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Party of Hysteria
The
Republican Party faces a real conundrum.
Their support has dropped considerably in recent years,
and some of them are ready to sacrifice their sacred cows in order to
attract younger voters. While their media propagandists continue with
spreading the usual hysteria among their base, others are contemplating
change.
This is not as unusual as it sounds, even though the
heart of conservatism is to resist change. It happens when they finally
realize that change has firmly occurred despite their best efforts. For
example, Republicans eventually bought into civil rights for minorities
and women. Today, we find some who even want to save the planet from global
warming. While it is true that they are always behind the needs of the
times, they eventually find that the change they resist occur anyway,
and fighting them is useless.
Republican strategists are tentatively debating whether
or not they should stop their residual persecution of gays by no longer
advocating against gay marriage. Most of the nation has shifted to the
opinion that denying Americans equal rights is no longer the American
thing to do, especially when there is no real threat against marriage,
as opponents claim but fail to convince.
Another plus is that gay Republican politicians will
be able to come out of the closet and avoid further embarassing scandals.
This will enrage the religious right, of course. They
are not too happy with the Republican Party as it is, feeling used in
past elections and then ignored. Live and learn.
It will turn off the support of many homophobes as
well, and white supremacists. They do not adjust well to giving equal
rights to those they consider "different."
That would pretty much reduce their base to tax fanatics.
By fanatics I mean people who get a tax break and then go out and
protest it as if it were an increase.
Not too many groups left on the right who easily go
ballistic.
The question then becomes this: will such a party attract
younger people to compensate for these losses?
Once they lose the gay marriage issue, they will have
to find something to replace it that easily lends itself to popular, latent
hysteria. That supply has been chipped away in recent years.
Conservatives, whether they like it or not, now live
in an more integrated society than it was during the heyday of the Ku
Klux Klan. People are more sophisticated, and are not as amenable to panic
over irrational rhetoric. The population is more tolerant. They have a
"live and let live" attitude that does not go well with dividing
the nation into "us" and "them." This trend seems
to be continuing.
Having nothing significant beyond their chant for lower
taxes for the rich, Republicans simply need new hot button wedge issues.
In sympathy with their plight, I have been looking
around on their behalf, and found a possible target.
A lot of people are afraid of heights. Conservatives
can look back in history and conclude that tall skyscrapers are still
fairly recent in the world. Airplanes too. Mountain climbing can be treacherous.
Perhaps it is time to combat height. I can see it now.
Placards with pictures of the Empire State Building, with a Hitler mustache
painted on it. Slogans like "If God wanted man to fly, we would have
wings." They could accuse tall people of being fascists.
Using
conservative strategic theory This could really generate interest in the
Republican Party. Fear of heights is not limited to a particular class
or race of sexual orientation. They could be seen as the party of the
people once more. And best of all, people with phobias prone to hysteria.
A natural target!
In
the meantime, until they gather their new base, conservatives can still
do their best in undercutting President Obama to make our country fail
during these turbulent times. No need to tell them that. Undercutting
progress and maintaining social and international problems is their second
nature. Maybe their first.
Sounds like a plan, Rush. What
do you think, Newt?
