The GOP can survive a lost by Trump

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal joins the debate on whether the GOP can survive a Trump defeat.

I think the way it survives is the same way it survived Barack Obama.  When he lowered his mask and started exposing his liberal agenda and spending plans, the voters rebelled and by 2014 gave the GOP its largest congressional majorities in decades.

I attribute this to the screw-up theory of elections.  When a party in power is perceived as screwing up, it usually leads to a big victory for the other party.  In fact, that is how Obama got elected, to begin with.  The financial debacle of 2008 certainly helped the Democrat win even though it was their housing policies that caused it.  It just so happened that the market collapsed on Bush's watch.

By 2010, the Democrats Obamacare fiasco was seen as a screw-up that voters did not want.  In 2012 Obama survived by lying about the attack in Benghazi and had managed to hide the crumbling of his anti-terror campaign.  That could no longer be disguised by 2014.

The 2016 election offers the US two candidates with a high likelihood of screwing up.  In other words, whichever one wins, they are very likely to be the cause of a rejection of their party at the next election.  I think it can also be argued that the Congressional leadership was seen as screw-up when it went along with Obama agenda after being elected to oppose it.


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