Continuing with my previous thought; I came across Pat Buchanan’s post election column, in it he makes some very good points on the GOP’s failures.
Quoting Mr. Buchanan:
At the presidential level, the Republican Party is at death’s door.
Yet one already sees the same physicians writing prescriptions for the same drugs that have been killing the GOP since W’s dad got the smallest share of the vote by a Republican candidate since William Howard Taft in 1912.
In ascertaining the cause of the GOP’s critical condition, let us use Occam’s razor—the principle that the simplest explanation is often the right one.
Would the GOP wipeout in those heavily Catholic, ethnic, socially conservative, blue-collar bastions of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois, which Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan swept, have anything to do with the fact that the United States since 2000 has lost 6 million manufacturing jobs and 55,000 factories?
Where did all those jobs and factories go? We know where.
They were outsourced. And in the deindustrialization of America, the Republican Party has been a culpable co-conspirator.
Unlike family patriarch Sen. Prescott Bush, who voted with Barry Goldwater and Strom Thurmond against JFK’s free-trade deal, Bush I and II pumped for NAFTA, GATT, the WTO and opening America’s borders to all goods made by our new friends in the People’s Republic of China.
Swiftly, U.S. multinationals shut factories here, laid off workers, outsourced production to Asia and China, and brought their finished goods back, tax-free, to sell in the U.S.A.
Profits soared, as did the salaries of the outsourcing executives.
And their former workers? They headed for the service sector, along with their wives, to keep up on the mortgage payment, keep the kids in Catholic school and pay for the health insurance the family had lost.
Tuesday, these ex-Reagan Democrats came out to vote against some guy from Bain Capital they had been told in ads all summer was a big-time outsourcer who wrote in 2008, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt!”
Yes, the simplest explanation is often the right one.
Pat makes a very good point, however, I think it would be a disaster to start pandering to any sort of class of American at all; as I said earlier on this blog:
Furthermore, I believe the GOP needs to stop pandering to minorities. The majority of blacks and Latinos; and every other damned minority in this Country are going to vote Democratic. The reason is the Democratic Party is going to promise them stuff, it is the way it has always been and always will be. Also, I believe that the Republican Party needs to stop trying to pander the the middle class. The truth is the middle class in this Country are overwhelmingly Democratic voters. If the middle class are that stupid to continue to vote for a Party that continually wants to kick them in the teeth, then fine, screw them. We do not want their vote. A decision to go against the socialist mentality of the Democratic Party is a personal one and involves an educated voter, not a clueless one. We do not need the clueless voter, sorry. Let them vote for the other party.
Just as well, the Republican Party needs to stop apologizing. Stop apologizing for being white, stop apologizing for being the party of the financially successful. The liberals in this Country, over the years, have made the term “Rich” a dirty word. What with comics like “Richie Rich” and shows like “Archie Bunker”, the white business person has been made a mockery of and the stupid GOP has allowed it to happen and not fought back! The Republican Party needs to start saying, Yes, we are the party of the successful people! We are the party of people who built businesses from nothing and made them into something successful. There is no shame in that at all. Everyone wants to be financially successful, why try to hide it? There are two types of people, those who are content to be a wage slave, and those who actually want to be a free American. I chose to be the latter and I do not apologize for it.
I still stand behind that comment above; however, let me add the following thought: I think that one can try to appeal to a populist base like that, but one has to make sure it is appealing and not pandering. It is a delicate balance and if it is done properly, it can work great. If it is done wrongly, it can be devastating to the Party. I really believe that the message should truly be, “We will fight for you, and keep Government off your back, and keep your taxes low.” But I do not believe that the GOP ought to start giving lip-service to anyone like that, the Democrats have done that for years and it works for them. The problem is, that the 90% of the time the lip-service is empty. We do not need to start doing that to broaden our base at all. If we do, it could very well come back to haunt the party.
Again, Pat Buchanan does tell the truth, but I think he misses the broader point; the GOP became too much of a moderate, pandering Party for many years and now it is catching up with them. The Bush era did not help either. What I mean is that Iraq will be a black mark on the GOP for many years to come. Some people have long memories, and they have not entirely forgotten about what happened after 9/11 and how Bush and Co. used that to start a war, that we all know now, had zero to do with 9/11. The Democrats did a very good job of reminding people of that; and the GOP had no message to counter that, at least none that made any sense. The best they could do, is say, “Blame Bush.” Well, yes, some people do blame Bush! You have to be able to answer that accusation or reminder better than just deriding the other side for bringing up the GOP’s Wilsonian past foreign policy ventures. Also too, I believe that George W. Bush’s “Big Government Conservatism” policies are still fresh on the minds of some populist, grassroots Conservatives; like “No child left behind” and other such stuff as well.
I think another problem with the GOP and the Conservative movement as a whole is that some Conservatives and Republicans have a penchant for simply making things up, that they know not to be true. This is common in politics and both sides do it, to a certain degree. It is called “scaremongering” and to me, as a Christian man; (Who is not without faults!) it just strikes me as morally wrong. If the Republican Party and the Conservative movement is a truly a socially Conservative movement, that they claim to be. Then they should really get the whole “telling the truth” thing down pat and stop with the scaremongering nonsense. Fact checking is not a sin, and it should be a top priority. Because we can get much further with the American people, with the simply, clear-eyed truth; than we can with scaremongering and stupidity. Most people, these days, with the internet; can fact check quicker than most politicos can! Although, there is that segment that believes the chain letters can go out via e-mail, than they do when someone tells them the plain truth. The Conservative Movement needs to be less chain letter, and more factual arguments. Boogieman headlines might bring profits to those who promote them; but it does not win elections.
Another thing that is on my mind, that goes along with the above paragraph; is that we simply need to remove the Alex Jones element to the Conservative movement. Alex Jones is a nothing more than a damned charlatan. Jones caters to particular group of people, commonly known as the “tin-foil” hat crowd. For years, nobody ever, in the political world, ever took that guy seriously. This was, until Obama got into the White House and then from that moment on, it was full on Alex Jones in the Conservative movement! I really began to notice this, when Matt Drudge began linking to Alex Jones and added him to his list of sites on his website. This, I feel, was an tragic error. The Conservative movement should be known for its disdain for big Government and its refuting of the idea that socialism is not the ideal path forward; and not for its promoting of idiotic conspiracy theories.
Another thing that I believe needs to happen, is that the Republican Party establishment needs to either become more grassroots in nature and cease to exist as a political party. The old school way of doing thing needs to stop. This idea that the big money people controlling the party, has to stop. Because, as the GOP has found out, the populist Conservative grassroots, which makes up everyone else in the movement, that is not establishment; is not real pleased with the GOP at the moment. This divide within the ranks needs to stop; the GOP needs to stop with the mentality of “You guys need to become like us!” and the grassroots needs to quit with the “The GOP needs to be more like us!” This gets nothing accomplished at all. My advice is to find the things that unite you both and work together on them. This would create a unified front and much could get done to fight back against the socialist movement and against the Democrats.
Again, these are just some thoughts of mine, that I started writing at about 4:30am and it is now 5:21am. I hope that you will consider them.
But, seriously, the GOP needs to STOP promoting and supporting carnival acts; like Cain, like Carrie Prejean, like Sarah Palin, like Ann Coulter, who got famous for what — Leaking Documents in the Clinton scandal? Whatever happened to promoting people like Rush Limbaugh, someone who came from nothing, and was on track to being nothing —before he began in talk radio?