Remember a few years ago when Sen. Rand Paul had that guy working for him? You know, the one that claimed to toast John Wilkes Booth every May 10th (Booth's birthday), espoused secessionist beliefs, admired pro-segregationist southern leaders and called himself the "Southern Avenger." This guy:
Well, GOP, to show you how out of step with reality and with the rest of America you are, please contemplate for a moment that you've lost that guy because he says today's Republicans are too hateful, especially toward gays and gay marriage. When a flamthrowing, Confederate flagging wearing troll like that tells you to change your "tone, attitude and course" or risk becoming "incompatible with America," it is time to listen.
Now Jack Hunter is a libertarian conservative who believes in the ideals of Ron and Rand Paul, he's done a remarkable 180 on how conservatives should attract people to their cause. Writing in Politico this week, Hunter examined the conservative reaction to the Supreme Court rulings:
When the Supreme Court ruled same sex marriage legal in every state on Friday, millions cheered. Couples embraced. People cried. Facebook users changed their colors to rainbow. So did the White House.
It was a landmark moment that so many Americans, gay and straight, never thought they’d see.
Sen. Ted Cruz said it was “the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history.”
Cruz said this on the same week South Carolina debated whether the Confederate flag had become too stained by slavery, segregation and Dylann Roof to remain flying on statehouse grounds.
Most Americans would probably consider these dark times, too.
I wish that Cruz’s comments had been an anomaly, but his harsh words were echoed in the official reactions of too many of the 2016 GOP presidential candidates. Yes, Cruz was referring specifically to the court’s reasoning behind the same sex marriage and Obamacare rulings—something he and many other conservatives, with good reason, consider vast overreach. But this distinction is probably not what most Americans heard.
As a former conservative radio personality, who used to use the same kind of over the top rhetoric with the same recklessness, I cringed. I believe that libertarian and conservative Republicans have the best ideas for the country. But fewer people are going to listen to those ideas if millions continue to believe that Republicans are intolerant of large swathes of Americans.
He especially called out the Republican candidates for President:
For Republican candidates—who ostensibly have a problem with big government telling people how to live and what to do—why have their reactions, with a few exceptions, been so hateful?
Perhaps some self-reflection and a reexamination of first principles are overdue.
Yes, religious liberty is among the most precious freedoms and should be jealously protected. But does protecting it also mean denying gay and lesbian Americans their liberties? Federalism is important too, even key, in a diverse country of 300 million people who are not going to agree on everything. But should federalism trump others’ most basic rights—like marriage?
There are conservative arguments to be had on both sides of this debate. Why aren’t more Republicans having them? Why do so many conservatives come across, instead, as being tone deaf toward gay Americans and their supporters?
Remember: Decades ago many believed states’ rights should supersede the individual rights of black Americans. History has judged them wrong. How will history judge today’s Republicans who oppose the same sex marriage decision?
He also admits what many of us already know: much of the "conservative philosophy" we see Republican politicians preach is pure theater meant to enflame and motivate the lowest of the potential low information voters to vote for them:
As the Charleston-based conservative radio personality the “Southern Avenger,” I would wave the Confederate flag and say hateful things without any concern for how it made others feel. If some became angry, so be it. I was doing my job.
I intentionally played to my base, promoting the narrative that we were under attack by outsiders who threatened our identity. We were protecting our nation. It was us vs. them.
It was also complete garbage. And it has always been so—a collection of fears born of prejudice, packaged as ideology and sold to anyone looking for a reason to feel better about themselves at the expense of others.
It is always about being against others.
But even he can see all the formaldehyde in the world isn't going to keep their base alive forever to counter the tsunami of tolerance being exemplified by mellenial voters.
The 85 million Americans who are millennials will soon become one of the largest voting blocs in the country. If many of their parents and grandparents feared gay marriage and voted accordingly, millennials most certainly do not fear it and do not understand those who do. Gay men and women don’t seem alien or threatening to young people. If anything, living in a country where gay culture wasn’t visible and celebrated would be strange to most millennials. It’s the only America they’ve ever known.
He expresses hope that the conservative mellenials, though small relative to the size of their generation, will change the party for the better...if the party can survive the intervening period before the mellenials assume leadership roles:
[I]n the meantime, will enough older Republicans continue to use rhetoric that turns off independents and others who might’ve been inclined otherwise to vote Republican—damaging the long-term and overall growth of the party?
The generation gap in attitudes could quickly translate into a GOP voter deficit, depending on how reckless some Republicans insist on being.
It is nice to see there are some Republicans out there that can see things have gone too far and that the rhetoric needs to be reigned in. Several of those who have been trying to lead such a movement, like Megan McCain or to some extent S.E. Cupp, have gotten no where fast becuase they never had the hate bonafides to reach the stereotypical God-loving, gay hating, gun toting, Muslim hating, flags (American and Confederate) waving, immigrant hating, trailer park living, redneck Republican voter in the South. Jack "the Southern Avenger" Hunter does and can speak from the experience of whipping those masses into a hate-filled tizzy and knows that method is going to have ever decreasing returns even if the hate rhetoric continues its monotonicly increasing tone. It is time to dial it back and have real discussions and respectful discussions.