The big difference that jumps out at me comparing the view now and then is that in 2017 I felt compelled to make the case that the delusional fringe was big enough to threaten the GOP.
The following is not really a voting paradox, but it is kind of in the
neighborhood. You have three stockholders for a company. A holds 48% of
the shares, B holds 49%, and C holds 3%. Assuming that any decision
needs to be approved by people holding a majority, who has the most
power? The slightly counterintuitive answer is no one. Each shareholder
is equal since an alliance of any two will produce a majority.
Now let's generalize the idea somewhat. Let's say you have N
shareholders whom you have brought together to form a majority. Some of
the members of your alliance have a large number of shares, some have
very few, but even the one with the smallest stake has enough that if he
or she drops out, you will be below 50%. In this scenario, every member
of the alliance has equal veto power.
I apologize for the really, really basic fun-with-math explanation, but
this principle has become increasingly fundamental in 21st-century
politics. At the risk of oversimplifying, elections come down to my
number of supporters times my turnout percentage versus your number
supporters times your turnout percentage. Arguably the fundamental piece
of the conservative movement has been to focus on ways to maximize
Republican turnout while suppressing democratic turnout. (Yes, I'm
leaving a lot out but bear with me.)
There are at least a couple of obvious inherent dangers in this
approach. The first is that there is an upper bound for turnout
percentage. This is especially worrisome when the number of your
supporters is decreasing. Sen. Lindsey Graham was alluding to this when
he observed that they weren't making enough new old white men to keep
the GOP strategy going.
There is, however, another danger which can potentially be even worse.
When you need nearly 100% of your supporters to show up to the polls in
order to win, you create a situation where virtually every faction of
your base has veto power. One somewhat perverse advantage of the large
base/low turnout model is that groups of supporters can be
interchangeable. You have lots of situations where you can alienate a
small segment but more than make up for it elsewhere. In and of itself,
this allows for a great deal of flexibility, but the really important
part is the power dynamic. You have to represent a large constituency in
order to wield veto power.
Probably since 2008 and certainly since 2012, pretty much every
nontrivial faction of the GOP has held veto power which means the
question is no longer who has it, but who is willing to use it. The Tea
Party was the first to realize this. Now the alt-right has caught on to
the dynamic as well.
Even with increasingly aggressive and shameless
voter suppression techniques,
Republicans tend to get fewer votes. It is true that they have, through
smart strategy and tactics, managed to get an extraordinary number of
offices out of those votes, but it is a precarious situation. We can
debate how many people really believe in
shadowy Jewish banker conspiracies or
Martian slave labor camps,
but it is almost certainly a large enough group to sway some close
elections if the crazies collectively decided to go home or, worse yet,
opt for a third party.
Ed Kilgore (whom I follow and generally respect) had a badly ill-informed post
Trump Should Emulate Buckley and Tell Racists: ‘I Don’t Want Your Vote.’ That simply won't work for Trump or the GOP. They need the crazies more than the crazies need them.
