From the NYT obit of Jack Kemp:
Mr. Kemp’s other great cause, in his 18 years in the House and for
three decades thereafter, was to get his party to seek more support
from blacks and other minorities.
“The party of Lincoln,” he
wrote after the 2008 election, “needs to rethink and revisit its
historic roots as a party of emancipation, liberation, civil rights and
equality of opportunity for all.”
He was absolutely right, so why didn’t they listen?
The Republican Party is not a long-term party. They don’t think about what’s going to happen five years, ten years, fifty years down the road. They want to win elections now, amass money now, live it up now, and blow it up now. They don’t think about rebuilding it afterward, whether it’s the party or Iraq. The reason only 21 percent of Americans identify as Republican anymore is that on average you can get about a quarter of any group to accept “set it on fire and start again” as a strategy for everything from economics to race relations.
Republicans have been running on fear and anger for 40 years. We have to keep in mind 2008 was just about the only time it didn’t work.
A.
The Republican Party is not a long-term party. They don’t think about what’s going to happen five years, ten years, fifty years down the road. They want to win elections now, amass money now, live it up now, and blow it up now.
Is this mindset because of the quarterly earnings focus of the Republican’s big business/corporate executive/MBA base (“fuck next year: we have to look good for the stockholdersthis quarter“)?
Or maybe the quarterly earnings focus is a result of the Republican party mindset. In my recollection, both of these attitudes came to prominence in the Reagan Revolution, and I wonder which came first.
without an enemy, the neo-reaganuts have nothing. the enemy isn’t supposed to be americans.