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.

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Comments

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

business owners cutting their Obama supporters are probably making the entire thing up

Either way.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4141208

[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.

[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.

[houndofloki.livejournal.com]

That's a common misconception. Even if you work in "at-will" state, you still have wrongful termination protections. These include both discrimination cases and what are called "public policy" exceptions, which protect employees from being fired over a variety of things ranging from volunteer firefighter service to political affiliation. Employers are also not allowed to fire you for "exercising a statutory or constitutional right" (even in an at-will state). Taking it further, eleven states are nominally at-will but have adopted what's called a "Convenent of Good Faith and Fair Dealing" - which strictly limit the reasons an employee can be fired.

So what does "at will" actually mean? From an employee's standpoint, it means you can leave whenever you want. From an employer's standpoint, it really doesn't mean much of anything.

Even in your coal company example, notice how the CEO was careful to blame his layoffs on a "war on coal" rather then the election result directly? He's throwing Obama's name into it because his horse lost and he's pitching a hissyfit, but the real reason he's laying people off is because coal is not as profitable as it used to be. Romney being elected wouldn't have changed that (if coal is on Romney's priority list at all, it's somewhere around number 9,875,673). That's my point - these "political layoffs" are all bluster. They would've happened one way or the other anyway.