The US Presidency, going forward …

[sandGroundZero]

1964, the year Republican conservative (Barry Goldwater) lost his Presidential election bid to Democratic conservative Lyndon B. Johnson has been regarded by historians as the nadir of conservative politics in the United States of America. Certainly since that date U S politics has taken rather more complex hues.

1. Republicans have dabbled in racially divisive dog whistle tactics and at the same time exploiting rather anti-democratic features of the US Constitution thereby reestablishing a degree of dominance in spite of diminishing popular appeal.
   
   
2. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, has attempted to refashion itself as a broad coalition of middle class, more-or-less 'liberal', urban voters alongside a diversifying collection of (marginalized, ethnic & otherwise) minority voters.

The 45th President (2017-2021) disregarded norms and conventions which had until then constrained Presidential' behaviour.

The current (46th) President managed a comfortable popular and Electoral College vote margin of victory. However, it cannot be said that he achieved impressive gains in the Legislative Branch (notwithstanding two Georgia Senators in the January run-off elections).

U S politics is in a perilous state. There appears to be limited scope for constructive changes in the near term.

47^th President of the United States?

What is the outlook for democratic politics in the United States of America?

[bensherman]

The big question is whether the Republicans can take a deep breath and move away from Trump.
The effect of the GOP Senate vote on the impeachment suggests they are too frightened of the white supremacists and militias who follow him to recover their identity as a national conservative party.
If they stay that way millions will walk away from them. That is already happening.
They have lost the popular vote nine out of the last ten times.
They need to find some leadership and that's not Cruz or Rubio.

[Alikado]

The big question is whether the Republicans can take a deep breath and move away from Trump.
The effect of the GOP Senate vote on the impeachment suggests they are too frightened of the white supremacists and militias who follow him to recover their identity as a national conservative party.
If they stay that way millions will walk away from them. That is already happening.
They have lost the popular vote nine out of the last ten times.
They need to find some leadership and that's not Cruz or Rubio.

They missed their chance with the impeachment vote to draw a line and move on, there are too many old 'Grandees' ruling the roost that need to move aside and let the next generation modernise and rule.

[sandGroundZero]

They missed their chance with the impeachment vote to draw a line and move on, there are too many old 'Grandees' ruling the roost that need to move aside and let the next generation modernise and rule. — post #3

I fear the problem is greater than "old 'Grandees'" blocking "the next generation".
Senators Cruz, Rubio & Josh Hawley are "the next generation" and they have each acquiesced to, if not endorsed, Trumpism.

Senator Josh Hawley & Donald Trump

Republicans' appeals to nativist and racist sentiments — effectively neglecting fiscal conservatism in favour of pursuit of 'culture war ' in response to Democrats' attempts at building a broad coalition of marginal groups — has lead them up a cul-de-sac.

[silver fox]

They missed their chance with the impeachment vote to draw a line and move on, there are too many old 'Grandees' ruling the roost that need to move aside and let the next generation modernise and rule.

Not too sure that “old grandees” are the problem, much more career politicians who put their own position ahead of any concern or consideration.

Quite sure that many Republicans would sell granny into slavery if it helped their political ambitions.

[joan ofarc]

Despite the Americans' boast that they are the first democratic country I would contend that they never have been one. Democracy was only ever for the whites and, until quite recently, for men. They started as racist and never got over it, unlike most of the rest of the world, who moved on, at least culturally if not every single individual.
The constitution is flawed and now it is a straight jacket, worshipped by some as a document that can never be ammended. The are even so called originalists who won't countenance anything that is against what they consider to be the thoughts of the Founding Fathers (as if they can tell!)
They live in 1776 without realising that they actually have a king. Clearly the checks and balances that they have relied on didn't work. When the most powerful man in the world (so called) turned out to be a schmuk they were powerless.
Republicans today are not really a party any more. They have no platform and no policies other than to oppose everything the Democrats want. Whoever heard of running in a general election with no platform!
Democrats are more representative of modern America, which is what frightens the right so much, but they are weak. They let ideology paralyse them.
America will never be a democratic country while it still has gerrymandering, filibuster, unlimited election donations, powerful lobbying and blatant voter supression. These are things from the 19th century but they are the things keeping the Republicans in power so they aren't going to give them up.
All empires fail, usually from within. So good luck America.

[donkey22]

With a bit of luck Trump will be too busy with his legal team, mounting a defence against criminal indictments and civil lawsuits that are starting to mount up, to run another election campaign. Or even better still, he could be doing prison time by the time Americans choose their next president.

[sandGroundZero]

Despite the Americans' boast that they are the first democratic country I would contend that they never have been one. … — post #6

In fact, America's Founding Fathers (exclusively privileged, white males) neither intended, nor claimed to be founding a democracy.
The concept we think of as 'democracy ' is never easy and is not nearly as neat and concrete as we like to imagine. [Read: Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss it When It’s Gone by Astra Taylor]

______________________________________________________________________

There’s No Such Thing as “Trump Country”

…puts the point rather well.

There is hope; even for the U.S.A.. But, it doesn't come from the centre. Consider for instance: Michigan Main Street

Michigan Mainstreet Impact Report

[said]

What you should be asking is "What is the economical situation in the States"

[local]

Despite the Americans' boast that they are the first democratic country I would contend that they never have been one. Democracy was only ever for the whites and, until quite recently, for men. They started as racist and never got over it, unlike most of the rest of the world, who moved on, at least culturally if not every single individual.
The constitution is flawed and now it is a straight jacket, worshipped by some as a document that can never be ammended. The are even so called originalists who won't countenance anything that is against what they consider to be the thoughts of the Founding Fathers (as if they can tell!)
They live in 1776 without realising that they actually have a king. Clearly the checks and balances that they have relied on didn't work. When the most powerful man in the world (so called) turned out to be a schmuk they were powerless.
Republicans today are not really a party any more. They have no platform and no policies other than to oppose everything the Democrats want. Whoever heard of running in a general election with no platform!
Democrats are more representative of modern America, which is what frightens the right so much, but they are weak. They let ideology paralyse them.
America will never be a democratic country while it still has gerrymandering, filibuster, unlimited election donations, powerful lobbying and blatant voter supression. These are things from the 19th century but they are the things keeping the Republicans in power so they aren't going to give them up.
All empires fail, usually from within. So good luck America.

Has anyone told you they have a democrat in the top job ?

[joan ofarc]

Has anyone told you they have a democrat in the top job ?

So what? If you are making a point you'll have to be more specific.

[sandGroundZero]

1. Americans 'never have been ' democratic
2. The constitution is flawed and now it is a straight jacket
3. the checks and balances that they have relied on didn't work
4. Republicans today are not really a party any more
5. Democrats are more representative of modern America — post #6

We err, when /if we think we can define democracy succinctly, with precision, for all time.
For one major snag: democracy requires a determination of who is included in the 'polity '. Ideally, inclusion would be universal; but that would mean you'd have an impossibly large range of competing interests to resolve. Great in principle, difficult to achieve in practice!

Less abstractly, who can claim to have achieved a more inclusive and effective democracy vis-à-vis the USA?

Do you imagine that we — subjects of the Queen with hereditary Peers and a representative chamber in which a government can achieve a large majority on less than 40% of the votes cast (and a turnout of less than 70% of electors) — are better? Or, with our own rather lax attitudes regarding the influence of wealth?

The reality is democracy has, through struggle expanded in its inclusiveness. But there is no end of this process. When it isn't struggling to expand, democracy is contracting owing to inherent human traits. You can see indications of this in posts in this forum. Some have asserted that the 'polity ' must be ethnically or racially homogeneous, or at the very least that all citizens must subscribe to cultural values determined by some ill-defined 'native ' grouping.

Political institutions are inherently imperfect. Democracy is an on-going process.

[joan ofarc]

Of course democracy is an on-going process. It needs to be constantly assessed, checked, renewed. Of course it's definition depends on time and place. It evolves - the Greeks supposedly lived in a democracy and that was true if you were of a particular class but not if you were a woman or a slave.
The point you have picked out from my post were not a definition of democracy, in fact they were the opposite.

Do you imagine that we — subjects of the Queen with hereditary Peers and a representative chamber in which a government can achieve a large majority on less than 40% of the votes cast (and a turnout of less than 70% of electors) — are better? Or, with our own rather lax attitudes regarding the influence of wealth?

I was talking about America. We don't have to be living in perfection to be able to see the imperfections another country. They have a political system that is supposed to be the epitome of a democratic system when I am saying that it is far from it. Until they recognise that they can never move forward.

But just to put the cat among the pigeons... I don't think that the system the world likes to think of as democracy in the western world is suited to the 21st century and I don't think it serves 2nd or 3rd world countries well either.

[local]

So what? If you are making a point you'll have to be more specific.

while it still has gerrymandering, filibuster, unlimited election donations, powerful lobbying and blatant voter supression. These are things from the 19th century but they are the things keeping the Republicans in power so they aren't going to give them up.

You wrote the above so I pointed out they aren't keeping them in power

[bensherman]

James Naughtie is doing an excellent series on R4 about the US and this week's featured largely the struggle regarding the constitution.

In particular, the struggle between the "originalists" who want to interpret it literally, and those who say that is inappropriate for a massively changed society 200 years later.

The most obvious example is to do with the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. Great energy is expended by the originalists defending it, while others argue it was written in a time with a small and scattered population still vulnerable to invasion, and inappropriate to today, with a much more crowded society , high-capacity weapons, and so on.

Every time I see a TV programme where some US family has been shattered by accidental or misguided use of a gun, I reflect on the price being paid today by people defending the literal use of the constitution.