Stoopid Stuff

Filling the Republican Leadership Vacuum - It's the Votes, Stupid

Back in late 2004, when George W. Bush was re-elected handily, when Republicans dominated all three branches of government and wielded that power ruthlessly and arrogantly, he famously promised to "spend his political capital". And boy howdy, he sure did that. Two years later the Republican party was on the run, their policies discredited, their leaders involved in the seediest of corruption scandals and their popularity at historic lows.

Two years after that, the best they could come up with as a candidate for the highest office in the land was an aging mental defective former fighter pilot and POW who couldn't solve basic math problems, let alone huge national problems; and a brassy, undereducated trailer-park "hockey mom" who wielded her ignorance with pride, for whom all problems were simple because SHE was undeniably simple.

Now the Democrats hold the presidency and a substantial majority in both houses of congress. The people trust and support them as they offer up bold new and innovative solutions to the myriad problems created by both malicious action and malicious inaction by the previous leadership. And the Republicans find themselves at the nadir of their power, able to count only a small and shrinking minority of southern whites, bigots and cranks among their determined followers. So they have set out to find a new leader, someone who can attract support and lead them once again into the halls of, well, if not power then at least respectability.

You can describe this search in all sorts of terms, and in all sorts of directions, but what it comes down to is really simple. In American politics, you need votes. With votes you can raise funds, get attention, with supporters you can get your message heard, allow people to reach out and recruit more supporters, and of course, at the end, that leads to winning elections. And no matter what else you do, if you are a politician and you don't win elections, you are not going to have much influence on the policies of the country at any level.

Like a spoiled child, the Republican party refuses to acknowledge that they cannot have it both ways. They cannot cling to their obsolete and discredited policies and expect the people who are harmed by those policies to support them. They will have to walk away from the more extreme far-right wing political positions in order to attract new voters to their (revised) message. The belief that they can win over young people, people of color, immigrants, gay people and women, for example, if only they could better articulate their message is absurd on it's face. In fact, it's safe to assume that if they could better and more clearly articulate the policies that they wish to implement, they would LOSE even more voters than they have so far.

The American people are not afraid of the word "Socialism". It's not a particularly scary word. If a descent into "Socialism" is something the people should fear, then the Republicans need to articulate the reason. Merely invoking the word is silly. The people would like help, help with jobs and education and health care and infrastructure. They are not desperately afraid of the government, or of their upcoming tax bill, or that some jackbooted Brownshirt UN operative will come in their house and take away their gun. These are simply not day-to-day realistic concerns, and to make them a major part of your platform not only makes you sound hopelessly out of touch, it causes people with other, genuine fears and concerns to tune you out. You are not talking to them - they know it - it's time for you to admit it.

Every year the demographics of the American population changes. And with every passing year, the Republican message gets more and more irrelevant to people's real lives. With every turn of the calendar's page the Republicans sound more like a party at war with it's own people and less a party that can make people's lives better. Without a MAJOR overhaul, the worst news of all for the Republican leadership is that this is as good as it's likely to get. The Republican brand is in free-fall, and the only thing that can arrest the plunge into historical irrelevance is the courage of the Republican party leadership. Something, from Michael Steele to Eric Cantor to Rush Limbaugh the party has shown no evidence of.

It's really pretty simple. When you can count on 30% of the American population to vote for your candidates, you cannot win elections. So you have to ask that missing 20-25% what they want in a party. And you'll have to move toward the center to provide what they want from you. The funny thing is that, while the right-wing extremists will howl and stomp and threaten from the pulpit, they will still vote Republican. Just as the Democrats have for decades just taken for granted that the far left would end up voting for them even if the party gave them nothing, nary a crumb, the Republicans COULD accept the shouting and stop pandering to Christianist terrorists. They could simply cease to have a position on abortion, homosexuality, on morality in general as the government has no stake in these issues, and people do not need the government to criminalize perfectly reasonable activities like love and marriage. The Republican party could purge itself of the bigots and racists that have found a home there with codewords and dogwhistles to people who hate. It seems that we may have reached a tipping point where there is just not enough hate to fuel a national political party. See the Oval Office for evidence.

The choice for the Republican party is as stark as it is obvious. And the fact that they refuse to face it only makes it loom larger in the minds of the incredibly shrinking conservative constituency. They can cling to the same messages, the same policies, the same divisive narrative of exclusion and hate, and they can simply cease to have a voice in the national dialog. The other option is surprisingly simple, but I, as a Liberal in the original sense of the term, hope they remain blinded to the path of reasonableness. By backing away from social wedge issues and sticking to a political/economic message, they would quickly increase their standing in the community. Many people who were driven to the Obama Democrats in November would start to return to their Republican roots. And that, ultimately, would not be a good thing.

The train wreck has been, and continues to be, grand and amusing theater. Let's hope they continue to ditto behind Rush, and bask in the hate and fear of Cantor and the ignorance of Boehner. Because this is just the way I want it to be...

posted by mikey @ 4:14 PM