Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:20 am
Bill Maher perfectly summed up the GOP’s biggest problem, ‘Republicans have the same problem as the Beach Boys. Their fans are dying.’
Maher said,
I bring this up because the background of this election was, let’s be honest, Republicans have the same problem as the Beach Boys. Their fans are dying. But to the Blacks, Asians, and Latinos, as you power and population grows, I’d line to say I’m one of the good ones. I’m tired of living with the stereotype that all honkeys are a little racist and retrograde and will only vote for members of our own white tribe. You know, someone who can really rock a pair of Dockers. Now, I have long believed that if the different ethnic groups want to be treated equally they have to stop voting for candidates just because they look like them. And yes, I’m talking about white people. Like these two (picture of Romney and Kid Rock), who obviously have so much in common besides pigment.
But hey, the good news is Obama won. The bad news only 39% of whites voted for him. And that is a pattern, white people vote for white people like it is going out of style. And like most things white people do, it’s going out of style. And it’s a shame, Caucasians have accomplished so much as a race. We’ve given the world Ugg Boots, and Cirque du Soleil, Ultimate Frisbee, turkey burgers, renaissance fairs, and the golf ball washer.
But when I look at the election returns, I am embarrassed at how far we haven’t come. I cannot deny that Barack Obama is a two term president whose had four elections in his life, and he only won the white vote once. When he ran for the Senate against another black guy. And the only thing that makes white voters more uncomfortable than choosing between two black politicians is getting the check at a Thai restaurant and trying to remember which waitress was yours.
With white people it is always one step forward and two steps backward, or as we call it dancing.
The average Fox News viewer is 65 years old. The average Rush Limbaugh listener is 66. When Republicans bellow about taking their country back, what they really mean is going back to a time when white people dominated the electorate and the positions of power. The Republican Party did everything they could think of to try to turn white people back into the majority in 2012, and it didn’t work.
Minorities and Democrats early vote in greater numbers than Republicans, so they attempted to slash early voting in Ohio, and did cut early voting in Florida. Minorities, students, and the poor especially in Democratic urban strongholds are less likely to have photo ID. So after Republicans won several swing state governorships in 2010, they passed voter ID laws.
Yes, it was about winning an election. But at a deeper level Republicans were trying to hold off progress and rig the game, because they can’t win anymore by just showing up and being white. After Obama became the Democratic nominee in 2008, the Republican Party rebuilt itself on the fly to become the party of older white fear and anger.
Maher did oversimplify things a little bit. According to Washington Post polling, 56% of Democrats voters were white. Forty four percent were non-white. While an astonishing 89% of the Republican vote in 2012 was white. Only 11% of Republican voters were non-white. Obama’s support was 56% white, 24% black, 14% Latino, and 4% Asian.
There are plenty of older white Democrats in the party, but their age group is nationally chocked full of old white Republicans. The worst news of all for the Republican Party is that a vast majority of young white voters tend to vote Democrat. The GOP doesn’t just have a race problem. They also have an age problem.
Bill Maher was correct. The Republican Party is literally dying before our eyes. If their brain trust can’t quickly figure out how to reverse their voting trends, the GOP will become a regional party and cease to be a force in national elections.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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