The Democrats will not be making a comeback anytime soon, for they are no longer liberals. They don't stand for all the values of liberalism mainly being; personal choice. They are the party of conformists and authoritarians. Joe Biden took civil rights away from women and mandated speech. This is not Democracy or liberalism. The party of censorship is dead and no matter how much outrage they display, they have no power. All the true liberals became Republicans in 2024.
Given how unreceptive the Republican party is to dissenting views from within, and their own attempts to coerce speech in institutions, I have to differ with your conclusion. A lot of folks did switch teams, but there's a lot of us disaffected classical liberals who are disappointed in how much both parties have abandoned that worldview. The Democrats started longer and more slowly, but it seems Republicans have been doing their hardest to make up for lost time.
I align with what I consider to be a more traditional conservative ideology, but am just hoping that either party can reorient their identity back to liberalism. I'd prefer it to be the conservative strain, but at this point, that outlook doesn't look great.
I’m sorry, but any party that makes its defining ideological criterion the pledge of fealty to a man who not only attempted to throw out the results of a democratic election that didn’t go his way, but resorted to extra-legal means to do so—including the incitement of violence and a concerted campaign of coercion against state officials—cannot be called a liberal party, since the latter actions are an assault on liberal democratic institutions. Supporting said strongman’s pardoning of those who committed violence on his behalf (against law enforcement officers no less) and those guilty of seditious treason, only redoubles its illiberal spirit.
Note that any Republican that does not kiss the ring of this strongman is summarily excommunicated from the party—that, too, is a form of coercion of thought and speech completely at odds with liberalism.
There is no liberal party in Washington right now. No classical conservative in the civil libertarian mold should feel at home with today’s Republican Party, and no free-thinking leftist or reasoned centrist should feel comfortable with the Democratic Party’s continued inability to extricate itself from the illiberalism of the woke mob.
On J6 I saw a large group of unarmed hoodlums enter our capitol, some peacefully and some not. Parts of the angry mob broke out in violence. Their fearless leader in real time instructed, "go home and be peaceful." Doesn't sound like an insurrection. Trumps admin is more liberal and democratic than the democratic party which doesn't really exist anymore. They abandoned their values and are a fringe party now with a 31% favorable approval rating. They value cutting off the gentiles of children, denying them their human right to consent. Allowing violent, male, rapists and murders of women to go into a female prisons and share a cell and a shower with their prey of choice. This is a U.N. human rights violation. Biden along with the Dept. of Education changed a historic, civil rights law for women to be the opposite of what it was intended.He also mandated speech, something that is against our first amendment right. The Democratic Party is an authoritarian party. They do not support personal choice or personal freedom, but mandate obedience to authority and conformity. They censor dissent and intimidate those who dare to think/ speak differently. Trump has restored women's, civil rights as well as our rights to speech. I am now an independent voter at heart, and hold loyalty to country over party. I don't trust any politician. Obama taught me that, the snake that he was. For now, Trump is as good as it gets, and he has the support of the American people. A diverse coalition of voters put him in power, and stripped the tyrants of ALL political power.
If that’s what you saw, then you clearly don’t understand the full story. Read the details outlined in the Smith indictment and the Special Counsel’s report—while you are at it, look into the evidence of the trial of Enrique Tarrio, one of the men convicted of seditious treason that Trump pardoned. Then, when you fully grasp the gravity of what was going on on January 6 and Trump’s role in a weeks-long campaign to overturn the result of the presidential election, you will perhaps realize that, however much the Democratic Party is not a liberal party, there is no basis for calling the GOP a party of liberalism, either.
The party I voted for won by a landslide by diverse voting populations. Your party lost ALL political power. I think you're the one that needs to do some inventory and studying. The Biden/Harris authoritarian regime took inalienable rights, endowed by our creator, away from the people. Rights that people people fought for and won. Rights that people died for. Trump restored them. That's as Democratic as it gets. You have no business being arrogant and cocky. You should be humble and curious otherwise your side will continue to lose. And since your party is not liberal or democratic anymore, I hope that happens.
I don't have a 'party'--I'm a classical liberal, so my loyalty isn't to party, it's to liberalism as a philosophy and its supporting institutions. You said the same of yourself, but your reasoning here doesn't quite bear it out. We've already established that the Democrats are guilty of illiberal acts--I'm not even disputing that. What you seem incapable of understanding is that this does not in turn absolve Republicans from committing their own acts of illiberalism. And if you cannot see that refusing to abide by some of the most basic keystones of liberal democratic governance--namely, the respect for the outcomes of elections and the peaceful transfer of power--does not cut against the spirit of liberalism itself then it can only be concluded that you may have a poor understanding of the philosophy, because any school of thought that would endorse brushing these crucial institutional tenets aside certainly does not resemble the one that was talked about at the constitutional convention, or sketched out by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Mill, de Tocqueville, Montesquieu, and the like. It *does* resemble, however, the ideas talked about by folks like Nietzsche, Mussolini, Carlyle, Maistre and the fascists of the Habsburg Empire, who all frowned upon the idea of transferring power between leaders according to the outcomes of elections--perhaps your allegiances lie more in their direction.
You're definitely a democrat because in your last response you expressed moral and intellectual superiority over me, and suggested I'm in line with fascists. Fascists don't restore rights FYI.Again, the hoodlums who attempted an unarmed "insurrection" failed miserably. I think this conversation is over. It's so stupid my head hurts.
Forgive my bluntness, but Dems do not have a registration, local leadership or a ground game problem. They have a massive policy and outcome problem, and it is about to get a lot worse.
For years, Dems ignored the worst inflation in 40 years, and the suffering it imposed on 75% of Americans. Their only response was to label the price increases transitory, and then brag, Americans were too stupid, to realize how good they had it, compared to the rest of the world.
At the same time, for 3 years, Biden, Mayorkas and Co. regularly lied, the border was secure, even as 10 million unvetted migrants entered the US.
Meanwhile, Americans were repeatedly assured by Dems, crime was at a 50 year low. The proclamations arrived with news of 13 year olds carjacking Congressional members, blocks from the Capitol, regular Chicago shootouts, and toothpaste and hairspray, suddenly locked up, like nuclear material.
Those were the Dem greatest hits, prior to Elon sifting thru cancelled checks to see where and how Dems spent tax dollars. The USAID scandal is not going to go, quietly into the good night.
It will be followed by NGO and Medicaid scandals, that will dwarf, hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on Iraqi Burt and Ernie, Politico, DEI governance in Syria, as the country imploded, millions more to promote LGBTQ in Muslim countries, where the behavior is illegal, and millions more for sex changes in Centra America, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Dem anger, should be terror. Firing federal employees is the appetizer. The where and how trillions of taxpayer dollars have been spent, is the entree. If a court blocks the RIFs, they cannot stop consultants from sifting thru cancelled checks, and informing Americans exactly how Dems have fiscally governed, in detail. Forget, state registration trends , Dems should be studying the Whigs.
I have watched voter registration extremely closely for 15 years.
*FL is unique for Rs. One of the drivers is large numbers of retirees who were old-line conservatives from the Northeast. But the other is a heavy representation of Hispanics/Latinos who are extremely conservative, ESPECIALLY new immigrants from totalitarian states like Cuba and Venezuela. While I of course approve of this advantage, I think FL trends, while clearly indicative of direction, are not necessarily indicative of rate.
*In December, Rs added NET 20,000 more in AZ, as pointed out took a small lead in NV, but slashed the Democrat lead in PA to under 100,000 in active voters. This portends a RED PA by January 1, 2026.
*Democrats can expect sharp drops in "registered voters" as thousands, soon tens of thousands of illegal criminal aliens depart or are deported.
*The new Census Director will perform an audit of the 2020 census, which was in generous terms, mismanaged. (In ungenerous terms, stolen). We think it's off by 15 EVs for Rs and 16 House seats. I don't know the law if retroactively it can be adjusted (it wouldn't change any current House #S, but might play a role in 2026 and 2028. But by 2032, the Democrats face a very real possibility of an adjustment of many seats plus the reapportionment of another likely 6 electoral votes. The EV could change by 10 or 12 toward Rs by 2032.
*But go bak to #3. If the illegal alien population, MANY of whom are "registered voters" continues to shrink, even states like CA and CO are going to start being competitive.
The FL graph was the most informative, at least in terms of the information I want. Absolute numbers are more useful than shares which I can calculate myself. Up to 2020, the numbers for both parties more or less tracked with population. After 2020, the COVID refugees could have accounted for the increase in Republicans but not for the nosedive in the Democratic numbers, especially since the Other declined too. Some of the refugees were Democrats after all. I blame they/them and I suspect that Ruy does too.
Progressives turn everything they touch to shit, whether it's states like California that have had progressive majorities for decades, or progressive cities with their anti-growth progressive mayors and criminal-supporting progressive DAs (San Francisco, LA, Seattle, Portland), or national politics, with the adoption of DEI messaging and Free Palestine and Trans kook ideas from the academic far-left. The party needs to purge itself of any progressives stuck in the stupidity of racist anti-racism, anti-american "decolonialism", antisemitic Palestinianism, misogynistic Transqueer activism, inflation inducing massive deficit spending, illiberal ("intersectional") DEI struggle sessions.
I'm not changing registration, hope springs eternal.
I do still get those emails from the county party which is the smallest organizing entity in my state. They are always looking for Precinct "committee people" which is the new way to say precinct captains I think. My state increased registrations says the article, but not in my county which is full of pipelines and pumpjacks.
Do you participate in your local county party? In my reflections on how to contribute to a healthier future, I've considered getting involved, for as long as we have a party-driven primary system, it seems like that's often the root of the extremes options we get in our elections.
I'm not sure how welcome I'd be in either party, as I'm pretty frustrated by both at the moment, but if either are going to improve, they need more honest dissenters and less blindly-loyal boosters.
I used to be very involved, specifically with getting out the vote, both in my precinct and in surrounding precincts, besides being an elected coordinator I also coordinated adjoining precincts and organised large primary caucuses.
The Democrats in 16 were much less coordinated and more dependent on large donations, TV, etc. I stopped entirely by the time of the mid terms in 18 and haven't participated much since. I vote split ticket. I am working class and have no party representing my interests.
I'd urge you to go to meetings of either party and see if you think anything would appeal to you. Participating in democracy is a civic good.
The Democrats will not be making a comeback anytime soon, for they are no longer liberals. They don't stand for all the values of liberalism mainly being; personal choice. They are the party of conformists and authoritarians. Joe Biden took civil rights away from women and mandated speech. This is not Democracy or liberalism. The party of censorship is dead and no matter how much outrage they display, they have no power. All the true liberals became Republicans in 2024.
Given how unreceptive the Republican party is to dissenting views from within, and their own attempts to coerce speech in institutions, I have to differ with your conclusion. A lot of folks did switch teams, but there's a lot of us disaffected classical liberals who are disappointed in how much both parties have abandoned that worldview. The Democrats started longer and more slowly, but it seems Republicans have been doing their hardest to make up for lost time.
I align with what I consider to be a more traditional conservative ideology, but am just hoping that either party can reorient their identity back to liberalism. I'd prefer it to be the conservative strain, but at this point, that outlook doesn't look great.
Please give an example as to how Republicans tried, "their own attempts to coerce speech in institutions."
Precisely!
I’m sorry, but any party that makes its defining ideological criterion the pledge of fealty to a man who not only attempted to throw out the results of a democratic election that didn’t go his way, but resorted to extra-legal means to do so—including the incitement of violence and a concerted campaign of coercion against state officials—cannot be called a liberal party, since the latter actions are an assault on liberal democratic institutions. Supporting said strongman’s pardoning of those who committed violence on his behalf (against law enforcement officers no less) and those guilty of seditious treason, only redoubles its illiberal spirit.
Note that any Republican that does not kiss the ring of this strongman is summarily excommunicated from the party—that, too, is a form of coercion of thought and speech completely at odds with liberalism.
There is no liberal party in Washington right now. No classical conservative in the civil libertarian mold should feel at home with today’s Republican Party, and no free-thinking leftist or reasoned centrist should feel comfortable with the Democratic Party’s continued inability to extricate itself from the illiberalism of the woke mob.
On J6 I saw a large group of unarmed hoodlums enter our capitol, some peacefully and some not. Parts of the angry mob broke out in violence. Their fearless leader in real time instructed, "go home and be peaceful." Doesn't sound like an insurrection. Trumps admin is more liberal and democratic than the democratic party which doesn't really exist anymore. They abandoned their values and are a fringe party now with a 31% favorable approval rating. They value cutting off the gentiles of children, denying them their human right to consent. Allowing violent, male, rapists and murders of women to go into a female prisons and share a cell and a shower with their prey of choice. This is a U.N. human rights violation. Biden along with the Dept. of Education changed a historic, civil rights law for women to be the opposite of what it was intended.He also mandated speech, something that is against our first amendment right. The Democratic Party is an authoritarian party. They do not support personal choice or personal freedom, but mandate obedience to authority and conformity. They censor dissent and intimidate those who dare to think/ speak differently. Trump has restored women's, civil rights as well as our rights to speech. I am now an independent voter at heart, and hold loyalty to country over party. I don't trust any politician. Obama taught me that, the snake that he was. For now, Trump is as good as it gets, and he has the support of the American people. A diverse coalition of voters put him in power, and stripped the tyrants of ALL political power.
If that’s what you saw, then you clearly don’t understand the full story. Read the details outlined in the Smith indictment and the Special Counsel’s report—while you are at it, look into the evidence of the trial of Enrique Tarrio, one of the men convicted of seditious treason that Trump pardoned. Then, when you fully grasp the gravity of what was going on on January 6 and Trump’s role in a weeks-long campaign to overturn the result of the presidential election, you will perhaps realize that, however much the Democratic Party is not a liberal party, there is no basis for calling the GOP a party of liberalism, either.
The party I voted for won by a landslide by diverse voting populations. Your party lost ALL political power. I think you're the one that needs to do some inventory and studying. The Biden/Harris authoritarian regime took inalienable rights, endowed by our creator, away from the people. Rights that people people fought for and won. Rights that people died for. Trump restored them. That's as Democratic as it gets. You have no business being arrogant and cocky. You should be humble and curious otherwise your side will continue to lose. And since your party is not liberal or democratic anymore, I hope that happens.
I don't have a 'party'--I'm a classical liberal, so my loyalty isn't to party, it's to liberalism as a philosophy and its supporting institutions. You said the same of yourself, but your reasoning here doesn't quite bear it out. We've already established that the Democrats are guilty of illiberal acts--I'm not even disputing that. What you seem incapable of understanding is that this does not in turn absolve Republicans from committing their own acts of illiberalism. And if you cannot see that refusing to abide by some of the most basic keystones of liberal democratic governance--namely, the respect for the outcomes of elections and the peaceful transfer of power--does not cut against the spirit of liberalism itself then it can only be concluded that you may have a poor understanding of the philosophy, because any school of thought that would endorse brushing these crucial institutional tenets aside certainly does not resemble the one that was talked about at the constitutional convention, or sketched out by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Mill, de Tocqueville, Montesquieu, and the like. It *does* resemble, however, the ideas talked about by folks like Nietzsche, Mussolini, Carlyle, Maistre and the fascists of the Habsburg Empire, who all frowned upon the idea of transferring power between leaders according to the outcomes of elections--perhaps your allegiances lie more in their direction.
You're definitely a democrat because in your last response you expressed moral and intellectual superiority over me, and suggested I'm in line with fascists. Fascists don't restore rights FYI.Again, the hoodlums who attempted an unarmed "insurrection" failed miserably. I think this conversation is over. It's so stupid my head hurts.
Forgive my bluntness, but Dems do not have a registration, local leadership or a ground game problem. They have a massive policy and outcome problem, and it is about to get a lot worse.
For years, Dems ignored the worst inflation in 40 years, and the suffering it imposed on 75% of Americans. Their only response was to label the price increases transitory, and then brag, Americans were too stupid, to realize how good they had it, compared to the rest of the world.
At the same time, for 3 years, Biden, Mayorkas and Co. regularly lied, the border was secure, even as 10 million unvetted migrants entered the US.
Meanwhile, Americans were repeatedly assured by Dems, crime was at a 50 year low. The proclamations arrived with news of 13 year olds carjacking Congressional members, blocks from the Capitol, regular Chicago shootouts, and toothpaste and hairspray, suddenly locked up, like nuclear material.
Those were the Dem greatest hits, prior to Elon sifting thru cancelled checks to see where and how Dems spent tax dollars. The USAID scandal is not going to go, quietly into the good night.
It will be followed by NGO and Medicaid scandals, that will dwarf, hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on Iraqi Burt and Ernie, Politico, DEI governance in Syria, as the country imploded, millions more to promote LGBTQ in Muslim countries, where the behavior is illegal, and millions more for sex changes in Centra America, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Dem anger, should be terror. Firing federal employees is the appetizer. The where and how trillions of taxpayer dollars have been spent, is the entree. If a court blocks the RIFs, they cannot stop consultants from sifting thru cancelled checks, and informing Americans exactly how Dems have fiscally governed, in detail. Forget, state registration trends , Dems should be studying the Whigs.
I have watched voter registration extremely closely for 15 years.
*FL is unique for Rs. One of the drivers is large numbers of retirees who were old-line conservatives from the Northeast. But the other is a heavy representation of Hispanics/Latinos who are extremely conservative, ESPECIALLY new immigrants from totalitarian states like Cuba and Venezuela. While I of course approve of this advantage, I think FL trends, while clearly indicative of direction, are not necessarily indicative of rate.
*In December, Rs added NET 20,000 more in AZ, as pointed out took a small lead in NV, but slashed the Democrat lead in PA to under 100,000 in active voters. This portends a RED PA by January 1, 2026.
*Democrats can expect sharp drops in "registered voters" as thousands, soon tens of thousands of illegal criminal aliens depart or are deported.
*The new Census Director will perform an audit of the 2020 census, which was in generous terms, mismanaged. (In ungenerous terms, stolen). We think it's off by 15 EVs for Rs and 16 House seats. I don't know the law if retroactively it can be adjusted (it wouldn't change any current House #S, but might play a role in 2026 and 2028. But by 2032, the Democrats face a very real possibility of an adjustment of many seats plus the reapportionment of another likely 6 electoral votes. The EV could change by 10 or 12 toward Rs by 2032.
*But go bak to #3. If the illegal alien population, MANY of whom are "registered voters" continues to shrink, even states like CA and CO are going to start being competitive.
The FL graph was the most informative, at least in terms of the information I want. Absolute numbers are more useful than shares which I can calculate myself. Up to 2020, the numbers for both parties more or less tracked with population. After 2020, the COVID refugees could have accounted for the increase in Republicans but not for the nosedive in the Democratic numbers, especially since the Other declined too. Some of the refugees were Democrats after all. I blame they/them and I suspect that Ruy does too.
I don’t know how you register a lot more “likely to vote” voters when the brand image is bad.
Progressives turn everything they touch to shit, whether it's states like California that have had progressive majorities for decades, or progressive cities with their anti-growth progressive mayors and criminal-supporting progressive DAs (San Francisco, LA, Seattle, Portland), or national politics, with the adoption of DEI messaging and Free Palestine and Trans kook ideas from the academic far-left. The party needs to purge itself of any progressives stuck in the stupidity of racist anti-racism, anti-american "decolonialism", antisemitic Palestinianism, misogynistic Transqueer activism, inflation inducing massive deficit spending, illiberal ("intersectional") DEI struggle sessions.
My state's D. party cancelled the primary so why bother registering?
I'm not changing registration, hope springs eternal.
I do still get those emails from the county party which is the smallest organizing entity in my state. They are always looking for Precinct "committee people" which is the new way to say precinct captains I think. My state increased registrations says the article, but not in my county which is full of pipelines and pumpjacks.
Do you participate in your local county party? In my reflections on how to contribute to a healthier future, I've considered getting involved, for as long as we have a party-driven primary system, it seems like that's often the root of the extremes options we get in our elections.
I'm not sure how welcome I'd be in either party, as I'm pretty frustrated by both at the moment, but if either are going to improve, they need more honest dissenters and less blindly-loyal boosters.
I used to be very involved, specifically with getting out the vote, both in my precinct and in surrounding precincts, besides being an elected coordinator I also coordinated adjoining precincts and organised large primary caucuses.
The Democrats in 16 were much less coordinated and more dependent on large donations, TV, etc. I stopped entirely by the time of the mid terms in 18 and haven't participated much since. I vote split ticket. I am working class and have no party representing my interests.
I'd urge you to go to meetings of either party and see if you think anything would appeal to you. Participating in democracy is a civic good.
Thanks for the perspective. I may try some meetings (when I have time amongst my busy work and family life, and raising two little citizens).