What's Up With The G.O.P.?

Lately, everyone's been saying, what's up with the Republicans?  How will they respond to the losses of the election?  Well, one pundit is saying that the Republicans had already changed, during the election.  Jeffery Feldman, in an article in The Huffington Post , stated that the Republicans have become a party of hard-right nationalism.  And you know what?  He's damn right.  Think about the last two months, in particular.  What was the McCain-Palin message?  FEAR OBAMA!!!!  Fear Obama, because he's a socialist, and has associated with terrorists, and wants to take away our guns, and is secretly a Muslim and HE HATES AMERICA!!!!

Even before McCain-Palin, the Republican Party has tried to use hard-right nationalism to fire up the base and win elections.  The 1992 and 1996 presidential bids of Pat Buchanan come to mind.  But the difference was, according to Feldman, that Buchanan tried to claim that America was under a social and cultural threat, while McCain-Palin claimed that Obama threatened every American's property and life.  For some as-yet-unwritten-about reason, McCain-Palin's message resonated within their base much more strongly than Buchanans'.

So, what does that mean now?  McCain-Palin have fired up their base so much that they are feeling physically threatened.  In order for Obama to have a safe and effective presidency, those Americans need to be calmed down, reassured that Obama has their interests very much at heart.  According to Feldman, their are two areas in particular that would calm them down, and maybe even get them to support Obama, however grudgingly it may be.  

1. The automotive industry.  Right now, the "Big Three" are in serious economic trouble.  If Obama gave them a rescue package that forced them to re-tool their factories for better fuel efficiency, then they could finally begin producing cars competitive to the asian brands.  This would help decrease unemployment problems, and halt the collapse of American manufacturing.

2. Health Care.  Their are millions of uninsured Americans, to whom an illness or injury is devastating.  If Obama can create a new, effective, widespread health care system, he can get support from an enormous section of the U.S. population.

These two issues are just some of the most pressing, that are hurting America very hard.  If Obama wants to pull the hard-right nationalists back toward the middle, he needs to try to solve the issues that are truly scaring them, deep inside.  Incidentally, those same issues are scaring the rest of middle-class America.  So we really aren't that different, are we?

Radical Republicans

Everyone is saying Obama's going to win.  It also seems that the Democrats are going to win a majority in the Senate and the House.  That's all great news (and I hope and pray and cross my fingers that it comes off), but what's going to happen to the Republicans?

Some might think that they will look at their policies and ideologies, and realize, this might not be working so well - time to revamp and get back in line with the mainstream U.S.A.  However, Paul Krugman wrote an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times that predicts the opposite: the Republican Party is going to become even more radical, even more right-wing.

It will be the party of Sarah Palins - naked emotion and religious beliefs, implied racism and hatred.  The party that relies on "the real America" and "pro-America" to get votes.  The party that accuses its opponent of being secretly Muslim (like that's a bad thing), and declares the opposition's policies amount to a switch to Communism.  The Party of Intolerance.

But how? and why?  Here's a few reasons:

1) This election will replace many of the remaining moderate Republicans in Congress with Democrats.  However, the radical right-wing Republicans will stay.

2) The base seems to believe that if the election is lost, it is because of "an evil conspiracy", in which the mainstream media is biased in favor of Obama - and not because we are sick and tired of failed Dubya policies that McCain would continue.  The base is also set to claim that "the election was stolen", because the group ACORN had some false registrations.  McCain even declared that ACORN "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."  These claims just alienate the Republicans and their base even further from the democratic electoral process.

What this demonstrates is that the Republicans are moving farther and farther right, into the extremes, where they only listen to their base, those evangelical and radical conservatives.  In doing so, they lose the more moderate mainstream voters, whose support is crucial.  If this does play out, I expect the Republicans to sort of fade off into a radical group.  I know it's a big claim, but it seems to me that this election can kill off the Republicans as a major party - especially if the Democrats win a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.  

After all, this is America, the land of opportunity and freedom, and equality.  So let's show the Republicans tomorrow that we will stand up for the America created in the Constitution, and not the America that the Republicans represent: intolerance, dirty tricks, and hatred.

Hey, McCain - Rein in your Pitbull!

On Monday, McCain announced that he would enter a new stage of attacks on Obama - ones focusing on Obama's character, background, and leadership.  This is not unexpected, with less than a month left until the election and Obama gaining a lead in the polls, due to his perceived superiority in economic matters.  However, the lengths that the McCain camp and supporters have been going to to discredit Obama and create fears and doubts in the minds of voters is simply despicable.  McCain himself, so far, has only ramped up the attacks on Obama's policies and past records in the Illionois and U.S. Senate.  Which, I believe, is appropriate, to a certain extent.  It's a good thing for the voters to see the candidates explain their policies and past decisions, as it can give us insight as to what they truly believe, beyond party platforms, and how they can be expected to act in the Oval Office.  However, what is truly despicable, and, unfortunately true to Republican form, is the effort that Sarah Palin and the Republican surrogates have gone to in order to create an image of Obama that sounds like an un-american, terrorist-favoring, America Hater.  

First, the surrogates:

• During the weekend, Sean Hannity hosted a program on Fox News called "Obama and Friends: The History of Radicalism".  As you can imagine, the program was filled with (completely unsubstantiated) attacks on Obama's character and background.  One of these claims was that Obama's work as a community organizer in Chicago was actually "training for a radical overthrow of the government".
• Andy Martin, a conservative writer, accused Obama of secretly of being a Muslim.  He also created a bizarre, twisted connection between William Ayers, the former member of the Weather Underground, and Barack Obama, that went through the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, to Fidel Castro, back to Hugo Chávez, and finally to Obama.
• Jerome Corsi just published a book that is filled with unsubstantiated accusations about Obama's alleged drug use and connections to Islam.

And then, there's Palin.  She just finished a campaign rally swing through Florida, where all she did was make accusations and smear Obama's good name.  She talked a lot about Obama's relationship to Ayers, making it sound like Obama is sympathetic to a violent overthrow of the government.  And the scariest thing about it?  The audience bought it all, snapped it right up - even yelling things like "kill him" and "terrorist" when she mentioned Obama by name.  

Is this what America has come to in this election?  Use of xenophobia and anger to defeat the opposition?  One man even yelled racial slurs at a black cameraman at the rally.  To me, that is absolutely unnecessary, over the top, and just plain wrong.  This is the 21st century, and America is nothing if not everything.  The America I know is made up of Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Caucasians, and everything in between.  Obama shouldn't have to defend his "American-ness".  HE WAS BORN IN AMERICA!  What more could you want for a definition of an American?  

So please, McCain, Mr. "Maverick", rein in your pitbull.  She's just dividing the country even more, between "us" and "them", at a time when we need to come together more than ever and show that we are a nation, united.  And to the American Voter - please, let's show the Republican Party that we are above fear- and hate-mongering, that those terror tactics have no place in a truly democratic and free America.  Vote Obama into office in November, and usher out this era of smear politics.

Sources: The New York Times

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