An open letter to the Republican leadership–

A Way Out of the “Wilderness” by: That Girl

Disclaimer: I’m no political strategist.  In fact, I apprentice in cultural theory.  Therefore, I realize the following proposition may seem rather simplistic in its apparent disregard for over 200 years of American electoral politics with regard to Constitutional compliance.  However, my intention is only to outline specific obstructions to positive political discourse, and with respect to obvious contemporary ideological positions, offer one idea in an effort to facilitate progression toward a mutual goal of relatively civil debate.

Dear Republican leadership (whoever you are):

I wouldn’t say I’m exactly “friendly” with your Party.

(Yeah, I know it’s Olberman, but I’ve spent too much time researching and (many reams of paper) documenting the very same information to care much about his “talking-head” status.

No matter which way you slice it, Olberman’s montage is accurate, and like it or not, when much of the country thinks of “republicanism,” they think of George Bush.  Sorry.  I know it’s not fair (p4)  In fact, I’m sure many of you residing just right of center engage in very thoughtful discussion.  Further, I’ll bet you even consult with an entity other than your “gut” when considering important policy decisions.  But where’s your influence?

When the likes of Rush Limbaugh was forwarded as your party’s de facto leadership–by the Obama administration, no less–your national committee chairman, Michael Steele, at first, recoiled… then took two for flinching.  (Steele actually apologized to Rush for denouncing his obvious indulgence in racist bigotry.)

If ever there was a moment to reflect upon the state of your party’s relevance in American political discourse and perhaps, I don’t know, try to discern what went wrong, this was it.  Instead, fearful of alienating your “base,” you backed off (p12) and in so doing consigned your leadership to the radical wingnut fringe of your party.

It’s been a year.  Your party has done little by way of making itself over as a viable alternative to policy solutions created by the Democratic majority, and I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m not one of you.  That’s fine; I’m not entirely sure you’d have me if I wanted in.

You’ve ostensibly become known as “the party of no.”

Is saying no to Obama’s agenda the way to get voters to say yes to an already beleaguered GOP brand?Despite two consecutive election thrashings, and despite Obama’s high approval ratings and their own low standing, Republicans have wagered that the return to the majority is paved by unwavering opposition to further spending, an audacious bet that won’t pay out for another 21 months.

If Republicans are right, the economy will remain in tatters and voters will recognize in 2010 that the recovery was delayed by profligate Democrats and their president.

In other words, for this strategy to work, you actually need the economy to remain effectively broken.  This necessarily means you need the people to wallow in economic misery, default on their loans, and continue to lose their jobs and homes so you can “prove” the ineptness of the current administration’s policies.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I’d bet the farm on your ability to convince an economically depressed constituency that your delays equal Obama’s folly…  especially since your current approach to sustaining economic growth mirrors exactly your past economic policies.

And you have yet to admit that the economic policies you staked a large portion of your party’s reputation upon simply do not work.  (Surely, you’re aware that  supply-side economic theory and the deregulation that facilitated it is largely considered responsible for the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression).  As fully twenty of the last twenty-eight years of fiscal policy has been crafted by Republican majorities, the responsibility for the current state of the economy lay at your feet.

Surely then, you understand how citizens who are currently buried in debt, unemployed, and/or just hanging on might not want to hear that more tax cuts for the richest 1% of the nation and further deregulation really will solve all their problems.  If you don’t understand, then you clearly don’t take the intelligence of your potential constituency very seriously.

But who wins in this situation?  Even if your obstructionist strategy brings Obama and the Democrats down, what do you have to offer the people except a high-five, a thumbs-up, and more assurances from your boys in Washington that the fundamentals of the economy are strong?  What should we, the people, expect from your party except another chance to bear witness to an inflated sense of superiority?  What use is such a victory when it’s won so callously at the expense of the people?

Clearly, your party needs to do more than just rethink its stand on economic fundamentals.  And I don’t want to seem negative or anything, but I can’t see successful reformulation of your party’s economic platform without strong, rational leadership and more importantly, purpose.  The problem here is that your party’s purpose as it currently stands is tied up entirely in pleasing your base.  And who is your base?

Well, they’re not black:

… there’s a pattern emerging from the fringe of the GOP grassroots. Three weeks ago, former South Carolina State Election Director and Richland County GOP Chairman Rusty DePass “joked” on his Facebook page that first lady Michelle Obama was descended from a gorilla which had gone missing from a local zoo. Days later, Tennessee state legislative aide Sherri Goforth emailed out an image labeled “Historical Keepsake”—showing august portraits of all the presidents of the United States, ending with a pair of googly-eyes peering out from a black background to symbolize President Obama (p15, s2).

And of course, all this has taken place after Chip Saltzman’s bid to be RNC Chairman was derailed by his decision to mail out a parody CD featuring the song “Barack the Magic Negro.”

And they’re not brown:

Or yellow:

Voting on principle can be costly. U.S. Rep. Joseph Cao is hit with a backlash for being the lone GOP vote for the health care reform bill, even as the party’s leaders are denying they’re osctracizing him.

After the vote, a GOP colleague, minority whip Eric Cantor, refused to shake Cao’s hands, according to the Orlando Catholic Examiner.

Cao has also had two fundraisers canceled on him, and some contributors are demanding their money back, reports the AP.

There’s also a whole bunch of folks who’ve decided that it’d be hilarious to start referring to Rep. Cao as “Mao” because, you see, they’re both responsible for the deaths of millions Asians (emphasis author’s). (Source)

So, let me be blunt: In fact, the Republican base is very, very white.  And while one shouldn’t have to make apologies for appealing to a certain crowd per se, a national party should, in terms of voter affiliation, attempt to fairly represent percentages of populations within the whole of the electorate.

But what’s worse than a blatant disregard for equal representation?  This “base” that you cater to, the very same you count upon to win your elections, is dwindling.  And everyone knows this.  Even Pat Buchanan:

Demographically, the GOP is a party of white Americans, who in 1972 were perhaps 90 percent of the national vote. Nixon and Reagan rolled up almost two-thirds of that vote in 1972 and 1984… the white vote is shrinking as a share of the national vote and the population.

The minorities that are growing most rapidly, Hispanics and Asians, cast 60 to 70 percent of their presidential votes for the Democratic Party. Black Americans vote 9-1 for national Democrats. In 2008, they went 30-1.

Put succinctly, the red pool of voters is aging, shrinking and dying, while the blue pool, fed by high immigration and a high birth rate among immigrants, is steadily expanding.

As your base loses primacy, your party loses its relevance in political discourse.  All signs point to –> “Cut Them Loose.”  In such a situation, one would think you’d be concerned with bringing more constituents into the fold.  Of course, one would be wrong:

Key conservatives on the RNC are circulating a resolution that would canonize an oft-quoted proverb attributed to Ronald Reagan while labeling Pres. Obama’s agenda as “socialist.”

The resolution would prohibit RNC money from flowing to any candidate who disagrees with more than two itemized planks of the GOP platform — playing off Reagan’s maxim that anyone who agreed with him 80% of the time is not 20% an enemy.

Unfortunately, your purity test winds up excluding even more people than it invites…

The latest trend in the Republican Party is an effort to weed out moderates — witness New York Republicans’ successful effort to oust their own candidate in an upstate House race, in preference for an independent conservative.  But a new GOP “purity test” named for Ronald Reagan moves the line even farther to the right, and a liberal website has found that the test — if used in the past — would have screened out President Ronald Reagan and President George W. Bush as viable conservatives.

Meanwhile, the conservative voices that are being heard–the very voices your party treats with deference and respect–speak openly and favorably of racism, hysteria, and conspiracy and have only become more reactionary and exclusive in their engagement with political discourse:

Is it any wonder that fewer people identify themselves as Republicans today than at any time in a generation and the number continues to drop on a daily basis? Anger and hate apparently just aren’t in vogue this season. (source)

And yet, despite warnings from leadership within your own party:

“To those people who are pursuing purity, you’ll become a club not a party,” [Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)] told POLITICO in the Capitol Wednesday. “Those people who are trying to embrace conservatism in a thoughtful way that fits the region and the state and the district are going to do well. Conservativism is an asset. Blind ideology is not.” (p2)

… you continue to justify exclusion:

So your party finds itself punished in a corner of its own design:  It cannot expect to lead policy discussion when it does not represent a majority of the constituency, yet it cannot seem to bring itself to represent anyone other than the most rapidly shrinking demographic on the electoral map.

The Republicans will continue to struggle so long as hot-headed purists weigh them down. (source)

But it doesn’t have to be like this.  While some see your commitment to separatism as harmful to your party’s agenda, I see it as an opportunity to create a platform of progressivism and inclusiveness that has the potential to unseat nearly every Democrat in the Congress.  And since it appears your party is lacking ideas at the moment, I thought I’d throw you a bone.

I know what you’re thinking:  Inclusiveness in separatism?  Indeed.

Since the inception of American government, parties have played the politics of the pendulum:

We have an electoral system rigged to the rafters by a two party cartel.

Voters careen between tossing out the Montagues and Capulets, and continue their mass defection to the tribe called “Independents,” but onerous ballot-access rules and other legal/cultural artifacts of political polarity channel all that permanent dissatisfaction into pushes on a pendulum.

… the business of politics has a guaranteed (and growing!) revenue stream, parties in the midst of an identity crisis don’t need to sort it out to gain seats in the House of Representatives; they just need the opposing gang to stumble. (emphasis mine)

As I mentioned previously, however, the American people suffer (even those who still want to support you) while you wait for the current administration to stumble on your obstructionist strategy.  And even if most of the people wind up blaming Obama for failing to improve their current troubles, they will be hard pressed to forget whose policies created the mess.  Both parties wind up with irreparably damaged credibility, while the public remains unemployed and bankrupt.  Everyone loses.

… the Pew Research Center released a survey showing that the percentage of Americans who answer to the name Republican is down to 22 percent — about as low as a party can go in a two-party system. (source)

Now, I’m not going to tell you how bad this sounds.  You already know.  But, unlike other pundits, I’m also not going to tell you to change your ideology to entice more people into your party.  I mean, I get it:  You don’t like who you don’t like.  Who am I to tell you different?

But truly, I want to help; because unilateralism in policy making never comes to much sustained good; because discourse is essential to the function of a healthy democracy; but mostly just because a ton of shit needs cleaned up and as long as your party stalls discussion due to lack of a plan, I (and millions of other Americans) have to live with the mess.

So here’s my idea:  Proportionally representative multi-party system.

A multi-party system is a system in which three or more political parties have the capacity to gain control of government separately or in coalition.

Now, I know this seems a bit radical, but no more so than, say, Lincoln’s abolitionist party deferring to a proud racist bigot as he navigates the party agenda. I mean, I really think the benefits outweigh the costs.

Currently, your party is experiencing “voter drain.”  This seems to be happening largely because you choose to privilege a radical minority group within the overall constituency.   In taking this tack, you choose to alienate not only classically fiscal conservative Republicans, but socially conservative minorities as well.  The point is that there is a wealth of support to be had if the base to which you cling so desperately weren’t so ideologically driven and racist in their fears.

… [fifty-one] percent of Republicans would prefer to see the GOP in their area nominate candidates who agree with them on all the major the issues even if they have a poor chance of beating the Democratic candidate. Forty-three percent of Republicans say they would rather have candidates with whom they don’t agree on all the important issues but who can beat the Democrats.

And while I find this kind of commitment to a certain form of political governance remarkable, I also find it untenable.  After all, what good is believing in an ideology of governance when it leads to failure in obtaining positions from which to govern?  A proportionally representative multi-party system could effectively solve this problem in a word:  “coalition.”

[Whereas] a two-party system requires voters to align themselves in large blocs, sometimes so large that they cannot agree on any overarching principles… if there are multiple major parties, each with less than a majority of the vote, the parties are forced to work together to form working governments. (source)

Political obstinacy within the current two-party system creates political gridlock.  And political “purity” alienates more than it invites to participate.  Republics like the United States of America, in order to function properly, need constituents, no matter how far apart they stand on the political spectrum, to feel empowered by and welcome in political discourse.  By taking on the fight to change the essence of the electoral system, the Republican Party, in its current dead-end state of ruin, has an opportunity to not only truly reform itself by taking a position more progressive than that of the Democrats, but also advocate a better idea of what “inclusion” looks like through coalition building.  And you can do all this while simultaneously maintaining “ideological purity” not just for your base but for any number of potential parties looking for the privilege of political representation.

If we, as a nation, are to move beyond petty squabbling and callow power plays, we must all attempt to find common ground by which to approach each other.  As representatives of a minority group, the Republican Party’s current insistence upon vox pop status just doesn’t make sense, no matter how white your constituency is.   With one radical step, I assert that you can maintain your ideology while advocating a system in which we may all enjoy a more perfect union.  One in which everyone can win.

(You don’t have to thank me.  I’m just passing the time.)

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