Politico has a piece on this. After 2012 the GOP had its own 'autopsy' that determined that the party had to become more palatable to minority voters and had to do something about immigration reform. So what happened?
It might be tempting to say two words-Donald Trump. But this is not correct. Trump is not the cause of GOP problems but a very colorful, and damning effect.
The party did resolve to do something after 2012 but ultimately kicked the can down the road. Now Mitt Romney's self-deport riff sounds like kinder and gentler times-he was on the Far Right of the 2012 primary but would be Far Left this time.
The moment of truth was when Boehner tabled the Senate Gang of Eight proposals. No attempt was made to offer an alternative. Then the Heritage Foundation came out with an absurd paper that said the GOP didn't need the Latino vote; they just had to get more white voters than even Romney got.
They needed to get more and more white voters-even though as a proportion of the electorate, the white vote was decreasing.
So Trump is a clear case of the party reaping what it sowed. For years it chose to demagogue this issue to play to its base. Now its shocked that the base isn't listening to them. That it isn't impressed by Kasich's alleged plea for sanity.
As I've argued before Kasich has no credibility as a voice of reason anyway. He may sound a little more reasonable but then you remember that he ran on deporting the 11 million himself in 2010.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-good-chunk-of-gop-field-wants-to-repeal-the-14th-amendment_55d24915e4b055a6dab12015
After 2012, Priebus really did seem to get it:
"Poor Reince Priebus. After Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama in 2012, Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee, touted his shiny new 100-page report on reinventing the GOP at the National Press Club in March 2013. It was called the “Growth and Opportunity Project.” Priebus’ message was earnest and direct: The GOP needed to practice inclusion, not exclusion, if it was to have any chance of winning the presidency. “We need to campaign among Hispanic, black, Asian, and gay Americans and demonstrate we care about them, too,” the report said. “We must recruit more candidates who come from minority communities. But it is not just tone that counts. Policy always matters.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/gop-islam-refugees-213383#ixzz3sJUPGkvV
It might be tempting to say two words-Donald Trump. But this is not correct. Trump is not the cause of GOP problems but a very colorful, and damning effect.
The party did resolve to do something after 2012 but ultimately kicked the can down the road. Now Mitt Romney's self-deport riff sounds like kinder and gentler times-he was on the Far Right of the 2012 primary but would be Far Left this time.
The moment of truth was when Boehner tabled the Senate Gang of Eight proposals. No attempt was made to offer an alternative. Then the Heritage Foundation came out with an absurd paper that said the GOP didn't need the Latino vote; they just had to get more white voters than even Romney got.
They needed to get more and more white voters-even though as a proportion of the electorate, the white vote was decreasing.
So Trump is a clear case of the party reaping what it sowed. For years it chose to demagogue this issue to play to its base. Now its shocked that the base isn't listening to them. That it isn't impressed by Kasich's alleged plea for sanity.
As I've argued before Kasich has no credibility as a voice of reason anyway. He may sound a little more reasonable but then you remember that he ran on deporting the 11 million himself in 2010.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-good-chunk-of-gop-field-wants-to-repeal-the-14th-amendment_55d24915e4b055a6dab12015
After 2012, Priebus really did seem to get it:
"Poor Reince Priebus. After Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama in 2012, Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee, touted his shiny new 100-page report on reinventing the GOP at the National Press Club in March 2013. It was called the “Growth and Opportunity Project.” Priebus’ message was earnest and direct: The GOP needed to practice inclusion, not exclusion, if it was to have any chance of winning the presidency. “We need to campaign among Hispanic, black, Asian, and gay Americans and demonstrate we care about them, too,” the report said. “We must recruit more candidates who come from minority communities. But it is not just tone that counts. Policy always matters.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/gop-islam-refugees-213383#ixzz3sJUPGkvV
He had it exactly right then-but this was the road not taken.
"That was then. In the meantime, the GOP’s leading presidential contenders have serially and successfully thumbed their collective noses at the party establishment. Already Donald Trump and Ben Carson have upended the race with stands like castigating illegal immigrants. But amid widespread fear of terrorism triggered by the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris, the GOP is now mired in its ugliest intra-party debate yet—about whether Muslims living in the United States constitute a potential Fifth Column."
"Like many of the ills afflicting the GOP, the party establishment is once more being outflanked by its militant wing, which has long depicted Muslims as first and foremost loyal not to America but to Islamic Sharia law. And once again, establishment candidates like Jeb Bush are trying to placate anti-Muslim advocates while shunning the most extreme aspects of their program. Still, whether Trump and Carson really believe in their gibberish about Muslims-Americans is almost beside the point: If they score electoral successes, they will reshape the GOP in their own image. And to some extent they already are."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/gop-islam-refugees-213383#ixzz3sJUxlIsl
But again, you can't just feel sorry for the establishment. Reince may have had it right in the aftermath of 2012 but where was he when Boehner was tabling immigration reform? That was the moment of truth not the rise of Trump and Ben Carson. By then the cow had already left the barn.
Yet, the establishment tried to blame the failure to pass immigration reform on those evil Senate Democrats even though you had Senate Republicans who signed off on it too.
Then, of course, Rubio totally discredited himself-with really anybody on immigration. I mean whether you are pro immigration reform like me and other Democrats, or against it like the GOP base how in either case does Rubio have any credibility?
And on Muslims, Jeb wants a religious test on refugees. Trump has pulled the party so far to the Right in this primary that even if they do find a way to keep him off the ballot-which with just over two months till Iowa, can no longer be assumed as he leads both in Iowa and NH-the party has gone so far to the Right on immigration and Muslims the brand has already been totally sullied.
Politico makes its diagnosis as to what happened to Priebus' report:
"There are two factors at work. The first is that as the GOP embraces the theme of America’s precipitous decline under President Barack Obama, it’s jettisoning the crusading and optimistic foreign policy credo of George W. Bush. After over a decade of warfare in the Middle East, the notion that Washington can single-handedly transform Muslim societies in America’s image attracts derisory snorts on the right as well as the left. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, by contrast, is harkening back to the Bush legacy by endorsing a federal agency to disseminate “Judeo-Christian values” to Iran Russia, China and the Middle East—“We need to beam messages around the world” Kasich told NBC News. America “means freedom, it means opportunity, it means respect for women, it means freedom to gather, it means so many things.” But many conservatives—both candidates and their constituents—are adopting a darker view of the Middle East, which is that it is irredeemable and thus poses a dire threat to the very existence of western civilization."
"The second reason goes back to the end of the Cold War. During the past century, the GOP focused on the internal subversive threat of communism and often depicted liberals as traitors. Now many on the right have seamlessly moved on to hunt for Muslim traitors as part of a third World War against a foreign enemy. They’ve been identifying domestic traitors and declaring a broader war against Islam for years, but have been, for the most part, speaking to deaf ears. To his credit George W. Bush, as has been widely recalled, refused to demonize Muslims after 9/11 and visited a mosque to declare that America was not at war with Islam itself. Now after Paris, the radical right is grabbing the opportunity to push their case to a wider audience."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/gop-islam-refugees-213383#ixzz3sJYdBoGi
Right-ie, it's part of the GOP's general McCarthyite nature.
Anyway, it's a good piece from Politico, and I recommend reading it in its entirety. But the GOP I've suggested for some time, will never learn. They will have to spend some time in the political wilderness first.
"Like many of the ills afflicting the GOP, the party establishment is once more being outflanked by its militant wing, which has long depicted Muslims as first and foremost loyal not to America but to Islamic Sharia law. And once again, establishment candidates like Jeb Bush are trying to placate anti-Muslim advocates while shunning the most extreme aspects of their program. Still, whether Trump and Carson really believe in their gibberish about Muslims-Americans is almost beside the point: If they score electoral successes, they will reshape the GOP in their own image. And to some extent they already are."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/gop-islam-refugees-213383#ixzz3sJUxlIsl
But again, you can't just feel sorry for the establishment. Reince may have had it right in the aftermath of 2012 but where was he when Boehner was tabling immigration reform? That was the moment of truth not the rise of Trump and Ben Carson. By then the cow had already left the barn.
Yet, the establishment tried to blame the failure to pass immigration reform on those evil Senate Democrats even though you had Senate Republicans who signed off on it too.
Then, of course, Rubio totally discredited himself-with really anybody on immigration. I mean whether you are pro immigration reform like me and other Democrats, or against it like the GOP base how in either case does Rubio have any credibility?
And on Muslims, Jeb wants a religious test on refugees. Trump has pulled the party so far to the Right in this primary that even if they do find a way to keep him off the ballot-which with just over two months till Iowa, can no longer be assumed as he leads both in Iowa and NH-the party has gone so far to the Right on immigration and Muslims the brand has already been totally sullied.
Politico makes its diagnosis as to what happened to Priebus' report:
"There are two factors at work. The first is that as the GOP embraces the theme of America’s precipitous decline under President Barack Obama, it’s jettisoning the crusading and optimistic foreign policy credo of George W. Bush. After over a decade of warfare in the Middle East, the notion that Washington can single-handedly transform Muslim societies in America’s image attracts derisory snorts on the right as well as the left. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, by contrast, is harkening back to the Bush legacy by endorsing a federal agency to disseminate “Judeo-Christian values” to Iran Russia, China and the Middle East—“We need to beam messages around the world” Kasich told NBC News. America “means freedom, it means opportunity, it means respect for women, it means freedom to gather, it means so many things.” But many conservatives—both candidates and their constituents—are adopting a darker view of the Middle East, which is that it is irredeemable and thus poses a dire threat to the very existence of western civilization."
"The second reason goes back to the end of the Cold War. During the past century, the GOP focused on the internal subversive threat of communism and often depicted liberals as traitors. Now many on the right have seamlessly moved on to hunt for Muslim traitors as part of a third World War against a foreign enemy. They’ve been identifying domestic traitors and declaring a broader war against Islam for years, but have been, for the most part, speaking to deaf ears. To his credit George W. Bush, as has been widely recalled, refused to demonize Muslims after 9/11 and visited a mosque to declare that America was not at war with Islam itself. Now after Paris, the radical right is grabbing the opportunity to push their case to a wider audience."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/gop-islam-refugees-213383#ixzz3sJYdBoGi
Right-ie, it's part of the GOP's general McCarthyite nature.
Anyway, it's a good piece from Politico, and I recommend reading it in its entirety. But the GOP I've suggested for some time, will never learn. They will have to spend some time in the political wilderness first.
In many ways 2016 will end up be the party coming full circle since Goldwater in 1964. Goldwater's loss was a loss for the man but not the movement that when on to 5 wins in the next 6 elections post 1964. That was when the Eastern establishment that had ruled the party since its earliest days was routed and the South took over the party.
This time, though, the party will go full circle. The more you watch it, the less you can believe it is fit to be a Presidential party anytime soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment