Republicans Fear Latinos and Losing Re-Election More Than Terrorism

What’s going on right now in the Republican controlled Congress is the weighing of which of the following should have more weight, sustaining their racism towards Latinos (and our black President) or protecting our country from terrorism. If you know the current state of the Whitepublican Party, it’s not difficult to guess which side of the scale is tipping down.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is scrambling around the Senate trying to drag the GOP off of the train tracks as the Shutdown Express chugs closer. The funding of the Department of Homeland Security (a department name that still reeks of Orwellian roots) will end this Friday, February 27th, unless the Republican Congress can pass a new funding bill for it. This is due to a scheme by Repubs after last year’s election to try and force President Obama to conform to their racism and reverse his Executive Order to protect several million undocumented immigrants from deportation.

McConnell first had to push forward the Crazy House Republican bill pushed by the Tea Party wing that would shut down the DHS until Obama and Democrats gave into their demands…kind of like threatening domestic sabotage against the country’s protection from terrorism…to “save” the country from the threat of undocumented five year olds going to kindergarten. Once that proved impossible to pass in the Senate, McConnell offered the current and ridiculously lame proposal to fund DHS temporarily as long as a pointless second bill to deny Obama his Executive Order was voted on. Of course, Obama would sign a bill harming his own policy (the Repubs could never override a veto in the Senate), why wouldn’t he? However, the Loonypubs in The House are insulted by such maneuvering, they want what they want and they’re willing to hold America’s breath and safety until they get what they want. In fact, many of them love shutting down any part of government because their right wing constituencies, which of course represent a fringe element of the U.S. population, hate government and dream of marching against the U.S. military with handguns to “take this country back” from its democratically elected officials.

House Speaker John Boehner is beginning to look pale despite his latest slathering of Coppertone. He knows that another government shutdown, especially due to a race-based ultimatum, isn’t going to be the best advertisement for attracting the growing minority vote the GOP desperately needs in 2016 to win. Unfortunately, having made a deal with The Devil to remain Speaker (he had to exchange his spine for the gavel), Boehner continues to run from a stampede and claim he’s leading it. If Boehner pushes too hard against the Tea Partiers to insist that they show a shred of common sense, they might turn against him and try and remove him (“We don’t need no stinkin’ brains!”). If he supports the DHS shutdown, he knows he may permanently damage the GOP’s chances in 2016.

What’s an orange jellyfish to do?

The RW Republicans who are in denial and actually think they can blame Obama and the Democrats for their shutting down government using tortured logic, directly contradict the polls that show great support for Obama’s Executive Order and identification of Republicans as the ones wanting to shut down the country as part of their political extortion plans.

So what will happen in the short term and long term? In the short term, the best that could happen is a temporary funding of DHS which will force the nation to go through this again in several months. The worst that could happen is a shutdown of the DHS and though Repubs can’t think this far, ISIS, Al Qaeda and others who despise the US have internet and tvs and can decide that this creates a window of opportunity for them to prepare or commit and act of terrorism (though the DHS won’t stop operating on Friday, the cutoff of funding may encourage bad guys to act).

When has shutting down part or all of government ever worked out as a good thing for Republicans? Aside from never, never. But that’s not what any of this is about. It’s about Republicans displaying their hatred of other races as a badge of honor to the RW racist voters in their districts, showing what extreme lengths they’ll go to, to pursue hateful, racist policies. And why they are doing that is to get the votes they need to get re-elected.

So when boiled down to its essence, all of this is really just about Republican politicians getting re-elected…so they can cause more threats to the nation in pursuing re-election once again. Sure, there are some fanatical Repubs who really want to permanently hobble our government and implement tyrannical policies against those who aren’t white males that stroke their gun muzzles for sexual gratification. However, even for them, this is about getting re-elected.

It’s hard to see how this works out in any way that is good for Republicans. If they pass a temporary funding bill for DHS, they’re only promising more extortion of the nation’s safety in the near future. If they shut down the DHS, they can flail around trying to lie to the public that it’s the Dems’ fault but that won’t fly and will turn the majority of Americans strongly against them (especially if something terrorist-related happens in the US). And no matter what, the image of the Republicans competence to lead Congress has been and will be seriously damaged as will the standing of McConnell and Boehner as leaders.

Racism blinds those who practice it. Republicans chase after racism with a mindless enthusiasm because it offers the joy of re-election, not recognizing that it is actually a lemming leading them right off the edge of a political cliff.