Is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) making sense?
…Graham said the GOP will never be a national party until it changes course on immigration and improves its relationship with young people, who voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama .
“That’s why I’m involved in the climate and energy debate. I think Republicans need to be proudly for clean air. And, I think it’s important that Republicans repair the damage with Hispanics done in the 2007 immigration debate.”
Now, if I were a Republican strategist, I’d be advising the Republicans to adopt an entirely new model for cobbling together a majority that doesn’t rely on white resentment of minorities. I’d make that recommendation for moral reasons, but I’d also make it because the days of riding white backlash against ‘big government’ to victory are nearing an end (it still looks like a solid bet to work this year, however). But the ‘damage with Hispanics done in the 2007 immigration debate’ didn’t just happen. The Republican base demanded that it happen. And the GOP is dependent on their base because there just aren’t that many people making over $250,000 a year in this country. So, the Republican Party is pretty much compelled to court and tolerate racists. Until they adopt some positive ideology that can appeal to common folk on the merits, they’re going to be appallingly bad at attracting the Latino vote.
Theoretically, Graham is right. But just where is this new base going to come from? I think we’re talking “Democrat light” here. Very light.
I don’t know. Their whole party is fucked up now because of the weaponization of Stupid done by the megachurches in this country
Is the last institutional bastion of Jim Crow. The state and Big Money quit when mechanization made mass agricultural labor surplus to needs.
With no real left to go up against in this country, the only place they have to stake out would be to the left of the Dems, and that ain’t gonna happen. So what they’re left with is the Dark Menace. The only way to give them any other space would be for the Dems to shift significantly to the left and for the Reps to respond by rediscovering actual conservatism. Not holding my breath for either event.
Or the Wall Street Republicans aka Country Club Republicans can burrow into the Democratic Party with the likes of Ben Nelson (a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire-Hathaway) and Lieberman.
What we are witnessing is the natural culmination of Ronald Reagan’s “Southern Strategy”, wherein he successfully recruited the pissed off Dixiecrats who had just fled the party of their grandfathers, the Democratic Party. Throughout his Presidency, Reagan continuously used politically charged euphemisms to let the new southern republicans know that their “way of life”(racism) would be preserved as long as he was in the White House. These reassuring messages signaled the southern states that “you don’t have to worry about the Federal Government interfering in your state and local methods of controlling your Negro population.” After Reagan left the White House, the Southern Reaganite racists patiently waited for a new Reagan-like leader to emerge within the Republican Party. The reason that they were willing to defer to a new Reagan leader was that most white southern politicians recognized that their essentially small town southern racism could not be sold to the rest of the country.
However, the election of Barack Obama, a Negro, to the Presidency was too much to take for these sons of the Confederacy, and once again the rally call went forth to save the country from this unbearable insult to all white people. From South Carolina to Texas, all the southern states stand united in their opposition to the Negro in the White House. Hence all the public statements refusing to accept anything coming from Washington simply because it would of necessity be polluted to the Negro in the White House’s signature. While others talked about succession, others created and promulgated Sovereignty manifestos. All of this public exhibition of rebellious behavior had as its purpose one singular target, the Negro in the White House.
The fanatic racist overbearing character of the southern Reaganites over time became simply too abrasive for many “moderate” Republicans and they quietly left the party. Unfortunately their departure has left the party to two smaller groups in the Party, namely those who are capable of toughing it out and are able to act like they share the same racist views as the southern Reaganite racists. These two smaller groups are political con men and the Libertarians. So today aside from the southern racist Reaganites, the party is populated with con men and Libertarians. The con men are sell their political support and services to the southern racist Republicans as they look forward to that big financial payoff somewhere down the road. (Witness Sarah Palin and there are thousands of people like her in lesser roles throughout the Party.) On the other hand the Libertarians are just as fanatical and tenacious about eliminating the Federal Government as the southern racists are about their Negrophobia. Currently the Libertarians are starting to flex their political muscle in a future bid to take over the Republican Party. (It is interesting to note that the Libertarians were also invited to join the Republican Party when their own party imploded over disagreements between the “purist” Libertarians who wanted NO GOVERNMENT whatsoever, and the “practical” Libertarians who wanted the smallest government possible.) The Libertarians are quite willing to support the southern Republicans racist behavior because they know that it is a doomed strategy for any national party in America. Once the southern racist Republicans are soundly rejected by American voters the Libertarians know that it will be their turn to control the focus of the Republican Party, and they will set it firmly on the Libertarian goal of cutting the Federal Government down to the smallest possible size. The Libertarians strongly feel that the fates are already working their behalf as from their perspective they expect that the southern Republican racist ideology will be defeated in the next sequence of elections. However they also expect that runaway inflation will become the next big national issue providing a more receptive public environment for the Libertarian ideology for the American voter.
I thought that was Nixon’s Southern Strategy. That makes no difference, however, to your excellent summary and prediction.
I would add though that the Wall Street Republicans are playing both groups like fiddles. They tolerate both because it plays into their desire for no taxes on the rich (small government few taxes) and keeping the Feds off their backs (States Rights, free market). That same Wall Street group has hedged their bets by backing the ConservaDems to prevent Liberals (tax the rich, regulate banks and industry) from gaining power.
Lawd I hope these days are over soon.
But then again, I’ll never underestimate the ability of racists to multiply. I’m sure there was someone making this argument in ’88 after the Willie Horton ad.
That didn’t work out so well tho.
Graham is laying the groundwork for a jump to the Democrats. Just in case the nutzos go off the rails and make a run at him.