PeterZ wrote:gcomeau wrote:
I was referring to cementing the GOP as the racist party in the eyes of most of the non white voters in the country for the last 50 years... although I could expound at GREAT length on how the guy whose administration illegally sold military arms to Iran to fund drug running contras in South America while setting the baseline conditions for out of control growth of wealth inequality and massive deficit spending domestically, among many many other things, was a "bad thing".
GOP racist?
Please don't act surprised. We're talking about fairly well established political/historical realities here.
The Democrats were the party of the southern/confederate racists from the civil war right up through the 1960s. Then LBJ decided to support the Civil Rights Act, the southern racists got pissed, and the GOP made a decision that "hey, we can attract those voters by opposing the civil rights movement!"
And the electoral map went from fairly reliably something along these lines in the 1960 election with the Democratic stronghold being the strip of southern Confederate states:
http://www.270towin.com/historical_maps/1960_large.pngTo this rather familiar configuration in 1964 where that was flipped on it's head:
http://www.270towin.com/historical_maps/1964_large.png...in a single election cycle when all those confederate state racist holdouts switched sides. And the fallout has been continuing on ever since. That's up near the top of the list of the worst political decisions from
both an ethical and a long term strategic standpoint in US history.
There is a reason the Democrats have a lock on the minority vote, and isn't the childish "oh they promise them free handouts" bullshit fairytales that like to be passed around in conservative circles. It's that those minority voters aren't blind and they can see the decision the GOP made and then continued to stick with for decade after decade.
Oh, like the Democrat controlled inner cities being allowed to turn into violent hell holes?
Perhaps we need to have a discussion on what "racist" means...
Seriously, gcomeau, we are facing the results of special interests guiding policies based on ideology and personal gain. This is true from both parties.
Yes it is. But that doesn't negate the point that you should reconsider the wisdom in the "let's recruit the most undesirable/stupid/ignorant voters we can from the other party's voting base" strategy. Frankly, the Dems would probably be happy to allow you to do it in the long term. There's only so much reinforcement of the perception of the GOP as the party that appeals to morons that it's going to be able to survive and still be able to be taken seriously. And going out and actively recruiting morons isn't exactly going to help its case. I mean, they've already made Trump the face of the party. That's kind of flirting with the giant steel I Beam that broke the camel's back territory already...