In fact I’m not sure where the Republicans could fall back to ideologically.
At the heart of every Republican is a British Tory who desperately wants an American King.
Ever since the Dixie Flip they’ve pretty much built their entire party around racism and religious extremism.
Republicanism, even back to Lincoln, was a theory of Industrial expansion. Modern Republicans simply have nowhere else to expand into.
Racism and religious extremism are about re-colonizing the interior a second time, with a smaller and more “pure” cohort of settlers.
But without the large locus of dense population like the party had when it was dominant in the metropoles, that’s increasingly difficult to accomplish.
What the GOP needs is a new Mecca (or, perhaps, a New New York). A large, population dense center of power to expand out of again. Maybe they’ve found that in Salt Lake City. Maybe they’ve found it in the increasingly right wing Texas capital of Austin. Or in Silicon Valley. Or in Tel Aviv. Maybe they’ll rediscover New York (Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo certainly suggest fascism still plays well in the Big Apple).
That’s an interesting way to look at it. I’m not sure they need a single city though, the analogy kind of falls apart if you take it too far. But the whole restricting voting rights to white Christian men married with kids could certainly be described as a new form of colonialism. It’s essentially apartheid, and that was an outgrowth of colonialism.
At the heart of every Republican is a British Tory who desperately wants an American King.
Republicanism, even back to Lincoln, was a theory of Industrial expansion. Modern Republicans simply have nowhere else to expand into.
Racism and religious extremism are about re-colonizing the interior a second time, with a smaller and more “pure” cohort of settlers.
But without the large locus of dense population like the party had when it was dominant in the metropoles, that’s increasingly difficult to accomplish.
What the GOP needs is a new Mecca (or, perhaps, a New New York). A large, population dense center of power to expand out of again. Maybe they’ve found that in Salt Lake City. Maybe they’ve found it in the increasingly right wing Texas capital of Austin. Or in Silicon Valley. Or in Tel Aviv. Maybe they’ll rediscover New York (Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo certainly suggest fascism still plays well in the Big Apple).
But Settler Colonialism 2 is the dream.
A new Mecca? The f’n MAGATs should shove off to Moscow.
That’s an interesting way to look at it. I’m not sure they need a single city though, the analogy kind of falls apart if you take it too far. But the whole restricting voting rights to white Christian men married with kids could certainly be described as a new form of colonialism. It’s essentially apartheid, and that was an outgrowth of colonialism.