[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: The divide and conquer party (click to view)
Date: August 19, 2010
The heavyweights of the Republican Party have been pretty eager to weigh in on a number of racially/culturally sensitive issues as of late, infuriating multicultural liberals in the process.

First there was the whole Shirley Sherrod affair, whereby conservatives were quick to assume the worst of an African American Obama staffer, based on a brief clip of a speech that was later proven to be altered. Her condemnation, in any case, was a classic case study of conspiratorial attitudes towards blacks in positions of political power.

Then there was the recent flirtation, by several bigshot Republicans, with the idea of repealing the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, in an effort to revoke automatic citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. (Nothing particularly new, of course, considering the GOP's general hostility to the notion of granting any sort of rights to illegal immigrants).

Most recently of all has been the "Ground Zero Mosque" brouhaha, which, due to Republican persistence, has now morphed into the single biggest issue facing the United States at the moment. There's no real issue of law or policy at play here, it's simply a culture war-type issue that, through great acrimony, tests the degree to which non-Mulsim America is willing to tolerate its beleaguered Islamic minority.

Many columns have been authored condemning the Republicans for their willingness to wade into such divisive matters, and appeal to the sentiments of folks who may not... have extraordinarily articulate opinions on why, exactly, they distrust the President's black staffers, Hispanic immigrants, or New York Muslims, though they're happy to have the chance.

There is evidence, however, that such tactics, distasteful though they may be, are actually good strategic moves for the GOP. The Republicans are, after all, still a primarily white party; when they lose elections it's usually because their share of the white vote declines, and when they win it's because it goes up. As I discussed in a previous essay, minorities are so solidly Democratic at this point, and such a fast-growing demographic force within the US population, Republicans, if they want to survive, have only two real options: become a steadily more reactionary, white-centric party, or a more liberal one. With the mid-terms on the horizon, it's clear which strategy the present leadership has chosen to embrace.

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[Kjorteo]

The Republicans could probably stand to be a bit more careful with where they see themselves in the long term. Xenophobia doesn't really have a stellar track record for being a good long-term survival strategy as history marches on and usually tends to do so in a sort of progressive direction.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert keep digging up hilariously antiquated quotes from sources like 1866 Senators or Ben Franklin going on racist tirades about the Chinese, the Irish, the Germans, or whoever the designated enemy was at the time. Their point is basically "here we go again, only Mexicans and Muslims this time," and I tend to agree. Does the GOP really think it wise to place itself on the wrong side of history like that?

Then again, in the era of the 24-hour news cycles and such, it's sort of uncommon to think that far ahead unless an immediate election is involved. Basically everything the GOP does at this point revolves around November, specifically winning more seats at that time. What do they actually do with them if they end up getting them? What's the plan after that either way? I don't know... 2012, I guess?

[ManifestDestiny]

Quote:

First there was the whole Shirley Sherrod affair, whereby conservatives were quick to assume the worst of an African American Obama staffer, based on a brief clip of a speech that was later proven to be altered. Her condemnation, in any case, was a classic case study of conspiratorial attitudes towards blacks in positions of political power.

Funny it was liberal Democrats in the Obama administration that asked her to resign. Which then they later apoligized for jumping the gun?

[Pseudonym]

If we're discussing tactics, I think the best plan for the Republicans is to resist the current administrative agenda while staying out of the limelight as much as possible. Time has shown that Americans hate liberalism, and there is no need to interfere with the Democrats while they are busy self-destructing. Jumping onto issues like the Sherrod video and the Ground Zero Mosque can bite you in the butt, whereas bringing them up and then letting the public discourse take it away is much less risky.

[xerxes]

Since when? FDR was voted in three times. Eugene Debs, an actual communist got over a million votes for president while sitting in a jail cell.

Liberalism has been popular in the US for a while. It's the republican talking points over the last 3 decades that had convinced voters that liberalism is evil an un-American, when it's not.

[Pseudonym]

Liberalism meaning big government, big spending, and most of what is going on in Washington today. Polling data across the board is fairly clear that a majority Americans don't like the current public healthcare plan, don't like illegal immigration, despise bailouts and the like. The Democrats are pushing an unpopular agenda, and the Republicans only have to take advantage of that to regain power. However, if they get power back and resume the big spending, big government policies of the Bush administration, the voters will kick them right back out. Congress' approval numbers (~20%) have to mean something.

EDIT: FDR is a good example of America becoming more liberal, but he is rather a far step from today.

[Thanos]

Pseudonym wrote:

Liberalism meaning big government, big spending, and most of what is going on in Washington today. Polling data across the board is fairly clear that a majority Americans don't like the current public healthcare plan, don't like illegal immigration, despise bailouts and the like. The Democrats are pushing an unpopular agenda, and the Republicans only have to take advantage of that to regain power. However, if they get power back and resume the big spending, big government policies of the Bush administration, the voters will kick them right back out. Congress' approval numbers (~20%) have to mean something.

No they won't. The particular voters you're referring to didn't even bother to get mad until a black guy started doing basically the same thing that the previous white guy was doing. Let me know when the Tea Party actually gets mad at all the over-spending on defense, social security, and Medicare Part D, and at the porous Mexiacan border that occurred from 2001 to 2008, and I'll accept your particular line of reasoning.

[Pseudonym]

Defense spending I'll grant, although that's not typically seen as a liberal issue. Do you not recall the enormous public outcry when Bush tried to pass his comprehensive immigration bill? The Congressional switchboard broke down. People were talking about Social Security and these other issues before Obama got into office. However, toss public healthcare and bailouts into the mix, and it seems as though you have raised the stakes. Is the only thing you can see as different between Bush and Obama the color of their skin?

[xerxes]

I would say the former to a small extent, and party affiliation to the greater extent. The right only cares about deficits and government size when they're not in office. Bush oversaw the largest expansion of government size in decades as well as deficits, yet not a peep from those who cap themselves Tea Partiers now.

[Trenacker]

Republican politicians can get away with flat-out bigotry toward Muslims in this instance because so many of the people to whom they are trying to appeal are suspicious of Islam and unconcerned about the moral implications of preventing Muslim engagement in American society. It is all too commonplace to see people who would be horrified of being called "racist" insist that American Muslims and homosexuals should be sidelined, disenfranchised, or otherwise denied key protections enjoyed by their neighbors.

Some of the concern about Muslims and homosexuals is clearly based on a great deal of misinformation and misperception. A great many Christians believe very strongly that the extension of constitutional protections to gays will result in forced changes to church doctrine, which is simply untrue: churches are private institutions, and can choose to dispense marriages as they please. The frequent rejoinder that extending marriage rights to gays will mean the future institution of polygamy in this country is equally spurious: allowing gay marriage is no more or less arbitrary than allowing only heterosexual marriage. But then, I think that well-meaning people are few and far between on the issue: many are happy to exploit the "cover" of popular opinion to advocate for laws and mores that would make it difficult, if not impossible, to be openly and legitimately gay in this nation. The purpose? Either homosexuality makes them personally squeamish, or else they are terrified that their children, if aware that some people are different, might decide to go that route themselves. Worse, there are legions of ambitious people in this country who are willing to sacrifice principle to get elected.

I find it frankly appalling that whereas Americans are perfectly willing to accept that there are as many versions of Christians or Jews as there are fish in the sea, well-meaning people can solemnly report that they have read the Koran, extracted the single, "objectively" true translation, and determined thereby that the more than one billion self-identified Muslims on this planet all hate America, and all think alike. That's exactly the battle we've spent nearly a decade fighting -- trying to convince those one billion people that our actions are completely compatible with the maintenance of their dignity. Let's be frank: some interpretations of the Koran are utterly inconsistent with the society that the West aims to build -- but the same can be said with equal validity of the visions presented in both testaments of the Bible. There is nothing inherently wrong with religion; the question is always one of specifics.

Circling back to the earlier point of principle, I think that one of the reasons all of these attacks on Obama's character and policies are so vicious is the increasingly popular sense that all decisions, all the time, are for all the marbles. The 24-hour news, which, with FOX News at the lead, increasingly blurs over into commentary, has given the impression that all matters are urgent. It shapes the way politicians try to deal with issues that are rarely susceptible to quick, neatly-wrapped solutions. The increasing number of media appearances also deceives us into believing that every sound bite is a comprehensive indicator of an elected official's broader opinion on issues that can have many exceptions, many caveats, many different flavors.
With respect to Bush and the different standard applied to Obama, I think it's simply a case of wishful thinking. The label "Republican" lulls people who would have a problem -- do have a problem -- with those same policies when put forth by Democrats. If we spend too much, it is the exception, not the rule or the original intention. If "they" spend too much, it is evidence of their approach to government, generally.

The truth is that while many people in this country are now demanding "smaller" government, their expectations are still far ahead of what they were thirty or forty years ago. Republicans usually blasted Obama for being ineffectual during the Gulf Oil Spill, not for getting involved in the first place. During times of disaster, we expect responders to appear on a doorstep within hours, not the days it would actually take to organize a response after a major catastrophe. We want our presidents and their advisers to "fix" the economy and "solve" unemployment when we have added the intensely significant psychological variable of up-to-the-minute reporting, have allowed some industries to become too big to fail, and have allowed for the creation of financial instruments that their own creators scarcely understand. (Personally, I think the Reagan-era decision to lower the standards for eligibility for home loans, and the subsequent rush to get more Americans into housing they couldn't afford, is what really did us in. That, and the inevitable emergence in the developed world of huge numbers of skilled workers willing to sell their labor for prices that no American could ever afford.)

Immigration? Nobody really has the stomach to "fix" immigration. We lack the resources to shut the southern border completely to illegal migrants, who will keep coming as long as life in Mexico is significantly less appealing than life in the United States. The appeal of life in the United States is based on the superior opportunities available to new immigrants, legal and illegal, who can now easily integrate into co-ethnic communities in nearly every part of the country, and can always find jobs because their expected standard of living is lower than that of the average American. The corporate wing of the Republican Party is wholly unwilling to expel or curb this labor force. Don't expect any more from a Republican on that count than you would from a Democrat.

[Thanos]

^

Well said. All the Repubs are doing right now is confirming that old-school P.T. Barnum philosophies are alive and well. No one ever goes broke in politcs by appealing to the worst in some people or by trolling for the lowest common denominator. That it more often than not can be the winning formula is enough to completely validate it as a strategy and tactic in the minds of political operatives and professional campaign organizers.

[martin14]

Interesting post, just one small correction.

Trenacker wrote:

(Personally, I think the Reagan-era decision to lower the standards for eligibility for home loans, and the subsequent rush to get more Americans into housing they couldn't afford, is what really did us in. That, and the inevitable emergence in the developed world of huge numbers of skilled workers willing to sell their labor for prices that no American could ever afford.)

It was Carter who did that.

[Thanos]

More homeownership is always better for the economy than less of it is. What the creators of the original government programs probably never envisioned is that the nature of the mortgage market would be overwhelmed by predatory lenders seeking immediate short-term profits and leaving total devastation behind them from their scams. The same vicious and unregulated mortgage market of the George W. Bush era probably didn't even exist back in the Carter/early Reagan days.

[commanderkai]

Thanos wrote:

No they won't. The particular voters you're referring to didn't even bother to get mad until a black guy started doing basically the same thing that the previous white guy was doing. Let me know when the Tea Party actually gets mad at all the over-spending on defense, social security, and Medicare Part D, and at the porous Mexiacan border that occurred from 2001 to 2008, and I'll accept your particular line of reasoning.

Something that must be said in politics. People like it when money is spent on what they support rather than what their political opponents support. Conservatives will support a strong national defense, and certainly won't bitch about spending money to bolster the military.

More interestingly, Bush did attempt to reform Social Security at the start of his second term, only to have that crushed by Democrats. And no, I don't think any political party is willing to cut Medicare or Social Security without a backup plan in place. As such, Obama only cut Medicare when he had a HUGE health care reform plan passed.

It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with politics. If Biden, or Mrs. Clinton, or whoever else was attempting to be the DNC candidate did what Obama did, certainly there would have been a pretty huge backlash. It's almost sickening that people instantly jump to labels of racism to describe things that are common in politics.

If you don't think it's based on politics...pray tell where are all of those anti-war protests that occurred commonly between 2003-2008? They don't seem to be around that much anymore. Oh right, a Democrat is in office. Therefore the war is tolerable because other things that they believe in are going through. The Truthers certainly aren't out in force either.

[Teikiatsu]

Thanos wrote:

Pseudonym wrote:

Liberalism meaning big government, big spending, and most of what is going on in Washington today. Polling data across the board is fairly clear that a majority Americans don't like the current public healthcare plan, don't like illegal immigration, despise bailouts and the like. The Democrats are pushing an unpopular agenda, and the Republicans only have to take advantage of that to regain power. However, if they get power back and resume the big spending, big government policies of the Bush administration, the voters will kick them right back out. Congress' approval numbers (~20%) have to mean something.

No they won't. The particular voters you're referring to didn't even bother to get mad until a black guy started doing basically the same thing that the previous white guy was doing. Let me know when the Tea Party actually gets mad at all the over-spending on defense, social security, and Medicare Part D, and at the porous Mexiacan border that occurred from 2001 to 2008, and I'll accept your particular line of reasoning.

Actually we did get mad at Bush and the Republican Congress for all that spending. Do you not remember Bush/McCain Amnesty? We weren't happy with TARP or Medicare D, or No Child Left Behind either.

What a lot of people forget (because his campaign promises were so ambiguous and nebulous) is that Obama said he would not be another typical politician and that he would bring change to Washington. While this did not fool us conservatives for a minute, a lot of Independents and now Democrats and liberal Republicans are understanding what a lying sack of excrement Obama really is. Better late than never, I guess.