How would a President Romney be viewed by the Republican base? He‘s not exactly an immigration hawk, and represents the Republican and American establishment like few others. One could call him an archetypical ‚globalist‘, at a time when American and global elites are not exactly popular.
I think Trumps success among the republican base wasn‘t a mere fluke. Here‘s part of a post of mine from another thread:
With Romney as president instead of Trump, is this kind of right-wing populism dead? I somehow doubt it. Some believe Trump was just lucky to say the right things at the right time, but i believe Trump‘s 2016 platform would have been successful among the Republican base anytime during the last few decades. There just never was a candidate who truly took these kind of positions. Even people like Gingrich or Santorum always watered down a lot of their positions, especially on immigration. They were always deadly afraid of being called racist, so they made sure to repeat pro-immigration platitudes whenever they could.
The closest was probably Buchanan in 92, but he ran against an incumbent Republican, and most of the base were still too loyal at that point, even if i believe that Buchanan was closer on many issues to the typical Republican voter than Bush (at least for a majority, imo).
Thoughts? How do you think Romney would be perceived by the base?
(I hope this doesn‘t count as ‚current politics‘. But this is something we should consider, imo)
I think Trumps success among the republican base wasn‘t a mere fluke. Here‘s part of a post of mine from another thread:
Trump was a response to the bipartisan political consensus, the main pillars of which were (and still are): immigration is great, America needs to be involved in the middle east and elsewhere, free trade is awesome. This had been the consensus for decades at that point, and anyone who disagreed was a rube.
The thing is, i don‘t think the Republican base was ever really into any of those things. They always wanted to restrict immigration, were never the biggest fans of free trade, and didn‘t really care about the middle east until 9/11. Trump was just the first to say it openly. The Republican leadership had been completely disconnected from their base for a long time, probably since after Reagan. The kind of Neocons that have dominated the party since the end of the cold war have always been progressives hiding behind a veneer of militarism and America-fuck-yeah patriotism, with the exception of some social conservatives like Santorum or Huckabee.
With Romney as president instead of Trump, is this kind of right-wing populism dead? I somehow doubt it. Some believe Trump was just lucky to say the right things at the right time, but i believe Trump‘s 2016 platform would have been successful among the Republican base anytime during the last few decades. There just never was a candidate who truly took these kind of positions. Even people like Gingrich or Santorum always watered down a lot of their positions, especially on immigration. They were always deadly afraid of being called racist, so they made sure to repeat pro-immigration platitudes whenever they could.
The closest was probably Buchanan in 92, but he ran against an incumbent Republican, and most of the base were still too loyal at that point, even if i believe that Buchanan was closer on many issues to the typical Republican voter than Bush (at least for a majority, imo).
Thoughts? How do you think Romney would be perceived by the base?
(I hope this doesn‘t count as ‚current politics‘. But this is something we should consider, imo)