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> I assume that any years where the Republicans control government will be years where nothing happens.

Now now, I think you are being too generous. In fact, it takes a lot of effort to actively set the country back socially, culturally, and environmentally. Give credit where credit’s due. They work (in reverse) hard.

So soon have we forgotten about 2006-2008 and 2018-2020? The most difficult part about all this is that no one on Capitol Hill was talking about bringing manufacturing back to the US before Trump and he was laughed at by every Democrat in Congress for wanting to do so. Then, suddenly, once they gain power, the Democrats want to bring back manufacturing.

I don't remember Trump pushing any kind of new manufacturing. He was pandering to existing domestic manufacturers with the dumb tariffs.

Oh, he talked about it, a lot, but the only effort I ever noticed was, as you say, tariffs. Tariffs seems punitive, and when there's no other option to purchase, you import and pay the tariff anyway.

The Biden push for requiring federal purchases to have more 'made in USA' components seems a combination of stupidly simple, long overdue, and easy to understand. Govt requiring more stuff made in the US - and giving some tax cuts to help spur it - seems like it's a basic way to ignite manufacturing stateside.

> you import and pay the tariff anyway

Yes, I recently wrote about my own frustration with this: https://enki.org/2023/08/01/steel-prices/

> During President Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, he told voters that manufacturing jobs would be a crucial part of the American economy's resurgence. His administration set a goal to “create 1 million new manufacturing jobs by the end of 2016.”

Why pretend that Trump was the first person to talk about creating manufacturing jobs when it has been a hot political topic since the first time jobs started disappearing in the US?

> he was laughed at by every Democrat in Congress for wanting to do so

No, he was laughed at because he's sort of a buffoon, and steel tariffs just raised the cost of everything for people using steel; it didn't have any big impact on 'steel jobs'. It didn't create big demand for more US-made steel. That said, IIRC, they're still in place, and current admin should remove them (perhaps gradual removal over 2 years?)

He did nothing meaningful to spur US-based manufacturing, despite talking a big game. But that was basically Trump all over. (attempting to not get too political here)

I don't think that's fully fair - George W Bush really ramped up the weapons manufacturing sector in the US by invading two sovereign countries on false pretenses and killing many civilians through sanctions, regular bombings, and drone strikes.

> In the long-term, my best guess is that the current Republican platform will collapse within 10-20 years as the current leadership ages out, and there will be a phase change where the Republican platform recrystallizes around a more modern set of conservative values that appeals more to younger voters.

Trumpism is the modern set of conservative values that appeals more to younger voters. Trump was the one that killed GOP efforts to privatize social security and cut Medicare, and he’s been critical of the party’s more extreme positions on abortion.

We just had an election where the GOP won 3 million more votes than Democrats. Trump and Biden are tied in national polling: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4155482-biden-trump-vi...

Meanwhile, Democrats have managed to fend off Trump only through a coalition that includes AOC, most of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, and Liz Cheney. How long do you think that’s sustainable? Democrats have been forced into a neoliberal corner where they can’t actually do anything liberal (raising taxes, criminal justice reform, welfare expansion).

If Trump gets convicted we might never get another infrastructure week.

> Democrats have been forced into a neoliberal corner

Democrats jumped there headfirst led by Clinton in 1992, and have not, since then, been any farther out of a “neoliberal corner” than they are today (which is not that far, to be sure, but its absolutely not the case that its something they recently backed into in response to Trump.)

Bill Clinton started it, but Obama’s bank bailouts and Hilary Clinton’s stirring defense of globalization deepened the shift.

Just look at the electoral map. Obama beat Romney by about the same margin as Biden beat Trump. But Obama’s margin in Michigan was 10 points, while Biden’s was 3. Obama’s 7 point margin in Wisconsin evaporates to 1 point.

Where did those other votes come from? To a significant degree, it was from affluent suburbs were the management class lives. Democrats now are utterly reliant on the very people they need to heavily tax to deliver any of their progressive promises. You can’t have a meaningful liberal party which counts among its base Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Fortune 500 and Big Pharma executives.

The GOP has won a near complete victory. It can pick its fights on cultural issues. But win or lose, the worst thing that can happen is that the Democratic Party governs like Rockefeller Republicans. It must govern in a way that keeps Wall Street and Silicon Valley happy. It can’t roll back Reagan’s tax cuts on the upper middle class. In fact Biden preemptively ruled out any tax increases on people in the top 2%. Biden couldn’t even roll back Trump’s corporate tax cuts. It couldn’t extend the child tax credits. Y’all are excited about infrastructure investment, but that’s always been something liberal Republicans have entertained.

Democrats are in a weird position where they're relatively moderate in terms of economics, but arguably the furthest left major party in the world in terms of social issues. The latter is turning off non-college educated of all ethnicities.

Even more so when you look past the platform to what they can actually accomplish with the traffic light coalition they’ve put together. They got a temporary child tax credit through the Trump administration, but couldn’t even make it permanent when they got a trifecta.

Social issues are really the only thing where the party is unified and can push through changes, especially through the administrative state. We didn’t get a permanent child tax credit, or paid family leave, but we did get abortions and DEI in the military.

Not sure what you're talking about re: "criminal justice reform" - we've had an experiment on that in the last decade that has led to absolute disaster. Low level crime has increased, and now violent crime is increasing.