That was fun, wasn’t it?
It was another tedious election cycle with lots of nasty words thrown around, and now we’re back where we started. The president and Senate are Democratic; the House is Republican.
So for the next four years, I’m prepared for more of the same – slow but steady economic recovery, constant bickering between the two sides and a whole lot of people telling us everything is much more grave and important than it seems. As a liberal, I’m optimistic that the President may be less restrained with his own liberal ideas now that he doesn’t have to worry about re-election.
But what interests me is the position the Republican Party finds itself in. Governor Mitt Romney won the nomination by appealing to hardcore conservatives and came damn close to the presidency by pandering to moderates.
Being so blatantly inauthentic is never a good thing for a candidate, but Romney’s strategy highlights the catch-22 Republicans now face on a national scale: They have grown increasingly reliant on the far-right base since the Reagan years, but that base is now shrinking as a demographic.
This problem came to a head this election season, and it will have to be addressed sooner rather than later if the party doesn’t want to go the way of the Whigs and Know Nothings.
The Republicans’ dedication to winning the far-right crystallized this year in the form of the national dialogue — if you can call it that — about abortion and exemptions in cases of rape and incest.
Candidate after candidate was mocked by the media and ostracized by his or her own party after offering comments ranging from “controversial and possibly offensive” to “someone should probably lock this guy up.”
Representative Todd Akin of Missouri and Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock were just two of the Republican luminaries who lost in traditionally red states because of their backwards views on a particularly emotional topic. Republicans need to understand that the majority of Americans no longer agree with their more extreme views, and that trend is just going to get stronger.
As it stands, Republicans depend heavily on white, male and older voters. This itself is not a problem. The Republican problem is that the policies used to attract these voters are repellent to voters in other demographics.
Taking hardline stances on immigration and welfare may appease the base, but it resulted in 80 percent of minority voters choosing President Obama.
This trend is only going to snowball from here. Pew Research Center projects that over the next few decades, nearly all population growth will come from immigration and the children of immigrants. By 2050, it predicts whites will be a minority.
If the Republican Party hasn’t adjusted by then, well, they’re up diversity creek without a token black friend.
So what can Republicans do? I’d say the ideological basis of the party is economics. Most Republicans agree with some form of a supply-side model and have a general distaste for welfare programs.
I don’t agree with them, but to moderate or liberal eyes, Republican economics are much less hateful than their stances on, say, birth control or immigration.
Representative Paul Ryan, despite being a black hole of charisma, was relatively popular because of his idealism and competence when it came to economic issues.
Republicans need more politicians like him – savvy, able-minded candidates who aren’t going to scare away voters with thinly-veiled bigotry. I have a hunch Jon Huntsman, the former ambassador to China, will have a large role to play in future Republican plans.
After the results came in, Bill O’Reilly melted down on Fox News.
“Obama wins because this is not a traditional America anymore. The white establishment is the minority,” he said.
And he was right. America is changing, and if the Republican Party can’t keep up, it will be left behind.
