A Couple of Suggestions for Your Consideration

Bill Greener has an extraordinarily inane piece over at Salon, My GOP: Too old, too white to win. In it, he bemoans the fact that, demographically, the 'pubblekins are facing a disaster. He spends nearly the whole column laying out and bemoaning the demographic and racial shifts that are dooming them at the national level.

There's a couple of words for that: "Well, Duh."

That's hardly been news since the 80's- literally. These demographic shifts have been predicted since I was in my late teens. You might want to think about this as a metaphor for global warming, but I know how hard it is for you to think about two things at the same time.

I see you wrote a few lines to note, in essence, "Well, we're getting better." Problem is, most of us out here in the real world see your party becoming more Newt-like on a daily basis, and you aren't really convincing us that a witch didn't put a spell on you.

So, to the Bill Greeners of the world, here's a couple of polite suggestions.

First, watch Pat Buchanan lay out his opposition to Sotomayor. Really. Take ten minutes, watch the whole thing, and consider the philosophical basis of his argument that she's an under-qualified equal opportunity candidate. Keep in mind that Buchanan has made two high-profile (albeit unsuccessful) runs as your party's nominee for President of the United States of America.

Do you see a problem here?

No? I was afraid of that.

OK, let's try this. Take this paragraph you wrote, and discuss it with a few people of color (or even most people of western European descent, in this day and age), and see if they agree with your two concluding sentences:

Perhaps we are seeing the start of a level of sensitivity to how the Republican label is perceived among voters of Latin descent. As one observes the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to become the next Supreme Court Justice, it is clear Republicans on the committee are determined to be respectful, even admiring of what it means for her to be nominated. To be sure, some of the questions have been tough. Nevertheless, all seem to be aware that anything said or done that even remotely could be construed as not appreciating how important all of this is to the Hispanic community is simply unacceptable. This is certainly an improvement in what has tended to be the case in the past.

Now I don't know; as I pointed out in my first post this morning, I purposely (and purposefully) steered clear of the Sotomayor hearings. But certainly one thing that came through, in the various patches of slime I accidentally stepped in, indicated that many people were struck by the degree to which the hearings focussed on her "wise Latina" comment, personal characteristics (Fiery Latin Temperament, anyone), and impoverished upbringing (think, slums and gangs). Does this really support your contention that "...all seem to be aware that anything said or done that even remotely could be construed as not appreciating how important all of this is to the Hispanic community is simply unacceptable?"

It does?

OK, I agree. You all are hopelessly, well and truly, fucked. Until you start behaving as if everyone who doesn't look like you, think like you, worship like you, spout the same social conservative poison about how everyone else should behave as you, home-school (badly) their kids like you, support corporate criminals like you, trash the planet and the environment like you, and obstruct any meaningful progress in make others' lives better by labeling such policy as creeping islamosociocommunofuckingfascism like you, is merely meat best chewed up by your media mills and PR liars, until their bones are ground to make your bread, you're pretty unlikely to make popularity inroads and establish postive regard amongst people who aren't like you.

I don't pretend to have some solution in a bottle that will change things for Republicans.

No shit, Sherlock. There's plenty of possible remedies, and lots of people have talked about them, but they're way, way too bitter for your party to swallow right now. Mostly, they involve moving out of the mid-19th century, and making some effort towards moving at least part way into the 20th.

And it saddens me more than you can know, because I'm terribly afraid your inability to swallow your goddamn medicine is going to take down the US, and the whole fucking planet with it.

Assholes. I just removed "Polite" from its position in front "Suggestions" in the title.

Shitheads.