In the last post I said that the GOP is much like the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy: it thinks by placing a new face on the same failed policies and prejudices somehow a miraculous change in how the party is perceived by the very minorities that the party leadership and the party base despise will occur. Any rational person can quickly figure out that such reasoning belongs in a fantasy world. Only a change in policies and a move away from an increasingly vicious white Christofascist party base will bring change. A piece in Politico looks at the behind close doors scheming of the GOP that continues to avoid facing the real source of the party's problems: its control by religious fanatics and white supremacists. Here are article highlights:
It’s simple: House Republicans say that if they spend the next two years like they spent the past two, they’ll become irrelevant.
So for the past few days, GOP leaders have met behind closed doors to both craft an agenda that confronts the ghosts of Congresses past and figure out a way to sell it to the American people.
[T]here are some widely accepted fixes emerging from the week long talks.
Rule one: Stop talking like the world is going to end. Budgetary politics is important to the GOP, but voters are going to stop voting for a party that talks about gloom and doom around the clock. “I think that we need to make being fiscally conservative cool,” said Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.), chairwoman of the Administration Committee and a close ally of Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Rule two: Stop repealing regulations no one has heard of. It’s nice to be the party of cutting red tape, Republicans say, but no one has heard of boiler MACT or utility MACT. So spending time throwing these bills on the floor is absolutely useless. Package regulation cutting together, and explain that people’s energy will be cheaper, Republicans say.
Rule three: Sand down the party’s rough edges. Pass education bills and immigration legislation. Stop screaming about red ink and spending too much. This one is going to be tough, since House Republicans haven’t been able to pass a bill called the Violence Against Woman Act for more than a year. It’s a nagging problem for the party, whose main legislative agenda has been opposing President Barack Obama.
And that’s what defines the GOP at the moment. For instance, they don’t want to raise the minimum wage. They aren’t looking to curb gun laws after children were slain in Connecticut and Chicago. Most of them don’t approve of a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. They are cooling on tax reform. They aren’t looking to spend money to create manufacturing hubs.
GOP leadership is attending these sessions, and has become increasingly alarmed at how many lawmakers in the meeting think the party has a messaging problem, not a policy problem. “I really believe it’s not the message, it’s the ideas,” Lankford said.
Then there’s the budget. House Republicans have centered their messaging around the Senate’s unwillingness to pass a budget, claiming it renders them fiscally irresponsible. But moderates are privately fretting about their 2014 budget, which Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Speaker John Boehner say will balance within 10 years.
“There could be a significant number of Republicans that say, ‘I’m not going there because it would be too dramatic.’ I have said to my constituents, nobody is talking about changing Social Security and Medicare if you’re 55 years or over.’ I’ve been selling it for three or four years that way. So have many other members. Well, to balance in 10, that 55 years is going to move up to 58, 59, 60. It makes us look like we’re going back on what we were telling people when we were trying to sell this.”
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