No. of Recommendations: 2
A WORKER'S PARTY, COMBINED WITH MUSLIM-AMERICANS......can help preserve Republicanism and some tenets of Conservatism. Yes that's right. Muslim Americans.
A very thoughtful and lengthy post.
I think it's clear that "Trumpism" has caused (accelerated?) the GOP moving away from trying to bury the need on fiscal conservatism, and instead be more of a fiscally moderate, socially conservative party. This is what's been happening in Europe and other countries for a while: right-leaning populist parties eschewing austerity politics and/or attacking popular social welfare programs, and instead concentrating on socially conservative positions combined with a more open attitude.
I'm not sure that adding Muslim-Americans to that mix will really matter. Muslims make up barely more than 1% of the U.S. population, and an even lower proportion of the electorate. Other than a little outsized attention to Democratic Muslims in Michigan of late, there's no evidence that Muslim-Americans are a significant force in U.S. politics, or are likely to meaningfully contribute to the GOP coalition.
The general idea of trying to appeal to socially conservative minority groups is a good one for the GOP, but Muslim Americans are probably not the most strategic target. Asian Americans (among whom there is some non-trivial overlap with Muslim Americans) and/or Latino Americans are probably more fertile ground for adding to the coalition.
Of course, the problem with that is obvious - an essential plank of right-wing populism is immigration restrictionism, and Latinos and Asians are among the larger groups that are currently emigrating in large numbers to the U.S. So overt efforts to embrace those voters run into some internal contradictions within the party. Nothing insurmountable, of course - there are plenty of Latino and Asian voters that are conservative on immigration matters. But the tension is there to a greater degree than Muslim-Americans, who are not currently a large portion of the undocumented and/or asylee population. Which may be why you leaned towards that minority group - despite the GOP's positioning during the Global War on Terror and the fight against global Islamist terror groups back in the day, those concerns have started to fade within the GOP's foreign policy focus compared to immigration
But it's a very small group, and not an especially fast-growing one.
