So, Republicans -- What's the Next Step?

[paft.livejournal.com]

There's been some discussion here about the right wing response to the shocking, I tell you, SHOCKING re-election of President Obama and the over-the-top reaction we've been seeing. A lot of it has involved personal idiocies from Freeper vowing everything from cutting off disabled Obama supporting relatives from support (I kid you not) divorcing spouses, spitting on neighbors, moving into bunkers, etc.

And there have been some hints of payback from people actually in a position to hurt either Obama supporters or perceived Obama supporters. The CEO of the same coal company that forced employees to spend a day without pay listening to a Romney speech laid off over a hundred employees on November 9th after publicly reading an unctuous and insulting "prayer," and on Thursday a man claiming to be a business owner in Georgia called C-Span and boasted about cutting employee hours and laying off two people because of the election. “I tried to make sure the people I laid off voted for Obama,” he said.

The fact remains -- Obama won.

Attempts at limiting the franchise and making it hard to vote didn't help Republicans. It just pissed off a lot of voters to the point where they were willing to stand in line for seven hours to vote for a Democrat. Threatening to fire employees if Obama were re-elected didn't help Republicans. It just highlighted the insidious damage Citizens United has done to our political environment. Attacking blacks, women, gays, and hispanics didn't work. It just galvanized a large portion of black, gay, female, hispanic, etc. voters into fighting Republicans.

So my question is, Republicans, what's the next step?

A couple of weeks ago, Frank Rich wrote a piece in Salon about the fact that losing an election does not seem to make the Republicans reassess their extended march to the right. They just double down and march further to the right.

Is that what's going to happen, Republicans? Because I have to tell you, you've been marching to the right for so many years you're on the verge of stepping off one hell of an ideological cliff. Are you going to openly embrace the genteel racism of Charles Murray? Are you going to openly work to limit the vote only to people of a certain income level? Is the aim going to be disenfranchising large portions of the public and telling the rest, "vote for us or we'll fire you?"

Just curious.

*

Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Declining voter share would point to an inferior GOTV effort, all other things being equal. GOTV efforts must be interacting with other variables.

Right. The other variable in this case being an overall decline in voter share.

Is Obama's GOTV effort sited in exit polls?

Not explicitly. You would think, however, that "racism" or some formulation of it would be cited as a reaosn to vote in a way certain targeted demographics are discovered/graphed/polled.

The presumption that Obama won over Romney because of his superior GOTV effort is also a 'theoretical.' It also happens to be a theoretical that specifically allows Conservatives to explain the election loss with minimal soul searching, and is thus, deeply convenient.

It may be theoretical, but you're also not offering anything concrete to dispute it. GOTV matters.

Republicans have now lost 5 out of 6 of the last 6 presidential popular votes, If this is always because of bad campaigning, then we have to ask ourselves, what is it about the Republican Presidential process since 1988 that inevitably leads to bad campaigns?

If we want to play that game, the Democrats have only won a majority of the popular vote twice in the last 30 years. What is it about the Democrats that doesn't resonate with a majority, right?

Nothing Gets Out The Vote like agreeing with one candidate more than the other. Obama's most powerful GOTV tool is having policies more popular than Republicans.

If that were true, you might have a point. But consider this exit:

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of it has to be about how many people hold the position, where that sits in the electorate, etc.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't you be more upset about the assault on your autonomy versus a misunderstood omnipresence?

Wouldn't a woman feel the same way?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I'm not worried about either possibility. You'd never win elective office anyway.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Yep. There are people here who don't argue so much as play word games. Faced with hard reality, their premise falls apart.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Given my usual track record with conservatives I expect a lot of ad hominem and a veritable absence of genuine points to follow.

Isn't that all your posts in general?

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Via electors, due to popular vote counts in the states... unless you think it's a coincidence that popular vote corresponded to the winning candidate almost every election.

[vitsli.livejournal.com]

So, can you prove your redistricting idea already?

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

This probably merits its own post, but I'm too lazy so I'll just paste the relevant info regarding this Benghazi thing that certain members of our community are terribly misinformed about:

"Bit late, but it should be noted that there are actually several right-wing conspiracies about Benghazi that have been pushed since the tragic incident occurred (all of which have been or can be pretty well debunked):

1. Obama's administration apologized to the attackers even as the attacks were going on. This is not true; a message of this sort was sent from (I believe) the Egyptian embassy, but it was from the people actually inside the embassy during the attacks. It was not approved, dictated by, or sent by the Obama administration.

2. The administration's rationalization for the attacks was that they were prompted by a Youtube video that was designed to stir up anti-American sentiment. This was disproved in a couple of ways. First, the only actual Obama administration member to offer this opinion was Susan Rice (the fallout from which might well cost her any future promotions within the administration); and second, intelligence reports indicated that the video likely had nothing to do with the actual protests or attacks, as most of the people in Egypt and Libya likely never even saw it prior to the incidents.

3. Obama waited two weeks before he even branded the attacks as terrorism. Mitt Romney learned quite the painful lesson on that, when he tried to use this argument (likely gleaned from some right-wing blog or other) during the debates, and was publicly humiliated by both Obama and Candy Crowley for his patently false statement. A similar argument relies on being particularly pedantic and claiming that "acts of terror" is not the same as "terrorist acts".

4. Navy SEALs/Marines/GI Joe strikeforce/various chapters of the Adeptus Astartes/the Justice League were nearby, ready and waiting to go into action and could have been inside Libya in the blink of an eye, but Obama refused to let them enter Libya, and instead watched via drone camera from his throne of skulls as the ambassador and his staff were brutally murdered, sipping the blood of decent American folk from his silver chalice as he did so. Again, this is patently false; while there were military units in nearby countries, they were hours away from mobilizing and reaching anything inside Libya (to say nothing of the fact that sending in forces into a situation with zero intelligence on the ground would have resulted in far more needless deaths). Another problem with this theory is that it presumes most military units are just SWAT teams with bigger guns; anyone who's spent any amount of time in the service knows it takes quite a bit of time, resources, and logistics to mount any kind of serious military operation. Related to this is the theory that a couple of high-ranking military officers (General Carter Ham and Rear Admiral Charles Gaouette) were fired/arrested/resigned because they refused to obey Obama's order to stand down. This is ridiculous because A)if they refused such an order, why weren't the troops sent in, then; and B)a high-ranking military officer being fired or arrested is MAJOR, MAJOR news (in reality, both officers were reassigned to other duties).

5. Obama was afraid of Petraeus going in front of Congress next week and spilling the beans about the whole cover-up, so he had the FBI blackmail him with their knowledge of Petraeus' affair. Petraeus is a Real American Hero, so rather than lie for the Gay Nazi Muslim Commie Kenyan Socialist Athiest, he resigned instead. This story just broke, so this theory, while insane, hasn't been debunked just yet; however, it takes some rather acrobatic leaps of logic to arrive at its' conclusions. Unless something quite astonishing happens, I think it's fairly safe to assume that this theory is just as insane and untrue as the others. "

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

You're clearly left with nothing but arrogant comebacks and trollish abstract mind-games.

[paft.livejournal.com]

No, actually, it's not.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

And they'll get theirs once they see Georgia turn into a blue state.

It'll happen, one day.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

They're dog whistles. The dog hears them, but does not perk up and point to the whistler. That would betray the whistle.

The left points out the whistle to note that the whistles exist. The right merely reacts, but plays dumb when the fact of the whistles is raised.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

It's a situation where just because people personally believe the act is wrong, that doesn't mean they want the government making that call for them.

More to the point, recognizing the category of an act is not the same as condemning an act. Abortion, yes, ends a potential life; that doesn't make it a vile act. Life ends all around us, all the time. No reason to fight that.

There's a rail bridge near my hometown that has been graffitti-d with "ABORTION IS MURDER—DO YOU CARE?" for over thirty years. The rail line paints over, and it's back in weeks, sometimes days.

For years, I thought it would be fun to change ABORTION to LISTERENE, PESTICIDE USE or maybe EATING MEAT. There are many, many ways to end life.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Republican legislatures were able to redraw districts as a result of the 2010 census.



How those newly drawn districts favoring Republican voters would help them:



A specific example in Pennsylvania district.



Another example, from a New York district.

A huge interactive Google Map that shows how redistricting worked. (https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?viz=MAP&q=select+col5%3E%3E0+from+1cXD8Bee2av01zxmFjaNENFDgh8Iko6rzIO-POVU&h=false&lat=35.434954102297176&lng=-83.96182754687504&z=4&t=1&l=col5%3E%3E0&y=4&tmplt=2)




This huge report goes into mind numbing detail. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/111128906/Redistricting-and-Congressional-Control-A-First-Look)

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Just lesser.

(Disclaimer: I don't believe evil exists.)

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Just finishing up The Campaign of the Century, a look at what happened when former Socialist Upton Sinclair got the Democratic nod for governor of California. Damn, the confusion and distress that created.

Cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria. . . . Damn.

[404.livejournal.com]

Pot calling the kettle black much?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy in a well-grounded country.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

The only reason the march rightward is working involves the media bending over backwards to portray the rightward march as centrist, if not practical, while portraying any left-leaning behavior as questionable at best.

A functional media would stop this nonsense in its tracks.

[paft.livejournal.com]

People who actually invoke that cliche in this context are rarely able to back it up, and frequently give little evidence of knowing exactly what it means.

Do you have an argument to present, or are you just here to snipe?

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

It's dishonest to pretend otherwise. The GOP was blatantly trying to keep minorities from voting. Granted, it wasn't because of hatred of blacks or hispanics but because both these groups tend to vote Democratic. Besides if you've watched Fox News for even five minutes you can't complain about the left preying on racial fears. The GOP fires up these fears with no basis in reality, at least the left can demonstrate the disturbing attempts of the right to keep brown people from voting.

[houndofloki.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't doubt someone called into a radio show and said it. I just think it's probably a load of BS - no actual business owner would put themselves on record saying they termed employees for such a reason. Hello paying every single one of their unemployment, and hello wrongful termination lawsuits.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

"Moderate McCain"


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

No.


Maybe moderate from your standpoint, but then even your hero Goldwater wouldn't be able to get the nod from todays GOP for being too 'moderate' vis a vis his stance on the theocratic wing of the party.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Well, one employer I mention in the OP did it pretty publicly. "Wrongful termination?" I believe that depends on state law. If you are an "at will" employee (as most of us are) you can be fired for any reason beyond those specifically cited in civil rights law (race, religion, gender, etc.) I don't believe there's any federal law against a private employer can't fire someone for the way he or she voted.