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Can you elaborate on what are some Non-Nutty Republican positions on things like immigration, crime, BLM, CRT in schools, or transing kids? You might not be doing that, but I get the feeling that the Not Insane Republicanism is a plea to come back the the early 2000's neocon era at best, and following the steps of the UK Tories at worst. Maybe you're right that this is how you win, but at that point I have to ask what is the point of winning?
It's not just issues, it is tone and emphasis. Launching a school board campaign that puts (largely hypothetical) trans kids front and center is running a narrow campaign on aggression and identity politics. Running for county executive on a platform of investigating election fraud is putting the actual business of the county second behind national issues (which the vast majority of voters don't really care about in that case anyway). The candidates we're seeing don't carry and groom and present themselves well, they don't have long resumes of accomplishments to point, they don't have pedigrees and when they do they run against them rather than on them. That's the kind of thing we're having problems with.
A lot of it is focusing on good governance and emphasizing concrete actions over vague culture war issues. The strategy question isn't just about what you want to do, it's what you want to talk about, what you put center stage and crow about vs what you do quietly backstage and dump in a Friday afternoon procedural news release.
At the county council level right up to the federal level, reduce the grip of government, make it easier to build a shed or start a business. Procedural reform, by which for every new rule put in place, one old rule is removed. That can be instituted throughout levels of government: for every new ordinance, one old ordinance has to go. Ratchet it up to two ordinances, and now you're shrinking government.
At the school board level, reduce administrative waste and extracurricular bloat to cut costs and ultimately taxes. Improve test scores.
If the competency slate for school board also puts in place a minor rule on where kids go to the bathroom, great, but don't make it the centerpiece of why they're running for office and everything else an afterthought.
There's nothing hypothetical about it, I personally know parents of a trans kid, and educational materials are quite openly pushing trans propaganda. It's not aggression to demand that schools stick to ABC's and 123's instead of pushing race war and mastectomies. Even if you think the issue is irrelevant, a conservative party that turns a blind eye to it is more than useless. I literally might as well vote left-wing at that point, at least I'm going to get what's on the tin.
I think the culture war issues are a lot more specific than "good governance". You do elaborate on what you mean by that, but "reduce regulations" is a lot more abstract to me than "ban 'gender affirming' surgeries and hormone therapies for minors", "ban schools from hiding the kid's desire to transition from parents", "don't send male convicts to female prisons", "reestablish the citizen's right to self-defense from criminals", "reverse lenient-on-crime policies" or "force schools to actually teach".
Well again, if you're going to reduce the whole trans issue to bathrooms, why shouldn't I just spare myself the humiliation, and vote progressive?
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It isn't how the Republicans win, though. It relies on being able to capture a normie center that's no longer there; the Democrats took it under Obama and the Republicans can't reach it, let alone get it back. If you watch and read only respected media (as normies do), you get only the Democratic perspective; media which treats Republican viewpoints with anything but pure disdain (Fox News, the New York Post, the Washington Times) is not considered respected, with the very slight exception of The Wall Street Journal (which doesn't help in most of the country).
Personally I don't think this is how you win either, but even granting the premise, I'd like to know what would be the point.
It's the Burkean conservative utopia where the population doesn't reach 50% trans until at least 2100, and the police are abolished but there's a well-thought-out plan for doing it.
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For the most part, the problem isn't a policy agenda problem (in fact, on these issues -- crime, immigration, education -- have a polling advantage), it's a temperament and presentment problem.
Oh, I think I agree with that.
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simplified lumpenproletariat immigration for LatAm with a digital federal registry of non-voters, no jus soli for them
points-based immigration with an "American values" test for upper prole and white collar migrants
Handgun restrictions for urban youth with Urumqi-style checkpoints, decriminalize drug consumption and possession.
Black lives matter, but looters will be shot on sight.
Research the origins of transness to prevent it. Research the origins of racial discrepancies in life outcomes to fix them.
I think other than the BLM position, this is exactly what I meant. No limits on mass immigration, only on the quality of immigrants? In fact, not even that, you'd still let the "lumpens" come in, just put some restrictions on what they can do once they're here? Violate 2nd Ammendment rights, and let people ruin their lives hoping they'll be too high to do serious crime? How is "research the origins of racial discrepancies in life outcomes to fix them" different from what was done since the very beginning of the Civil Rights movement? Nothing about the crazy stuff they're teaching in schools? Why would anyone with a conservative bone in their body be ok with you waving through surgeries and hormone therapies for minors, on the vague promise you'll find the cause of transness and prevent it in the future?
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