Republicans rebuild the Regan Coalition

I am no expert on US political history, but I do know about the Regan Coalition. Ronald Regan was able to bring out many traditionally democratic middle class voters, and in his reelection won a staggering 49 state landslide. I am not sure why the GOP never attempted to resurrect this winning strategy for the oval office. What if they did? Any year starting in 1988 counts, even the ones that the GOP won anyway.
 
You could almost argue that Trump is trying a variation of that. His strongest supporters are a certain kind of Democrat. They're basically white working class people who have far right, bigoted views on social issues but whose economic populism has kept them out of the GOP proper to date. They're strong in the Appalachia, the Rust Belt, and parts of the Midwest and South. Basically, it's a demographic holdover from the pre-Southern Strategy days (tribal loyalty is another reason they haven't gone GOP). They commonly elect people like former Senator Robert Byrd, or vote Republican. Trump is going to try to bring those people and the GOP together to get him elected President if he gets nominated.

Probably won't work, but in terms of bringing working class white dems (the Archie Bunker vote) and the GOP proper into a coalition together, this is the nearest thing I can think of.

Here's the New York Times article on that Trump constituency: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/u...st-supporters-a-certain-kind-of-democrat.html
 
Two things: culture wars and demographics

The Culture Wars set up tribal barriers so rigid that nothing can really appeal to both sides any more. No matter what a candidate stands for he will be seen as irredeemably evil by Team Red or Team Blue.

Demographics mean you can't win based on white middle class voters alone because there just aren't enough of them in the electorate. And thirty plus years of dogwhistling has not gone unnoticed by said voters.
 
The trouble is that after Reagan the GOP fixated on his image as a conservative stalwart while ignoring what he really did.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
The bottom line is that if the Reagan electorate demographically was still in existence, McCain might have won in '08, Romney would have rolled in '12, and the Tea Party would not be around due to no Democratic takeover in 2006 and Obama.

This is all about demographics. More white people than ever before are voting for the GOP, but less white people proportionately make up the electorate. Romney's performance was the best GOP performance with whites I think almost ever besides a few GOP landslides (maybe Nixon '72).
 
I am no expert on US political history, but I do know about the Regan Coalition. Ronald Regan was able to bring out many traditionally democratic middle class voters, and in his reelection won a staggering 49 state landslide. I am not sure why the GOP never attempted to resurrect this winning strategy for the oval office. What if they did? Any year starting in 1988 counts, even the ones that the GOP won anyway.

The Republicans have been losing elections primarily because they are insistent on continuing to replay the '80s Reagan strategy in the face of fairly substantial demographic change that has them coming up short. In fact, if the composition of the current electorate were the same as it was in 1984, they would probably be winning. Unfortunately for them, the electorate is no longer as white as it once was nor are they winning younger voters the way they were in the '80s. An additional factor at work here is that many of the so-called "Reagan Democrats" have become Republicans (especially in the South) or the functional equivalent of Republicans in terms of how they vote. Moreover, many Reagan voters of 1980 have passed away.

To put the whole thing in perspective, the 18-year-olds of 1980 are turning 54 this year and the 40-year-olds of that year will be 76. 36 years is a long time politically and even the youngest actual Reagan voters of the 1980s are well into middle age. For the young voters of 2016 born in 1992 to 1998, they cannot remember a Republican President except for George W. Bush and Bill Clinton is a figure from history books.
 
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