>According to national trends, in 10-15 years, the problems that they are having in California are likely to become national problems until they can change their political identity. (Why do you think that the Republican leadership is trying to be soft on immigration reform?)
The fundamental problem the Republicans have is that they have kind of an unstable coalition. The Democrats have a lock on the urban working class. That's close to half the country by itself, so the Republicans need a majority of everyone else in order to win. But "everyone else" is not a homogenous group. It's libertarians, religious conservatives, Wall St., rural blue collar workers, small business owners, etc. And it's shrinking as a percentage of the country, largely because "urban working class" is growing.
So the problem they have is that to get more voters, they have to gore somebody's ox. There are a huge ton of libertarian-leaning Democrats who would switch parties if the Republicans would stop pandering to religious extremists on social issues, but then they risk losing the huge voting block of religious conservatives. I personally think that could be a good strategy: Just say "screw it" and go to the left of the Democrats on social issues. If the Democrats stick with liberal social positions then the religious conservatives don't have any religious conservative candidate anymore, and they're still largely pro-free market people who may continue to vote Republican. Meanwhile if you can push the Democrats to the right on social issues then all the better, because now the Republicans can claim the growing demographic of urban voters who want liberal social positions, to say nothing of what it would do for women voters. But that's a pretty radical change.
Changing their position on immigration instead makes a lot of sense, because the growing Hispanic demographic leans pro-market and religious and is mostly disgusted with Republicans for their immigration policies. The problem is the result will be to increase polarization, because it allows the Republicans to double down on "monopolies are good + gays are bad" while making all the races closer, because it allows the Republicans to gain with Hispanics in urban areas, while giving the Democrats more votes among blue collar voters in rural areas who don't like the new immigration policy. And having a larger number of contentious races with more polarization is not likely to be good for the country.
The change on immigration feels to me like "too little, too late". The leadership would like to see the party's position change, and various leaders are following course.
But you have to go to elections with the party you have, not the one you want to have. Republicans voted in anti-immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere. Those laws are very popular with the Republican base. Politicians running for office have to recognize that reality. And as they pander to that reality, they make comments that reinforce that. All of which hurts them with the Latino population.
The fundamental problem the Republicans have is that they have kind of an unstable coalition. The Democrats have a lock on the urban working class. That's close to half the country by itself, so the Republicans need a majority of everyone else in order to win. But "everyone else" is not a homogenous group. It's libertarians, religious conservatives, Wall St., rural blue collar workers, small business owners, etc. And it's shrinking as a percentage of the country, largely because "urban working class" is growing.
So the problem they have is that to get more voters, they have to gore somebody's ox. There are a huge ton of libertarian-leaning Democrats who would switch parties if the Republicans would stop pandering to religious extremists on social issues, but then they risk losing the huge voting block of religious conservatives. I personally think that could be a good strategy: Just say "screw it" and go to the left of the Democrats on social issues. If the Democrats stick with liberal social positions then the religious conservatives don't have any religious conservative candidate anymore, and they're still largely pro-free market people who may continue to vote Republican. Meanwhile if you can push the Democrats to the right on social issues then all the better, because now the Republicans can claim the growing demographic of urban voters who want liberal social positions, to say nothing of what it would do for women voters. But that's a pretty radical change.
Changing their position on immigration instead makes a lot of sense, because the growing Hispanic demographic leans pro-market and religious and is mostly disgusted with Republicans for their immigration policies. The problem is the result will be to increase polarization, because it allows the Republicans to double down on "monopolies are good + gays are bad" while making all the races closer, because it allows the Republicans to gain with Hispanics in urban areas, while giving the Democrats more votes among blue collar voters in rural areas who don't like the new immigration policy. And having a larger number of contentious races with more polarization is not likely to be good for the country.