The NOW with Alex Wagner panel on Tuesday discussed the GOP's response to its declining share of the electorate as well as the widening divide that exists between urban and rural areas.
The classic Republican response to the demographic headwinds facing the party has been to bury its head in the sand. Prior to the election, Republicans in several states supported Voter ID laws designed to suppress minority turnout.
After the election, Republican legislators in several blue states attempted to alter the rules of the Electoral College system from a winner-takes-all system to apportionment based on congressional district. Those plans have largely failed, barring one ongoing case in Pennsylvania
New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait writes that the election-rigging efforts are part of a general sense of "panic about democracy itself at work in the Republican Party right now," adding, "Republican officials have argued in support of the electoral college scheme, that it is unfair for urban voters to outvote those who live in small towns .... it's indicative of the party's adaptive response to the growing sense of being outnumbered at the polls."
"It really is the case that the country is going through significant demographic changes," said the Brennan Center for Justice President Michael Waldman. "At the same time you're seeing this sudden surge in new laws and new efforts to change the rules to make it harder for some people to vote in ways that haven't been seen before.
"It's a new country, it's more diverse, it's more urban, we have had moves to the cities for years," he added. "This is the future of the country."