funny.JoeMauer89 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 07, 2023 9:39 amNo thanks.DocBarrister wrote: ↑Thu Apr 06, 2023 11:27 pmCalifornia went through all of this in the 1990s. California had a bigoted, racist Republican governor. White conservatives passed Prop 187. White xenophobes passed anti-immigration bills.MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 05, 2023 11:19 amRace to the bottom by the GOP.Seacoaster(1) wrote: ↑Wed Apr 05, 2023 10:46 am Permitless carry in Florida. No restrictions on 18-20 year olds in Minnesota.
https://apnews.com/article/guns-firearm ... 8d4baaaa1e
We are going to be wearing armor to the grocery store, flak vests to church and kevlar to concerts. We'll just adapt, right?
Narrowing their base, alienating independents.
I don't know what the breaking point will be in Florida, but if you keep passing legislation that 60+% of US citizens disagree with, you're going to lose a whole lot of elections nationally. Rhetoric is one thing, actual legislation makes the extremism real.
Extremist legislation on guns and reproductive rights may be what ultimately break the fever in Florida, they're certainly doing so in places like Wisconsin.
It was all futile. White moderates and liberals joined Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans and others to take over the state, making the Golden State into a laboratory of liberal ideas and policies. California is now the greatest and most powerful state in the nation. We are a global powerhouse with an economy larger that Russia and India’s.
The MAGA crowd is still here, of course, but they have been relegated to insignificance. Kevin McCarthy is Speaker, but not even the most magnificent manor can be free of cockroaches.
That is the inevitable future faced by the Republican Party. In a couple of decades, when the aging far right has largely died out, today’s liberal young Americans will control the nation, and the nation will be better for it.
California is just a preview of America’s future, and it is glorious.
DocBarrister
Joe
Doc gets a bit hyperbolic, but I think there's a very significant reality that the next generation bulge of voters, across the country, including in deep red states, is vastly more liberal on a whole series of social issues than prior generations and the older set is desperately trying to hold on, tacking ever further backward looking.
Whether it's reproductive rights or guns, or gender and sexual preference, or ethnic, racial and religious diversity and inclusion, or economic opportunity and equity, or police reform and public safety, or voting access and democracy, the 60+% opinion issues nationally are 80+% issues in the younger voter set.
They're coming, more diverse and more "liberal".
And that scares the bejesus out of the current power structure.
And that power structure is providing extreme examples in the red states which really incense them. And the vast moderate middle too. Right wing extremism, especially on issues that have 60+% national support the other way, won't stand forever.
On the other hand, I think pendulums inevitably swing, so when we see "liberal" extremism play out miserably (think needles and "reparations"), there's backlash to these from the moderate majority as well.