> Ask instead, "was this a politically effective policy memo?"
The long-term political goal for the Republican Party is to win elections, praticularly the presidency.
Younger and tech-savvy voters tend to vote Democrat. This is a problem for Republicans because their voter base is literally dying. If they embraced copyright reform and pushed it as an issue, there may be a lot of votes in it for them. I would regard that as "politically effective".
Another point is that Holywood and the music industry massively support the Democrats. This would mean that if the Republicans adopted copyright reform as a policy, the Democrats would be in a bind: either adopt copyright reform too (and annoy the copyright industry, and give up all the money it gives) or don't (and annoy lots of Democrat-leaning voters). It's therefore a wedge issue that could be tactically effective for the Republicans.
It most be pretty obvious to intelligent, thoughtful Republicans that their current strategy -- of getting lots of white men to vote for them by exploiting prejudice against blacks, Hispanics, women, and gays -- has no future. So they're going to need a new one; copyright reform as part of an overall libertarian agenda might be part of it, and by shutting down the debate on the issue, the Republican Party is not doing itself any favours.
But I suspect it will take them one or two more election cycles before it sinks in to them that they need to do thinks differently.
I agree with your conclusion—the Republican leadership seems to have convinced itself that their policies had nothing to do with their loss in the last round, so it will probably take a couple more iterations to figure out that they've alienated just enough of the country to lose elections consistently without a platform change.
I also think a tactic like this one could be extremely valuable to a rational Republican party. However, that doesn't mean the numbers work for this particular wedge. Thomas's point is that it isn't politically effective if it costs more than you make in profit and this particular policy position costs more than it's worth. You have to count the voters you gain versus the ones you lose, but you also have to worry about your cash flow.
Say this move netted the Republican party 4% of the vote. That would probably be enough to swing an election by itself. But if the move costs them $10B in funding, we have to weigh how much of that 4% the Democratic party can win back with a $10B advantage (or more, if Republican donors become Democratic donors). If they gain 4% of the voters but lose 2% due to cashflow problems they wind up in more-or-less the same place they were before. Following this example, it would have to gain them more like 6%+ to be worth the cost, and unless 6% of our country would swing on this one issue it's not likely.
If Thomas is right and the reforms weren't well-posed (I'm in no position to judge, but his point is well made) then it's a high-risk proposition of dubious value.
I wouldn't be surprised if they returned to this topic with a more modest proposal that doesn't anger all of their copyright-holding donors but still has a certain kind of appeal. But like you said, I would be surprised if it happened in the next four years—maybe in more like 6-8.
The long-term political goal for the Republican Party is to win elections, praticularly the presidency.
Younger and tech-savvy voters tend to vote Democrat. This is a problem for Republicans because their voter base is literally dying. If they embraced copyright reform and pushed it as an issue, there may be a lot of votes in it for them. I would regard that as "politically effective".
Another point is that Holywood and the music industry massively support the Democrats. This would mean that if the Republicans adopted copyright reform as a policy, the Democrats would be in a bind: either adopt copyright reform too (and annoy the copyright industry, and give up all the money it gives) or don't (and annoy lots of Democrat-leaning voters). It's therefore a wedge issue that could be tactically effective for the Republicans.
It most be pretty obvious to intelligent, thoughtful Republicans that their current strategy -- of getting lots of white men to vote for them by exploiting prejudice against blacks, Hispanics, women, and gays -- has no future. So they're going to need a new one; copyright reform as part of an overall libertarian agenda might be part of it, and by shutting down the debate on the issue, the Republican Party is not doing itself any favours.
But I suspect it will take them one or two more election cycles before it sinks in to them that they need to do thinks differently.