Worries About House, SCOTUS Signal End Of Conservative Era

Two unrelated stories today indicate just how quickly the end of the conservative era may be coming. First, National Review and Bloomberg View contributor Ramesh Ponnuru writes that, with Trump at the head of the ticket, Republicans should actively start to worry whether they could actually lose control of the House of Representatives in the upcoming election.  It is generally assumed that the House is secure for the Republicans at least until after the 2020 census and redistricting. Aggressive gerrymandering, the power of incumbency, and their largest majority in the House since before FDR all support that perception. But Ponnuru quotes Henry Olsen, who has studied the Republican electorate for the last two decades, as saying that an eight point Hillary win would translate down-ballot to Democratic control of the House. Even to Republicans, it is looking more and more conceivable, although not necessarily likely, that Democrats could control the White House, Senate, and House after 2016.  You'll know if and when House Republicans truly are concerned about losing their majority when they stop promoting what they will accomplish in the next term but instead campaign merely as a check on a Democratic President and Senate.

The other news item that should also shake conservatives to their core is the report in the Washington Examiner that Clarence Thomas is actively mulling his retirement from the Supreme Court after this year's election.  Should that happen and Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, she may have the opportunity to appoint four justices during her term - replacements for Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and Ginsburg. In doing so, she would end the conservative domination of the court since end of the Warren era when Richard Nixon was able to appoint three Supreme Court justices in the 1970s. Clinton's appointments would totally shift the dynamic, perhaps setting up liberal domination of the court for the next 30 years.

The demographic changes in this country are already creating an uphill battle for Republicans and, as Trump alienates even more minority voters, that challenge becomes even greater, especially after the 2020 census and redistricting. Without any levers of power in the White House, Senate, House, or Supreme Court, Republicans will have to rely on the filibuster in the Senate and their continued dominance in the state houses in order to stay relevant at all.  It is looking more and more likely that the balance of power is shifting quickly away from conservatives and that progressives will be the dominant force in American politics for the next generation. The question is whether 2017 will be the year the year that the conservative era of the last 30 years ends.