Mother Jones: WTF, GOP?

[babylonsister]

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/04/gop-war-on-women

WTF, GOP?
Dear Republicans: You shoulda had this election in the bag. But then you took a long detour to Crazytown.

—By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery
| May/June 2012 Issue


Illustration: Steve BrodnerIllustration: Steve Brodner


snip//

Hey, GOP? A bit of simple math: Women are 51 percent of the population and 54 percent of voters. The gender gap between Republicans and Democrats, in presidential elections, has historically ranged from 4 to 11 percent; in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, it was 8 percent in 2008. Fifty-five percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Sixty-three percent support requiring health plans to include no-cost birth control; 67 percent of independent women do. And a staggering 77 percent of Americans think a petty argument over contraception has no place in the national debate.

This sanctimony is not playing as part of the genuine, profound disagreement between (and, guess what, among) liberals and conservatives about whether and when abortion should be legal. It's playing as needlessly humiliating women with invasive procedures, as denying people the choice of when and whether to have kids, and, frankly, as straight-up slut-shaming puritanism (recall Rick Santorum admonishing married couples that it's not okay to have sex unless it's "procreative&quot . Let's have GOP strategist Alex Castellanos bring it home: "Republicans being against sex is not good," he told Maureen Dowd. "Sex is popular."

Not content to enrage people who like sex? Well, party of Lincoln, you've also bullied Latinos, a giant, socially conservative, upwardly mobile, and demographically growing bloc that many analysts see as key to securing the White House—and that as recently as 2004 swung 42 percent for George W. Bush. That was before GOP lawmakers spearheaded some 160 punitive anti-immigration bills in the last two years. Before Mitt Romney—whose own forebears fled to Mexico to avoid anti-polygamy laws—bent over backward to embrace such "self-deportation" measures. Before Rick Santorum demanded that Puerto Ricans switch to English. These days no more than 14 percent of likely Latino voters can see themselves casting a ballot for any of the GOP candidates. Hasta la vista, Nevada!

No one expected you to make nice with gays and their families. Ditto African Americans, Muslims, teachers, climate scientists. But cops? Firefighters? Every other middle-class independent who's watching his kid's school fire the lunch ladies? Seriously?

snip//

So, dear GOP: If you keep this madness up, magazine editors and late-night comedians will be forever in your debt. But we may well be the only loyal constituency you have left. Up to you.

[n2doc]

1. They have made a calculated gamble

Can a combination of a brainwashed 30% of the electorate +voter disenfranchisement+gerrymandering allow the far right to take over and hold this country? Worked in 2010. Will it work enough to take the senate and hold the house, even if Obama wins?

And if it fails, well, the political conversation has still been moved further to the right. So long as they can portray Obama as an extreme lefty/communist, they have won the political discourse battle.

[babylonsister]

4. I can't afford to be that negative; I know, rose-colored glasses, etc., but

I'm hoping for the best anyway. Seems a whole lot of people are paying attention...

[CrispyQ]

2. Great commentary!

Loved the toon!

Loved this part best:

snip...

The realpolitik leaders on the right made a bet that they could ride the latest populist wave as they've ridden others, using the momentum to pull the rest of the country rightward. But they got greedy. The current cohort's overreach threatens to blow 30 years of careful strategizing, from the school-boards-on-up long march to power to Karl Rove's microtargeting breakthroughs.

[babylonsister]

3. Yes, a whole lot of fail pointed out in that paragraph. :) nt

[SharonAnn]

5. That's why they're working so hard on voter suppression of those most likely to vote "D".

If you know that women, low-income people, minorities, etc. won't vote for you, then you try to prevent them from voting at all.

That's the plan they've been using and it's on steroids for this election.

[Prophet 451]

6. Article suffers from "pretend Dems are just as bad"

The claim that the extreme left is controlling teh Dems is just outright false.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. I don't think it's saying that

It says that used to happen, which I would argue isn't true either. But what it says about now is "Meanwhile, the left—could this be?—may actually have absorbed the lessons of past defeats and been reinvigorated by an infusion of netroots and social media energy."

Perhaps you mistook "now the agenda is being driven by the extremists of both wings" as meaning the left and right wings of the country - but it isn't, it's "their oft divergent factions, the social conservatives and small-government enthusiasts".