Whatever you think of former President Bush’s propaganda mouthpiece, Ari Fleischer, he knows his party’s supporters. And he was surprisingly blunt about stating that Republicans will always be against LGBT rights and women’s rights. Why? Because they are the party of people who will never accept that LGBT people are real human beings deserving of equal rights under the law. And they are also the party of Christian fundamentalists who want to tell women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.
After a stinging election night defeat, President George W. Bush’s former White House secretary still says that the Republican Party will never support LGBT rights and reproductive rights for women.
“The big issue that Republicans are going to have to wrestle with is the Hispanic issue,” Ari Fleischer explained after President Barack Obama’s defeat of GOP hopeful Mitt Romney made it clear that the country was more liberal than he had expected.
“It’s not the social issues,” he insisted. “You’re not going to make the party pro-choice and pro-gay rights and think you’ve made the Republican party the party that’s the popular party. We have a party like that. It’s the Democratic Party.”
“But the Republican Party used to be against abortion,” CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin noted. “In the past year, they have become identified with opposition to contraception. That is, you know, moving backwards at a pace that is astonishing and politically disastrous.”
Yes, being against contraception is incredibly stupid, and having the Pope of Conservative Talk Radio, Rush Limbaugh go off on an extended months long and extraordinarily nasty (even by his standards) rant against one women for daring to claim the pill should be covered by health insurance plans was a clear demonstration that the Republican party doesn’t see women as fully human either. They are lesser beings in the eyes of Republicans whose fate is to bear and raise children and obey their husbands and fathers. How often were women demonized by Republican candidates this year? From Rick Santorum to Richard Mourdoch to everyone on the right you can possibly imagine women were blamed for rape, told that incest is “rare” so don’t make such a big deal about it, blamed for being single parents and called “sluts” by a three times divorced fat man in a radio booth who took Viagra unlawfully on a vacation in the Dominican Republic, a known destination for sex tourists.
As for Gays, well, how many leading political figures in their party believe that Biblical law demands LGBT people be executed for the crime of being who they are? Far too many. How many people at a Republican debate booed a serving member of the US military for being gay? Far too many. How many Republicans think “Faggot” is a legitimate term for use in civil conversation? Far too many. How many Republicans view rules against the unrelenting verbal and physical bullying of LGBT youth as a violation of their religious and free speech rights? Far too many. How many times do we hear Republican-supporting religious conservatives blame natural catastrophes on the Homosexual agenda? Far too often. Who blames everything wrong in our society on the Homosexual agenda (when they aren’t attacking scientists)?
Now, Ari also said the Republican party needs to find a way to attract more Hispanic voters to their party. One question Ari. How are you planning to do that? Your party opposes the Dream Act. Its losing presidential candidate believes in self-deportation, even of children who have lived most of their lives in America, many of whom speak no Spanish, and that was the “moderate” position of your party. It re-elects time and time again, stated bigots and racists such as Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who believes that the only good Latino is one rotting away in his jail, and Steve King who called Latinos “dogs” and claimed that a compliment. No Ari, all the Rubios in the world aren’t going to cover up the stink that reeks from your party’s default position that Latinos are worthless, illegal scum, criminals and thugs, and carriers of disease who take jobs away from real Americans (i.e., white males). They hate Hispanics.
Yet, the most telling thing about Ari Fleischer’s analysis of his party was what he didn’t say. He said not one word about the need to attract more African Americans to the Republican party. I guess even he knows that Republicans = the party of bigots, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and “Confederate Heritage” lovers. He knows that Republicans abandoned African Americans shortly after the Civil War. He knows that the South is solidly Republican because they chose to pursue a “Southern Strategy” under Nixon that attracted bigoted Southern whites (and many Northern whites as well) to their party by opposing civil rights for African Americans. A strategy Ronald Reagan honed to perfection. He knows there is no room under the Big White Tent that is the Republican Party for anything more than a few token blacks. Why else would they go to such great lengths to disenfranchise and suppress the votes of that community?
Yes, Ari Fleischer knows his party well. There’s a saying that a tiger doesn’t change its stripes. Well, Ari, you and your fellow Republican operatives created this monster that feeds on fear, prejudice and hate. You had a major hand in developing the careers of powerful Republicans for which hate and fear is their middle name: Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Steve King, Ron and Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and even Mittens Romney, to name but a few. You can lament that fact all you want, but there is no silver bullet to slay the monstrous beast that is the present day Republican Party. It’s grown too large, too fast, and too powerful to just slither away and die. It’s not a phoenix that will erupt in flames and re-arise in a new more palatable form from the ashes. Its a Hydra-headed Gorgon covered with deadly poisonous snakes.
And it is people like you, Ari, who made it that way.
the Republican Party will never support LGBT rights and reproductive rights for women.
Enjoy your extinction.
Damn. Feeling feisty this morning.
It needs to be said. They hate. I saw it with ‘friends’ on Facebook after Obama won. And they don’t even see their hate.
One of my personal rules is always to be self aware. I can be a bit of a dick, but I have found that self awareness a saving grace. Be aware of what you are, deep inside.
I have noticed many republicans are completely un-self aware.
.
Yep. sleeplessness has that effect on me.
And of course a first step in rebuilding the Rep Party would be for Boehner & McConnell and co. to eek out some cooperation in the months to come.
And in the name of big tenting Fox might take the rhetoric down a notch or two.
And I just saw a flock of pigs fly past my window.
And the pigs had ponies for riders!
Along the lines of things that we could have predicted is this from my email from Boone Pickens this morning:
I sent an email back to Mr. Pickens asking him to relay that to his side of the political divide since obstructionism has been their mantra for the last 4 years. I don’t expect to hear back.
“there is no room under the [Repub] Big Tent…”
Well, exactly. Most “conservatives” are not Repubs because of the braindead economic “policies” of the plutocrat tax cut party, IMO. They are Repubs because they hate every single demographic that makes up the Dem party, from the blacks to the latinos, to the asians, the feminists and the gays. The environmentalists and the intelligensia and anti-militarists. They hate, hate, hate, ’em all, and they would never, ever associate themselves with a political party that includes these groups, whatever that party’s policies might be.
And Ari, they don’t think too much of the jews, either—if it wasn’t for the imbecilic idea that Israel’s brutal militarism will somehow bring on The Rapture, you’d be persona non grata as well.
Ah, the sad sad fate of those who ride a dying demographic for all its worth. While true that a significant share of Latinos is socially conservative, they are subject to the same demographic shifts as the rest of the population. What’s a poor Republican to do?
Yes. They support Israel fervently. But privately they talk of “Sheenies”, “Jewboys”, and much worse that I won’t repeat except to mention in passing the K word.
I have no illusions either. They talk friendly to me, but I’m sure behind my back it’s “Dago”, “Spaghetti bender”, “Wop”, et cetera.
And our dear unfriend John Koster lost in WA state last night to Suzan DelBene.
Which reminds me, it looks like there’s an awful lot more women going to be walking through the halls of govt in this nation after last night.
I wish the Republican Party Godspeed on the road to wherever the Whig Party is.
George W. Bush’s former White House secretary still says that the Republican Party will never support LGBT rights and reproductive rights for women.
Don’t forget that Repubs come out with this kind of sweeping generalization all the time and can just as quickly assert that Eastasia has always been their best buddy.
Unfortunately for them, the public doesn’t always forget the pronouncements. Especially when, as in the case of that guy who lost yesterday, they make the pronouncement and the superseding pronouncement within a few seconds of one another.
I think he’s right. They are boxed in by their base pn these issues.
Mittens 2016!
Bwaa haa hahahahahaa…
This is GREAT NEWS …. for JOHN MCCAIN!
Another voice I had hoped to avoid forever. Excuse me while I brush off my shoulder.
Not sure how successful the GOP will be in trying to appeal to Latino votes. In the Illinois House district where I reside (which also happens to be in Duckworth’s district – yeah) the incumbent Dem is Latino but with a fairly Anglo name. There is a significant Latino population in this district.
The GOP ran a candidtae with a totally Latino name. All of his advertising conveniently avoided mentioning that he was a Republican.
The result? A landslide for the Dem candidate. If running an obvious Latino without emphasizing his Republican roots, in a significantly Latino district still results in a massive defeat, it tells you how much of a problem they are going to have.
What I hear him saying is that the GOP will stick with the “god, guns, gays, and girls” gameplan for 2014. It got them the House in 2010 and kept it in 2012. It also exhausts the DEM grassroots that would prefer to move-on and not have to re-fight this crap every two years.
Social Security and Medicare is what’s keeping the GOP alive and competitive. Weird that they want to kill that golden goose.