First let me admit that I am
not a pundit or strategist, I am simply an informed voter and a bit of a
political beast paying close attention to the climate of modern politics. Like
most voters I’m not driven by any one particular issue. I am interested in
the whole, the overall impact of policies by both parties and I know that any
system as complicated as the American system of government needs checks and
balances that can only be accomplished by parties of opposing views that share
a common goal. Oh and most importantly a desire to work together.
That means strong Republican
and Democratic parties, at least at this juncture. Who knows what other
conservative party will ascend if the GOP maintains its present course.
Now I could have been flip
and just written the names of Michelle Bachman, Ted Cruz and poor rich boy
Romney as the three miscalculations but on the off chance that there is a staunch
conservative reading this I want to make sure I don’t lose them too early in my
thesis.
So the three miscalculations
and they are many but I’ll focus on the 3 that are suicide, are:
- Focusing wedge issues
- Becoming dependant on a shrinking niche market
- Underestimating the power of people
If the Republicans don’t fix the
3 problems above they will be replaced by another party, perhaps a Libertarian group but certainly a party that reflects the will of the people.
WEDGE ISSUES
The Republicans successfully
leveraged wedge issues like marriage equality and an anti-abortion position in
the post Bill Clinton era. They were able to court the support of evangelicals
and propelled the Bush administration into office; not once but twice, although
some would say W’s reelection was the result of an imbalanced Supreme Court and
candidate Al Gore’s unwillingness to prolong the fight over hanging chads.
But here was a winning
strategy that would surely keep a Republican in the oval office in
perpetuity or until religion lost its appeal.
I mean consider, they already had a large chunk of the White vote and
religion has a strong hold on Black and Hispanic voters. He who owns religion
owns the vote.
The problem with this
strategy today is wedge issues overplayed can create a wedge within your own
party, especially when opposition can be characterized as bias. When you have
representatives continually using examples of polygamy and bestiality as
arguments against same sex unions you are going to lose support even from
heterosexual voters. When the pain of this type of discrimination is given a face,
as in the men and women who were denied access to the death bed of life-long
partners coupled with Hollywood mainstream exposure to gay households as far
from deviant, you start to win over the hearts and minds of the populace.
A more surprising wedge seems
to be the all out assault on a woman’s right to choose. Somewhere in this
strategy the Republicans co-mingled women with the right granted under our
current law often referred to as Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that made
abortion legal. The laws being proposed are so over the top that the only thing
I can surmise is the Republicans are looking for a court challenge that will
eventually rise to the Supreme Court providing an opportunity to strike down
the law. How else can you explain “personhood” amendments that provide rights
to a fetus. As Chris Mathews would say, what is the right to property for the
unborn? The worst part about these attempts is they destroy women’s health
choices that sometimes have nothing to do with abortion, shutting down access to
much needed services like cancer screening. Honestly I don’t see how any woman
can support the GOP and it does explain why Obama garnered such a large
percentage of the female vote in the last election.
DEPENDENCE ON A NICHE MARKET
Republicans always knew who comprised their base; fiscal conservatives, business leaders and
traditionalist in general. With the Tea Party coming into its own that base has
shifted to the right and so has the focus. Now I believe the country is left of center
when it comes to most issues and the last two presidential elections would
support that, however, the Republicans have adopted a very creative and
effective strategy that could be deadly.
On the state level they have redistricted, contorted and
gerrymandered their way into only representing their base. The voters in these
new districts are not a mix of ideologies, so on the one hand the GOP need not fear a
challenge from the left BUT… (and this is the killer)… this produces
representatives that CAN NOT win on a national level because the nation IS a
mix of ideologies and left of center as opposed to hard right like this new Tea
Party inspired base.
What makes it so deadly is candidates NEED the support of
base which is not enough to win nationally but enough to deny reelection on the
state level if candidates don't yield to the base. A perfect example is the last crop of Republican presidential
candidates… each one seemed more conservative… no… not conservative… extreme
than the previous. The influence of this niche market transformed Romney from a
moderate with a pretty good chance of beating an incumbent President of an anemic
economy into a caricature that I don’t think he himself would have recognized in the
mirror. You doubt me, go back and look at his numbers during the last debate
when he threw out all that non-sense he said in the primaries.
By appealing to this niche market the Republicans are
guaranteeing that no one like a Chris Christie will ever win the nomination and
that means a Democrat will always be in the oval office until they figure it
out. I’m not complaining. The country
isn't changing, it has changed and if they believe all they have to do is
change the tone of their message and not the message itself then they have
another rude awaking when Hillary takes the next one.
But they must know they need to do something about the
national vote. And they do, which brings me to the last and most dangerous of
their miscalculations.
UNDERESTIMATING THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE
Now I have a theory and although it’s not supported with any
hard facts I think it’s a good one. If I
did have facts I’d be on MSNBC sitting next the gorgeous Alex Wagner (God I
love her) sharing it with the world.
So I think the Republicans have given up fighting Obama. I think
they’re just going to wait him out, blocking everything they can because that’s
all they can do. I think they see him as
an anomaly and just are not equipped to counter him. I think, they think he won because White
Americans voted due to “white guilt”, African Americans voted in historic
numbers for obvious reasons, young people voted because he gave them health care coverage under their parent’s plan AND because his campaign machine mastered social
media and everybody else just wanted to be a part of history.
If that’s true when his term is up, voter turn-out will
return to “normal” levels and all they’ll have to maybe worry about is some
increased numbers because it would be another historic event if... uhhh... WHEN Hillary runs.
Well on June 25th of this year, the Supreme Court
delivered a blow to the heart of the Voting Rights Act, effectively allowing
states to change election laws without advanced federal approval. So even now as you read this the wheels are
turning in many red states to enact voter ID laws that were previously blocked,
same day registration and Sunday voting are being targeted. All in an effort to restrict access.
It seems that the GOP not only did not learn the lesson of
election night 2012 but ignored it. When the right to vote was threatened voters
turned out and waited up to 7 hours and more to vote. This ruling by the
Supreme Court basically replaces the “Obama” incentive for African American and
young voters to come out. Now add to that the assault on women’s rights,
opposition to marriage equality, road blocks on the path to citizenship for
immigrants and a party that is growing more extreme every election cycle and I don’t
see HOW they can survive.
It’s too bad too few of them believe in evolution because if
you don’t evolve you go extinct.
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