Summary: having been shellacked on November 6, the Republican Party has been wailing and gnashing its collective teeth, not only over Barack Obama’s triumphant re-election, but also over the way in which a whole series of Republican incumbents and office seekers were either turned out or turned back by turned off voters. Democrats presented voters with a blueprint for more perfect union; the Republican blueprint was for a doomsday machine. The election had less to do with the demographics of gender, sexuality, or color than it did about the fact that millions of American voters had the bejeesus scared out of them by the harsh and extreme rhetoric of the Republican Party. Turned off by a party modeling the crazy old guy yelling “you kids get off my lawn,” voters turned to the Democrats, gravitating toward the Party that seemed more rational and able to get along with its neighbors in the community.
By: Paul S. Marchand
“...there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” St. Matt. 13:42
The Democratic Party’s comeback from the disastrous midterm elections of 2010 seems to have left the Republicans chasing their metaphorical tails. A whole series of Republican incumbents (including the Desert’s own Mary Whitaker Bono Baxley McGillicuddy) were turned out, and a whole series of Republican hopefuls (including the Hoosier state’s Richard “rape children are what God intended” Mourdock) were turned away by an electorate that had been thoroughly turned off by what the GOP had said and done.
Those People In That Other Party have been wailing and gnashing teeth since even before Mitt Romney conceded the election early on Wednesday morning, November 7.
Now the GOP is struggling to make sense of the shellacking it sustained. Having gone to great lengths to insulate themselves from reality, many high-ranking GOP operatives seem to have been absolutely convinced that Mr. Romney would not only be victorious, but that he would win in a landslide.
With President Obama on his way back to the White House with 332 electoral votes in his pocket, Those People in That Other Party are now asking “why?”
We can essay all manner of theories to explain the dismal defeat the GOP sustained eleven days ago. We can talk about changing demographics, or how the Republicans have become “too old, too white, and too male,” or we can apply Occam’s razor, which in plain English postulates that the simplest hypothesis that fits the data is probably the correct one.
When we apply Occam’s razor to the most recent presidential election, the simplest hypothesis that fits the data is not an hypothesis of gender or demographics. Women, queerfolk, Latinos, African-Americans, and other communities of color don’t vote monolithically. What seems to fit the data is what I call the “scared shitless” hypothesis: American voters heard what Republicans had to say and a majority of them found Republican rhetoric harsh, extreme, and deeply frightening.
Both Democrats and Republicans presented American voters with two competing blueprints for America’s future. The Democratic blueprint was for a more perfect union; the Republican blueprint was for a doomsday machine.
The retrograde rhetoric of the Republicans, with its implicit calls to restore in their fullest form the social and economic dispensations of 1912, struck voters in 2012 as so grossly out of touch with reality as to be beyond scary. A Republican acquaintance of mine, admitting sotto voce to me that he had “crossed over to the “Dark Side” and voted for President Obama, opined that the rhetoric and talking points of his own party had “scared the bejeesus” out of him.
It seems safe to conclude that the GOP appeal to voters simply divided the electorate into those seeking to undo Barack Obama and all his works --- and presumably to make liberalism a crime in this country --- and those who had the bejeesus scared out of them by what they saw and heard from Mitt Romney and other GOP wannabes during the campaign.
It is an open question whether the Republican Party will moderate its transports or seek to reinforce its own ideological purity and look for a “true conservative”, anti-Mitt Romney candidate to run against Hillary Clinton/Martin O’Malley/Andrew Cuomo/Elizabeth Warren/whoever emerges as the Democratic standardbearer in 2016.
If the GOP attempts to retreat into a posture of so-called true conservativism for 2016, it will -- even more than Mitt Romney’s unguarded gaffes -- constitute a gift for Democrats that will keep on giving.
How many of us in the middle class did not take the quondam Massachusetts governor’s remarks about the so-called 47 percent as a declaration of war upon us?
How many women in America did not feel a frisson of fear when Romney spoke of getting rid of Planned Parenthood?
How many queer people in America didn’t feel slapped in the face by the Republican platform and its out and out hatred for queerfolk?
As and to the extent that Mitt Romney has continued to whine and complain and gnash his teeth about the outcome of the election, complaining, in effect, that the president “bribed” the electorate with a variety of “gifts,” he has set a tone for more and worse angry posturing from the American right. Certainly, the GOP seems to be recapitulating Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s classic five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
We saw the denial phase in Karl Rove’s refusal to agree with the outcome when Fox News called the state of Ohio for the president on election night. Over the last few days, we’ve seen Mitt Romney acting out the anger phase of his party’s grieving over their loss. Soon enough, we may start to see the bargaining process emerge.
Nonetheless, there is something more than a little worrisome about a party that seems to model institutionally the “angry, crazy old man” stereotype Clint Eastwood embodied so perfectly in his harangue to the empty chair at the Republican National Convention in Tampa this summer. Does anyone really want to vote for the crazy old man standing on his porch waving a shotgun and yelling “you kids get off my lawn”?
What we saw this fall was a contest between rational people who know how to get along with their neighbors and crazies brandishing that metaphorical shotgun yelling “you kids get off my lawn!” For the more than 50 million Americans who voted for Barack Obama, the choice could not have been simpler.
-xxx-
Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California. He serves as vice chair representing California’s 56th Assembly District on the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee. The views expressed herein are his own, and not necessarily those of the Democratic Party or of any other organization with which Mr. Marchand is affiliated. They are not intended as, and should not be construed as, legal advice.
No comments:
Post a Comment