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Economy
In reply to the discussion: Weekend Economists Examine Escape Artists and Con Men April 27-29, 2012 [View all]Demeter
(85,373 posts)32. GOP’s Death Wish: Why They Can’t Stop Pissing Off Hispanics, Women, and Young People By Robert Reich
http://www.nationofchange.org/gop-s-death-wish-why-republicans-can-t-stop-pissing-hispanics-women-and-young-people-1335509215
What are the three demographic groups whose electoral impact is growing fastest? Hispanics, women, and young people. Who are Republicans pissing off the most? Latinos, women, and young people.
Its almost as if the GOP cant help itself.
Start with Hispanic voters, whose electoral heft keeps growing as they comprise an ever-larger portion of the electorate. Hispanics now favor President Obama over Romney by more than two to one, according to a recent Pew poll. The movement of Hispanics into the Democratic camp has been going on for decades. What are Republicans doing to woo them back? Replicating California Republican Governor Pete Wilsons disastrous support almost twenty years ago for Proposition 187 which would have screened out undocumented immigrants from public schools, health care, and other social services, and required law-enforcement officials to report any suspected illegals. (Wilson, you may remember, lost that years election, and Californias Republican Party has never recovered.) The Arizona law now before the Supreme Court sponsored by Republicans in the state and copied by Republican legislators and governors in several others would authorize police to stop anyone looking Hispanic and demand proof of citizenship. Its nativism disguised as law enforcement.
Romney is trying to distance himself from that law, but its not working. That may be because he dubbed it a model law during Februarys Republican primary debate in Arizona, and because its author (former state senator Russell Pearce, who was ousted in a special election last November largely by angry Hispanic voters) says hes working closely with Romney advisers. Hispanics are also reacting to Romneys attack just a few months ago on GOP rival Texas Governor Rick Perry for supporting in-state tuition at the University of Texas for children of undocumented immigrants. And to Romneys advocacy of what he calls self-deportation making life so difficult for undocumented immigrants and their families that they choose to leave. As if all this werent enough, the GOP has been pushing voter ID laws all over America, whose obvious aim is to intimidate Hispanic voters so they wont come to the polls. But they may have the opposite effect emboldening the vast majority of ethnic Hispanics, who are American citizens, to vote in even greater numbers and lend even more support to Obama and other Democrats.
Or consider women whose political and economic impact in America continues to grow (women are fast becoming better educated than men and the major breadwinners in American homes). The political gender gap is huge. According to recent polls, women prefer Obama to Romney by over 20 percent. So what is the GOP doing to woo women back? Attacking them. Last February, House Republicans voted to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. Last May, they unanimously passed the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, banning the District of Columbia from funding abortions for low-income women. (The original version removed all exceptions rape, incest, and endangerment to a mothers life except forcible rape.) Earlier this year Republican legislators in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Alabama pushed bills requiring women seeking abortions to undergo invasive vaginal ultrasound tests (Pennsylvania Republicans even wanted proof such had viewed the images). Republican legislators in Georgia and Arizona passed bills banning most abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy. The Georgia bill would also require that any abortion after 20 weeks be done in a way to bring the fetus out alive. Republican legislators in Texas have voted to eliminate funding for any womens healthcare clinic with an affiliation to an abortion provider even if the affiliation is merely a shared name, employee, or board member. All told, over 400 Republican bills are pending in state legislatures, attacking womens reproductive rights. But even this doesnt seem enough for the GOP. Republicans in Wisconsin just repealed a law designed to prevent employers from discriminating against women.
Or, finally, consider students a significant and growing electoral force, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. What are Republicans doing to woo them back? Attack them, of course. Republican Budget Chair Paul Ryans budget plan approved by almost every House Republican and enthusiastically endorsed by Mitt Romney allows rates on student loans to double on July 1 from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. That will add an average of $1,000 a year to student debt loads, which already exceed credit-card debt. House Republicans say America cant afford the $6 billion a year it would require to keep student loan rates down to where they are now. But that same Republican plan gives wealthy Americans trillions of dollars in tax cuts over the next decade. (Under mounting political pressure, House Republicans have come up with just enough money to keep the loan program going for another year safely past Election Day by raiding a fund established for preventive care in the new health-care act.) Here again, Romney is trying to tiptoe away from the GOP position. He now says he supports keeping student loans where they were. Yet only a few months ago he argued that subsidized student loans were bad because they encouraged colleges to raise their tuition.
How can a political party be so dumb as to piss off Hispanics, women, and young people? Because the core of its base is middle-aged white men and it doesnt seem to know how to satisfy its base without at the same time turning off everyone whos not white, male, and middle-aged.
GET OFF MY LAWN! SYNDROME
What are the three demographic groups whose electoral impact is growing fastest? Hispanics, women, and young people. Who are Republicans pissing off the most? Latinos, women, and young people.
Its almost as if the GOP cant help itself.
Start with Hispanic voters, whose electoral heft keeps growing as they comprise an ever-larger portion of the electorate. Hispanics now favor President Obama over Romney by more than two to one, according to a recent Pew poll. The movement of Hispanics into the Democratic camp has been going on for decades. What are Republicans doing to woo them back? Replicating California Republican Governor Pete Wilsons disastrous support almost twenty years ago for Proposition 187 which would have screened out undocumented immigrants from public schools, health care, and other social services, and required law-enforcement officials to report any suspected illegals. (Wilson, you may remember, lost that years election, and Californias Republican Party has never recovered.) The Arizona law now before the Supreme Court sponsored by Republicans in the state and copied by Republican legislators and governors in several others would authorize police to stop anyone looking Hispanic and demand proof of citizenship. Its nativism disguised as law enforcement.
Romney is trying to distance himself from that law, but its not working. That may be because he dubbed it a model law during Februarys Republican primary debate in Arizona, and because its author (former state senator Russell Pearce, who was ousted in a special election last November largely by angry Hispanic voters) says hes working closely with Romney advisers. Hispanics are also reacting to Romneys attack just a few months ago on GOP rival Texas Governor Rick Perry for supporting in-state tuition at the University of Texas for children of undocumented immigrants. And to Romneys advocacy of what he calls self-deportation making life so difficult for undocumented immigrants and their families that they choose to leave. As if all this werent enough, the GOP has been pushing voter ID laws all over America, whose obvious aim is to intimidate Hispanic voters so they wont come to the polls. But they may have the opposite effect emboldening the vast majority of ethnic Hispanics, who are American citizens, to vote in even greater numbers and lend even more support to Obama and other Democrats.
Or consider women whose political and economic impact in America continues to grow (women are fast becoming better educated than men and the major breadwinners in American homes). The political gender gap is huge. According to recent polls, women prefer Obama to Romney by over 20 percent. So what is the GOP doing to woo women back? Attacking them. Last February, House Republicans voted to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. Last May, they unanimously passed the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, banning the District of Columbia from funding abortions for low-income women. (The original version removed all exceptions rape, incest, and endangerment to a mothers life except forcible rape.) Earlier this year Republican legislators in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Alabama pushed bills requiring women seeking abortions to undergo invasive vaginal ultrasound tests (Pennsylvania Republicans even wanted proof such had viewed the images). Republican legislators in Georgia and Arizona passed bills banning most abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy. The Georgia bill would also require that any abortion after 20 weeks be done in a way to bring the fetus out alive. Republican legislators in Texas have voted to eliminate funding for any womens healthcare clinic with an affiliation to an abortion provider even if the affiliation is merely a shared name, employee, or board member. All told, over 400 Republican bills are pending in state legislatures, attacking womens reproductive rights. But even this doesnt seem enough for the GOP. Republicans in Wisconsin just repealed a law designed to prevent employers from discriminating against women.
Or, finally, consider students a significant and growing electoral force, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. What are Republicans doing to woo them back? Attack them, of course. Republican Budget Chair Paul Ryans budget plan approved by almost every House Republican and enthusiastically endorsed by Mitt Romney allows rates on student loans to double on July 1 from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. That will add an average of $1,000 a year to student debt loads, which already exceed credit-card debt. House Republicans say America cant afford the $6 billion a year it would require to keep student loan rates down to where they are now. But that same Republican plan gives wealthy Americans trillions of dollars in tax cuts over the next decade. (Under mounting political pressure, House Republicans have come up with just enough money to keep the loan program going for another year safely past Election Day by raiding a fund established for preventive care in the new health-care act.) Here again, Romney is trying to tiptoe away from the GOP position. He now says he supports keeping student loans where they were. Yet only a few months ago he argued that subsidized student loans were bad because they encouraged colleges to raise their tuition.
How can a political party be so dumb as to piss off Hispanics, women, and young people? Because the core of its base is middle-aged white men and it doesnt seem to know how to satisfy its base without at the same time turning off everyone whos not white, male, and middle-aged.
GET OFF MY LAWN! SYNDROME
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