The GOP can’t survive without a “Them”
This was a truth that I realized back in about 1990 when the Soviet Union fell apart. Boy, talk about having a “Them.” For more than 40 years, Republicans could win elections by pointing fingers and yelling “Commie.”
I knew that once the “Red Menace” was gone they’d need a replacement. And my guess at the time was that we (Dems/liberals) would have to be the new “Them.” The GOP had, of course, always railed against “liberal, northeastern, pointy-headed, ivory-tower, atheist, pervert, faggot, commies,” but now that the “commies” were more or less gone, all they had to do was drop it out of their meme.
So here’s my point. It would be impossible for the modern Republican Party to survive without a “Them.” The majority of their voters aren’t very sophisticated or well to do, and will quickly believe someone who tells them that “'librul,' democrat, Jesus-hating, fag perverts” are responsible for their lot in life.
Many of those slurs don’t work anymore. However, anyone who believes that we Dems have a “lock” on the 2016 presidential election needs to wake up. Republicans are all on the same page because they are supplied with their daily “talking points.” Fox “news” and hate radio will echo those talking points. Voter suppression, and electronic voting machines that flip votes, will play a big role in who comes out ahead in 2016.
And we, who they call the “Thems,” aren’t doing a damn thing to stop it. Nor are our elected Dem officials even mentioning the fact that elections can be and have been stolen by GOP tactics.
So if we somehow lose the 2016 presidential election, it will be because we let ourselves be defined as the “Thems,” and our Dem politicians didn’t have the balls to call out the ongoing theft, lies, hatred, and bigotry. In other words, we didn’t even try to make the case that we are not, and never have been, the “Thems.”
And for a million reasons, we just can't make the case that, perhaps, a majority of those who vote for Republicans are deluding themselves and condemning themselves into into unending poverty, desperation and hopelessness.
All the GOP has to sell is fear of "Them."
What we have to sell is knowledge, tolerance and hope for a better world.
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. . .when he accepted the Democratic nomination for POTUS.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25958
(snip)
Tonight every one of you knows deep in your heart that we are too divided. It is time to heal America.
And so we must say to every American: Look beyond the stereotypes that blind us. We need each other - all of us - we need each other.
We don't have a person to waste, and yet for too long politicians have told the most of us that are doing all right that what's really wrong with America is the rest of us- them.
Them, the minorities.
Them, the liberals.
Them, the poor.
Them, the homeless.
Them, the people with disabilities.
Them, the gays.
We've gotten to where we've nearly them'ed ourselves to death.
Them, and them, and them.
But this is America. There is no them. There is only us.
One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
(snip)
