Can the GOP really rebrand itself as center-right?
The party recognizes it needs to reach a broader demographic, but it will have to undo years of exclusionary policy
Topics: AlterNet, GOP, Barack Obama, Nativism, Religion, Gender, Politics News
In the aftermath of the shellacking that the Republicans took in 2012 – which makes it five of the last six national elections in which they have lost the popular vote – there has been increasing discussion among the political and media elites of whether the GOP should or can reinvent itself as a responsible center-right political party.
The issue is urgent. Very little can get done in this country politically without a rough consensus in the political system. Yet no reasonable consensus can be reached where one of the two major parties has taken on the nature of a political third party, an extremist faction on the political spectrum whose views are obviously out of date, flagrantly false and at odds with the historic values of mainstream American society. The United States is currently in a long-term decline, which will become irreversible if causes are not addressed. Thus, the answer to the question of whether a GOP evolution can take place is among the most important facing the nation. Let’s look at the chances.
Demographic changes have certainly shown that the principal political strategy of the Republican Party for the last 35 years, namely, appeal to the White Vote, is increasingly ineffective in delivering an electoral majority. Obama and the Democrats have assembled a multiracial, multigenerational and multicultural coalition of women, minorities, educated, young people and political progressives that is increasing both in absolute numbers and relative to the white vote. This coalition is immune to defection to the Republican Party as presently constituted as the racist, misogynist, nativist, hate mongering and socioeconomic elitist political affinity group that it is. As a result traditional issues raised by the Republicans – the so-called “culture war” issues based on race, religion, gender and national origin – have now become wedge issues against the Republicans. Go figure! Unless the Republicans change not only their rhetoric, but their policies, too, they’re finished in national elections.
But what happens if they try it? The White Vote strategy actually holds back the Republicans from changing, because without the racism, sexism, nativism, religious bigotry and homophobia, they have nothing to deliver to the white electorate masses. Their message of economic elitism and exclusivity has no mass appeal whatsoever. At a fundamental level, the conservative movement, the right and the Republican Party are so hostile to the notion of social and economic equality that they can’t effectively change political strategies without abandoning their so-called “principles” (better known as prejudices) – particularly, those relating to economic inequality.





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