Let’s check in on the GOP Rebranding Effort, shall we?
This week has been a banner one for the GOP, and its only Wednesday. First, with respect to reaching out to minorities, which the GOP HAS TO DO IF IT EVER WANTS TO WIN ANOTHER ELECTION AGAIN, we have their celebration of the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, and their zeal in passing as many Voting Restriction Laws as possible so as to prevent minorities from voting. As Bill Clinton rightly says, you can never vote for someone who doesn’t want you to vote in the first place. So Strike One for the GOP.
Second, on the same minority outreach issue, we have Speaker Boehner telling his Republican colleagues in the House that he will not bring the Senate Immigration Bill to the floor, which essentially means that the GOP will kill immigration reform. And that means what was a horrible Romney loss of 70-30 among Latinos in 2012 will grow to 90-10 in 2016 if not higher, which of course means the GOP will never again win the Presidency. Well, that is a little hyperbole on my part. I suppose if the GOP wins all of the white vote, and I mean all of it, 100%, it could win a close Bush-Gore repeat here and there between now and 2050, when whites will be a minority in America. So good job on that one, Boehner.
Third, we have all the GOP efforts to again discuss rape in the context of their shared zeal to end reproductive freedom in this country. The latest example is that idiot Texas State Representative saying on Monday that Rape Kits clean out the victim so as to prevent pregnancy when defending SB5’s lack of a exception for rape and incest victims. Yeah, ok. Send her back to biology class please, or at least have a detective explain to her what a Rape Kit is. Well, that was all in prelude to last night’s wonderful events where Texas State Senator Wendy Davis stood up for women’s rights and reproductive freedom and filibustered the bill until it was dead.
Well, on Twitter, very dumb conservative males have started using this hashtag: #SitDownWendy. That was in response to the hashtag in use last night in support of Senator Davis, #standwithwendy. Yes, the first thing you always do when trying to bridge the Gender Chasm and attract more women voters to your ideology and party is to tell another woman to sit down and shut up. It does wonders for the party image among women. Another conservative hashtag in use is #wendymakemeasandwhich. Nice.
So with the GOP going to great great pains to alienate minorities and women, the GOP better embrace homosexuality soon since they are going to need white men to start breeding with each other, not to mention advances in medical science, which they are also against.
But on that score… not so much. As those conservative Republicans who did speak out today in horror at the Supreme Court’s landmark marriage equality decisions made sure to attack homosexuality as a sin and classified gays as second class inferior citizens destined for Hellfire.
So good work, GOP. Really, we Democrats could not do a better job defining you all as out of touch discriminatory bigots than the job you are doing yourselves.
Interesting that the GOP faction that thinks that all they need to do is get more white voters out to actually vote seems to be winning the “rebranding”.
I don’t see Dems doing much to capitalize on this yet, and that worries me.
The Republican Base never had any intention to change and remains a bastion of the same hatreds that have plagued this country for many years, in their minds we’re the problem, not them. Sure, Karl Rove and many others know it’s a huge problem. But not in east Bum fork Alabama, Texas, Mississippi etc. At the local level the GOP will remain competitive, but there is no Reagan coming at the national level, and even if there was the GOP base would reject him (and certainly not her ).
They have the supreme court saying that it is okay to exclude voters from the rolls who are likely to vote for Democrats, so I wouldn’t count the Grand Old Party out yet.
As long as we are pointing out potential voter suppression and fraud, we may as well point out that Romney received zero votes in fifty nine voting precincts in Philadelphia ,but who cares, right.
I have now come to the conclusion that the Democratic Party wants to have it’s cake and eat it too.
On one hand it revels in the real probability of one party rule, but on the other hand, it seems to want to keep some scrap of a Republican presence, so that they don’t have to own the failures. It’s a very prudent way of thwarting the political pendulum.
Why else would they be giving Republicans advice on how to save the GOP?
“As long as we are pointing out potential voter suppression and fraud, we may as well point out that Romney received zero votes in fifty nine voting precincts in Philadelphia ,but who cares, right.”
I doubt there were Romney voters cowering in fear in those voting places. If fraud was committed, it was before or after the polls closed, and by people who were using math beyond common arithmetic. If we want to “true the vote,” I think we should be looking for ways to make voting machines unhackable.
Remember the previous election, and members of the black panthers standing watch at a polling place. One of the gentleman had “kill whitey” tattooed on his face.
BTW, did you know that holding people accountable for other peoples past indiscretions, just because they have the same skin color as the perpetrators of those indiscretions, is pretty much the definition of racism.
Yes, they certainly were very scary. And they must have been busy, to visit 59 polling places intimidating white voters from entering a single one. Are you always this gullible?
This thread insinuates racism in the Republican Party. I’m Just pointing out the hypocrisy.
“Racism” does not mean prejudice, as you apparently think. Racism is the treatment of one group of people as inferior by another group of people. Black animosity towards whites does not spring from superiority, either real or perceived. It springs from oppression.
As has been noted on this blog before, white people have a very difficult time realizing that white privilege permeates American society.
Back to your point, one “Black Panther” does not a voter suppression scheme make.
“Racism”, in my opinion, is taking any action at all that is based on race.
““Racism”, in my opinion, is taking any action at all that is based on race.”
Nah. Actions are prejudicial or preferential treatment. It’s not racism. Racism is simply a belief that differences among the races determine achievement, with one race superior to the another. Prejudicial and preferential treatment can certainly result from racism. But the actions themselves are not racism. One can be a racist but one does not practice racism.
For what it’s worth I don’t think the GOPs actions in regards to voting is indicative of racism because when I ask myself if they would attempt the same with poor white voters if those voters were likely Democrat voters, the answer is pretty evident. They are certainly predjudiced towards those who are not like them, but mostly that involves the color green as opposed to any other physical characteristic.
Also, for what it’s worth, the entire issue would disappear if we simply adopted a national id and spent the time and effort to ensure that everyone had one before penalizing them for not having one by not allowing them to vote. Today, being white is generally an automatic qualifier. But if everyone had to prove who they were, it would be equal treatment.
Wikipedia:
Racism is usually defined as views, practices and actions reflecting the belief that humanity is divided into distinct biological groups called races and that members of a certain race share certain attributes which make that group as a whole less desirable, more desirable, inferior, or superior.