The so-called 'war on whites' is a fight the GOP can't win

[babylonsister]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-the-socalled-war-on-whites-is-a-fight-the-gop-cant-win-commentary-20140808,0,1392023.story

The so-called 'war on whites' is a fight the GOP can't win [Commentary]
The GOP needs to learn that acknowledging racial disparities is not 'playing the race card'

By Leonard Pitts Jr.

6:00 a.m. EDT, August 10, 2014


At this point, you really have to wonder: Is it still news when a Republican says something asinine?

On the off chance it is, let us spend a few moments pondering the strange case of Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, who said last week that the Democratic Party is waging a "War on Whites."

Yeah, he actually said that. You can look it up if you want.

Mr. Brooks was responding to radio talk show host Laura Ingraham, who had asked him to comment on a remark from National Journal columnist Ron Fournier to the effect that the GOP cannot continue to be competitive in national elections if it continues to alienate voters of color. This is a truth so self-evident as to have been adopted by the GOP itself in its "autopsy" report after the 2012 election.

Yet here is what Mr. Brooks said in response: "This is a part of the war on whites that is being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they're launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It's a part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things."

"A War on Whites." Yet it's President Obama who is guilty of racially inflammatory rhetoric?

Mr. Brooks' words so alarmed Ms. Ingraham that she suggested his rhetoric was "a little out there." This woman belches fire on all things conservative; for her to suggest you've gone too far is like Charlie Sheen telling you to cut back on hookers and cigarettes.

snip//

His party needs to realize once and for all that that day is done. It is critical for the GOP to wean itself from the cowardly belief that simply to discuss race and culture, to acknowledge disparity in treatment and outcomes, to put forward ways of addressing those things, constitutes "playing the race card" or "race-baiting" or fighting a "war on whites."

That idea was always wrongheaded and dumb. Very soon it will become electorally untenable as well. So the GOP must learn to speak a language it has shunned to people it has ignored.

Because its biggest threat is not the Democratic Party but demographic reality. And right now, that reality is winning, hands down.

[RadicalGeek]

1. Problem is

They do that, they'll lose the less-educated, rural, whites that are the base of the GOP.

They're kinda trapped, they can't reach out as they'll lose thier backwater base, and the more they reach out, the more out of touch they seem!

[babylonsister]

2. Yea, but they created the trap; you reap what you sow. nt

[RadicalGeek]

4. I agree

The "DixieCrats", The "Southern Strategy", "Welfare Queens", etc.

But it seems to me to be a common M.O of the right worldwide.

[Viva_Daddy]

3. Clearly there is no "war on white" ...However...

I for one am very tired of watching America's ongoing war on people of color. #ferguson