In a remarkable piece, Chait analyses the deeper underlying motives of the republican strategies for the election of 2012. A number of disparate actions spread over the past two years begin to make sense when viewed through the prism of a desperate southern white desire to hang on to power despite the changing demographics. It is a battle against history and geography and unveils deep seated fears now swirling around the heads of a party doomed to being a long term minority status.
"Of the various expressions of right-wing hysteria that have flowered over the past three years—goldbuggery, birtherism, death panels at home and imaginary apology tours by President Obama abroad—perhaps the strain that has taken deepest root within mainstream Republican circles is the terror that the achievements of the Obama administration may be irreversible, and that the time remaining to stop permanent nightfall is dwindling away."says Chait.
The Republican Party has increasingly found itself confined to white voters, especially those lacking a college degree and rural whites. Meanwhile, the Democrats have increased their standing among whites with graduate degrees, particularly the growing share of secular whites, and remained dominant among racial minorities. Every year, the nonwhite proportion of the electorate grows by about half a percentage point—meaning that in every presidential election, the minority share of the vote increases by 2 percent, a huge amount in a closely divided country. These trends favor the democratic coalition, since as a whole the electorate is growing both somewhat better educated and dramatically less white, thus making every successive election less favorable for the GOP.
Faced with this bleak future, the republican leadership , rather than adjust themselves to their slowly weakening position, have chosen instead to stage a decisive confrontation. If the terms of the fight grow more unfavorable with every passing year, well, all the more reason to have the fight sooner, goes their reasoning. This was the thought process of the antebellum southern states, sizing up the growing population and industrial might of the North. It was the thinking of the leaders of Austria-Hungary, watching their empire deteriorate and deciding they needed a decisive war with Serbia to save themselves. At varying levels of conscious and subconscious thought, this is also the reasoning that has driven Republicans in the Obama era. Surveying the landscape, they have concluded that they must strike quickly and decisively at the opposition before all hope is lost.
And what has been the strategy? Total opposition and complete denial of any credit to the sitting president for any achievment.
- The Republicans’ most audacious choice has been the hyperaggressive position they’ve adopted against Obama to sabotage his chances for a second term. There is a devious brilliance at work in the GOP strategy of legislative obstruction as they have very skillfully ground the legislative gears to a halt for months on end, weakening or killing large chunks of Obama’s agenda, and nurturing public discontent with Washington.
- The Koch brother inspired media campaigns against healthcare- Obama's signature achievement, the sponsoring of tea partiers, the negative response to job act
- Republicans have not ignored the rising tide of younger and browner voters that swamped them at the polls in 2008 either. Instead they have just set about keeping as many of them from the polls as possible in the future. The bulk of this campaign has taken the form of throwing up an endless series of tedious bureaucratic impediments to voting in many states—ending same-day voter registration, imposing onerous requirements upon voter-registration drives, and upon voters themselves.
- the outside funding of republican candidate through anonymous donations to swamp democratic candidates
- the deliberate raising of social inflammatory issues to divide the electrolate
Knowing what drives your opponent is an important tool in devising your own strategy. The question is can Obama's team formulate a countervailing strategy to overcome this?
"Of the various expressions of right-wing hysteria that have flowered over the past three years—goldbuggery, birtherism, death panels at home and imaginary apology tours by President Obama abroad—perhaps the strain that has taken deepest root within mainstream Republican circles is the terror that the achievements of the Obama administration may be irreversible, and that the time remaining to stop permanent nightfall is dwindling away."says Chait.
The Republican Party has increasingly found itself confined to white voters, especially those lacking a college degree and rural whites. Meanwhile, the Democrats have increased their standing among whites with graduate degrees, particularly the growing share of secular whites, and remained dominant among racial minorities. Every year, the nonwhite proportion of the electorate grows by about half a percentage point—meaning that in every presidential election, the minority share of the vote increases by 2 percent, a huge amount in a closely divided country. These trends favor the democratic coalition, since as a whole the electorate is growing both somewhat better educated and dramatically less white, thus making every successive election less favorable for the GOP.
Faced with this bleak future, the republican leadership , rather than adjust themselves to their slowly weakening position, have chosen instead to stage a decisive confrontation. If the terms of the fight grow more unfavorable with every passing year, well, all the more reason to have the fight sooner, goes their reasoning. This was the thought process of the antebellum southern states, sizing up the growing population and industrial might of the North. It was the thinking of the leaders of Austria-Hungary, watching their empire deteriorate and deciding they needed a decisive war with Serbia to save themselves. At varying levels of conscious and subconscious thought, this is also the reasoning that has driven Republicans in the Obama era. Surveying the landscape, they have concluded that they must strike quickly and decisively at the opposition before all hope is lost.
And what has been the strategy? Total opposition and complete denial of any credit to the sitting president for any achievment.
- The Republicans’ most audacious choice has been the hyperaggressive position they’ve adopted against Obama to sabotage his chances for a second term. There is a devious brilliance at work in the GOP strategy of legislative obstruction as they have very skillfully ground the legislative gears to a halt for months on end, weakening or killing large chunks of Obama’s agenda, and nurturing public discontent with Washington.
- The Koch brother inspired media campaigns against healthcare- Obama's signature achievement, the sponsoring of tea partiers, the negative response to job act
- Republicans have not ignored the rising tide of younger and browner voters that swamped them at the polls in 2008 either. Instead they have just set about keeping as many of them from the polls as possible in the future. The bulk of this campaign has taken the form of throwing up an endless series of tedious bureaucratic impediments to voting in many states—ending same-day voter registration, imposing onerous requirements upon voter-registration drives, and upon voters themselves.
- the outside funding of republican candidate through anonymous donations to swamp democratic candidates
- the deliberate raising of social inflammatory issues to divide the electrolate
Knowing what drives your opponent is an important tool in devising your own strategy. The question is can Obama's team formulate a countervailing strategy to overcome this?
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