For a long time, especially since the crash of '29, the GOP was willing to be the "loyal minority". When they would get any sort of majority rule, they would attempt to move their agenda forward, but it was often in the face of a branch of government that was run by democrats, so they would do what they could accomplish by working with democrats. When they were in a minority in a branch, they'd complain and pull to the right, but ultimately they recognized the limit of their power.
William F Buckley comes along and creates a version of conservatism. It pushed out the "Birchers" and pushed forward candidates like Goldwater and Nixon. They had some victories, but they were often accused of trying to win elections and govern by being better versions of the democrats. Then some people hooked up with Reagan. They got him elected and pushed alot of conservative ideas, but what came out was a lot of compromise with the democrats. Remember, he did "amensty" with illegal aliens. He did tax reform with the democrats over the howl of "true conservatives". (It was supposed to be "revenue neutral" but it wasn't).
It was about this time that a bunch of new republicans were getting elected and they chaffed against their leadership. They complained that the GOP had gotten to used to being the "loyal minority". They also complained about trying to be "better versions of the democrats" than the democrats. They wanted "true conservatism" and wanted to undo the New Deal and the Great Society. And they found a leader in Newt. He wanted to form a majority by pulling conservative democrats away and into the GOP. And he came close to succeeding. He got the "solid south" to abandon the democratic party. And they were getting close to a majority.
But it failed. They never really formed a "new majority" because they would never accept the more popular positions on social issues, much less on economic ones.
And so in the early 2000's, they cooked up a scheme to get majorities built in specific states, much of it through gerrymandering. It gave them wide margins and the ability to control the senate with minority support. The problem was that nationally, they had a hard time winning presidential elections. Bush II "won" with minority support. Obama crushed them with overwhelming turn out. But they had another trick up their sleeve. The got the voting rights act overturned. It allowed them to build up their control in states through voters suppression. And this allowed them to increase their voter participation without actually building up a majority support.
Buried in this though is a controlling minority which gets smaller all the time. It is narrowing itself to old white people. And they are afraid and want to maintain their power. But their intent is to maintain it through exclusion and concentration of power in themselves. And now they are getting violent. This "blue wave" may not happen, but they will have a harder and harder time maintaining control. If they lose Texas and Florida it is going to get even harder. The demographics in those states don't favor them.
The future doesn't look pretty, especially in the short term. As the civil rights movement advanced and had success, the white supremacists got more violent. Truth is, the American Civil War happened because the South saw that they were losing the political battle over slavery. I don't really expect it to go better this time around.
= new reply since forum marked as read
