The Republican Strategy of Defeat

In the sports arena the way a team and its leaders react to defeat tells far more about their character than a win. Winning is a validation of your values, losing generates the need for deep soul-searching. If you lose and yet refuse to examine the factors that resulted in your defeat then you risk becoming inconsequential. In this way, the sports arena and the political arena are similar.

On November 6, the Republican Party and its leaders suffered a stunning defeat. This defeat clearly exposed the weaknesses and flawed ideology of the GOP.  The established Republican mouthpieces on Fox News, particularly Karl Rove, can only offer delusional excuses as they remain shell-shocked by the extent of their election loss and the agony of watching one state after another go to President Obama and the Senate seats fall away.

It is pure fantasy for the Republicans to interpret their loss as a result of the storm, or NJ Governor Chris Christie, or the ridiculous claim made by Bill O’Reilly of Fox News that the Republicans lost the election because there are too many Black, Latino, and young voters who voted for “free stuff”. These paltry excuses completely ignore the slash and burn ideology that has radicalized the GOP.

The Republicans seem to believe they can throw money at an election and somehow that is supposed to translate into votes, they underestimated the voters. The Republicans tried time and time again to suppress voters, again they underestimated the voters. When state polls indicated their brand was losing they created an alternate reality and sponsored their own polls. These Republican Polls turned out to be nothing but denial or maybe outright lies.

But right up to the point where the GOP was routed by reality they believed their own lies. The reality is that the future is not in the hands of old, white, rural, voters but rather America's diversifying and increasingly liberal youth voters lay claim to the future and that fact alone will likely establish a lasting Democratic majority.

Even more problematic for Republicans is the fact that President Obama won 55% of the women’s vote. Women comprised 53% of the overall count meaning an advantage for Obama of more than 7 million in the women’s vote alone. The GOP needs to get out of peoples' lives and get out of their bedrooms. Republican Senate candidates, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock cemented the bond between women and the Democratic Party when Mourdock said it was God’s will when a child is conceived by rape and Akin declared that “legitimate” rape rarely causes pregnancy. Both statements elevate stupidity to a level that only Republicans can achieve these days and both of these men lost their bid for Senate seats.

Since the 2008 election, much as been made of the growing importance of Latino voters, apparently the GOP didn’t get the memo. Instead of coming up with a strategy to capture some of this voting block the Republicans decided to systematically alienate Latinos with talk of “self-deportation” and promises to veto the Dream Act. It appears that the Republican Southern Strategy vowing that, if elected, you will cancel a widely celebrated reprieve from deportation for some young immigrants and then calling them ”illegals” every chance you get is not an effective strategy.

The Republicans can’t sit back and hope no one who finds their ideas insulting turns out to vote because they did turn out to vote and represented 10% of the electorate of which 71% went to President Barack Obama. It is critical for the GOP that they run, not walk, from their fanatical “southern strategy” because there is no future in cultivating angry, white, male voters.

The white vote that is the GOP’s traditional electoral foundation dropped to 72% of the turnout, its lowest level ever, while women and Latino voters became the fastest growing segment of the American electorate, an electorate that tilts strongly toward the Democratic Party and will likely allow the Democratic Party to rule the next generation.