The Damaging GOP Quest for a White Republic

A piece in Time Magazine looks at what has in many ways become the driving agenda of the Republican Party: restoring a mythic white republic.  Yes, empowering corporate greed and polluters are sub-agenda items, but increasingly a desire to restore racial superiority (at least in the minds of Republicans) is the most important issue of all.  Meanwhile, much of the wold looks on aghast at what has happened to America as noted by a piece at CNN:

What happens to a country that is an idea, when that idea turns ugly? Since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the United States has been the leader of the free world economically, militarily, but also -- as communism and fascism fell by the wayside -- as an idea. . . . . But America was supposed to know better -- to lead us forward, not backward, to know the way.

Winston Churchill said you could always count on the Americans to do the right thing once they had tried everything else. Now, it's not clear who would know what the right thing is when it happens.

We watch the downward spiral helpless, trying not to be dragged in. America's ugly obsession with guns and mass shootings blended this month predictably with the far extremes of anti-immigrant sentiment.

The intense cruelty of US Customs and Border Protection facilities, separating children and parents, and of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, all fall foul of the rosy-eyed view outsiders have of America as a place where anyone can come and make it. The huddled masses were always the point of the United States, but now they seem to have become the enemy within.

What comes next? Does it lead the free world again, or allow China's alien authoritarianism to fill the vacuum? Has America peaked? Will it eventually do the right thing, and who will be left to know when it does?

Foreigners are not the only ones shocked by what is happening to America.  Equally shocking is the willingness of Republicans to weaken the nation in exchange for increased white privilege/political power.  Like some church denominations that prefer to shrink in size to maintain "purity," today's Republicans ignore the tearing of the social safety net, a weakened economy and military so that they can feel racially privileged.  Here are highlights from the Time piece that looks at the manner the Trump/GOP quest for a white republic is harming America: 

When in a recent tweetstorm Donald Trump suggested that four Congresswomen of color leave the U.S. and “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” social media exploded. Outrage. Even some news outlets finally let go of the euphemisms and called the tweets “racist.” The Republicans, on the other hand, were quiet. As well they would be. The ideological demographics of the party dictated it.

The GOP’s membership is nearly 90 percent white and can only envision carnage and extinction as it looks upon a rights-based, religious, racial and ideologically diverse America. Or, as Lindsey Graham had noted as early as 2012, “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”

In short, the United States of America is not really their America. They yearn for a white republic. That’s why they are fighting to recreate the days when, as Archie Bunker sang, “Guys like us, we had it made.” That’s why they’ve willingly gone along with and participated in a sustained attack on the country itself, allowing it to grow weaker so that they could feel stronger.

Already, Trump and the Republicans have severely harmed the institutional heft of checks-and-balances. But they’re not done. America’s international reputation and influence rest on enormous economic and military strength, as well as the intangible but all-important “soft power” brought on by a robust democracy. All three pillars are necessary to sustain America’s nearly global respect and position, yet — and this was the rub — all three are increasingly dependent on more than just whites in the United States to build and sustain. For white America to exist, America must die. And the Republicans have made their choice.

In their effort to restore a white America, the GOP had to wound the kind of multiracial democracy that not only elected Barack Obama to the presidency but enhanced America’s global reputation. Republicans, therefore, set out to create an electorate that was disproportionately white and conservative. In Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Alabama, North Carolina and more than 20 additional states GOP policies targeted African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, Native Americans, the young and the poor to keep them away from the ballot box. Republican governors and GOP-majority state legislatures deployed an array of voter-suppression tactics, including closing hundreds of polling stations in minority and low-income precincts, slashing early voting hours, reinstating poll taxes, mandating discriminatory voter ID laws and purging millions from the voter rolls. Meanwhile, before his death, Republican legislative mapmaker Thomas Hofeller set in place another key foundation for a white republic. He crafted extreme gerrymandered Congressional districts across the United States that violated the basic Constitutional concept of “one person, one vote.” His legislative maps diluted the electoral strength of large, racially diverse cities, and magnified the power of overwhelmingly white suburbs and sparsely populated rural areas. The dismantling of a robust, multiracial democracy requires not only acts of commission, such as the 5-4 Shelby County v. Holder decision by the conservatives on the Supreme Court to gut the Voting Rights Act, but sins of omission as well. Mitch McConnell’s flat-out refusal to even engage legislation that would protect the nation’s electoral infrastructure from hacking and foreign interference, despite solid evidence that it occurred in 2016, sends a clear signal that for his ilk this is not an American democracy worth protecting or saving. The dangerous quest for a white republic is also undermining the U.S. military. When Trump came to power, there were more than 40,000 immigrants in uniform willing to fight and die for the United States. About 5,000 joined every year. The Department of Defense under this Administration, however, has either proposed or implemented policies that renege on promises of citizenship for immigrants in the armed services, issued directives that ban immigrants, even those with special language and medical skills, from serving and threatened to deport the families of those who are currently in the armed forces. . . . . Not surprisingly, in 2018, the Army missed its recruiting goals and then had to lower its expectations for 2019, to avoid two consecutive years of failure. The economic might of the United States has not been spared either. While much of the discussion on the economy and immigration has focused on the impact on the agricultural sector, the GOP’s xenophobic policies are also taking a direct hit on higher education and the nation’s capacity for and leadership in technological and scientific innovation. A 2013 report notes that international students enrolled in American universities accounted for “70.3 percent of all full-time graduate students in electrical engineering, 63.2 percent in computer science, 60.4 percent in industrial engineering, and more than 50 percent in chemical, materials and mechanical engineering, as well as in economics (a non-STEM field).” Those students bring the brainpower to innovation, research and technology. . . . Yet, with the rise of Trump and his policies and rhetoric, U.S. higher education, which fuels this STEM growth, is simply not as attractive as it had been. The determination to build MAGA Land explains why what should be obvious tripwires – disrespecting military heroes; engaging in widespread corruption; cavorting with a communist dictator in North Korea and a journalist-killing authoritarian in Saudi Arabia; dodging multiple allegations of sexual assault, including rape; creating horrific scenes of White House-sponsored cruelty on the border; and believing Putin over our own intelligence agencies about Russian interference in the 2016 election – have all failed to dislodge one of the most unpopular presidents in recorded history. Put simply, because Trump promises Republicans a return to white dominance, he is more important to the GOP and its base than the country those in power took an oath to support and defend. The scurrilous attack on Representatives Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib was just part and parcel of a larger assault on America and the rich diversity and rights culture that are essential for true greatness.

A Simple Fix If Republicans Don’t Want to be Called Racist

GOP candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith who defends her statement she's attend a public lynching.

Some of my Republican friends - two spring immediately to mind - whine that they don't want to be called or considered to be racists, yet through the actions they silently condone  and some of the racially offense materials they mindlessly post on social media they all but prove their critics' point.  It's quite simple, as long as these Republicans continue to vote for Trump and other GOP candidates who use racism to instill fear and racial animosity, they deserve to be labeled for what they share complicity. And sadly, it's a short step from racism to antisemitism and homophobia.  Former Republican Jennifer Rubin has an on point column in the Washington Post that looks at the racism Republicans continue to support through their votes.  Here are excerpts:

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), facing a runoff race against Democratic former congressman Mike Espy, has had multiple embarrassing videos released recently. In one leaked video, she said that if someone “invited me to a public hanging I’d be in the front row.” In another, she declared that “there’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. So I think that’s a great idea.”

CNN conservative commentator Amanda Carpenter responded to the first comment this way: “There’s no explanation for it. It’s a racist thing to say. I’m not from the South, but I’m pretty sure joking around about going to a public lynching is not something people say.” She continued, “What she needs to do is tour the new lynching museum that’s down South where they show the horrific things that people went through in her backyard.”

When a former Trump campaign adviser tried defending Hyde-Smith by claiming this was all part of “the outrage culture,” Carpenter countered, “It’s wrong when someone says something so provocative that you blame the people who are offended.” She bluntly declared, “If Republicans want to quit being accused of being racist, they have to stop saying racist things.”

That kind of straight talk and zero tolerance for racism is exceedingly rare among GOP elected officials, candidates and their helpmates in the right-wing media. The usual response is that he or she didn’t mean it, or “What about … ?”

The explanation for why Republicans talk this way and other Republicans don’t object should be obvious: In the Trump era, where white grievance is the prime motivator for turning out the base and resentment of “elites” is what binds voters to President Trump, GOP politicians are loath to repudiate racist rhetoric. Instead they try to harness not only the winks, nods and overt statements of solidarity with the alt-right (including fondness for Confederate statues and emblems) but also the reaction this generates from those whom their base scorns — the media, urban elites and civil rights groups.

Trump spent the last weeks of the campaign hysterically warning about a non-emergency, the progress of a caravan of refugees a thousand miles from our border. Once the election was over, the matter was dropped. Well, to crib from Carpenter, if Republicans want to quit being accused of being “anti-immigrant,” they have to stop saying anti-immigrant things (e.g. calling them “animals,” talking about an infestation, making up a crime wave purportedly caused by immigrants).

Indeed, this formulation should serve as a guidepost for Republicans:

If Republicans want to quit being accused of science denial, they have to stop denying science.

If Republicans want to quit being accused of hypocrisy, they have to stop being hypocrites about the debt (bad only for Democrats), executive power (bad only for Democrats) and corporate cronyism (bad only for Democrats).

If Republicans want to quit being accused of misogyny, they have to stop suggesting that women invent allegations of sexual assault, don’t want to work hard enough to be on the Judiciary Committee and aren’t intelligent. 

If Republicans want to quit being accused of being doormats for dictators, they have to stop defending Trump when he refuses to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, to name just a few.

In short, Republicans bring criticism on themselves when they talk and act in ways that are factually wrong and morally indefensible. It’s a big reason that voters who care about facts and public morality won’t vote for them.

Growing up, my mother always lectured us kids that we would be labeled by the company that we kept and that, therefore, choosing one's friends and the causes one supported were important .  Nowadays, Republicans tolerate, if not openly support, racist and immoral individuals - Trump being the prime example.  Indeed, I increasingly believe that nowadays it is impossible for a decent and truly moral person to vote Republican. 

The Virginia GOP's Problem With People

Having just suffered an across the board shut out in the statewide elections where gerrymandered districts do not ensue GOP victories, the Virginia GOP needs to face one of its main problems: people.  Today's GOP simply doesn't like most people.  The Virginia GOP hates gays, blacks, Hispanics and certainly women who want  control over their own bodies.  And the people that the Virginia GOP doesn't like do not like the GOP.  A column in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at this reality.  Here are excerpts:

Sen. Mark Obenshain’s squeaker defeat for attorney general — confirmed in a recount this past week — could set him up for something bigger but not necessarily better: the titular leadership of a dispirited Republican Party and dibs on its nomination for governor in 2017.

For more than 30 years, the most conservative Republicans have dominated the party’s governing body, the state Central Committee, and many of its subdivisions, the city and county units.

In the 1980s, it was Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson religious conservatives. In the 1990s, it was Mike Farris home-schoolers and Ollie North apologists. In the 2000s, it is Paul-ites and tea partiers. Organizational power translates to political power, assuring these activists the final say in candidate selection.

One would think an electoral embarrassment on the scale suffered by Republicans last month would augur a change in personnel and policy. Not in the Virginia GOP. Setbacks only strengthen the resolve of those on the inside to remain there.

These people are not going unchallenged. . . . . But for Republicans, the primary is a solution fraught with problems.

In 2012, George Allen was nominated by primary for the U.S. Senate seat he narrowly lost six years earlier to Democrat Jim Webb. Allen drew 65 percent of the vote in a four-candidate field. It would qualify as an impressive feat, were the primary not poorly attended.

Slightly more than 200,000 voters participated, compared with the 4,000 who picked this year’s Republican statewide ticket at a convention in Richmond. The Senate primary vote, however, represented less than 5 percent of Virginia’s 5 million-plus electorate.

Primaries are not a panacea for Republicans, particularly when the pool of prospective voters is becoming more perilous. The increasingly diverse electorate, most evident in the Northern Virginia-to-Virginia Beach corridor, is a vote trove for Democrats.

The Republican remedy: more of the members-only politics that got the GOP in trouble in the first place.

Given the dominant profile of Republicans — white, older, lopsidedly male, conservative, and rural — it’s unlikely their primary elections would attract voters different than themselves.

The Republican Party’s problem is one of people. Because it is seen as preoccupied with restricting abortion, cutting taxes, fighting gay rights, and promoting firearms, the GOP is estranged from business, working women and new Virginians. For them, politics seems less relevant.

Triple Trouble for Virginia Republicans

A political column in the Richmond Times Dispatch - perhaps the most conservative newspaper in Virginia - looks at what's ahead for the Republican Party of Virginia.  Three major problems exist: (1) changing demographics, (2) gerrymandered districts, and (3) a nomination process that gives undue power to extremist elements.  None of it looks good in terms of repositioning the Virginia GOP absent major changes in the Virginia GOP.  However, given the strangle hold the Christofascists/Tea Party have on the party grass roots, making the needed changes may prove near impossible - at least until such time as additional disastrous electoral defeats make change unstoppable unless the party wants to commit slow suicide.  Here are excerpts from the column:

Virginia Republicans’ problems are of their own making. The solutions are problematic.

Coming off the 2013 elections — the results qualify as catastrophic if the Democrats’ sweep is affirmed by the expected recount for attorney general — Republicans face at least three obstacles to a comeback. Overcoming them will require, among other things, overthrowing the current regime.

Problem No. 1: The changing face of Virginia — that a state in which residents were either white or black is now multihued — has not compelled Virginia Republicans to change.

The rapid growth of the Asian and Latino populations, both of which are concentrated in the Northern Virginia-to-Richmond-to-Virginia Beach crescent, magnifies the Democrats’ continuing advantage in that vote-rich, economically muscular urban-suburban corridor.

An exit poll by Edison Research conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks shows that while Gov.-elect Terry McAuliffe lost the white vote to Ken Cuccinelli, 56 percent to 36 percent, he ran away with the non-white vote.
Republicans face an increasingly narrow path to victory, one dependent on total white support. That’s difficult in a state with a growing minority population. . . . . For the better part of the past decade, Republicans have pressed legislation in the General Assembly that energizes their base of older white Virginians by demonizing new Virginians.

A rule that takes effect next year forces voters to show poll officers an official photo identity card before they are allowed to cast ballots. The law was pushed by Mark Obenshain, the Republican likely to challenge in a recount his apparent 164-vote defeat for attorney general to Democrat Mark Herring. . . . . Backers say the law is a check on voter fraud, a rarity in the electronic-balloting era. Opponents say it is a subtle form of intimidation with the none-too-subtle effect of discouraging certain voters from showing up.

This is complemented by Republican resistance in the U.S. House to immigration reform.

Rather than engage new Virginians, Republicans antagonize them. It’s no accident; it’s a strategy. And it guides Republicans’ structural choices; specifically, how they draw legislative boundaries and select their candidates.

Problem No. 2: Redistricting is about politicians shopping for their voters. It is not about voters shopping for their politicians. It creates an artificial advantage for Virginia Republicans in the House of Delegates. It preserves the party’s lopsided majority and multiple threats to a Democratic governor. . . . . A troubling consequence for Republicans: They are isolated from a broader electorate that includes African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics, and younger voters, many of whose numbers are growing.

The objective of redistricting is to eliminate general-election competition and to prevent a challenge for the nomination. For Republicans, that means bowing to the most conservative voters, typically, older white males. And that means taking positions antithetical to the new Virginians.

Problem No. 3: To maximize the influence of conservative activists, Republicans use a nominating system that minimizes participation.

They eschew open-to-all-voters primaries for conventions. These are members-only affairs that leave it to a handful of insiders to decide nominations. It’s a myopic setting in which, this year, Republicans picked candidates they could follow, but not enough Virginians could.

As stated, I do not see these problems going away.  Instead, the GOP will become even more extreme and alienate even more rational voters who are not motivated principally by greed, religious extremism or racism.