Republicans should, among other things:
- Lose the Southern strategy. It has become a demographic dead end. And counterproductive: by getting in bed with white Southerners, who are widely seen as racist, Republicans lose most of the black, Latino, Asian American, Native American and Jewish vote.
- Break out of the Republican bubble. For starters, stop taking Fox News, the National Review or Rasmussen polls seriously. Or anyone who said Romney would win by a landslide (Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Dean Chambers, Michael Barone, George Will, Dick Morris, etc).
- Stop championing policies for the top 2%. It makes Republicans look like they only care about the rich.
- Drop laws aimed at making life hard for immigrants. It is anti-American and makes Republicans look racist.
- Like Ike. President Eisenhower of the 1950s upheld civil rights. He accepted the New Deal safety net. He kept the country out of war. He knew the dangers of the military industrial complex. He was centre right – ground now held by Democrats like Obama and Clinton.
- Champion limited government, free enterprise, equal opportunity and social mobility. Make the bootstrap myth real not rhetoric. Champion the middle-class and those who want to become middle-class. This should be the heart of Republican policy – not its current aim of helping the rich get richer.
- See good public education and healthcare as infrastructure that government provides, like law and order, good roads and food safety. Good healthcare and education is beyond the reach of many, which damages the country’s human capital – and its tax base. Democrats are seen as being in bed with the teachers union, so education is a huge opening. Republicans might be the only ones who can push through the needed reforms.
- Reform the police and courts so that everyone is equal under the law regardless of race or class. For starters, outlaw racial profiling and help those who do their time get a fresh start.
- End the war on drug users: The War on Drugs should be directed at stopping drugs from entering the country, not at users. Users should be helped in getting off of hard drugs, not arrested.
- Become unblind to racism. Republicans like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Newt Gingrich and Paul Ryan are so blind to their racism that it comes out of their mouths without their even knowing it. A huge turn off. Assume that people of colour are every bit as American as whites, that their lives matter just as much. That they believe in honest work. That they have a mind of their own and know what is in their own best interests. That they want to live in a world where their race does not affect their life chances – in education, employment, income, housing, justice, life expectancy, infant mortality, etc. Instead of making excuses for the status quo, take what they say seriously.
- Fight for minority rights: if only because whites will become a minority soon enough.
- Go after the black vote. If the Party of Lincoln can get that right, most other things will fall into place.
See also:
The echo chamber would deem this list as “too liberal” for reasons already covered. I’d venture to say that if the GOP returned to their so-called roots, the party would probably splinter, which wouldn’t bother me at this current point in time…:/
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Nice list and I agree with much of it but I think very little of it would be possible now. The Republican Party is riding a tiger and can’t get off.
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Is this put in priority?
If anything, the first one, the Southern strategy has to go. It is causing them to lose states like NM, Florida and Virginia and next North Carolina and on to Georgia and Texas. It has pulled the party far right and the Democrats to positions even right of centre. The Southern Strategy will be like a new Sherman’s army, splitting the South (or the Red States) into two contracting regions.
Regarding #12, I suspect they might try going after the Hispanic and Asian vote first. If they drop #1, they could get some of them to start sliding over, but probably not enough. Of course they need to go further down the list to make it reach a new equilibrium.
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abagond,
Lincoln and Eisenhower never supported integration. They both supported blacks because of political pressure and not because of moral obligation. Eisenhower made it clear he sent troops to Little Rock to enforce federal law and not to force integration and signed a very weak civil rights bill a few days later. When Arkansas decided to close the school for a year to prevent integration, Eisenhower didn’t take action to force the school to reopen.
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Good luck on any of this happening.
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Yep Your Dreaming If You think the political party that represents overt white supremacy currently could be changed by a 12 Step program.
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Soooo…..your saying they should become democrats if they want to stay relevant?
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No No No! Let them keep doing what they’re doing and become totally irrelevant.
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if the party relies on just the white vote then they are actually done in a few generations. go Google it because white births are not even keeping up with morality and in two more generations they will be the minority in the united states. I wish we could actually have an honest debate in the country about what the problem actually is that caused the recession (it is actually a bipartisan problem Clinton and Bush mistakes) and stop calling people racist that disagree with your opinion, black, blue , purple , orange, yellow I dont care what color you are. I stopped being a democrat because the party left me. The democrats stopped being classic liberals (Google it) and embraced Marxism. this was one of the most dishonest elections I have ever seen. as one example how many times did I hear Obama slam Romney saying I saved GM he did not it was GW bush that got the auto stimulus on 12-19-2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/business/20auto.html?hp&_r=0 Obama inaugural date is 1-20-2009 he was president when the auto companies got the big checks so at the very least he should say this was a republican leadership that saved GM and Chrysler. can we please get some honesty here!
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While I agree that the GOP would really need to do all this to remain relevant, I don’t see it happening. They’re a bunch of grumpy old white guys who are set in their ways, and getting them to change would be like trying to stop the wind.
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In part I wrote this as a thought experiment to see what it would take for Republicans to stay in business nationwide, not just in one region or demographic. I tried to keep it within the bounds of centre-right policy as much as I could – I do not expect them to move any more to the left than Eisenhower or Nixon did. Universal healthcare, though, I think is unavoidable for them in the long run.
It was not till the Democrats lost the presidency three elections in a row (1980, 1984, 1988) that they started to move to the centre right with Clinton. But Republcan racism is probably too ingrained for it to be that simple for them.
So, short of scandal or some kind of Democratic meltdown, the Republicans will probably lose in 2016 and still not get it.
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@ Jefe
I think the first two are the most important. The rest are listed in readable order.
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@ this man
There are already too few whites:
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@ Jim
Republicans will change not because they want to but because they will have to – or go the way of the Whigs.
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Aba
Good list.
It won’t ever happen though as most of them are white first, human second.
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This will not happen. If anything I think the Republicans will become more extreme in their views.
And campaigning for the black vote, lol. I’ve noticed the ones that are now open to getting minorities on board go straight to Latino. Yeah, they are the fastest growing minority group, but blacks don’t even get a mention. We are a lost cause to them.
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What about stopping being one of the parties mattering on the national level? That seems much easier.
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There may be too few whites but they where always a numerical minority ,it didn’t stop them from dominating the world as we know it since 1492,
they are a tiny minority in south africa yet who control economics politics and the military? ,who has the wealth and the power?
They’ll look like a minority all they want ,but unfortunately I bet hundred years from now they will still control economics politics and the military in this country and on this planet.
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How about taking a flying leap of a cliff? They are populated with mentally deficient characters currently. They prove it time and again with their lack of foresight.
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Here’s an angry white Republican give the poor loser’s salute!
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRgC9tETE_y99_tuH09sn0SJAtbl6L_vxlaJSFGzB9HHgd12jvu
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The only thing that’s really going to change the Republican Party is when White Southern baby boomers start dying off in large numbers. Otherwise the Southern Strategy is so ingrained in the Party that even after this election they’re still throwing out the racist chum for the White racist Southerners.
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In One Of Their Members Own Words
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The problem here is the Republican core, that massive, dominant segment of the conservative base that takes comfort in many positions that minorities and, increasingly, many women find discomforting. Right now, this core is so large and influential that no Republican hoping to win a primary can actually afford to ignore it. They instead pander to it, because they know how necessary it is. For this reason, none of the suggestions above can come to pass-that core doesn’t want to hear it.
It will be, in my estimation, at least 16-20 years before we see real, lasting change here as far as the right goes. I base this on a generational prediction-that core I mentioned is predominantly composed not just of whites (the whole party is white, really), but older whites. These are folks 45 and up, mostly baby boomers and the occasional late gen-x’er. They are the folks for whom the southern strategy and the ideology behind it holds the most appeal.
For actual change to come, this core will need to get smaller than it is now, and that will only happen through generational shift (read: some of these older core conservatives beginning to pass away). By 2032, we may have seen enough of a shift to make the desires of this core a bit more tolerable to a larger number of people, but I certainly don’t see this happening by 2016 or 2020.
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Abagond:
Your argument doesn’t make sense. Why are you so worried about the GOP changing its platform? You and other blacks vote for the other side, your guy won. Instead, ya’ll should focus your attention on the actions of democrats. Democrats say they care, yet, black folk fall further behind year after year. When is Obama gonna deal with the black prison population problem? When is he gonna deal with the senseless violence in cities such as Chicago and Detroit just to name a few? When is he gonna tackle the issue of tribal conflict and radical islam in Africa? I’m still trying to understand why blackwomen feel the need to keep voting for a political party that has castrated their men in large numbers…that’s the surprising thing to me? Blackwomen voted for Barack in larger numbers than blackmen, Why? None of this ish makes sense. I’m tired of black folks complaining, yet, they maintain the status quo. Bashing republicans does nothing for black people in this country, because, they’re not the problem. Abagond, you can’t continue to bash the GOP and ignore the racism of your party at the same time? You’re losing credibility with the people blackman, Seriously! You ignore the fact that Clinton is the one who got into bed with China, not the GOP. You ignore the fact that democrats have an unholy alliance with Al-Qaeda and other islamists in central asia and africa. You ignore the racism of Planned Parenthood, which was created specifically to push blackwomen into killing their unborn babies. You ignore the ugly history of the KKK, which was created by Dixiecrats in the south after Reconstruction to terrorize newly freed blacks. In essence, you’re supporting a bunch of racist whites in the South and the North. Democrats crying about the South, well, they got it back. They should be happy. A democrat is the same, regardless of location. All the enemies of black folk are donkeys more or less…radical muslims, pro-abortionists, public-sector unions, teachers unions, open-border crowd, hollywood, hip-hop, pedophiles, NAMBLA, and so forth. My side is smarter, which is why we’ll survive all of this madness. Talk smack all you want Abagond, your side is for the birds. I’ve never known a democrat with common sense. We love the lost ones…Democrats!!!
Tyrone
The Black House
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Good One! Before they can dismantle their current mind-set, they must completely abandon “The Southern Strategy” which has continued to fail them. They’re now gearing up to find what will now get them elected and maintain their pseudo power and of course they still refuse to embrace forward thinking black people in the process.
The “Rainbow Coalition” has now found it’s power and will gain it’s share in the coming years. We can either join the movement or allow the power’s that be to further allow our differences to alienate us and we’ll be looking in from the inside out while they enjoy the rewards of their labor..
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Poor southern conservatives have been voting Republican for generations and they are still POOR!
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/25/1020037/-Top-10-reasons-to-vote-Republican?
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Funny to read this post now. If in 2012 one could kid oneself to think the Republican Party were capable of such a transformation, they certainly got rid of such ideas.
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