Michael Gerson: GOP Path to Political Suicide (Huckabee, illegal, Whitehouse)

[AeroGuyDC]

Originally Posted by MiamiRob

my reference to the article is that I am a hispanic born in the US and all the GOP has to say in one fell swoop is that we dislike you, your signs in Spanish over your businesses, Tom Tancredo calling Miami a "third world country". What do we hear? Racist bigots! and forget cutting taxes for taxpayers or businesses because all we are hearing from the right is HATE and the G NO P will not get anywhere with that attitude!
Wow the party of the big tent! All I have to say is that 75 million Americans are now either hispanic or black and that is now 1 out of 4 Americans and increasing.
On top of that they are opposing every single thing that has to do with Obama, you don't think America is watching?
The GOP is on a suicide march!

So, tell us, what exactly are Republicans NOT doing for you that you can verifiably claim that Democrats ARE doing for you?

I look forward to your answer.

[MiamiRob]

Originally Posted by AeroGuyDC

So, tell us, what exactly are Republicans NOT doing for you that you can verifiably claim that Democrats ARE doing for you?

I look forward to your answer.

I will proffer a question, what as I as self employed businessman does the GOP have to offer me besides a promise of a tax cut?
That is the fundemental difference between a liberal and a conservative because as much as I like money it doesn't define me and for a party who screams for "freedom" you sure have a funny way of showing it opposing abortions or gay rights or women's rights.
The GOP favors selective rights like guns and the Second Amendment.

[dcsldcd]

Originally Posted by AnUnidentifiedMale

For all of the excitement over bashing Obama and cheering for his demise, it doesn't seem to be paying off for Republicans. Just 22.5% of Americans call themselves Republicans now, compared to 34.3% who identify as Democrats and 33.8% who identify as independents.

Pollster.com: National Party Identification (ALL ADULTS)

A lot of those Independents are Republcans that decided to register as independents because the Republican were acting and voting like liberals. Now that they have seen the destruction of hussein obama and a democrat controlled congress they will be voting Republican again. My worry is they will be so desperate to vote against Democrats the Republicans could put their pet dog up and it would win.

[dcsldcd]

Originally Posted by MiamiRob

my reference to the article is that I am a hispanic born in the US and all the GOP has to say in one fell swoop is that we dislike you, your signs in Spanish over your businesses, Tom Tancredo calling Miami a "third world country". What do we hear? Racist bigots! and forget cutting taxes for taxpayers or businesses because all we are hearing from the right is HATE and the G NO P will not get anywhere with that attitude!
Wow the party of the big tent! All I have to say is that 75 million Americans are now either hispanic or black and that is now 1 out of 4 Americans and increasing.
On top of that they are opposing every single thing that has to do with Obama, you don't think America is watching?
The GOP is on a suicide march!

There is a differance between a Hispanic and an illegal immigrant. There is also a differance to remaining loyal to one's former country while reaping the benefits of the one you live and work in without assimilating. It's too bad so many disrespect the country that feeds them and have no intention of becoming a real American. It's America that is being put the suicide march.

[xyz affair]

The republican party is caught in a complex bind- it continues to appeal to blue collar uneducated hard hat whites- many whom supported either George Wallace or Nixon in 1968- and Reagan in the 1980s.

Many are also 'Christian Conservatives' many from the south, but also some Catholics. The trouble is this demographic group is shrinking. The GOP cannot continue the oppose meaningful reform in health care-it hurts the nation competitively world wide, is ethically wrong, and hurts the USA in reducing its deficit.

The GOP continues to behave as if it still had the broad national geographic support it had in the past- it does not. The GOP base support now lies in the south, great plains and some rocky mountain and inter mountain states like Idaho, Wyoming, Utah--

They cannot win national elections with a backward looking agenda and political base that is shrinking.

[plannine]

Originally Posted by dcsldcd

A lot of those Independents are Republcans that decided to register as independents because the Republican were acting and voting like liberals. Now that they have seen the destruction of hussein obama and a democrat controlled congress they will be voting Republican again. My worry is they will be so desperate to vote against Democrats the Republicans could put their pet dog up and it would win.

What "obama" destruction?

The downhill slide ('destruction') has been going on for years (decades, since we as a country stopped 'making things' and went to just 'moving wealth'). Suddenly a new man at the top and a new congress and it is going to magically stop?

Any one with a ounce of sense, would realize that it will take years for the slide to come to a halt and change directions. It didn't matter who was elected over the last couple of elections.

And it's not going to take more of the same old thing to accomplish it.

[AeroGuyDC]

This quote is from 2 weeks before the 2004 election:

"If we can't win this damn election with a Democratic Party more unified than ever before, with us having raised as much money as the Republicans, with 55 percent of the country believing we're headed in the wrong direction, with our candidate having won all three debates, and with our side being more passionate about the outcome than theirs--if we can't win this one, then we can't win ****! And we need to completely rethink the democratic party."

History Lesson: Democrats did not win in 2004. So was James Carville right? Did the Democratic Party "rethink" itself? Maybe. But the point is that parties adapt to the political climate of the day. It's simply ignorant to think that the GOP will not adapt and will go the way of the Whig Party. Democrats have been saying that for 50 years. As I said before - keep dreaming wayward, shallow-thinkers, keep dreaming.

[Mike from back east]

I've read all posts so far and agree with a few. Key thing resonating from the Gerson piece (see Post #1 for link) is that still today, the GOP clings to it's white-guy / southern racist / bible-thumping / say-no-to-everything base as if they expect such a "platform" will suddenly blossom into a world-beating formula. Gerson, a stalwart GOP member, takes big exception to this suicidal pathway.

The GOP construct of the past 25 years is passe and leads to a suicide which Gerson describes, i.e., the Republican Party CANNOT get any whiter and there's no sense staying the course of appealing to the inner racist in what the GOP hopes is a majority of voters. The GOP construct since the 1980's can be described as groups of "haters" and the GOP crafted themselves to appeal to these blocs, which are: People who hate abortion; People who hate gun control; People who hate taxes; People who hate foreigners and all immigrants; People who hate people of color; People who hate gays, etc. Today, people are parting company with all the hateful rhetoric of the snarling GOP mouthpieces.

Padcrasher (thank you) said it best in posting #2 of this thread:

Originally Posted by padcrasher

The GOP has a big problem. How do you get people to vote against their own self interest? Well we know how they do that. You divide Americans along cultural divides. You bash gays, you claim you're being religiously persecuted, you exaggerate external threats, you bash "lazy" minorities. The problem is the minorities are just too numerous now, but the GOP rhetoric needs internal and external enemies to work. They lose either way. Continue the same path of bashing minorties then the demographic trends wipe them out. Stop with the radical rhetoric and they lose control of their white Southern lemmings.

The GOP has used the divide and conquer method to play white voters against the typically black democratic voters. I've had other moderators in "southern" states DM me to tell how stupid are their neighbors in those states who think $9/hour and no benefits is fine living, though they fall below the poverty line and have no health care, but they vote GOP to "keep the black man in his place." They must be fools, and racism will make a fool of you every time. Since Reagan, they've voted GOP and saw their southern textile mills, equipment and all, shipped overseas as the GOP types on Wall Street demanded ever more profits from the mills. In the end, southerners voted GOP and STILL lost their livelihoods, even with their depressed wages.

I'd like to think southerners and farm staters are wising up, knowing they've been had by divide and conquer racism, just like the religious right (many of the very same people) have waken up to the fact that Bush/Rove used them and refer to them as "useful idiots." The recent election saw many moderate christians move back closer towards the center enough to vote out the GOP who've left our nation in a shambles, possibly with worse to come.

The GOP folded their big tent after Reagan/Bush-41 and the GOP's focus has since narrowed, especially with the 1994 crop of GOP radicals like Newt who were so undisciplined that senior GOP leaders took them all up to PA for a weekend retreat to teach them how to behave civilly in Congress. The GOP only won in 2000 and 2004 because the DEMs put up lackluster candidates who campaigned poorly.

I've voted GOP many times, as far back as Nixon and then for Ford, and then twice each for Reagan and twice for Bush-41. But when I saw how the GOP and vested interests ran a poisonous anti-healthcare campaign against the Clintons, I started to back away from the GOP like one would back away from one of our rattlesnakes out here in the west. The GOP has since become only more vicious and anti-people. I maintained my financial support of GOP Senator John Warner until he retired. I cannot in good conscience and good faith vote for the GOP that I see today.

The GOP needs to move back to the middle and adopt a Fair Deal platform, much like GOP great Teddy Roosevelt, who was adept at balancing the needs of the people, the needs of capital, and, especially, the needs of OUR future. If not, the DEMs and/or the Independents and Libertarians will take that mantel and run with it, leaving the GOP the party of extremists.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by AnUnidentifiedMale

For all of the excitement over bashing Obama and cheering for his demise, it doesn't seem to be paying off for Republicans. Just 22.5% of Americans call themselves Republicans now, compared to 34.3% who identify as Democrats and 33.8% who identify as independents.

Pollster.com: National Party Identification (ALL ADULTS)

Agree. The GOP today is mostly a party for angry old white males, with GOP actions reflecting all those things that those angry old white males fear the most, i.e., women, abortion, blacks, Hispanics, foreigners, gays and most of all, the (fictional) threat to their guns, which gives them a false sense of control over those people and things they fear.

[Mike from back east]

This link nicely depicts the current state of the GOP's "Big Tent" rhetoric.