There have been many pronouncements made about the Republican Party, how there will be a civil war, a reckoning, a need for introspection, how beneficial it could be in attracting minority votes to snuff out the burning crosses…but amid all the internal and external criticisms of the GOP, Romney and its players, only one meme rises to the top…the GOP needs to figure out how to be better at convincing minorities and women that their lives will be better if they vote against their own interests and elect Republicans.
There is an avalanche of Republican babbling about how they need to reach out to minorities and women, how they need better messengers (in other words, using minority and women Republicans to talk to their own demographics into voting against their own interests) and more specific, defined messages (read: more effective propaganda).
Don’t let the mea culpas and Republicans criticizing their party convince you otherwise, the GOP exists primarily to enrich and empower the wealthy, misleading the low info and less educated conservatively religious Americans that they share their social values. This is their raison d’etre, the central reason for their existence so they sure as heck ain’t abandoning that. And if they’re not, if they remain trickle down, anti-entitlement, anti-regulation supporters…how do they attract minorities and women who have been and will be victims of their policies?
By trying to shed the social policy issues that harm them in the eyes of these groups and trying to look more “reasonable”.
It is remarkable how swiftly the results of this election have caused Republicans to flip on supporting immigration reform…or is it? Consider this, if the businessmen who own and run the GOP simply saw it as politically advantageous to stir up enthusiasm within their base of racially intimidated and/or hateful members and attract more into the party…if it was not truly a core principle of theirs but a manipulative wedge issue they happily used when it benefited them, how odd would it be for them to toss this issue away over their shoulders and adopt a new position that they saw as more useful in winning political power?
So, can the GOP use The Rovian Reversal Tactic and suddenly claim that the Democrats’ immigration reform agenda is actually their idea and they are the true champions of Latino rights? Don’t think they won’t try, they already are. If immigration reform is passed, Republicans will justifiably get their share of credit from the Latino community but I don’t think Latinos will all suddenly acquire amnesia and forget which party was racist and hostile towards them for decades until this month and which party has supported them throughout.
The same ease at tossing away a phony core belief is reflected in the sudden acknowledgement by some Republicans that it won’t kill the wealthy, the economy or convert our country into socialism for the wealthy to pay just a little more in taxes. They knew all along, this was just BS to fight for keeping every penny they could, that this argument was dishonest and that they could pay a little more in taxes without it affecting their lifestyles in any way.
What this is all about now is survival, doing whatever it takes to stay viable as a political party that can win national elections…and if they do, turning around and using their power to claw back those taxes paid by the wealthy and so much more money and power on top of that.
This is not to say that the Republican Party and the plutocrats haven’t been shaken by President Obama’s re-election and the strong Democratic victory this month, they are reeling a bit. The Republicans in Congress and their corporate owners had been counting on Mitt Romney winning so their blocking economic recovery and holding off on adding jobs seemed a worthwhile sacrifice for two years when the rewards for helping defeat Obama’s re-election and gaining control the White House would be so huge. The problem is, it’s not sustainable and surely can’t be extended another two or four years.
So, at this point in time, the GOP and the wealthy have a big problem on their hands. They just lost a major round in their class warfare campaign and the public is souring on them more and more. This is an immediate problem for them that needs to be addressed first. They now know that they can’t win with the “makers and takers”/47% classism argument (it’s asinine and shows such hubris that they ever thought they could attract a majority of Americans by attacking them) so they need to put on a thick layer of populist makeup for a while, until it hopefully changes the perception of them in the eyes of the public and they can then use their new facade to deceive people into once again obliviously support their plutocratic agenda.
Will it work? Probably not and the main reason for this is glaringly obvious, the GOP Elite who are trying to put on this sheep’s clothing…have cultivated a party of wolves to be the core of their party who are proud to be hateful wolves. They have been programmed by Rush and Fox News to hate “libtards” and “takers” and “feminazis” and “illegals” and “shiftless, lazy welfare queens”.
They’ve turned the GOP into a party of hateful extremists, they’ve created a Golem and they can’t just turn their backs on it now.
When the GOP lost in 2008 in a huge way to the Dems and Obama, we were having this same discussion about how the Republican Party will have to wander through the wilderness for years and figure out how to return to the mainstream. What many overlooked is that the wealthy are more typically focused on short term profit than long term profit. They wanted to come back quickly and get power and the 99%’s money back in their pockets right away. So, they financed an Astroturf vehicle called The Tea Party (yes, there was a tiny grassroots Tea Party that existed previously but it was invisible and miniscule) and bought themselves a new, rabid opposition to Obama. The Tea Party was a tool to quickly build a motivated and energized base for the GOP, after losing their long term base in the aftermath of George W. Bush’s and Republicans’ destruction of the nation’s and world’s economy.
The GOP Elite didn’t recognize that they were once again making a deal with the devil to make their party competitive again so quickly. History was repeating itself. In the 1980’s, part of the way the GOP recovered from it’s disastrous President who undermined the entire nation and its democracy as well as its standing with the American people…President Richard Nixon that is…was to follow Nixon’s plan to pander shamelessly to the Religious Right and use them like clueless fools to help them win elections. Back then it was called The Moral Majority and Jerry Falwell was its leader but interestingly, the Tea Party turns out to be pretty much the same constituency, just with a different and less outwardly religious title.
As happens so often with those who act rashly, there is no thoughtful consideration of blowback. Though the GOP Elite saw The Moral Majority as inferior morons who could be so easily manipulated to advance their agenda, The Moral Majority eventually became fed up with the disinterest of the GOP to actually make their religious agenda the law of the land (as long as the religious agenda was stalled, the GOP had a rallying cry to recruit more Moral Majority followers so it wasn’t in their interest to actually get abortion outlawed) and eventually, as they became the majority of members in the party, grabbed the reins of the GOP and led it and the nation into darker days which disintegrated The Moral Majority and the GOP once again, making way for the election of Bill Clinton.
The Republican Party now wants to resurface again as a reasonable alternative to the Democrats but they are underwater and have an anchor tied around their ankles, named The Tea Party. Where they are going on negotiating immigration reform and raising “revenues” (taxes) will alienate and infuriate their base…which will then need to be placated. So two steps forward, one step back would seem to be what’s in store.
The GOP can’t afford to anger The Tea Party crowd and lose them, that’s the only energized base they have. Also, they can’t bring minorities into a tent filled with racists. And despite the concessions to moderate policies they might make along the way, Republicans just can’t be better at being Democrats than Democrats can so they won’t win that competition with Latinos, Blacks, Asians and Women. So, they’ll inevitably need to return to pumping up their hateful base for the 2014 elections but the game plan seems to be insulating themselves beforehand from being seen as anti-Latino and anti-majority-of-Americans by passing (or trying to pass) immigration reform and tax reform that increases taxes on the wealthy.
We’ll see what happens with sequestration and entitlement reform, whether the Republicans fight for the hard right on those issues to placate their Tea Party base or find milder compromise to put on a thicker veneer of moderation. However, when 2014 comes along, it might not be smart to bet against Republicans trying to once again whip up hostility and prejudice in pursuit of more tax cuts for the wealthy, reducing spending on entitlements and social programs and removing regulations from corporations.
The biggest problem for them will be the same problem they faced this year, Americans who are ignorant, older white people who resent minorities and women are the base they have to serve in order to be competitive but they are a minority of Americans…and that minority will be even smaller two years from now. So how do they keep their base from revolting and abandoning them while convincing minorities and women to join the “White Men Are Superior to Minorities and Women Club” and vote for the agenda of enriching the wealthy at their own expense?
In the end, I think you drown with the anchor that holds you down and the GOP will find it very difficult to separate from their only base, the Tea Party, which would be required for them to attract minorities, women and a majority of voters.
The GOP is not going away. Nationwide, GOP voters are basically equal with the Democratic Party – 45 to 48% ( it does come down to who votes) and the GOP has good control over most of the South. That is good enough to tie up Congress ( one third of the Fed Gov).
Re apportionment after the 2010 election and census) helped them, as it kept Dem wins down to about 10. GOTV is very important in off year elections.
The 2014 election is very important. GOTV is critical.
I do not see very much regrouping in the GOP. The Party is locked in to their geographic base – the South – and they are imprisoned by their own rhetoric. The GOP has little room for adjustment.
2016, there will be a talent shortage for president ( as does the Dems, not many want the job.
I do not see very much change over the next four years; gridlock and empty rhetoric.
No Matter How Bad You Are With Money, You’ll Never Be As Bad As Karl Rove
“You’ve probably heard the term “money in politics” a lot recently, and this election saw some of the most blatant attempts to buy political power. In 2010, a Supreme Court case dubbed Citizens United made it possible for corporations to spend huge amounts of money to finance a candidate’s campaign in exchange for special treatment.Super PACs (political action committees) were born, and their ability to spend an unlimited amount of money on practically anything or anyone they want compromised every democratic election they decided to involve themselves in”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68TECa0oHUQ&feature=player_embedded
http://www.upworthy.com/no-matter-how-bad-you-are-with-money-youll-never-be-as-bad-as-karl-rove?c=upw1
Sign petition against Citizens United here:
http://www.commoncause.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=5630197
Looks like we are not the only ones who want Romney to shut up and just disappear.
“There is no Romney wing in the party that he needs to address,” said Ed Rogers, a longtime Republican strategist. “He never developed an emotional foothold within the GOP so he can exit the stage anytime and no one will mourn.”
“The prevailing opinion among that group is that there is much work to be done and that Romney will have a hand in almost none of it. Put more simply: Thanks for playing. Now go away”.
Republicans to Mitt Romney: Exit stage left
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/11/15/republicans-to-mitt-romney-exit-stage-left/?hpid=z3&wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
I do not see that the GOP is going to change very much. The base of the Party is the South ( the old Dixiecrats) and the Northern Republicans will have to fall in line. The “Tea Party” is a very old ( long lived) political faction.
I do not see the GOP changing very much.
agrippa, I think those few intelligent Repubs in office, the GOP Elite and the business Repubs all see the writing on the wall and know they have to at least adopt a friendlier stance towards minorities and women.
But as you say, they are far outnumbered by the Right Wingers, Religious Right, Tea Baggers who now dominate the GOP. So while some GOP politicians may try to shift towards a more reasonable position on some issues, they are necessarily undermined by the majority of their party.
I agree.
This faction – known by different names historically wants to return to some prior era, such as the 1950s. The best example of how they govern is in the South ( MS, AL, SC)
This could very well be the poll that many R’s followed and why te election was so surprising to them, because I saw quite a few praising this poll before election day while ridiculing 538. He also bragged after the election that he was so very close to Nate, just about one state different! 😉
Mitt Romney 52 percent 342 electoral votes projected at UnSkewedPolls.com
http://www.examiner.com/article/mitt-romney-52-percent-342-electoral-votes-projected-at-unskewedpolls-com?CID=obnetwork
And this is the map that many R’s were following, I’m not kidding:
[img]http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/7c/ab/7caba30758ef25ca706a54b4d500c622.jpg[/img]
Now if you followed those two and fully believed them, I can understand why some were so very angry.
I mean if i believed that the map and electoral numbers were accurate, I would be very angry also.
Bito, first there was GOP propaganda arm, Fox News calling itself “Fair and Balanced” then there’s “Unskewed Polls” which openly stated that it skewed polling data.
How stupid or trapped in denial are rank and file Repubs? The GOP Elite put a pile of BS in their palm and tell them it’s gold and they run to the bank with it?
And as for high profile Repubs who believed their own admitted lies, some are lying and were just hoping that the facts would be proven wrong and others are so solipsistic, they actually believed that if they manipulated the truth, it would change the truth.
Fools, indisputable fools.
Unskewing polls is as ignorant and pointless as trying to unscrew virgins.
Adlib
I remember quite clearly the Republicans were at this juncture after the 08 election. They hunkered down and started meeting in Pizza Parlors to try to enrich their base. When the Tea Party came around, they dropped it all. They foolishly thought they could control these people and seriously underestimated their rabid hate. Then the anger was turned on them and we had the debt standoff. They caved to their basist rightwing batshitcrazy teapers and I think that was the beginning of the end. As you stated, the minority population is continuing to increase and the old white man population continues to age. Sooner or later the old white men and women will be a distinct minority. Their only hope is to poison the younger generation with their hate.
Sue, I think that in 2008, when the GOP fell apart, the Koch Brothers and their fellow crooks acted like the vulture capitalists that they are and saw it as a perfect time for a hostile takeover of the GOP.
So they financed and marketed the Tea Party “movement” to the “rubes” in the GOP who, like sheep, all fell for it.
As you say, once the Kochs rolled this Trojan Horse into the midst of the GOP, they celebrated and abandoned all efforts on reshaping their party because they had an instant gimmick that reinvigorated their party and made them competitive again. That’s all they really care about so indeed, they gave up on finding a new path because they didn’t need it.
Meanwhile, the Baggers climbed out of the Koch’s Trojan Horse and took over the GOP.
It’s really kind of interesting to consider that the GOP has become a victim of the same mercenary wealthy they think are on their side.
It is not impossible to believe that the GOP could change their social direction and adjust to the realities of 2012. Consider the turnabout the Democratic Party did in the 1950’s and 60’s concerning civil rights. Within a dozen years, all the hard core Dixiecrats had been undercut by Kennedy, LBJ and the Washington leadership, leaving them without the power base they had enjoyed for generations as Democrats.
The situation’s different now, of course. There is no other major party around that wants to adopt the gaggle of social conservatives, religious nuts, crypto-fascists and white power segregationists, so the GOP is pretty much stuck with them for the forseeable future.
Here is my dilemma – living around low-info voters some years ago, I discovered how desperate they are. Yes – they blame ALL their troubles on minorities, on liberals, etc., but in fact they have so few opportunities, are never going to get out of the cabins and trailer parks, never going to get ahead, and they are panicked all the time. They WILL be helped by a Black man – they will get health care and probably free since they’re pretty damned poor. But they have little work, many bills, and their lives are falling apart.
They once would have had opportunities. These are the folks of “The Deer Hunter” who were steelworkers, foundry operators, railroad people, etc. whose wives and mothers worked in offices related to businesses that thrived on industry – and sometimes in the industries, too. This is all gone in too many areas.
They are religious – church is a haven of cleanliness and peace. They are hunters – it’s how they get protein in their diets. They are angry – they have been thrown away by us all. And they are scared.
Why do they glom onto the GOP? Because until Obama not one damn thing was done for these folks. They are the people Thomas Franks wrote about in “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”
We have to care about the white ethnics, too. We have to include less well educated people in our future because they do matter. And since corporations don’t want to care about them, we need to find alternatives for them, and a lot of that is based on our tax policies – we already pick winners and losers, and we can reverese that trend. Today’s winners are shuttered Bain-style plants. We can reward operation and employment in the US rather than those going out of business and overseas.
Dems have to make this distinction and then make the distinction clear. It has to be the Dems who care about the family in the trailer park and its health, well being, and rights. And it can’t bash them for being conservative socially and wedded to guns which are life sustaining for them. We have to be where they are – and help them survive where they are. If Dem policies respect them, they will begin to stop distrusting the party, the policies, and us. I think we don’t have any other choice.
CL, very incisive as always.
It is a difficult situation. History, religion, poor education, the economy and social environment has contributed to creating this resentful, racist and angry group of rural, white people.
It is difficult for government to try and help people who hate government for helping them.
So many of these people are deep in denial, while they depend on government for income, medical insurance, SS, etc., they are fiercely “independent” and hew to the Repub BS about keeping government out of our lives.
I do think we should help them, it will probably help some of their children grow up better adjusted than their parents but I don’t know that such people are reachable.
They have so little, their belief in being anti-government/self-sufficient, being superior because they’re white and having God behind their religion and their social views are too valuable to them.
Would such people shed their racism because government helped create infrastructure jobs for them to have? Probably not, IMO though they might become less strident.
This is not to say that we shouldn’t help the poor, rural white people who are struggling out there, we should. I just think that they’ve been corrupted by their circumstances and cynical political manipulation by the Repubs and most won’t be able to change who they’ve become and the terrible things they believe.
The main reason for helping them is to break the cycle of poverty, ignorance and racism for the next generation.
Just don’t expect gratitude from this angry generation.
I think it’s clear that many people don’t know where their benefits come from. The “keep the government out of my Medicare” woman is one.
But progressives have sneered at blue collar, rural, and religious people for SO long, they have no reason to trust us because WE represent all they think they hate.
When someone like Murph takes the time to slowly help get a man and his family some health care – that makes change.
I’m not saying each of us need to adopt a trailer park resident (and I will at some point tell you a VERY funny story about how that kind of “adoption” of Black families by white ones backfired) but we do need to stop, think, understand not every one is exactly like us, and respect people where they are. No one who is not rich and privileged got where they are by accident. We all pretty much got shoved – good ways or bad ways – into where we are today.
The EmoProgrs are the ones I DO blame because they can influence policies if only by pouting and not voting. If they did not think they were goddess’s gift to the world, we MIGHT have made a bit more progress because we would have done it together with people who needed our help – NOT our superiority!
It’s how we need to go forward. Together.
But I was always taught that the Dem party was the party of the blue collar man. When do you think it changed? I have to admit I am not really aware that it ever did? Perhaps our definition of blue collar is different.
CL
I was in S Carolina and I am not sure there is much that can be done. My impression was of fairly smart people with a definite current running just below the surface. A Burger King where there was an unnamed white side and a black side in 1994. I know I sat there and was asked by a little old black lady to move. Not because she did not want to sit by me, but because when I was gone, they would pay for it. Not outright but in subtle ways. I know 94 was a long time ago, but for 94 that was an ass-backwards way to carry on a civil society.
audadvnc, you point out the central reason that the GOP can only bend to the moderate side for a little while then will need to snap back to pandering to the extremists in time for the 2014 election.
As you mentioned, the RW Extremists are the only core group that the GOP has. They simply can’t walk away from them, they need the RWNJs or they have no real constituency.
Pandering to Latinos may soften resentment towards them but it sure won’t make them preferable to Democrats for Latinos so they won’t be able to replace the RWNJs in this way.
And indeed, this constituency will continue and the last thing the Repubs would want is for a Tea Bagger Party to start up and divide their party in half.
So, the GOP is stuck between a rock and a hard place, they need to bring more minorities and women in yet they are the party of those who harbor racial hatred and resentment. Oil and water, these two things just don’t mix.
An amusing conundrum that the Repubs are in and I am very pleased to watch them flailing around in the muck they’ve intentionally walked into.
What have people like Paul Ryan learned since their loss in the election? Nothing. They still lie and make excuses for their loss.
Two articles from this morning’s MB.
What the GOP has learned since their defeat: Nothing.
————
Ryan Sees Urban Vote as Reason G.O.P. Lost
Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, now a potential 2016 presidential candidate, has repeated the sentiment that urban America gave President Obama the prize.
http://nyti.ms/SL4moZ
—-
Paul Krugman’s reply.
————
PAUL KRUGMAN BLOG: Identity Voters
It’s not just Those People.
http://nyti.ms/RVWUs2
Where does one start with a statement like that Kalima, that voters of color suddenly decided to vote Democratic this time or that he is surprised that the R’s have lost their appeal to the people of color? Did he even look at the returns and notice that they didn’t do all the hot in the suburban areas too, like his own district? Seems he doesn’t think that the voter suppression didn’t have any backlash either, did he?
Gotta love this”
Well I did give one speech, guess that wasn’t enough, huh?”
Perhaps “those people” in urban areas asked the same question that workers living anywhere asked “What have the Republicans done for the working people, what have they ever done?” and decided to vote Dem?
Good morning bito, I’d have to say that Ryan is full of the brown stuff, and his talk is insulting. They thought they could cheat their way into the WH by voter suppression, and they failed miserably. That he wanted to talk to all these people is another big fat lie, they don’t give a flying nun about the poor, the sick or the needy, they think of them as leeches. That he thinks he can run in 2016 is a joke as far as I’m concerned, who is going to vote for him except the fools who voted this time when they lost. The Tea Party is dying, not that it was ever really alive in the first place. If they keep on playing to their fringe loons, they might as well dissolve the GOP now because things can only get worse from here.
That crazy Brit is talking on my iPod again, I’d better close him down.
Have a good day and good night from me.
Kalima, just think of all the urban vote in Iowa and New Hampshire that gave those states to Obama!
And blaming minorities for voting is unAmerican and unsurprising. Ryan and the Repubs did their best to suppress minority voter turnout through voter ID laws so it’s not unexpected that they would have spite for those minorities who got to vote anyway.
Adlib
I am thoroughly convinced that the white evangelical vote in Iowa went to President Obams. I saw them on that mormon special and they were very adamant that they could not vote for a moron, oops I mean mormon. The religious right will give up their principles at any given time in order to gain political power, I know who they voted for as well.
They have to blame someone AdLib, they just can’t accept is was their fault that they lost. Narcissists to the very end. It is truly sickening to watch.
Krugman sees things so clearly, as always, Kalima. Love the graph that shows how Southern whites with incomes under $30,000 are likely to vote Republican — regardless… A very reliable voting bloc for “those people” — aka the wealthy.
Ryan — as always incapable of introspection. And adept at using code words. “Urban voters.” As Krugman says: “I wonder who he means…” 🙄
Hi kes, when you have those pesky facts on your side, everything seems clearer and easier.
What was it that the Romney campaign spokesman said after being confronted on Romney’s lies? “We don’t need no fact checkers telling us how to run our campaign”. Obviously they should have listened.
I’m tiring of hearing their whines, and thinking that Romney would be back under his rock by now, was disgusted to read his anti-Obama rant again. Who the hell cares about what this loser has to say anyway? No wonder he lost.
Republicans are always so stupid with their theories. Obama may not have won anywhere near the majority of the white vote but a MAJORITY of Obama’s voters were white. Obama could not have won without getting a significant portion of the white vote. The only difference between most white voters that vote Republican and most that vote Democrat is the ones that vote Democrat vote in their self interests and not for silly things like tax cuts that will never ever reach them.
K, if someone explained that to them, they could be doing so for a 100 years, and the Repubs still wouldn’t get it.
Also the only election where the GOP won the popular vote since 1988 was in 2004 during a general election. The GOP basically won that year because it scared enough women and minorities, especially Latino Americans into voting against their economic interests. If the GOP does not change significantly they just won’t win another general election for a long long time.
Of all the excuses that the R’s have given is that their polling was wrong. Really, their internal polling was that far off? Do the public a service and list who you hired, they should never get hired again. Or is it that they just couldn’t bring themselves to believe their own pollsters?
Except for the obvious racial incompatibility, I keep thinking the GOP/Romney campaign theme was the song from “The Wiz”:
“Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News.”
So…the partisan polls that they set up in order to get polling results more favorable to Republicans than all the other polls which said they would lose…were surprisingly inaccurate?
This makes the least sense of any excuse I’ve heard.
“The reason we lost is that we believed the intentional lies that we told.”
Huh?
Interesting look at some of the Republican excuses of why the election was lost and in their words . If you think anyone took personal responsibility, “you be thinking wrong.”
Conservative Explanations for Romney’s Loss
Bito, watching these Repubs promote their excuses is very telling, they all come off as insincere, they don’t really believe what they’re saying. They have the wounded look of a five year old who wasn’t picked to play on a kickball team and look hurt and defiant as they toss out a “Nya-nya!” to cover up how upset they are.
They know they and their views have been rejected by America, they’re hurting but trying to cover it up…and it’s not working.
AdLib, I have been saying this ever since the day after the election and the Republican talking heads had the light bulb go off over their heads. The change of opinions is to quick. It is just to win votes next time. You don’t change your mind that quickly when you have been fighting so hard from the other direction unless you are just baiting. This is all about catching votes.
Yes, I am sure that there are Republicans that have “Come to Jesus Meeting” now that the election is over. BUT, I hope all that are accepting their awakening remembers that the Democrats were already in church and singing! We had never closed the doors to seeing to others needs, healthcare for all, equal rights, aiding the economically challenged, affordable and accessible education, helping the young, assisting the aging, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, immigration reform, and fairness in taxation. None of this is a new way of thinking for us. We go to this church every Sunday, not just on Holidays!
Could some truly changed? Maybe. After all, you can’t sober up if you weren’t first drunk.
Time will tell……that nothing has really changed.
Sally, my guess would be that 99% of Repubs now championing immigration reform and reaching out to Latinos are only doing so in a quest to win the election next time.
Even so, what it effectively does is destroy opposition to a central Dem and Obama issue. The Repubs won’t reverse decades of racism and hatred they’re whipped up against the Latino community though. Yes, they will be able to say in the next election, “I voted for immigration reform” but the Dems will be able to say, “We fought for decades for immigration reform and finally defeated the Republican opposition!”
The Dems will have to keep their message machine going to counter the Repubs trying to take credit for this but as long as they do, the Repubs will come off looking like the insincere opportunists they truly are.
OK Scary turn of events. Rand Paul is suggesting total normalization of status for ALL immigrants. Not an easy road to citizenship but a road for ALL of them. This is inclined to attract the Latino voters in 2014 and on.
But – and here’s the rub – this is like the Twilight Zone story about aliens and their book “To Serve Man”. Turns out it’s a cookbook. The REASON a libertarian who hates government would do this is to explode the pool of low wage labor and force wages DOWN. He wishes -and Marx and Engles got this right – to beef up the ‘reserve army of the proletariat” who will work for shit wages.
His anti-war position, just like his father’s, is to get government OUT of war and corporate private armies INTO the business. That does away with Constitutional restrictions, human rights concerns, international conventions limiting our incursions, and concer for our vets – and makes it possible for their now to be feudal fiefdoms waging war with impunity.
Beware of the man who promises waaaay too much when his over-arching concern is private property and not an ounce about human beings. There is sure to be a sneaky motive there – and ripping off American working people as cheap labor and cannon fodder would be the motives.
Do not let this man get strong in the Senate or in American politics. He is NOT a nutjob. Well, he IS, but he’s not a nutjob about these ideas – they are the lasso he is tossing to reel in the people who will make these ideas work for him.
Even when Libertarians believe in the right thing it comes with bad intentions. Paul is probably thinking he can explode the guest worker program with comprehensive immigration legislation that will give big business hordes of cheap labor. It would create a whole new underclass. Remember Ayn Randians always want to help the rich by hurting the poor. It’s what they get off on. Randians don’t want a free market America they want a country like China where workers are punished and only a relatively few succeed.
CL – I don’t think anyone outside of Baggers will ever support Rand Paul no matter how convincing the sheep’s clothing is that he puts on. Blacks and Latinos will never forget or not be reminded that this man thinks the Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional and that people should be able to treat others in a racist way as employees, school children, etc.
No way he ever gets out from under his Ayn Rand BS, it’s baked into his name!
As for the plan, yes, I agree that his goal would be to depress wages and undermine unions, destroy labor laws, etc. but the Dems and Obama are in the position of power on this and are smart enough to pursue their own vision for immigration reform, not Rand Paul’s.
Good article AdLib and on your point of their mea culpa’s and getting fooled I’m not sure that that is going to happen anytime quick this time. The President said that hw will gladly go no a “50 state tour” over the budget and the cards he holds this time are a whole lot better than last time, the debt ceiling fiasco. He also has the Unions backing him from the start supporting and saying that they will back him as if it was the same as a campaign, they are ready to take to the streets, and they owe him, even though the R’s tried their best to cripple them, they did an outstanding job on the GOTV, ask the reelected Senator Brown.
As for as the Tea Party is concerned, I think that they are done, stick a fork in the D-O-N-E, they lost a lot in the house though reelection, they weren’t, some toned down their rhetoric and others have been become more like blue dogs than rabid Republicans. And now they have lost their collective voice and been marginalized, even Michelle got a scare. 11 newly elected R’s refused to take the Norquist Pledge and close to 2 dozen R’s haven’t renewed theirs (who’s a poopyhead now.) Their caucus in the next session may be down to around 50, which isn’t huge. I say write em off after January.
I could be wrong, won’t be the first time, but I’m not giving them much power next session, will they cause much ruckus until January, not if they expect to get the committees they want this time, because they wii have to act like regular congressman and not the new kid on the block.
Bito, it is heartening that Obama’s campaign and those of the unions and other Obama allies are still up and running and prepared to fight hard to bring these legislative victories home.
The Baggers in The House have been thinned and weakened but that doesn’t affect the balance of Baggers that make up the GOP base. They are still the ones ultimately controlling the fate of the GOP, as McConnell’s pandering to them post-election, out of fear they will primary him, proves they remain the most powerful group in their party (if the Baggers were over, why is he so worried about looking like he’ll compromise with Dems?).
In that respect, it remains a positive for Dems that as Repbs in Congress are forced to go along with tax increases on the wealthy and immigration reform, their base will become increasingly hostile towards them.
I knew I read the union story somewhere today, it was in the Morning Blog http://planetpov.com/2012/04/23/morning-blog-4/comment-page-1/#comment-192355
Labor Leaders Have Obama’s Back, and Are Ready to Help
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/us/politics/unions-offer-support-for-president-obamas-tax-plan.html
I realize that the anger is still there, AdLIb, I’m just not sure the organization is still there. Even they are becoming fractionated from what I see on their sites. The “Boston t-party” is saying that the “patriot party” is saying that That the “real Boston patriot party…
There’s no doubt that they can’t form a vigorous primary against any Republican, but it’s not just the T=Party that is mad at McConnell, so are the independents and Dems for him obstructing and not working with Obama. Mitch has a lot to be scared of in his next election. He lost seats when he was bragging he would take over leadership while he was occupied with blocking Obama.
We shall see, but I just don’t think the Tea Party is a cohesive as they were in ’10
I agree with you that there will be no big changes within the Republican party. At the moment they are licking their wounds from their pounding defeat, and will mutter about righting the wrongs that led to their loss while still blaming everyone else but themselves for it.
They remind me of a man who has been caught by his wife having an affair. They will get down on their knees, some will even cry as they promise that they will never do it again. A few months later, they are doing it again as if the promise had never been spoken. The party’s rot lies with their leadership, and unless they purge these hotheads and distance themselves completely from their lunatic fringe, they will be back to business as usual in a few months time. Their party is diseased from the inside out, it will take more than a couple of pills to cure them, and the damage is so great, I doubt that they will ever make a full recovery. It’s perfect payback when the Koch brothers were the ones who invented the Tea Party, and it’s the TP that eventually brings down the GOP. Hilarious! 😆
I posted this the other day, and think that it’s a majority opinion held by them.
“Six Absurd Republican Excuses for Mitt Romney’s Defeat” –
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/09/six-absurd-republican-excuses-for-mitt-romney-s-defeat.html
Kalima, the allegory you use couldn’t be more perfect! And it is such sweet irony that the Frankochsteins are destroyed by the very monster they brought to life to destroy everyone else! Suh-weet!
Love the cheating husband analogy K. At this point the GOP bravado is failing to deliver. They really won the advantage in 1 out of 4 of the last elections since the 2006 midterms. Everyone forgets all they promised their base in 2010 and they delivered nothing. Much smaller budget cuts, no cuts in entitlements, no really ending Obamacare, no winning back the Senate or the presidency. For all the so called energy the GOP base has they have very little to show for it. Sadly the big losers with GOPTEA baggers is female reproductive rights and now the workers pay more in state taxes but again this hurts them in future elections.
Excellent article AdLib. You hit the nail on the head especially that the new strategy of just sounding more moderate won’t work. The real problem is the GOP had one big strength in the 2000’s, message discipline. That’s one thing Romney with his flip flops started to decimate and it will continue in the GOP civil war. We already see factions of the GOP sending mixed signals. The plutocrats with a big effort that will be pushed by the chamber of commerce will push for comprehensive immigration reform. Basically immigration gives business exactly what it wants, cheap labor. As long as a huge guest worker program is part of the immigration legislation where workers can get less than minimum wage the establishment GOP will jump on it. Of course this will only alienate the anti-immigration hawks in the tea party even more. The other thing the GOP does not understand is immigration reform is only one part of the issues Latinos are concerned about. Latinos want better social services, schools and a viable safety net just like all liberals.
So true, KQ, the Repubs will be all smiles at Latinos until they reveal that their deal point is having guest workers who can be paid a pittance and take the jobs of those settled here. They can’t help being greedy Republicans. O matter how far down the road they go towards moderation.
KQ, you’re right the CofC will go all out for immigration reform and the lower wages are promising to their larger members bottom line. What they really like above lower wages is the guest worker provision and their ability to deport them with ease, like what we have now and that’s why it isn’t used by migrant guest workers–too easy to get deported. And that is what has to be watched out for in any new bill.
Making the rules where workers can be easily deported (like we have now), makes it easier to keep workers from unionizing, joining a union or complaining about employment laws,(overtime, workers comp, unemployment…) The lowered wages is the gravy.
It’s probably a pill we’ll have to swallow to get comprehensive immigration reform passed but progressives can get offsets they want too like a faster VISA process and path to citizenship for professionals especially more foreign doctors who will be need to make Obamacare successful. Another big offset for expanding the guest worker program is to not force current undocumented workers to ‘tag up’ which has been a huge sticking point for progressives and rightfully so. There are so many details like what will the fines be to who gets in front of the line that it will take allot of negotiation to pass. Probably the biggest sticking point on the conservative side is what will ‘securing the borders’ entail and what will it cost. The best way to pay for any new border security is to use the fines as an offset but they probably would fall short unless they were overly punitive. How about a new tax for companies that employ guest workers?
It won’t be easy, will it KQ? Don’t you think that there are many of the kinks worked out or partially worked out after so many different attempts on different bills.
I like your revenue side, perhaps a fine when found guilty of abusing the new law added to yours, like you say, I don’t think that there will be enough to fund the whole cost but some of the costs that are incured now by the INS may not be needed.
Absolutely fining employers NOW for hiring undocumented immigrants would pay for all the border security needed but they have lobbyists.