In a new, in-depth Marist poll, 35 percent of Latino-Americans describe themselves as somewhat to very conservative. Only 27 percent describe themselves as somewhat to very liberal. Yet when asked to identify by political party, the shift is dramatic. Just 16 percent identify as Republican, while 47 percent identify as Democrats. That’s basically a 3-1 advantage for Democrats.Does anyone not understand why the disparity? You can't have a party that basically proclaims itself to be the White People's party and then turn around and wonder why members of other racial and ethnic groups don't like you.
There are roughly 25 million people of voting age who identify as Latino or Hispanic. The GOP has turned off five million of them. Even if half voted, flipping 2.5 million votes in 2012 would have given us President Romney.
But no, the GOP played then and plays now to its nativist base, not caring that the base doesn't win elections.
So what does this mean for the GOP this time around? 61 million women voted in 2012. More voted for Obama by about a 12% margin. The GOP historically has trouble attracting women to vote for their presidential candidate, but it probably could be a hell of a lot worse.
If the Republicans can resist the siren call of the Hate Radio Noise Machine to engage in smutty and misogynistic comments aimed at Hillary Clinton, they may have a shot at keeping the gender gap where it is. But if they can't, and if women across the country get the impression that the Boyos in the GOP are piling on like a bunch of SAE frat boys at a kegger, then women may care less about their differences with Mrs. Clinton and choose to stand with her as sisters.
And the GOP's presidential hopes will capsize faster than the Costa Concordia.
Add to the mix the efforts to get rid of the ACA (50+ votes) would affect women more than men, and you have a twofer on why women should vote for HRC. With all the megaphone dog whistling the GOP and Squawk Radio has done since O won office (twice!), and you have a large block of voters with a good motivation not to vote for the GOP.
ReplyDeleteTheir challenge is easy to understand, but at the same time it's hard to get why they're screwing it up so badly. The role of a political party is to win elections, and last time I looked that meant putting together a political coalition that could win 51% of the vote.
ReplyDeleteNow, the Left was confronted with this problem coming out of the sixties. They very quickly figured out that "who ELSE are they going to vote for" was a real political reality. And the Left walked away from liberals and never looked back.
The overarching agenda of the American Political Right is the upward redistribution of wealth. But the 1% makes a weak voting majority, so they created these social, racial, ethnic, sectarian and tribal issues to build a voting base that could win elections. But now, those social, racial and tribal issues are COSTING them voters, and they are struggling to find a way to become more inclusive.
They are terrified of their extremist base, but the real question remains the same: Who the hell ELSE are they going to vote for? Hillary? Don't think so.
As long as they live in terror of the tyranny of their insane base, they can't win a national election. As soon as they figure out that they can leave the bigots behind and actually GAIN votes, America's future just got a lot bleaker...
Who says they're screwing it up, Mikey? The presidency is just one office. There are thousands of elections in the US, and Republicans have won most of them lately.
ReplyDeleteIn a balkanized system like ours, there's an opportunity to control the system from beneath. Democrats forgot that.