Republicans Still Sticking Their Heads In The Sand
The GOP seems to be drawing all the wrong lessons from the 2012 elections.
The Republican National Committee held their Winter Meeting over the past few days in Charlotte, North Carolina. Obviously, what happened to the party in 2012 and what the party needs to do to in response were a hot topic of conversation. We’ve seen much discussion of that talk in the nearly three months since President Obama was re-elected, and the arguments generally seem to fall into one of two camps. On one side, there’s the group that insists that the party’s problems had nothing to do with the ideas that it advanced, which they seem to think are still wildly popular with the American public notwithstanding the electoral evidence to the contrary. To this group, the problem boils down to a question of how the party delivers, not what that message is. It’s a question of marketing, you might say. On the other side of the argument are the people who are arguing, and have been arguing for some time, that the GOP’s problems go beyond marketing and candidate selection and extend to the very ideas that the party has become associated with. The party’s positions on social issues, for example, have turned off young and female voters, and it’s position on immigration, at least since the final years of the Bush (43) Administration, has caused it vast harm among the nation’s fastest growing ethnic group. If these trends continue, they argue, then the party will find 2008 and 2012 to be just the beginning of its problems. The only way for the party to stop this, they say, is to stop being so strident on divisive social issues, and to drop the ill-conceived opposition to comprehensive immigration reform.
When you look at the evidence, it seems eminently clear that the second group is the one that has the better argument. Poll after poll has shown that public opinion on the party is directly related to the party’s position on a number of hot button issues. Additionally, the fact that the GOP has lost the popular vote in five out of the six Presidential Elections is a pretty strong indication that this isn’t just a problem of marketing. Rejecting the idea that Republican ideas are, to at least some extend, behind the party’s woes essentially means that you’re rejecting reality and the judgment of American people. It’s the political equivalent of sticking your head in the sand, ,and it’s not an advisable strategy for anyone who wants to succeed in politics. If the results of this week’s conference are any indication, though, Republicans seem to have convinced themselves that there problems are purely related to marketing:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Republican Party honchos who huddled here for their first big gathering since the election devoted lots of time talking about the need to welcome Latinos and women, close the technology gap with Democrats and stop the self-destructive talk about rape.
But the party’s main problem, dozens of Republican National Committee members argued in interviews over three days this week, is who delivers its message and how, not the message itself. Overwhelmingly they insisted that substantive policy changes aren’t the answer to last year’s losses.
Moderation, at least at this stage, is no virtue at the RNC.
“It’s not the platform of the party that’s the issue,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said Friday after being easily reelected to a second, two-year term. “In many cases, it’s how we communicate about it. It is a couple dumb things that people have said.”
A slide presented during a closed-press strategy session said that Mitt Romney might be president if he had won fewer than 400,000 more votes in key swing states.
“We don’t need a new pair of shoes; we just need to shine our shoes,” said West Virginia national committeewoman Melody Potter.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told a luncheon crowd that the GOP is at “a turning point” and needs “real change.”
Then he clarified: “It’s not about ideology…The people on the left are the people on the left, and they ask us to come to them – which is absurd…Obama’s a hard core left-winger. I want him to compromise with us on our terms.”
Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett said the key to a GOP turnaround is to catch up with Democrats technologically.
“Listen, we’re a conservative party. I’m proud of that,” he said. “They were on the ground for four years in Ohio. We didn’t pick up what they were doing in that four-year period, and they were pretty damn effective.”
A big focus of the four-day session, which wraps up Saturday, was adopting a more positive attitude – and smiling! – when interacting with voters and reporters. New Hampshire chairman Wayne MacDonald said party leadings need to work on “not being sour-pusses on television or the radio” – that there is a way to be firm and assertive without being mean-spirited.
“Nobody is saying the Republican Party has to change our beliefs in any of our platform planks,” he said. “This party wants to serve everybody that believes in our principles.”
(…)
Behind closed doors, party bigwigs discussed “strategic partnerships” with blacks, Asians, Hispanics and women. There was talk about developing a “comfort factor” so that minorities feel they are part of the process.
“Actually our principles are more conducive to minorities than the Democrats,” said Holland L. Redfield II, the Virgin Island’s national committeeman.
It is true that the GOP needs to make some serious changes to its logistical game, and to do a better job educating candidates on how to present their messages to voters. Additionally, the extent to which the Obama campaign once again out organized the GOP, both on the ground and in cyberspace, is something that Republicans who actually want to win elections in the future need to concern themselves with. However, it strikes me that putting new packaging on the same old message isn’t really going to accomplish much of anything. The GOP’s problems go far beyond bad marketing, outdated campaign tactics, or not using the right words, they got right to the core of those parts of Republican ideology that make the party unpopular with a growing segment of the public. As I noted above, social issues and immigration are two of the biggest parts of this puzzle, but it also seems pretty clear to me that the manner in which the GOP has conducted itself in Congress since Barack Obama became President four years ago has also gone a long way toward souring the image of the party in the minds of the public. A strategy of gridlock and obstructionism is not something the public favors, and the polls have consistently shown that the party damages itself when it engages in these activities. Instead of recognizing all of that, though, Republicans seem to be concluding that all they need to do is make some cosmetic changes and everything will be just fine. They are going to be terribly disappointed.
The push to allocate electoral votes by districts in certain states seems to say that Republicans understand that rigging the game is their only path to victory.
(Voter suppression only takes you so far.)
The problem is that a couple of people said stupid things… that revealed what the religious right actually thinks.
Maybe he should read some blogs. I sure knew what they were doing in the swing states and I’m nowhere near any of them.
Those “couple dumb things that people have said” like – the 47% stuff, the makers versus takers stuff, or the legitimate rape stuff – happen to be beliefs held by half the Republican Party.
Which is exactly why many Republicans in the states are working to ensure that future elections are legally stolen by trying to pass laws that give more electoral weight to vote totals in congressional districts, than to the popular vote at large.
You just can’t do it, can you? You talk as if the Republican party is a passive victim, being wrongfully associated with bad ideas. That’s not the case.
It’s not the big bad media who caused Republicans to be “associated” with, say, forcing women to be painfully probed before getting abortions. That’s an actual policy that came into being because you voted for a Republican who thought it was a nifty idea.
But let’s be clear…if Bob McDonnell was running for governor again, you would vote for him, yes? No regrets, right?
That’s why I don’t get why you keep citing polls. I bet if polled, you would not support ending anti-gay discrimination laws, or closing down all abortion clinics, or mandatory vaginal probes for women seeking abortion. But you had no regrets voting for McDonnell, who did all of that, and probably more that I don’t know off the top of my head. And I bet James did too, and would vote for Republicans who would do more, based on “inertia”.
So you talk about Republicans downplaying their policies, I just don’t see the incentive. The Republican base believes that because they are straight white men, they are better than everyone else, and wants policies that actively hurt people who aren’t like them. But Republicans cannot win without this base, and they need every darn one of them to vote. They cannot afford to soft-pedal the base’s favorite policies. And why should they risk alienating the base, when they can cater to them, and still get your vote?
The crazy 27% are a voting bloc. Our politics favor a two-party system, and Democrats won’t have them. That means Republicans must have them. As long as that’s the case, they can’t change their policies. You could change your votes, but you won’t. So all this talk of big change will go nowhere.
Boy am I not surprised.
Of course they weren’t going to get it. Obviously they weren’t going to get it. They’re stupid. You have as much chance of getting me to understand the physics of the Higgs Boson as you have of getting Republicans to understand that racism, sexism, immigrant-bashing, gay-bashing, fetus-waving, science-bashing and gun worship are wrong.
Old. White. Rustic. Stupid.
James Joyner belongs to, and you, Doug, vote for the stupid party. And yet, despite this, Joyner won’t leave, and you still talk your own brand of nonsense about our two parties. So how are smart are either of you? If neither of you – a political scientist and a lawyer – can get it, why would you think the cretins who make up the GOP would get it?
You’re both still in bed with a party whose great Plan For The Future is to steal elections. I can understand, even have some sympathy for Ma and Pa Kettle in Cowtown, South Dakota who are 80 years old, have never met a black person or a Jew let alone a gay being clueless and loyal to whichever party is willing to validate their prejudices, but what’s your excuse? What’s Joyner’s excuse?
Joyner voted for Mr. 47%. You voted for Trans-vaginal McDonnell. And you’re commenting on the cluelessness of Republicans? Do you own a mirror?
Any Republican who says that they way to being relevant is to support President Obama on immigration reform and let the Democrats take all of the credit for amensty and increasing legal immigration is so stupid that they have no place in running anything.
If amnesty is passed in the next four years, the Republicans will receive a smaller portion of the non-white vote than it received in either 2008 or 2012. Having President Obama do a signing ceremony in the Rose Garden surrounded by liberal Democrats and Hispanic activist will not benefit a single Republicans.
@superdestroyer:
Right. Because if your skin is brown you are doomed to be a Democrat. We know. We’ve heard this song before.
And by the way, you totally should be with the party of stupid. A match made in heaven.
I doubt if the Republicans will ever have the techlogy and organization to match the Democrats. As some have pointed out many college professor and academics were given leaves to work directly for the Obama campaign. There is no way that the Republicans will ever be able to match the Democrats in media relations, in organization, in technology, or in the ground game. As the joke that has been told many times, the Republicans vote has the problem that he has a job and cannot spend time working for a campaign. Also given how few Republicans there are in Manhattan, LA, SF, or DC, it will be impossbile for the Republicans to have the have media game that the Democrats have.
So right off the top the GOP is writing off 47%.
@michael reynolds:
As I have ask many times and no one ever answers, how does the more conservative party ever appeal to demographic grups where more than 70% of the children are born to single mothers. All the more liberal party has to promise to do is tax the crap out of others (read rich or whites) and give the money to those demographic groups.
You live in California and have a front row seat to what politics at the naitonal level will look like in the future: more taxes and more goodies.
@michael reynolds:
It would be much easier to explain the Higgs to you, because you are willing to listen.
@Mikey:
Actually if you want to understand the positions of the average Republicans voter, just look at the person life of the elite progressives in the Democratic Party. When you understand why a couple of progressives whites in NYC are paying $30K a year to send their children to private school, you will understand why Republicans take the positions that they do.
What is actually hard to understand is how the Democrats can say one thing in public and do the opposite in their personal lives.
@superdestroyer:
Talk about class warfare and class whining – I still have no idea what you’re talking about.
I am one of those Democrats that you seem to have a problem with. I live in an area with a lot of similar middle class and upper middle class people, and the great majority of people here send their children to local public schools. Why? Because as is usually the case in areas where there are many well-educated professional middle class families, the public schools are good, and well-supported by families in the area.
So what are people like me doing that is wrong?
Why are you accusing us of being hypocrites?
In the sand? That explains the view from nowhere.
The system needs two parties but they don’t have to be these two.
@al-Ameda:
Look at the bluest cities in the U.S. NYC, Boston, DC, Chicago, LA. Very few white Democrats send their children to public schools and when they do, they send their children to all white/Asian magnet schools. When you understand why Democrats in NYC send their children to all white private schools that give IQ tests for admissions, except children to behave, and demand performance, you will understand why Republicans are so skeptical of all of the cries of “racism, sexis, xenophobia.”
What the Republicans have to realize is that they are no longer relevant to politics or governance in the U.S.
The number of people who are actually interested or who would benefit from conservative policies is so small that conservative politics is irrelevant. The number of people who want and demand a big spending government who provides a huge buffet of goods and services is large that the is no way for any political party to oppose it.
Wonks and pundits should just learn to ignore the irrelvant Republicans just like they ignore the irrelevant Libertarians. The only issues relevant in the future is what will the Democrats do when their is no restraint on their power and how big can the nanny state grow?
@superdestroyer:
So, Democratic parents are wrong for sending their children to good public schools?
I believe Superdestroyer is the true voice of the Republican Party.
@al-Ameda:
No, Democrats are wrong for screaming racist at Republicans when they make the same life decisions themselves. As Elizabeth Warren wrote, whites are growing broke trying to buy houses in good neighborhoods with good schools. However, Elizabeth Warren refused to state what makes a good neighborhood and a good school. White progressives no the answer but cannot say it for appearances sake.
@michael reynolds:
MR
The Republicans are the ones who keep saying that Hispanics are natural conservatives when they are not. Republicans keep believing that giving people tax credit will make them conservatives when what it really does is turn them into big government supporting Democrats. Republicans are the ones who think that supporting open borders and unlimited immigration will get Latinos to like them. Republicans are the idiots who think that everyone who motiviated by the idea of having children and grandchildren when white progressives have the lowest fertilty rates in the U.S.
Republicans keep think that they can win presidential elections when any realist know that GW Bush will be the last Republican president.
What Republicans fail to understand that a country of a few elites and a large underclass of people raised by single mothers and who are generaly black and Hispanic will not be a very nice place for their own grandchildren.
@michael reynolds:
After reading the drivel he has written in his several posts on this thread, I kind of miss the “if x was a y I would short it” Tsar stuff.
@superdestroyer:
Sooooo…what do you suggest Republicans do?
@Mikey:
To the compounds, Mikey! To the compounds!
@superdestroyer:
You set up these straw men – a world where Republicans are constantly accused, unfairly of course, of being racists. As far as I can see, Democrats are not screaming that Republicans are racists unless Republicans show themselves to be racist – such as with the Birther Movement, or when Republican presidential candidates say that Blacks are racist for voting for Obama, or that Blacks need to get off the Democratic Plantation … you know, stuff like that.
@superdestroyer: “The number of people who are actually interested or who would benefit from conservative policies is so small that conservative politics is irrelevant. ”
If conservative policies benefit only a tiny percentage of the American public, how is it possibly a bad thing they’re not enacted?
Doug wrote:
Nice try, but still a cop out. The GOP’s history on taxes, endless war and incompetent governance are a far bigger problem than its position on social issues. At least with the social issues, there is an entire region of the country as well as many Christanists spread throughout the rest of the country who can never be convinced the GOP is wrong on gay marriage and abortion. But even the most bigoted Southerner knows that lowering taxes while increasing defense spending is a recipe for huge deficits.
@Spartacus:
Yes. We should not let the fact that the Jesus wing of the GOP is wrong obscure the fact that the Bombs and Money wings are just as wrong.
They’ve hit the trifecta. They’re wrong on everything.
@superdestroyer:
I will paraphrase my comment from a previous discussion. You are wrong. There is a way.
The Republicans simply need to adopt policies that align with those of the smart people in the United States. There is nothing inherently stupid about conservatism – in many cases it’s the smartest route to take, as our current President demonstrates routinely. When the Republicans learn this, they’ll get loads of campaign help from like-minded technical and logistical folks who are simply waiting in the wings for a loyal opposition to support.
@superdestroyer: Must be why the Bible Belt has some of the lowest rates of high school graduation.
@superdestroyer:
I think you might be right that a “me too” effort by Republicans will be transparent, and will not attract much long term support.
Of course, with every comment you reinforce this effect, right?
You’re telling us what they really think.
In other words, you are accussing white liberals of being as racist as you are…quit projecting, as that is not helping the case your are trying to make…
@Mikey:
There is actually nothing the Republicans can do about it. Demographics is destiny and the demographic path of the U.S. already set. There is no policy that will change the path that the U.S is on. The only real question is what are the impacts. I would suggest that the decreasing birthrates of whites and the decrease in marriage and later age of first marriages are adaptions of the changing demographics of the U.S.
What wonks and punidts would be doing it trying to see how politics will change with the chaning demographics.
@superdestroyer: A thumbs up because you never fail to deliver the unique stupidity that is today’s GOP. Keep up the good work of reminding us just exactly who it is we are talking about.
@wr:
Another way to look at it is that the number of people who have made the life choices that would lead them to benefit from conservative policies is smaller than the number of people who benefit from the liberal policies of a massive safety net, the government backstopping people’s bad decision, and who go through life focusing on the short term.
The discussion in demographics is really a discussion between people who have developed the life habit of long term thinking and those who don’t. Progressives generally have a long term view and believe everyone else does. Conservatives generally have a long term view but understand that most people do not. thus, the differences in policies. The Republicans really collapsed when GW Bush decided to focus on the short term and refuse to think about the long term consequences of their policies. That is why the Republican Party is no longer relevant to policy or governance in the U.S.
@Tony W:
There is no way that the more conservative party is every going to appeal to the media types in NYC, to college professors who are dependent on federal grants, or to the NGO types in the large cities. The idea that the 20 somethings in NYC will ever be open to the more conservative party. The elites believe they are clever enough to get all of the advantages of a big, nanny state government while avoiding the downside of the same nanny state. There is nothing that a conservative party can do to overcome people believing that they are clever.
@Timothy Watson:
Please give a reference and correct for race. What is the high school graduation rates for blacks in Detroit versus Houston or Dallas. If you look up the numbers, you will see how complicated comparing education statistics are.
@An Interested Party:
If whites in the South who send their kids to private schools are racist because the public schools are too black, then the same language applies to rich whites in Boston, DC, NYC, Chicago, and LA who send their own children to overwhelmingly white private schools.
Progressives are very quick to scream racism when looking down their noses are whites in the south while making the same decisions. Do you really think that whites in the south will support Democrats when those Democrats demand that whites in the south send their children to public schools while those Democrats send their own children to overwhelmingly white private schools.
@OzarkHillbilly:
What is really the stupid view: The Republicans will benefit from amnesty and an massive increase in legal immigration or the conservative who believe that de facto open borders will lower the standard of living of the average American.
@superdestroyer: I just thumbed up every one of your most recent posts without even reading them (I did read the one addressed to me) as I had all of the others (I did read them). I really, truly believe it is a vital public service you are providing to the OTB readership.
As to your question, do you really believe in the magical powers of a 16 story electrified border fence manned by machine gun carrying, laser targeted alligators in a moat to stop illegal immigration?
up above michael reynolds wrote:
It kind of boggles that these same Republicans say “look how much worse it would be with Mexicans!”
They set the standard for low themselves. A worst year ever in Congress, shaped by the Republican House Majority. Congressional approval at 14%.
Don’t they get that their argument needs some strength on the performance side? That their logic fails with with their own failure at government?
@Superdestroyer:
Here’s the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. A Republican spending 30K a year to send their kid to a private school- for whatever reason- would think they shouldn’t have to pay property taxes that go to fund the public schools everyone else goes to since they don’t use them. They would also decry property taxes as socialistic re-distribution of wealth and try to enact legislation to reduce or eliminate them.
Not sure who or why this was downvoted, but let’s be clear about what we have not seen in this thread. We have not seen “I am a Republican, and I support real immigration reform with a path to citizenship.”
Without that, how far can any outreach go?
Do Republicans count on Latinos disconnected and unaware of the immigration-for-votes discussion?
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think employer enforcement would quickly put an end to illegal immigraiton. Every time a company submits a fake social security number that company would be immediately inspected by the EPA, OSHA, the local building inspector and should be immediately audited by the IRS. A business that would violate the law and hire illegal aliens is also a company that cheats on its taxes, ignore safety and health regulations, and generally has a massive disrespect of the law.
@john personna:
I think that are a few Republicans such as Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Jon Huntsman who publicly states that if the Republicans would just pander to the Hispanics that they would get more Hispanic votes. Of course, the real reason that they support amnesty and increased legal immigration is that the cheap labor Republicans such as Sheldon Adelson would benefit from it.
There is no way the more conservative party will ever outpander the Democrats and the Republicans will lose more white voters while trying to pander that it will gain from Hispanics. Why will middle class whites stick with a party that is going out of its way to spit in their faces with immigration reform.
@superdestroyer:
I guess it’s human nature that people crystallize their beliefs at some point in their relative youth, and then argue that position from there on out, regardless of changes.
Net Migration from Mexico Falls to Zero—and Perhaps Less
… speaking pragmatically for a moment, it looks like 1970 was the time to put in place those strong, heavily policed, immigration policies. We live in a different world now, one with high past immigration, but little current pressure.
@superdestroyer:
That’s what I’m sayin’ … too transparent.
And too racist …
@john personna:
How is amnesty, massive increases in legal immigration, demanding that white Americans learn Spanish and making the standard of living for middle class whites worse not spitting in their faces? How does amnesty, more H1B visas, and more immigration beneficial for middle class whites (or blacks)? It is just a push for cheaper labor and is de facto throwing whites under the diversity bus.
@john personna:
Limiting illegal immigration duirng a recession is easy. The real effort should be to limit illegal immigration during the boom times. Just like new spending should be resisted during the boom times (as Keynes told everyone) increasing immigration during the boom times must be resisted because it leads to more problems in the long term.
@superdestroyer:
I live a multicultural life. I shop at the supermercado (speaking English), and know some good half Vietnamese, half Jewish kids who are doing great at school. (Just to describe my weekend.) That’s California, and it works out pretty well.
You’re trapped in some 70’s world. Do you think about your “whites” just studying harder and doing better? Or do they just “deserve” it?
If it weren’t for pseudonyms I wouldn’t post comments for obvious reasons.
But I have to wonder if Superdope would spew this racism if he/she had to put his/her name to it.
@Spartacus: Agreed, even rational people like Doug aren’t getting it. No one outside of old white guys buy their economic policies anymore. Honestly, the crash of 2008 destroyed not only the economy……but the GOP as well, as it was referendum on the last 30-35 years.
@superdestroyer: “Another way to look at it is that the number of people who have made the life choices that would lead them to benefit from conservative policies is smaller than the number of people who benefit from the liberal policies of a massive safety net, the government backstopping people’s bad decision, and who go through life focusing on the short term.”
Why should the government set its policies to benefit a small minority of its citizens while hurting the vast majority? Sure, it works in a monarchy or dicatatorship, but why would a democratic electorate vote to hurt themselves in order to enrich the already rich? It’s just a collossally stupid idea.
So-called “conservative” ideas are nothing but transfers of wealth from the general population into the hands of the very few. Why you think this is the better way to go is beyond me.
@C. Clavin:
So your solution with deal with problems is to use shaming to that everyone will be forced to repeat the same old politically correct memes. I guess we cannot all be like Joe Biden who is a liberal Democrat but sent his sons to a private school that was all male and 99% white.
@superdestroyer:
I know you think you’re on to something terribly clever, but you’re rather missing the fact that school choice isn’t about race it’s about wealth. There are a lot more well-off white folks than there are black folks. When you’re talking expensive schools this fact is reflected.
@superdestroyer:
So why is it wrong for parents to send their kids to the best schools in their area?
How is that a “politically correct meme”?
To a racist, political correctness is about suppressing racial “truths.”
So the Adelsons and Murdochs and Walker Bushes and Coors elites, they’re just fine but you darned city liberal elites are suxxx0r.
@john personna:
No. Political correctness is when some claimed that pointing out that blacks commit felonies at a higher per capita rate than white is racial harassment and the data itself was a “hate fact.” It seems to be that PC is about limiting what people can think about a topic so that only one view can be had.
@superdestroyer:
no, that wasn’t an earthquake you just felt. It was me agreeing with you wholly and unreservedly. I think I need a psychiatrist.
@superdestroyer:
Why is it you can’t be bothered to adjust those numbers for per capita income? Or is it racist to note that a far higher percentage of blacks live under the poverty line than do whites?
@Center Radical:
The difference is that the deal the progressive makes is that he will willing pay his schools taxes while sending his own children to private schools but the progressive will never question the performance of the public schools, will tolerate every loony idea that the public schools try, and will tolerate schools that put social engineering above academic learning.
I doubt his the poor have benefited very much while attending bad public schools that progressives refuse to try to improve.
@superdestroyer:
I live in Marin County which is liberal by anyone’s standards. My son attends a public high school in the Tamalpais school district. I could send him to a private school, but the public he attends is excellent.
So: an excellent public high school attended almost entirely by liberals with a liberal school board and liberal taxpayers.
Explain how that squares with your dumb statement above.
Superdope….
You shame yourself with your own ignorance and hatred of those who don’t look or speak like you.
I do take great solace in the fact that dinosaurs like you are disappearing.
Americans are freer today than they were 4 years ago…in spite of people like you.
Superdope is a super dope.
Enough of that racist fool’s bigotry.
Anyone see Paul Lyin Ryan on MTP?
@michael reynolds:
MR,
You live in the suburbs. If you lived within the city limits of San Francisco or Oakland, I suspect you would be the type who send their own children to private schools while supporting whatever the teachers unions and progressives want. Progressives, just like conservatives, while choose public schools or private schools based on the same criteria.
Anecdotally, I am amazed at how many of by co-workers and associates who are liberals but always seem to find an excuse to avoid the public schools when there are too many blacks or Hispanics in the school. Of course, the excuse is never the demographics of the school but instead the principal, the teachers, or the curriculum. Yet, I have never heard a liberal whose children are attending the all white or majority white public schools pull their child out because of those excuses.
@C. Clavin:
Considering that everyone is being forced to purchase insurance, cannot purchase a large soda in NYC, and will soon no be able to own a firearm, it is hard to argue that Americans are freer. Do you really think that the party that was in front of the Supreme Court arguing that it was good government policy when the government discriminated against Abigail Fischer because she was white is really the party of more freedom?
@C. Clavin:
Why do progressives think that insults and snark are the only thing they need in politics. I guess when progressives think they are the clever ones who can get what they want out of government without paying for it, it makes sense that snark is all that they feel that they need.
Superdope….
I’m accurately describing you.
If you take it as an insult…then what does that tell you?
All total bullshit.
Like the rest of your racist filth.
@superdestroyer:
That sums it all up, doesn’t it? Who is seriously “demanding” that “white” Americans learn Spanish? What does that even mean? That no native Spanish speaker is “white?” “White” people shouldn’t learn a second language?
I’m a little surprised you don’t capitalize “white” like some immigration opponents do.
@superdestroyer:
Again, I grew up in Marin County, where as Michael points out, the voting public is very liberal, and the public school districts throughout the county are generally very very good and well-supported by these liberal parents that you disdain. Often these parents have put their money on the line and voted by super-majorities to tax themselves to provide additional monies to their public schools.
And oh yeah, it is usually the conservative voters who vote AGAINST these supplemental taxes to support their public schools.
@M. Bouffant:
What is means is that cities (and soon states) will insist that all over their employees must be fluent in Spanish. It is a way to discriminate against whites without admitting that is the purpose. The real question is why should people who have not migrated and are still living in the country where they were born have to learn a second language because people who have migrated and are living in a country were they were not born refuse to learn English?
@al-Ameda:
Once again Marin County is the suburbs. What do you say about the elite progressives in NYC, DC, Chicago, Baltimore Cleveland, St Louis, Los Angeles, who send their own children to elite white schools (think Sidwell Friends or the Dalton School) while being against teacher competency testing, against tracking, against academic standards, against performance testing for busing, for quotas, and for mainstreaming.
The real quesiton is why should any American have to send their children to school that has a higher percentage of illegal aliens that the school that the president send his own children to?
@superdestroyer:
This is not a big problem in America.
Sidwell Friends is a “white” school???
You’re a f’ing bigot and a fool.
@superdestroyer:
I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but in most of these cities the “elite progressives” live in neighborhoods that have very few minorities so even if they did send their kids to public schools, those schools would be mostly white. Who are these elite progressives that have chosen to live in communities that are mostly black and Latino?
Seriously, who are these “elite progressives” who are against teacher competency testing, against tracking, against academic standards,? Or do you merely label anyone who is against these things an “elite progressive?”
Can you please identify a single school district in this country where forced busing and quotas are taking place? Please, name just one.
@superdestroyer:
My girlfriend has pale white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. She was also born and raised in Argentina, is an Argentinian citizen, and has been speaking Spanish her whole life.
Curious, this distinction you make between being white and speaking Spanish….
@al-Ameda:
I don’t understand how it’s a problem at all. Unless someone can point to data that show that the classroom presence of a child who is in this country illegally has a harmful effect on the ability of his/her classmates to learn, I simply don’t see how these two things are related. How would a parent even know the residency status of another child?
@superdestroyer: “Why do progressives think that insults and snark are the only thing they need in politics”
It’s not snark. It’s an honest expression of our contempt for you and everything you believe.
@superdestroyer:
Oh, please.
Who’s this “we?” Have you got a mouse in your pocket or are you being the Queen of Denmark today?
@superdestroyer:
FIFY
@superdestroyer:
You’re being evasive and doing poorly at it.
Here’s what you wrote:
I took the liberty of bolding a portion. A portion which is patently false. Quite obviously we question the performance of schools in Marin County, in Montgomery County Maryland, in Chapel Hill, NC, in all sorts of places where we progressives create the best public school systems in the country.
What you refuse to acknowledge is that poor districts have lousy schools. It’s poverty, not race or politics. Follow the money.
The reason it’s absurd to compare left-wing San Francisco with left-wing Marin County isn’t race, it’s wealth. Much of Marin is SF expats. When singles or young couples reach child-rearing age, they often cross the bridge and come here. Is that to get away from minorities? Obviously not since while they could they chose to live among minorities in SF. Right? You don’t live in SF because you hate minorities. Following me so far? So they move to Marin because they can get a house in Mill Valley or Larkspur with four bedrooms and a lawn and a two car garage and those places don’t really exist in the city.
And they move here because all these well-to-do breeders on this side of the Golden Gate will be more involved in school issues than the Yuppies and gays and recent immigrants who make up a large percentage of the SF population.
Now, can you guess who can’t afford to leave SF and raise their kids in Marin? People who can’t afford 50 bucks a week in tolls and a hundred bucks a week in gas and another hundred bucks a week in off-street parking, that’s who. People who need to be close to their jobs, who may be holding down multiple jobs. In other words working folks.
So the well-heeled leave SF – which they love – and move to Marin because they can afford to do so. Not about race. It’s about money.
Might be. On the other hand he should never be allowed near an “irony” again unless he takes a refresher course on correct usage.
@C. Clavin:
Sidwell Friends is 60% white, 15% multi-racial (think the children of diplomates) and 8% Asians. Sidwell Friends is 13% black in a city where the public schools are 80% black. http://www.greatschools.org/washington-dc/washington/211-Sidwell-Friends-School/?tab=demographics
@Spartacus:
You may want to look at the school districts that have been cutting academic class in order to fund mandated English as a Second Language and remedial education. Any school system with a significant number of children of ilegal aliens is a school districts that does not have the funds for adequate academic education.
@M. Bouffant:
How many job announcements that require fluency in Spanish would I have to find to prove the point. Try getting a job In San Antonio Texas or Los Angeles, Ca if you cannot speak Spanish.
@michael reynolds:
MR,
I would agree that Yuppies and SWPLs can tolerate being closer to immigrants and minorities as long as they can live in neighborhoods that do not have that many of them (think Northwest DC or Williamsburg, NYC. However, if those same people marry and decide to have children. They are forced to either put their children in the local public schools, pay for private schools, or move. Very few of them every put their children into public schools and that is only if they can get into a magnet program.
What those SWPL/Yuppies never to is ask those schools to improve with better teacher competency better discipline, a more rigorous curriculum, tracking, GT programs, etc. The reason is that the SWPL/Yuppies (progressives) do not ask more of the public schools is that is raises embarrassing questions about why they are so bad.
@ Superdope….
Again you are ignoring economic realities to in order to rationalize your racism.
Superdope provides the demographics of Sidwell Friends which he/she labels a “white” school:
Sidwell Friends is 60% white, 15% multi-racial (think the children of diplomates) and 8% Asians.
Superdope provides the demographics of Sidwell Friends which he/she labels a “white” school:
Americans are:
72% White, 13% Black, 5% Asian, and 10% other.
So Sidwell Friends is actually more integrated…and that’s ignoring the fact that it is a Quaker School…not exactly in the mainstream.
Once again proving that Superdope is just a racist fool spewing hate and ignorance and an all-too-common brand of rank bigotry.
Enough of this a$$-clown.
Talk about projecting your own racism hatred and fears on others…this is getting pretty dipicable…even for Superasshat.
@superdestroyer: Who is “demanding” that white Americans learn Spanish?
Honestly, you sound like the sort of dude who would rant at a business in Texas for running ads in Spanish because it’s an efficient way of reaching the market.
Whatever gave you the idea that the US has a god-given right to English-only people within its borders?
RepublicansJames Joyaner and Doug Mataconia Still Sticking Their Heads In The SandFixed That For You.
@grumpy realist:
I’m sorry, but since Christopher Columbus first landed here this has been an English-speaking country.
@superdestroyer:
It is not, however, a way to discriminate against Americans of African or of Asian descent, because they already all speak Spanish.
@michael reynolds:
What a shame. The comments started so promisingly. I was really hoping Doug or James would jump in to answer this salient question, then superdestroyer hijacks the thread. Now, I’d just feel sorry for the hosts if they ever waded into this mire.
Don’t feed the troll, folks. As others have stated, superdestroyer perfectly represents what the GOP has come to stand for. He should be allowed to display this for all to see – without rebuttal.
The Know Nothings ride again. Back then the scary immigrants were Catholics (Irish, mosty?). Dirty Papists… they’ll screw everything up. And hell, given that your modern-day “base” Republican appears to think the 19th century is the cure for what ails us, I guess that follows.
@superdestroyer:
You apparently are unaware that there are large numbers of American children whose first language is Spanish. These children are not illegal residents. They’re citizens.
Also, I’m still waiting for you to name a single school district in this country that has forced busing or quotas. You can’t do it, but your bigoted “mind” is convinced that it’s the presence of blacks and Latinos that is the reason you haven’t personally ascended to the heights that are, in your view, reserved for whites. There’s no logic to your arguments; there’s no data to back up anything you say. You seriously don’t have anything other than base racism, a refuge for the intellectually impotent.
@superdestroyer:
Show your work. Data, data, data. If you don’t have proof, you’ve got nothing. Conclusions without data are objectively wrong.
You want to make the assertion you know how people think? Show me the documentation you gathered with non-robosigned signatures demonstrating the actual beliefs of people. And if you don’t have documentation? You’re just a judgemental racist.
Naturally, the Republican world view disintegrates when proof is demanded.
Oh my–SuperSucker is having a meltdown:
“The number of people who are actually interested or who would benefit from conservative policies…”
The jig is up guy–people have wised up that your policy positions aren’t Conservative. You guys are nothing but garden variety Fascists trying to pass your vision off as “Conservative” when its as radical as a cow with balls. The group over at American Conservative laugh at you clowns.
“blacks commit felonies at a higher per capita rate…”
So? Who’s charged and convicted of crime is determined by where our limited law enforcement resources are allocated. If I were king for a day and decided to allocate these assets to incarcerating drug USERS, pedophiles, rapists, and white collar criminals I could overnight make your local prison population look the same as the crowd that shows up to a Lacrosse match.
“When you understand why Democrats in NYC send their children to all white private schools that give IQ tests for admissions…“
Ahhhh IQ tests….the stuff Fascists get hard ons for. A throwback to the racists Eugenists of the Nazi party who wanted to use the results to provide an air of “science” to their real agenda of excluding minorities from culture, education, economic opportunities, and later..procreation. Nevermind that it (as has the SAT) has been proven to have nothing to do with the ability to learn or social intelligence (which is more predictive of future success). Its nothing but a crutch for whites supremacists feel good about themselves as they write off broad swaths of people who (conveniently) didn’t have any input into developing the test. Its basically a cultural test. How well would you do on an IQ test developed in Asia by Asians? You can stop posting in this thread now because I’m sum up your ideas—White is Right.
@Spartacus:
the Boston public schools still have a form of forced busing. Louisville public schools and Seattle public schools both lost in the Supreme Court when their race-based busing programs were ruled unconstitutional. http://www.examiner.com/article/three-years-later-louisville-schools-continue-to-defy-supreme-court-ruling Wake County North Carolina also has forced busing http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/101710/
How many examples do I need to find to show that you are wrong. Once again, if progressives are faced with a reality they do not like, they will refuse to see it.
@C. Clavin:
The U.S. is only 72% white is you count all Hispanics as white. When SWPL and progressives go looking for schools, they do not count Hispanics as whites but as Hispanics (just like the Census Bureau does).
@grumpy realist:
How many job announcements that require fluency in Spanish would I need to find to show that many cities and counties along with some private employers use spanish fluency as a way to exclude non-Hispanics from jobs.
@Unsympathetic:
since I am about the only person who ever provides sites for the data I quote, I find your demand for data empty. My guess is that I a buried you in data, you would just nitpick the data instead of providing your own cites. Remember, in modern progressive America, quoting crime statistics that show that blacks commit felonies at a much higher rate than whites is considered a hate crime.
@superdestroyer:
You are a complete joke. I asked you to provide just one example of forced busing or quotas that is going on anywhere in the country and you listed 4 school districts – two of which by your own admission are not busing and the other two are also not busing.
Maybe it’s racist idiots like you who refuse to face reality.
@superdestroyer: ??!! You are in a location owning a job that has a lot of Spanish speakers as customers. You think that hiring someone who has the abilities to deal with the customers is being used as an excuse to hire Hispanics?
Any evidence that these corporations discriminate against fluent spanish speakers who are not Hispanics? No? Then you don’t have a mouse’s whisker to stand on.
(I guess we now know that ol’ Supie has never done anything in the way of running or managing a company. In fact, he’s probably never had to deal with capitalism, period.)
@superdestroyer:
Dude, go back to reading your Occidental Quarterly and leave thinking to thinking people. You’re gonna hurt something straining yourself.
Typical Progressives. I provide to cites of places that have battled over busing in the last couple of years and you pull out a reference from years ago. Boston does not have a system of neighborhood schools for diversity purposes. The only thing that keeps it from being called forced busing is that there are not enough whites to bus anymore. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2012/10/bostonians-committed-school-diversity-havent-given-busing/3544/ that states “Today the district is split into three large school zones and children are bused widely within them. ”
Also, Wake County is planning on bring forced busing back since the Democrats are back in charge. http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/06/19/2145322/wake-school-board-to-vote-on-changing.html
I guess cites from newspapers and liberal magazines in 2012 are not good enough for the “reality-based” community.
@dennis:
Once again, if progressives did not have snark and insults, they would have nothing to say. How does the more conservative party appeal to a group of people who have been raised on public assistance? How does a message of long-term thinking, personal responsbility, risk balancing, and caution appeal to a group that has been dependent of government programs?
How does the more conservative party ever appeal to a demographic group that is eligible for government set asides, ethnicity-based quotas, and is held to different performance standards than whites. Does does the more conservative party appeal to a demographic group that benefits when the government discriminates against blue collar whites like Jennifer Gratz?
@grumpy realist:
There is a job announcement for a police officer in Dallas Texas
http://agency.governmentjobs.com/dallas/job_bulletin.cfm?JobID=575400
Notice the requirement for Spanish training. How does some blue collar white who has a junior college degree qualify. He know is required to spend money learning Spanish so that he can deal with illegal immigrants but the children of those illegal aliens who learned “kitchen” Spanish at home just has to pass a listen comprehension test but does not have to show any ability to read of write Spanish.
Such a job requirement is a blatant sign that means no blacks need apply and only select whites needs apply. Why should someone born and raised in the U.S. be required to learn a second language to get a job or have a career just because all of the immigrants (legal and illegal) refuse to learn English?
@superdestroyer: If you want the job, you meet the requirements or train yourself to meet them.
I fail to see how this is somehow unfair, as it has been necessary since humans descended from the trees.
@superdestroyer: “Why should someone born and raised in the U.S. be required to learn a second language to get a job or have a career just because all of the immigrants (legal and illegal) refuse to learn English? ”
Because a lot of people in Texas speak only Spanish. Because a lot of poor people in Texas speak only Spanish, and since they are poor tend to live in neighborhoods with a lot of crime. Which means that any police officer trying to do his job there will need to speak Spanish in order to be able to communicate with victims, witnesses and suspects.
By the way, learning Spanish in school was an option for me as far back as seventh grade. It’s not like understanding string theory. Unless you’re an idiot.
@superdestroyer:
You provided two links that you believed supported your contention that forced busing is still occurring. One of the links was over 10 years old. I then provided links that were several years old, but still more recent than your links. The links I provided proved that the links you provided were outdated and that you are full of b.s. NONE of the cities you cited have forced busing.
Look, you are a racist and you believe that all of these boogeymen from the past are the cause of all of society’s problems. You claimed that forced busing and quotas are a problem in today’s educational system. When I asked you to provide a link showing that these things are still occurring, you provided old links that I quickly proved were outdated and that you are wrong.
Please find some excuse other than racism to explain your personal shortcomings.
@superdestroyer: You really are silly. The applicant can either demonstrate a knowledge of Spanish through an standardized exam he can take, or the equivalent ability is assumed to have been obtained by taking a certain number of college courses.
There’s nothing at all about race in there at all. If a black or white person were able to learn Spanish from tapes and books he gets out of the library enough to pass the exam, there is no need for him to have taken Spanish in college. What are you talking about?