By Carolyn Shore Aresu as Libby Shaw
Cross posted on Texas Kaos.
Why bother to address issues of substance that matter to most of us when it is easier to scare voters with hate talk?
First of all, the good news. U.S. Representatives Taliban Pete Sessions and Tea Party Jeb Hensarling have withdrawn their names as a potential GOP majority leader. One of them could have replaced Majority Leader Eric Cantor who lost a primary race in his district in Virginia.
The last thing we need in Washington D.C. is a Texas Republican in any form of a powerful leadership role. G.W. Bush wreaked enough damage on our country to last for generations to come.
Meanwhile here in Texas the GOP has gone out of its way to make life as miserable as possible for many of us. During the 2013 legislative session Texas Republicans declaredwar on women's reproductive rights. They passed a law that requires a sonogram for women seeking an abortion. Soon after passing this law the Texas GOP closed most of the state's women's health care clinics (including Planned Parenthood). This essentially cut off low income women from access to reproductive and family planning in addition to various screenings and mammograms.
As if this was not enough the Texas GOP, led by Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, implemented a Voter ID law that makes it difficult for certain segments of the population to vote. Apparently if most of us were to vote Republicans could not win elections anymore.
Unfortunately suppressing women's and voter's rights were not enough to satisfy the extremists in the Texas Republican Party. At their state convention last week, the extremists decided to go after gays, and children, as well. Not to mention the Party's hard line on immigration.
So, the Party that touts the values of liberty and freedom has done one heck of a great job at taking the same away from certain segments of society.
For decades Republican politicians have been very successful at fooling and tricking voters by running on hate cloaked in messages about social values. For example, G.W. Bush ran on a platform of national security and "traditional values." Meanwhile, Karl Rove had whipped up the base with scary messages about gay marriage and abortion. Somehow most of the base would turn gay overnight and every man's wife, daughter or girlfriend would be running to abortion clinics 24/7.
Bait and Switch.
But when he was re-elected in 2004 W. swiftly pivoted to his buddies in the financial sector by trying to privatize social security.
To see what I mean by bait and switch, think about what happened in 2004. George W. Bush won re-election by posing as a champion of national security and traditional values — as I like to say, he ran as America’s defender against gay married terrorists — then turned immediately to his real priority: privatizing Social Security. It was the perfect illustration of the strategy famously described in Thomas Frank’s book “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” in which Republicans would mobilize voters with social issues, but invariably turn postelection to serving the interests of corporations and the 1 percent.
In return for this service, businesses and the wealthy provided both lavish financial support for right-minded (in both senses) politicians and a safety net — “wing-nut welfare” — for loyalists. In particular, there were always comfortable berths waiting for those who left office, voluntarily or otherwise. There were lobbying jobs; there were commentator spots at Fox News and elsewhere (two former Bush speechwriters are now Washington Post columnists); there were “research” positions (after losing his Senate seat, Rick Santorum became director of the “America’s Enemies” program at a think tank supported by the Koch brothers, among others).
Paul Krugman believes Eric Cantor lost the primary election because his constituents no longer believed the Majority Leader would do their bidding.
It turns out, however, that this is no longer enough. We don’t know exactly why he lost his primary, but it seems clear that Republican base voters didn’t trust him to serve their priorities as opposed to those of corporate interests (and they were probably right). And the specific issue that loomed largest, immigration, also happens to be one on which the divergence between the base and the party elite is wide. It’s not just that the elite believes that it must find a way to reach Hispanics, whom the base loathes. There’s also an inherent conflict between the base’s nativism and the corporate desire for abundant, cheap labor.
The Texas attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott recently promised to
secure the Texas-Mexico border since the federal government has failed to do the job. How is he doing to do that when his Republicans colleagues in Washington D.C. vote against everything that requires any kind of funding? Will Greg Abbott's donors pony up to secure the border? I hardly think so. Will he raise taxes? Of course not for Abbott would be tarred and feathered by his tea party base. So his chest pummeling about securing the border is pure BS and nothing more than a cheap attempt to woo racist and xenophobic voters.
Greg Abbott may enjoy spouting off about second amendment rights and secure borders while he continues to literally flee from reporters when asked pointed questions about his policies.
The base's hatred of immigrants and the Party's elite need to reach out to this community certainly poses a problem for the GOP. But when a Party runs on decades of scorched earth politics and thinly veiled messages of hate and fear, it is only a question of time before the shit storm hitting the fan blows back into the faces of the throwers.
If hate cannot win elections anymore all of us are lucky, no matter our party affiliation. Hopefully fewer and fewer of us can be manipulated by snake oil speech. That said, a quick trip to Greg Abbott's Facebook page shows us there is still plenty of hate to go around. His supporters refer to Wendy Davis as a whore, a socialist and abortion barbie. This must be the Obama hating base of Greg Abbott's Party. It's a pretty sick and scary place.
Let's examine how hate is playing in Texas during the 2014 gubernatorial campaign.
The Republican Hate Platform is not working in Texas.
Republicans added hate language like “reparative therapy” for gays to their agenda, along with calling for an end to in state tuition for children of undocumented workers. Texas Republicans also think that friends and neighbors should be turned into spies and snitches, fostering an atmosphere of distrust and fear. (A Southern Republican pushed for this same theory against women, wanting friends and neighbors to turn women who have had a miscarriage into the GOP uterus police. Not a joke.)
Basically, if you hate women, gays and immigrants, the Texas GOP has a platform for you.
No kidding. Here is a summary of the Texas GOP 2014 platform.
1. repeal the 17th amendment so legislatures select senators
2. abolish the EPA
3. repeal the state lottery
4. abolish property taxes
5. repeal the minimum wage
6. end affirmative action
7. seal the border with Mexico using Texas national guard and the state police
8. offer no path to amnesty to those already here illegally
9. allow business owners the right to refuse service to anyone they deem religiously or morally offensive
10. bar benefits for domestic partnerships
11. recognize the benefits of reparative therapy for gays
12. repeal Roe v Wade
13. ban the morning after pill
14. ban fetal stem cell research
Meanwhile, Greg Abbott and his Party continue to ignore the shifting demographics in the state.
While this kind of pandering to the easily manipulated that make up the GOP base has worked for Texas Republicans like Ted Cruz, the Texas GOP is following Cruz over the crazy cliff while the demographic revolution marches forward. The hate platform might not be such a great strategy for AG and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, who finds himself in an unexpectedly tightening race with Democratic state Senator Wendy Davis.
A fellow progressive Texas blogger lamented recently how the GOP had a much easier message to convey: God, guns, liberty and freedom. But these are abstractions that could mean anything, really. While education, jobs, immigration, healthcare and the economy may sound less sexy, and more wonky, these issues matter to most of us in a big way. When I canvass on behalf of Texas Democratic candidates in S.W. Houston I learn that folks are extremely concerned about real issues that impact us both in the short and long term. Many will tell me "if my kid cannot get a good education he/she won't be able to find a well-paying job." This is certainly true.
Meanwhile, the GOP 2014 platform is so extreme that it engendered a fair amount of shock among some of the state's editorial boards.
Even some Republicans wonder if the party has gone too far.”- Beaumont Enterprise
“The non-binding set of principals set a dangerous tone during this election year. And the anti-immigration stance displayed by the party via this document does not bode favorably for regions with high Hispanic populations, like South Texas.” -McAllen Monitor
Based on the platform, the Party “wants to turn employers and law officers into federal snitches, lock up many Hispanic voters’ parents and relatives, and deny Texas-schooled children the same college tuition rates as their classmates.” – Fort Worth Star Telegram
“…it is clear to me that if we seek to win the future Hispanic vote, we should at least be cordial to our neighbors from the south.” – Rep. Jason Villalba, Texas Monthly
Houston Chronicle Editorial: GOP cliff walk: “The question we’re left with in the wake of the rally of Texas Republicans over the weekend is whether “reparative therapy” might work on a political party so averse to the reality of a growing, changing, dynamic state that its members prefer a return to the 1950s…The ideologues don’t seem particularly interested in the gay vote, either. The 2014 Republican Party platform actually endorses the practice of training LGBT people to “convert” to heterosexuality. Never- mind that such therapies have been repudiated by the American Psychological Association and other major health organizations, not to mention common sense.”
The Ground Game Matters.
Ignore the polls and the media spin. Carry on, Democrats.
While the Texas GOP, led by Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick, drives itself over the crazy cliff let the Wendy Davis team and her supporters continue to work 24/7 to register voters, make phone calls and knock on doors. Democrats have a platform and it has nothing to do with hate. We stand for issues that concern all of us. Education. Jobs. The Economy. Immigration Reform. Healthcare. Government Accountability. Tolerance. Equality. Voting Rights. Women's Reproductive Rights.
When Democrats vote, we win.