Calling all conservatives: How to get elected

To the Republican National Committee:

Well, you've lost Hispanics due to your heavy anti-immigration stance. You've lost blacks.   You've lost the young people.   What's a party to do?   It's enough of a concern for you to arrange CPAC, and it's got the blog RealClearPolitics asking the question "Has the GOP lost enough to change?" (26 February 2009).

In the observation of this writer,   and in trolling conservative blogs, here are the top things that conservatives in the GOP need to do to get elected (and be taken seriously):

1.     Stop being reactionary and appealing to reactionaries.

Calls by people like Glen Beck, Michael Savage and Sean Hannity to assemble state militias in order to overthrow President Obama are not going to help you.     Calling Obama and Democrats communists and socialists is not going to help you (nobody on the right seems to be able to settle on exactly WHICH one people on the moderate left are).   It's getting to the point where even conservatives are telling the GOP enough is enough.

Candy L. Straight,   national co-chairwoman of the Republican Majority for Choice agrees with me:

"Even conservative candidate Michael Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland, is being attacked for being too willing to work with moderates. The RNC members continue to pander to a small, vocal, fundamentalist faction instead of revamping its message, mission and agenda to appeal to a broader base of voters.  All of this bodes ill for the GOP.   " (from Politico.com article "New GOP chair must accept moderates")

2.   Stop pretending you care about God when you don't.   You are intentionally misleading the people who sincerely believe that you're out to do God's work just because you want votes. Period.

a.   You have not overturned Roe vs. Wade, and you are not going to do it, because that issue alone gets masses of Christian Right Republicans voting for the GOP, because THEY think you will.

b.     You will never discourage teaching evolution because you know it's another "hot button" issue that gets you elected.   Apparently Bobby   Jindal has capitalized on this point as he has appeased Christian Right Southern Baptist Louisiana by pushing a pro-Intelligent Design bill through the Louisiana legislature. It might work in the overtly religious South, but here in the North, where the Dover trial was clearly a victory for the public school, this ain't gonna work.

c.   The GOP is not, nor will never be "God's Party."         Using "God" to get the conservative religious South as constituents is really very low.   Touting yourselves as God's party is an insult to God with all the corruption that has been rife in the Republican Party the last eight years (Enron was just one example).   Calling Democrats "educated elitists" when Republicans are, and have been traditionally the party of rich corporate Yale and Harvard educated elites is also low, and bizarre.

A snippet from Kathleen Parker who saw this coming last year and was laughed at by conservative blogs for saying it,   has now been redeemed by conservatives worried about the future of the party:

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we're setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it.

But they need those votes!

So it has been for the Grand Old Party since the 1980s or so, as it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners.

Short break as writer ties blindfold and smokes her last cigarette.

Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.

Here's the deal, 'pubbies: Howard Dean was right.

It isn't that culture doesn't matter. It does. But preaching to the choir produces no converts. And shifting demographics suggest that the Republican Party — and conservatism with it — eventually will die out unless religion is returned to the privacy of one's heart where it belongs.     -(Washington Post, 19 November 2008).

3.     You need to stop being known as the "Oogedy Boogedy" party:

(see "Oogedy Boogedy in the Bloxicon" 5 December 2008, Washington Post, by Kathleen Parker)

The blog "Secular Right" (a right wing blog) has this to say:

"She [Kathleen Parker, Washington Post] was right to this degree, though:   the extremes of religious enthusiasm repel a lot of people who favor general conservative principles.   I meet those people all the time.   They generally end up with a grudging vote for the GOP, if they bother to turn out (and there isn't a Libertarian on the ticket), and Ron is right that their numbers are not currently convincing enough for GOP strategists to start saying to candidates:   "Tone down the God stuff, for God– , er, I mean, for goodness' sake."

That  might change in a few election cycles,  though; as, of course,  might the preferences of evangelicals, who don't vote Republican because they want small government and fiscal restraint, but from hostility to the greater social liberalism of the Democrats. (I probably  should have said  "white evangelicals" there.)     As Jonah Goldberg says: "The Religious Right will stop being Right before they stop being Religious."   So far as conservatives are concerned, evangelicals are fair-weather friends.

It's a tough circle to square.   The GOP alliance of irreligious conservatives  with religious haters of social liberalism  may not be stable. "   –(28 November 2008)

Clearly, with the landslide election of a Democrat as President, Kathleen Parker and our friend at Secular Right were not wrong.       And clearly, the GOP are now beginning to take seriously Parker's admonition that the Christian Right extremists are really not doing the GOP any good as people who were "down the line" Republicans defected to the Libertarian party, or to the Democrat party.     So your worst fears are coming true–moderate voters are, based on the election, and the increasing extremism of the GOP, perceiving the Democratic Party as more reasonable, more centered, and more moderate than the GOP.

It's simple.   Your conservative Christian base is no longer large enough to elect you.   PERIOD.   They never were the majority–they are, and have been the minority in this country.   And they are an angry minority, who are not afraid to revolt against the government in the name of "patriotism".   Michelle Goldberg at the Guardian has this to say:

"Yet if the religious right is splintered and adrift, its most radical elements could become more dangerous than ever. During the election, some Republicans argued that, should Obama become president, we would see renewed terrorist attacks on the United States. They might have been right, though not in the sense they intended. The 1990s saw a deadly series of rightwing domestic terrorist assaults — the Oklahoma City bombing, the bombing of the 1996 Olympics, the murders of several gynaecologists who performed abortions, and many bombings, arson and acid attacks on women's health clinics. As the LA Times reported last year, such violence fell off precipitously during the Bush presidency, for a number of reasons.

"Many observers attribute [the decline] to Sept. 11, for diverting the rage of disaffected Americans away from the US government and toward foreigners, and for fueling the subsequent Patriot Act-driven crackdown," wrote the Times. "Others say the movement began to crumble earlier, when the Y2K disaster, a favourite prediction of conspiracy theorists, failed to materialise." A third factor, not considered by the paper, was that as the right saw its agenda progress legislatively, some of the frustrated rage that led extremists to defy the law was dissipated. Shut out once again, it's not unlikely that a few on the fringe will once again turn to violence. Indeed, the very economic angst that has rendered the religious right broadly irrelevant may help radicalise a tiny minority of alienated and humiliated people casting about for someone to blame. In the last few months, I've spoken to several people who work at health clinics that perform abortions, and they've told me they're beefing up their security to prepare for that possibility."   –(The Guardian, 20 January, 2009)

4. Related to number 3,   by pandering to the "oogedy boogedy faction"   you at the RNC are misrepresenting yourselves, (because you aren't REALLY "oogedy boogedy"), and consequently, not doing yourselves a favor– traditionally, the GOP has been more moderate than it is right now.   In other words, GET BACK TO traditional REPUBLICAN VALUES.

I don't know how you do this.   Unfortunately, you have frightened those who are newly converted Republican (the reactionary oogedy boogedy people) so badly about liberals that you have driven "moderates" out of the party.     This "liberal" bashing" (see my previous article) is going to continue to make you shoot yourselves in the foot unless you take steps to correct people like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage on this issue.       These "liberals" are not ALL liberals–many of them are moderates who don't agree with ALL Republican values nor do they agree with Democrat values.   They are MODERATES and you are TURNING THEM OFF with your tired rhetoric, and by not controlling your pit bulls on AM conservative talk radio who call everybody who doesn't agree with them TRAITORS.     Moderates don't want to be seen as traitors.   They're moderates. They simply have differing opinions, some of which agrees with the right, and some of which agrees with the left.

You are turning ON the wrong faction of people–right wing extremist groups, fascist groups, racist groups.   The following quote agrees with what I have said immediately previously.   Says the Southern Poverty Law Center:

The number of hate groups operating in the United States continued to rise in 2008 and has grown by 54 percent since 2000 — an increase fueled last year by immigration fears, a failing economy and the successful campaign of Barack Obama, according to the "Year in Hate" issue of the SPLC's Intelligence Report released today.

The SPLC identified 926 hate groups active in 2008, up more than 4 percent from the 888 groups in 2007 and far above the 602 groups documented in 2000. A list and interactive, state-by-state map of these groups can be viewed here.

Barack Obama's election has inflamed racist extremists who see it as another sign that their country is under siege by non-whites," said Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report, a quarterly investigative journal that monitors the radical right. "The idea of a black man in the White House, combined with the deepening economic crisis and continuing high levels of Latino immigration, has given white supremacists a real platform on which to recruit."

Several white supremacists have been arrested while allegedly plotting to kill Obama, and following the election he received more threats than any previous president-elect. Scores of racially charged incidents — beatings, effigy burnings, racist graffiti, threats and intimidation — were reported across the country after the election.

Extremists are also exploiting the economic crisis, spreading propaganda that blames minorities and immigrants for the subprime mortgage meltdown. Tough economic times historically provide fertile ground for extremist movements.

As this issue of the Intelligence Report points out, minority-bashing propaganda can spread rapidly through the media, even when it has no basis in fact. The issue examines the widespread media reporting of a false claim that undocumented immigrants held 5 million bad mortgages and were, therefore, responsible for the subprime mortgage crisis.

5.   You need to stop using women and brown people as tokens to get people to vote for the GOP.Get serious about women's issues and race issues, instead of making it look like you're the fossilized party of pre-Civil Rights Act of 1964.:

This isn't just "hoky," it's downright offensive to moderates.     The GOP has had over 20 years since the Democrats ran Geraldine Ferraro for Vice President to get seriously interested in women's issues and race issues.   You have dexterously avoided both those issues, and have been preaching to your choir for too long.   To pull out Sarah Palin in sixty seconds as a response to Hillary Clinton was just lame.     To pull out Jindal who had nothing new to say (but maybe he did because the GOP has strayed so far from its traditional values) was just hoky.       Jindal's been around for a while–why didn't you feature him a long time ago?   Because it wasn't politically expedient to have a brown person represented as a respected member of the GOP UNTIL NOW.     See this blog from a moderate African American woman (who I suspect represents the opinion of minority moderates called What Tami Said: Republicans Give Important Positions to Unqualified Woman and Brown People, or How Bobby Jindal Became the GOP's Great Brown Hope." (25 February, 2009).

Whenever brown people are featured in the GOP, they are used as a token, or they are patronized, as seen in this video clip from the Rachel Maddow Show.   This clip also highlights the problem with the Christian Right that the GOP will be a long time in getting rid of. And that's all I have to say about that.

(If for any reason the video fails to display, we apologize. Please visit MSNBC.)

Those five points again?   Here they are:

1.     Stop being reactionary and appealing to reactionaries.

2.   Stop pretending you care about God when you don't.   You are intentionally misleading the people who sincerely believe that you're out to do God's work just because you want votes. Period.

3.     You need to stop being known as the "Oogedy Boogedy" party.

4. Related to number 3,   by pandering to the "oogedy boogedy faction"   you at the RNC are misrepresenting yourselves, (because you aren't REALLY "oogedy boogedy"), and consequently, not doing yourselves a favor– traditionally, the GOP has been more moderate than it is right now.   In other words, GET BACK TO traditional REPUBLICAN VALUES.

5.   You need to stop using women and brown people as tokens to get people to vote for the GOP. Get serious about women's issues and race issues, instead of making it look like you're the fossilized party of pre-Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Sphere: Related Content

Related posts:

1. and you thought you were having a bad day
2. First Chinese American Woman Elected to Congress
3. Conservatives Divided Over Efforts to Stop Domestic Partner Rights
4. How the word "liberal" perpetuates hate in the culture wars
5. GOP Needs to Distance Itself from "God's Own Party" Image
6. Meghan McCain: A bright, shining light on conservativism
7. PRESS RELEASE: Groundbreaking PRA Investigation Exposes Influence of U.S. Religious Conservatives in Promoting Homophobia in Africa
8. Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey (Cambridge Middle East Studies)
9. Blumenthal and Kennedy on the Republican Gomorrah
10. Business as a Calling – Work and the Examined Life

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

One Response to “Calling all conservatives: How to get elected”

1. Urbain says:

   March 4, 2009 at 10:54 pm

   These are excellent points, backed by conservative opinion.

   CNN recently interviewed Ron Paul and his views about where the party is headed. Paul was rational … talking about the GOP needing to return to its principles of fiscal responsibility and civil liberties.

   The video you included is quite interesting … and disturbing.

   Reply

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

IMPORTANT NOTE: We welcome and encourage comments. However, we are receiving many 'junk comments' from people looking for back links. As of noon, November 16, 2009, comment submission authors must use a name. For example, names such as 'Payday Loans' or 'Home Accessories' will be deleted. You may continue to link to your website, but we want names (pen names are all right). Additionally, only substantive comments that have to do with the content of the article will be accepted. Comments such as 'Nice post, thanks,' will be deleted. Comments that link to pornographic or hate sites will also be deleted.

Website

By submitting a comment here you grant this site a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. While we offer immediate approval of comments that are not screened as spam, we reserve the right to delete your comment pursuant to the site's terms, conditions and policies. GOD DISCUSSION RESERVES THE RIGHT TO DELETE OR EDIT COMMENTS FOR ANY REASON, WITHOUT NOTICE, including without limitation grammar errors, "trolling" and spamming.

Security Code: