call, to lie, to cheat, with their only goal to get reelected. That's what the Republican party has become, a party whose goal is to bash Democrats and to get reelected. Republicans will serve the people who give them money.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Since Gingrich, that's the core of the Republican Party.

I agree.

No competition with Democrats. It's destruction. And it hasn't been because our candidate was biracial ("Black" to them) or a woman.

Maybe you answered my question: it's an issue of devolution of the party.

[JHB]

11. They've been pointed in this general direction since the 70s...

...and on this precise trajectory since the 90s.

Force division and delegitimize the other side. Compel people to get with the (conservative) program, their way or the highway. Plow under opposition and then grab all the marbles.

They did that in the 70s and 80s when they ousted Rockefeller Republicans, gaining control of the Republican Party. They did it in the 90s against Clinton to preserve the gains they'd made under Reagan and Bush. They did it again against Obama to preserve the gains they made under Bush.

There is no "conservative base" in the sense you use it. It's too small to win support for a conservative agenda. They have always relied on what has become Trump's base to deliver the votes they need to win. What they want most is to ride out the Trump storm and put things comfortably back the way they were in, say, 2005.

[TheCowsCameHome]

12. They will be leaderless for a while, but

others within the party will try to fill the void.

Nobody will stir the loonies up like this Trump piece of garbage, though.

[The Genealogist]

13. Trump is the inevitable outcome of at least a half century of Republican strategy

I'd say it goes back to Goldwater, but at least to Nixon. They have long been playing footsies with racists, theocrats, and the never rich in their strategies to gain and maintain power. A Donald Trump is merely the inevitable, rotten fruit of their disgusting and shameful labor. The handful of them that now wring their hands are not concerned with Trump the disgusting boor and monster, they are concerned that he goes too far and might derail their 50 year plan.

[UniteFightBack]

14. Nope they have created this beast and it is now free from it's confines. nt

[True Blue American]

15. As Barry Goldwater said

http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=87446