Yet another “the GOP is a dead duck” story
In the months since the 2008 elections I’ve been treated to a water-torture “drip, drip, drip” of stories wherein all sorts of allegedly knowledgeable people tell me that the GOP is a goner, a dinosaur slowly sinking in the tarpits, a hopeless relic that must become more… or, rather, less…. well, something other than what it is. In short, if the party wants to succeed, they’ve got to leave behind a number of positions that these people 1) think define us and 2) they don’t like.
Mike Murphy over a TIME (yes, a really Republican-friendly publication, isn’t it?) predicts a Republican Ice Age is coming and, if the party doesn’t evolve, it’s gonna die. (The article comes complete with a GOP-colored mammoth taking the place of the usual elephant. Clever.) After pointing out that Obama took normally-Republican Indiana in the elections and did so on the strength of the Latino vote, he finally gets around to telling us what he thinks needs to be done:
Young voters need to see a GOP that is more socially libertarian, particularly toward gay rights. With changing demographics come changing attitudes, and aping the grim town elders from Footloose is not the path back to a Republican White House. The pro-life movement can still be a central part of the GOP — it has support among all ages (and a slim majority of Latino voters) — but the overall GOP view on abortion must aggressively embrace the big tent.
So, the answer is (on these issues of some import to GOP core values) to become more Democrat. We’ll win like crazy, I guess, if we just take the opponent’s side on things. Now me, personally, I’ve got very little issue with gay rights. But I have to wonder what Murphy’s thinking here when more states who have put constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriages on the ballots have passed them than haven’t – and that passage came with the overwhelming support of the Latino community. If all of these young voters were demanding a more “socially libertarian” GOP why are they voting the more conservative position when given the chance?
My issue’s not with whether the GOP should move to the left in these matters. It’s with pundits like Murphy once again calling us dead when the proof says otherwise.
Comments
Comment from Ric James
Time June 12, 2009 at 17:36
For a person who won’t discuss politics with me, you seem remarkably sure of yourself as to what I’ll be glad of and what not. How about one of these days you take a less pigeon-holing approach about what to label me and actually have a conversation? You know how to reach me.
Comment from Bob James
Time June 12, 2009 at 17:02
You’re equating the Latino position on same-sex marriages with “proof” that the Republican party isn’t dying on the vine? That’s a logical stretch-and-a-half. There are a ton of reasons why Latinos voted in favor of restricting marriage. Those same Latinos voted largely Democrat in the general elections, which torpedoes any connection you’re suggesting between their vote on a single issue, and your party’s continuing relevance.
It’s funny, though. Your words are precisely the ones that many on the Left were using a couple of elections back, when it was suggested that the only thing we needed to do was to move to the right… and then we’d win like crazy. A lot of people on the Left didn’t like that suggestion, and pointed out all kinds of “proof” that we weren’t an endangered species. Then there was all that the talk of a “permanent Republican majority”. We see how wrong that was.
Here’s what’s going to happen: After the angry fist-shaking and the flag waving, there’s going to come a depressed period of self-loathing and a ton of navel-gazing. Then some people are going to buckle down, and decide they can’t make the same mistakes as the prior generation of Republicans, and they will decide to adopt many of the positions of the prevailing Left. They’ll moderate their language, work to show that they are competent and inclusive. They’ll make some moderate gains, and that will start to snowball into some real progress. They will work to convince people that they are not guilty of the excesses of the party as it was in the Bush years. And that will probably work.
People further on the Right… like you… will be glad of the victory, but not of the perceived cost. You’ll be disappointed in several particulars, and that will leach the victory of some of its brightness. No one in the “new” Republican party will seem to care.
And ’round she goes…