Postby Elle » Tue Oct 11, 2016 12:29 pm
I wonder what will happen to the Republican party after this. It seems easy to say things like, well, obviously you have to stop being so full of racist hatred and xenophobia. Yet maybe it was better when people like that just blended into one or both of the larger parties without having an actual movement of their own. There's a whole set of white nationalist issues for them to rally around now, and a large enough chunk of the country moved by those issues that they can actually form a viable political bloc. So is it better if the GOP lets them twist in the wind alone, or is it better if it somehow absorbs them by emphasizing certain issues like immigration and crime?
Some of the religious right is part of this nationalist group, but not as much as one might think, and they're also losing power as a voting bloc especially now that public opinion has swung so far around on gay marriage. I wonder what would happen if the religious right decided to move in a totally new direction to maintain relevance and have the best chance of promoting their essentials (pro-life, pro-religion in public life). If they really took "culture of life" seriously, they could try to make anti-poverty efforts and environmental and consumer protection efforts a major part of their agenda. Most religious right individuals I know are personally very concerned about these issues (the ones who aren't part of the "prosperity gospel" or think homeless people need lots of blame), and they could draw in votes and build some lasting bridges that way. One of the most effective anti-poverty efforts where I live is specifically Christian intervention in the community - if that particular group wanted to run candidates for office, were willing to reach out a little more on issues like the environment, and simply didn't talk about gay marriage, they could remain pro-life and pro-religion and still attract a lot of young voters.
In short, the religious right is associated with purely negative messages right now - it's all about who they want to restrict rather than who they want to help. What if it stopped being that, and started being about increasing the minimum wage and expanding Medicaid and strengthening families? What if you could vote for that values set without feeling like the main goal was tax cuts for the wealthy, a state policy of torture, and Pence-style felony charges for gay couples? The identity-politics and pro-choice left would be excluded from this, as would the Koch brothers and white supremacist branches of the right. That would be a powerful party to reckon with, and it has a kind of ideological coherence that our current two parties both lack.
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