Friday, November 09, 2012

Racist, Anti-Gay Christians: The Anchor Pulling Down the GOP

As the chart above puts in easy perspective, by pandering to far right white conservative Christians, the Republican Party has made itself toxic to non-whites.  Compounding the problem is the reality that the party's virulent anti-gay agenda (see prior posts about the GOP party platform) is alienating younger voters as well.  With its base dying off more each year and demographics surging toward non-whites - or at least those the Christofascists and white supremacists deem non-white - the eventual disaster for the GOP is all too clear.  At least to anyone not guzzling the GOP Kool-Aid.  A piece in The Week looks at this metastasizing problem for the GOP.  Here are excerpts:

Here's what is in your gut if you're a Republican. You know you should have won this election. You know that this election might have been the last election you should have won with the current collection of interests that make up your party.  .  .  .  .  what is to be done?

One piece of advice: Reject magical thinking. It is magical to think that the big problem with the GOP has to do with "narrative" or message or words. .  .  .  .  It's not about making other people like Republicans; it's about — sorry to say — changing the party substantively to address their concerns and interests.

The current Republican coalition is not going to win elections anymore. The replacement rate among white voters is much less than the addition rate among minority voters. There is nothing — nothing — you can do to make this reality go away. The trap of demography is steel tight.  

It may be that your party has to change its position on a few key issues. That's right. It has to change its position. Not "reposition."  Not re-message. Not dress differently. But simply change course

The party could take the teeth out of the immigration issue entirely by compromising with President Obama on immigration during the next term.

If Republicans drop their opposition to gay marriage, the chances that Democrats will continue to pick up majorities of new and young voters will diminish. Gay issues are the civil rights issue of the time. Many of these voters see the party's implacable opposition to equal treatment for gays and simply turn away. The GOP is killing itself by giving libertarian-leaning younger voters a reason to think that the party is held hostage by a loud minority.

Those voters are right. It is hard to imagine a GOP primary where Christian conservatives don't significantly influence the vote and the platform. Until you can imagine a primary where Christian conservatives and their anxieties and fears don't dominate the process, it is hard to imagine a pro-gay, pro-immigrant candidate breaking through. (Jon Huntsman, Jr.?)

The real trap is that there are plenty of Republicans who can win national elections, plenty of conservative Republicans, but that they cannot make it through the filter of the primary, which is not suited to the demography and realities of a modern society.

 Sometimes the truth hurts.  It doesn't make it any less the truth.  Convincing this to the Christofascists and white supremacists may prove impossible.


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