Facing re-election, Gov. Scott Walker, Republican of Wisconsin, no longer talks about stopping same-sex marriage. “It’s those on the left that are pushing” the issue, he says. …NYT
The New York Times’ John Harwood catalogues the vast changes in social attitudes — brought about by the left in America — and sometimes very rapidly. In fact, the left is leaving the right in the dust in that respect, as Republican candidates are learning to their dismay. Change your tone or lose to a Democrat.
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The tumultuous social changes that began in the 1960s supplied decades of political ammunition for Republicans. Beginning with Richard M. Nixon, they rallied Americans disturbed by noisy protests over civil rights, the sexual revolution and the Vietnam War.
“Acid, amnesty and abortion” was the epithet hurled at the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate, George McGovern. Republicans seized on concerns about welfare, school busing and crime — memorably with a black convict named Willie Horton in 1988 — to cement their grip on white voters. As recently as 2004, Republicans used a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage to rally tradition-minded “values voters” behind President George W. Bush’s re-election.
Now the values wedge cuts for Democrats. Demographic change keeps shrinking Nixon’s “Silent Majority.” …NYT
The left represents a nicer, more tolerant and respectful America. That has to hurt.
A recent Pew Research Center study highlighted how the Republican base diverges from majority opinion and experience. Members of a category Pew calls “steadfast conservatives,” mirroring Tea Party Republicans, attend church more often than any other group. …NYT
And the churches they attend don’t, of course, teach decency, tolerance and respect.
All this doesn’t automatically mean the left can look forward to smooth progress. There’s the underlying belief that the Republicans do more for the economy. Though how they can get away with that is a wonder — look at the debt their leaders have left in their wake.
Obama’s is nothing to brag about it you look at both terms, but that’s, of course, the result of you-know-who’s legacy: a financial crash and a near depression.
Funny how under the headlines and away from the sour roar of irresponsible media, truth just keeps chugging along.
Republicans are crazed by frustration. Their “base” is getting smaller, nastier, and louder. Their next hopeful? Ted Cruz? And how long before the neanderthals on the Supreme Court are replaced by more socially responsible women and men?
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Richard Nixon is up for reassessment these days, and the results are not flattering. Richard Cohen writes in the Washington Post that his legacy hangs heavy over the Republican party to this day.
He remains to this day a major political figure.
It was Nixon who devised and pursued what came to be called the Southern strategy. This was, in the admirably concise wording of Wikipedia, an appeal “to racism against African-Americans.” Nixon was hardly the first Republican to notice that Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights legislation had alienated whites both in the South and elsewhere — Johnson himself had forecast that Southern whites would desert the Democratic Party. But Nixon was the GOP’s leader and, in January 1969, the president of the United States. The White House, it seemed, would not do a damned thing for African Americans. …Cohen,WaPo
The Southern strategy is still marching along, leave its dirty footprints all over Washington and smelling increasingly rank.
…Segregationists are not merit-scholarship winners. Racism is dumb and so are racists. The Democratic Party showed racists the door. The GOP welcomed them and, of course, their fellow travelers — creationists, gun nuts, anti-abortion zealots, immigrant haters of all sorts and homophobes. Increasingly, the Republican Party has come to be defined by what it opposes and not what it proposes. Its abiding enemy is modernity. …Cohen,WaPo
What Cohen calls Nixon’s resentment and hatred lives on in his party still — forty years later.
I’d challenge only “modernity” — a concept that seems to have settled in the 1950’s. I’d call it “change” or “evolution.” The Republicans have the very narrow, egotistical notion that their learned “truths” (oh, you know, like “nigras aren’t real people like us”) are badges of honor. Anyone who’s stuck with that indignant “who me? change?” attitude is not ready for leadership.