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So I just watched Michael Steele on D.L. Hughley and I saw a glimmer of hope in the Republican brand.
So often, it is the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters who mix entertainment and radicalism to foster division and rage against the "evil liberals" over erroneous issues like homosexuality and abortion and government investment in anything beyond war.
So often it is the Republican Convention full of white people guffawing as they mock presidential candidate Obama who graduated from an Ivy League university and then, in a very Christian act, went to work in inner cities where factories were closing and neighborhoods were failing.
Yet, in Steele's articulation of ideas, for the first time I saw what a strong and principled Republican Party that really focuses in on individual worth and leaves all bigotry and wealth obsession behind could do in the inner cities through fostering small businesses if they ever opened their eyes to it.
No, I do not think that Michael Steele is the future of the Republican Party. At the moment, I see no leader for the Republican Party. Personally, I think the Republican Party is in its death throes. Only with the emergence of a moderate, well-educated representative will the Party be able to disengage from its insane "base" and rebuild to be the party of true conservatives.
Well - maybe that's Steele. Or, perhaps people like Steele need to branch off into a separate party and let the Republican brand fade into a regional third party.
I don't know. He's an impressive guy that I could get behind, and I'm an Obama supporter.
Well - maybe that's Steele. Or, perhaps people like Steele need to branch off into a separate party and let the Republican brand fade into a regional third party.
I don't know. He's an impressive guy that I could get behind, and I'm an Obama supporter.
Really? I don't think Steele is impressive at all. In fact, I think he's a rather boring, unimaginative, and even mediocre thinker.
I just mean that the Republicanism that attracted him to the party - long before it got caught up in religion and divisiveness - seems to be one that could find resonance in inner cities as the urban black culture transitions from one of victimhood (justifiably so, I might add) to empowerment.
I just mean that the Republicanism that attracted him to the party - long before it got caught up in religion and divisiveness - seems to be one that could find resonance in inner cities as the urban black culture transitions from one of victimhood (justifiably so, I might add) to empowerment.
But his abilities as an innovative thinker are important. So far, I haven't heard any interesting ideas from him. In general, he's pretty much a tool of the Republican Party--in that party's effort to put a "black face" on itself. But neither he nor any other current Republican hopeful--of any race-- holds a candle to Barack Obama. Obama got elected not because he's black, but because he understands that we are on the verge of a paradigm shift: that poverty has deepened, that our nation's infrastructure is crumbling, that our medical system is broken, that our planet is in deep trouble--and that new and innovative ideas are needed to confront this new reality. We HAVE to get off oil. We HAVE to hit the ground running with new "green" technologies that will power our nation and help bring the planet back from catastrophe (it's real, it's happening--no matter how much people want to bury their heads in the sand in denial). We HAVE to completely restructure our health care system. We HAVE to dismantle the corporate rule which has taken shape post-WWII. It's absolutely absurd, for example, that huge conglomerates have taken over our food supply, and have managed to poison us and the planet in the process. These are serious times, with serious problems, and I've yet to hear one Republican with even one idea that addresses them. So far, to hear the Republicans talk, it's 1955--the health care system just needs a little tweaking; if people want better schools they can just send their children to private school; corporations are God and should never, ever be criticized because to criticize corporate America is to be "un-American" (McCarthy, anybody?); this is a Christian nation, blessed by God; this is a white nation ("Who IS Barack Obama, really?"); there is no threat from global climate change; the poor are poor because they're "lazy"; etc., ad nauseum. The fact that Michael Steele is black is not good enough for inner-city black children. They need a black man with vision to show them the way to empowerment. Not a black man who thinks like the same old small white man. JMHO.
I agree with you. I'm not looking at him as black face. Just thought maybe he could break from the backwards Republican Party that fights progress and take the small government / personal responsibility stance to fix those problems.
Actually, statisically, the U.S. always runs best with a Democratic president and a Republican opposition. So, perhaps we shouldn't shake things up too much.
Anyway - if Kootr likes the guy, then perhaps I was mislead.
I don't see much hope in Steele. He's just a brown face saying the same stupid nonsense ("the government has never created a single job" really? Then how would you explain the jobs most of your friends in government have?). The Republican Party will have a future when they stop saying completely false things like "cutting taxes pays for itself" (not even Laffer ever said that except under extremely unusual circumstances where the tax rate is around 80%-90%; a situation which doesn't exist in America today) but until they stop lying then they're future is not secure.
I don't think the Republicans are dying as a party though. More likely they're going to be like the UK's Tories where they'll have to spend a decade or more wandering in the wilderness until the old idiots who ruined everything are thoroughly rejected and new more sensible leaders who are not tainted by the old lies come to the forefront. As long as the mouth breathers think the solution to their party's problems is to keep move ever more to the extreme right then they will keep moving further and further away from the majority of the American people. The Republicans are going to need to lose more elections though before they admit this basic truth.
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