Romney

Mitt shouldn’t be “Shell Shocked”

Where The Right Went Wrong

The Conservative Spin-Machine is in high gear in the days following the election.  So far, the reasons (excuses) for the Romney/Ryan loss have been attributed to:

Chris Christie/Hurricane Sandy – Obama suppressed voters (courtesy of Karl Rove) – Loss of “Traditional America” (meaning White Supremacy, courtesy of Bill O’Reilly) -The Lone Black Panther (courtesy of Fox News) – The ‘Liberal Media’ didn’t do enough stories on Benghazi (also courtesy of Fox News) – Too much fact-checking (Steve Doocy also of Fox News, who seems to believe that facts have a Liberal bias) -Union thugs who tamper with our political process (a common Internet theme among crazed, in-the-bubble Obama haters) – Romney wasn’t “Conservative enough” (courtesy of Dr. Laura Ingraham and just about every Right-leaning radio talking head, including Rush Limbaugh) – Voter fraud (courtesy of State GOP machines across the land).

*Sigh* My fellow Republican Americans have learned

Palin

Not a “Maverick”, but a cheap antagonist…

nothing in the last four years.  When Madame Sarah Palin ‘went rogue’ from the McCain campaign and started squealing about how the President cut his political teeth at the knee of ‘terrorists’ like former Weatherman activist Bill Ayers, it got traction with those who couldn’t deal with the very idea of a young black leader with an exotic sounding name and international roots being the leader of our country.  Of course, Barack Obama’s connection with this former activist was benign in nature and minimal at best, but the Right ran with it and the entrails of that lie run deep within those who despise him.  That “otherism” the Right is so well-known for was a central theme in this election as well.  A fine writer by the name of Michael Tracey wrote in the September 28 issue of The American Conservative:

“But here’s the most offensive part of Romney’s floundering shtick: In propounding these inflammatory talking points, he echoes the sentiments of none other than Dinesh D’Souza, whose “2016: Obama’s America” propaganda “documentary” has become a smash hit at the box office. The central theme of D’Souza’s film is that deep-down, Obama harbors seething hatred for America, and thus his presidency has been designed to bring about its downfall by a host of surreptitious means. It’s a revolting hour-and-a-half of cinema, targeted at the most angst-ridden and pliable Americans looking for answers–Americans who in turn have certainly provided Mr. D’Souza with a sizable financial reward.

More importantly, however, the film perpetuates this bizarre conspiracy theory that Obama is some kind of radical “Manchurian Candidate” whose agenda–as Romney put it–is “foreign,” and who poses such an imminent danger to Americans’ way of life that he must be replaced at all costs in November. Lacking any coherent critique of the past four years, nor any positive platform of his own, Romney has now adopted this line of argument–a line which was once relegated to the ugly Internet fringes.”

I must extend a warm thanks to my friend Christina Mitchell, with whom I have shared many long conversations and lamented the very idea there was no such thing as a “sensible Conservative voice left in America”.  By golly, she found one in Mr. Tracey and I commend her fine research.  Mr. Tracey is a man I would like to meet.  We could have a reasonable conversation about how to solve the problems this country faces instead of the discussing the fabricated man against whom the Republican Party ran their race.  I contend that if the Republican Party and Mitt Romney had run their race against the real issues and the real Barack Obama, they would have handily taken the White House last week.  It was a decision for which they alone must accept the consequences, understanding that America wasn’t buying the snake oil they were selling.

hands

Ethnic Diversity – The “New” Republican reality

As much as it would seem the leaders of the Republican Party despise facts and fact-checkers, there are some immutable facts that can not be altered by mere desire alone: the face of America has been forever changed.  The franchise in the hands of every legal voter is a fundamental right that will keep Republicans out of the majority party for a generation if they cannot come to grips with the true demographics of our country.  Think I’m kidding?  In 59 Philadelphia voting districts, Mitt Romney did not receive a single vote.  Zip. Zilch. Zero.  Of course, the GOP is howling that it’s a clear case of voting irregularities because this just can’t be.  I will postulate the following: It is not impossible to believe that these under-educated, underemployed, underrepresented and under-served people of color could find no common ground with a wealthy plutocrat who famously told his wealthy donors behind closed doors that these voters were nothing more than a bunch of lazy moochers with a victim mentality who just want ‘free stuff’ and will never take personal responsibility for their own lives.

Mr. Romney, I believe they just took personal responsibility for their own lives.

The man who once claimed he would

war on women

One of thousands of Internet memes created as a result of the GOP’s ‘War on Women’

run to left of Ted Kennedy on abortion, now says he would end Planned Parenthood and would gladly appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v Wade.  He spoke of women in the workplace in terms of being okay so long as they were home in time to make dinner for their families.  He spoke tragically of “binders full of women” but would never take a stand on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.  His was the party of the Personhood Amendment, legitimate rape, rape babies a gift from God, transvaginal probes, some girls rape so easy and abortion for my mistress but not for you.  And he wonders why he lost women by 16 points.  It was called “Losing the Slut Vote”, and still they’re surprised.  Seems women decided to take personal responsibility for their lives too, Mr. Romney.

Romney lost black voters by 89 percent – and that’s not all the just a racial bias of people voting for Barack Obama merely because of the color of his skin.  He lost many of those people in the infamous Mother Jones 47% video.  Romney lost Latino voters by a whopping 71-24, largely as a result of his refusal to understand them as solid legal voting block.  They were never referred to as Americans or people, but “Illegals” who should ‘self-deport’, instead of children of illegal immigrants being offered a smart and legal pathway to citizenship via The Dream Act.  Asian voters, who demographically speaking, by virtue of their solid stance as upper-income Americans he should have won, he lost by a margin of 73-22.  He lost young people, for whom he stated education should only be available if you could afford it, by a margin of 60-35.  Romney lost lower income Americans, worried about their ability to ever retire in anything but crushing poverty by a whopping 63-31, most of his support coming from solid Southern red states once dominated by the Democratic Party.

race

Race baiting – no longer a viable option

If the Republicans ever hope to once again gain solid power in this country, they must shed “The Southern Strategy” of ‘God, Guns and Gays’.  Most readers are too young to remember a time when African-American voters were a solid voting block for the Republican Party – a result of the Democratic Party’s defense of slavery during the Civil War and their dogged support of segregation and the systematic disenfranchisement of black voters for nearly a century thereafter.  When the Republican Party chose to appeal to overt racism against African Americans and Democrats took up the cause of the African American Civil Rights Movement, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and desegregation, black voters moved en masse to the Democratic Party where they have remained for more than a generation.  In 1970, GOP political strategist Kevin Phillips said his party would be counting on “Negrophobe whites” to carry the south (yes, he really uttered that ugly phrase to a New York Times reporter.) The GOP has adopted a similar “Border Strategy” against Latino Americans designed to mirror The Southern Strategy.  What they did not count on were numbers.  In an effort to demonize and disenfranchise the Latino block, Republicans failed to account for the sheer number of legal Latino voters in this country who would not stand for their people being discussed in terms of their “otherism”.  Those wily Latino voters have become very good students of history and choose not to endure being placed into the same box as their African-American counterparts.

Bill O’Reilly, infotainment host of Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor”

american

He’s not an ‘illegal’ – he’s an ‘American’

lamented the loss of “Traditional America”, where rich white men are both King and king-maker.  Much as I despise the racial overtones, I commend his honesty.  Bill-O The Clown of the Fox News Clown Car was the first to come to the realization that America belongs to all of us.  America belongs to black people and brown people and yellow people and red people and mixed people and yes, white people too.  There are finally more of “them” than there are “us” and you were soundly thrashed because of the pathetic way your party chooses to speak of these Americans.  Like it or not, the American melting pot has finally tossed in enough ingredients so the predominant flavor isn’t cream.  It took Fox’s Sean Hannity all of 48 hour to “evolve” his position on a pathway to citizenship for the Latino block because he’s seen the writing on the wall.  There’s a problem though:  It’s not enough for the GOP to do an overnight 180 on The Dream Act, or some version thereof.  As stated previously, Latino voters have become ardent students of history and they know moderated rhetoric is a long way from changing the hearts and minds of so many people who were taught to hate and fear them.  I predict they will remain solidly in the Democratic column for at least a generation, as the memories of that hatred remain with those they sought to disenfranchise and “show them their papers”.

I’ve been careful not to “spike the ball” after our resounding win last week, out of respect for those with whom I disagree.  I’ve been on the losing end far too often and know how much that hurts – it’s a courtesy I doubt I would have been afforded.  The night before the election, my Libertarian brother called to wish me “Good luck” and then muttered, “not really”.  I laughed because in the end, I love him because he’s a good brother.  I have not heard from him since last Tuesday.  He had threatened to move to Guatemala if that “Socialist” won again.  I can only assume he’s in some intensive Spanish language course at a Berlitz School and I hope to hear from him soon.  Not to gloat, but to reassure him everything will be okay and because I miss my big brother upon whom I rely for familial comfort.  He’s a good man.  He’s my brother. He’s an American.

PalinI guess that’s the message I want to send to those who suffered paroxysms of disbelief last Tuesday night: everything will be okay.  I even wish to extend that message to one Shelly L. Dankert of Dumbfuckistan (a tiny province of Nebraska) who posted a 24 minute drunken rant on the Internet.  Now, Miss Shelly, in her Butterscotch Schnapps, cigarette smoke, chips and cheese dip for dinner drunken rage seemed to be lashing out more about the fact that people didn’t share enough of the Right-Wing bits from her YouTube Channel than Barack Obama winning the election.  She wanted to be famous.  Seems that this video did it.  With well over 700,000 views directly from YouTube, millions more on Gawker’s website and the untold sharing on Facebook, Shelly, I don’t know that you’re famous so much as notorious.  Given my bizarre sense of humor, I was barraged by people who believed I was the originator of that video creating a parody of what we were witnessing in real-time.  Sadly, I wish I’d been that on top of my game, but I was too busy at my own Command Central, calling races across the country and doing political analysis on Radio Free SmartAss.  I will warn you, this isn’t pretty.  While most of it was blissfully shot in darkness, the language was, at times, enough to make George Carlin blush.  She has wisely disabled the embedding of the video on other sites, but you can watch it by clicking HERE.  Seriously – it’s Liberal porn.

And finally, I want to tell Mitt Romney and the rest of his party, especially Conservative pundits, the “free stuff” you and your party have raged on so much about must include the following: A fair shot at the American Dream.  A job.  A living wage. The unimpeded right to vote. The right to sovereignty over our own bodies.  The right to love and marry anyone whom we so choose.  Fair taxes for all, including the wealthy who have gotten a free ride in all of this.  Most importantly, we want a little goddamned respect – and if you don’t give it to us, may I recommend a nice summer home in Nebraska, a rather large bottle of Butterscotch Schnapps, the economy sized bag of chips and a vat of savory cheese dip followed up with a pack of Pall Mall Full Flavor 100’s… including one Shelly L. Dankert as the President of your Homeowner’s Association.  And as much as I appreciate the offer of the free “I Heart Marxism” bumper-sticker…

…that will be your future if you don’t change your attitude.

Carol

Carol Baker is a free-lance political writer and sometimes satirist.  She is a regular contributor to Here Women Talk.

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