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Comment by nemo44x | Hacker News Reader

Republicans have completely given up on cities and without being able to even field a worthy candidate it’s the sign of a dying party longer term. You simply have to have some influence in cities. But they had none after a 20 year run where they remade NYC after decades of failure. Bloomberg went independent but he got in as a Republican after a successful Giuliani admin (yes he’s tarnished that).

But what happened? Why can’t they field a competitive candidate in cities like NYC or SF or LA or Chicago after failed admin after failed admin? Why have they given up?

You need to control cities to have any future. They need to recommit to fighting for them.

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>after a successful Giuliani admin (yes he’s tarnished that).

Successful? Try again.

Rudy Guiliani was the most hated man in NYC on September 10, 2001.

I'm not really sure why that changed, he was a horror. Anti-democratic (small 'd') anti-freedom of expression and spent most of his time being a boot stomping on the faces of hard working New Yorkers.

> You need to control cities to have any future.

It seems like the strategy is to control state legislatures through extensive gerrymandering, then use state sovereignty to control the cities from without. Blue cities in otherwise red states are not able to experiment with local policies anymore, much to everyone’s detriment.

That’s not even the point though. You can always do these things but you still have no cultural power and you’ve yielded the important structures and financial capitals. That’s not a long term strategy.

And it’s not that difficult to win these things, especially when you look at how objectively poor the oppositions performance has been in them. Historically they’ve been contested.

They are pushing Turning Point USA chapters at thousands of schools in the US.

They don't behave like a political party any more. It's not just the business of politics as usual and a generational shift, it's something different. I've been trying to coin a term for this internal takeover - I think nihilocracy, or nihilocratic populism, is the best I've come up with.

The party as a whole is uninterested in governing beyond seeking revenge and satisfying the charismatic eschatological movement that drives them. The leaders don't believe what they preach, they don't have policy goals besides "destroy what we hate", they don't have any conventional engagement with government beyond using it towards their own ends.

"Long term strategy" is a joke in this context. They're angry, they mobilize their supporters by promising revenge on a world that seems to be defying traditional structures and changing too fast. As with many reactionary movements aligned more by being "against" than "for", there's been little thought for what happens after the enemy has been defeated, and it's likely they'll continue seeking out new enemies until the movement dies from infighting or is ousted from power.

I see the supporter being nihilistic and purely out for revenge. I don’t see that with people in positions of power. They’re looking to line their pockets and they’ll take advantage of a vengeful constituency. True of both major parties. That’s why they focus on social issues and then pass legislation (or lack thereof) that allows them to all get rich.

Yep, I agree. I see the rank and file as being largely nihilistic but the leadership as being either pure ideologues or completely cynical. Either way, the stated values aren't the real ones, but they differ in whether they're working towards other goals or pure self-aggrandizement.

> You can always do these things but you still have no cultural power

That's when you use the power of the purse to contractually bind private businesses, non-profits, universities, etc, to your preferred values. Capital beats cultural power (or so goes the current gamble)

Edit: do I need to insert hyperlinks for the strong-arm tactics this administration has tried to force contractual counter-parties to adopts it's anti-DEI culture-war posture via a clause?

Those are just tactics though. So long as the cities are uncontested there’s no real long term plan. Just being somewhat competitive in them or having a presence.

The Republican party in NY has gone off the deep end into identity and grievance politics, whereas the Northeast typically elects pragmatic R's when they do (Bloomberg, Charlie Baker, Mitt Romney)

The current Republican playbook seems to be heavily gerrymander a couple of states to dilute the city population impact. See: Texas

They all gerrymander though. But that’s not the point. The point is fleeing cities is what conquered people do. It wouldn’t even be hard to win them.

You can't beat the Democrats unless you kowtow to the public sector unions, and that would betray the Republican Party's principles.

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