Last updated on April 16th, 2013 at 10:34 pm
(Credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith)
All this talk of rebranding the elephant has conservatives worked up. When they’re not threatening Republican lawmakers over imaginary takeovers by the UN, they’re writing letters to their own party leadership to dictate the party platform. As usual, no compromise will be endured.
Representatives of various evangelical/social conservative/Tea Party Republicans, including Dr. James Dobson, warned poor, lost RNC Chair Renice Priebus this week via a letter that he better stop trying to bring the GOP into the 2000s, according to NBC News. Priebus better not change the party’s position on marriage equality or else the conservatives are taking a walk.
In the letter that was independently verified by NBC News, conservatives warn that the 2013 platform better read like the glorious 2012 platform, with bans on abortion and gay marriage. Luckily for the GOP, which is trying to rebrand itself, Kirsten Kukowski, an RNC spokeswoman, assures conservatives that the RNC’s 2013 platform will be just like the old one, because nothing says rebranding like keeping the same extremist policies. Just a few votes on the matter and all will be well.
The conservatives insisted that they don’t hate gays, and the idea that they do is very upsetting, “The fact that the party is strongly committed to traditional marriage has not prevented their involvement through GOProud or Log Cabin Republicans. We deeply resent the insinuation that we have treated homosexuals unkindly personally.”
Was it kind that GOProud wasn’t allowed to have a table at CPAC this year? Conservatives might wish to ponder that some “homosexuals” take marriage to be a kind of personal thing. While I’ll venture that no one finds it “kind” to be referred to as vile barn animals, conservatives need to learn that irrefutable “hate”/discrimination is in the policy.
Republicans really need to stop counting on their targets to be as clueless as they are about actual policy. But the real issue here is how conservatives feel, not how “homosexuals” feel. Do try to keep up. They don’t hate gays, they just want to deny them rights, and no one should take that personally, or else conservatives might get their feelings hurt.
Also, just because some Republican officials liken gays to animals and blame all manner of plague upon them doesn’t mean they don’t like gay people. They just think they’re sinners who need to be punished. Their contempt is nothing personal.
Conservatives offered up a trade in the letter, suggesting that the RNC can appeal to the African American vote by hating gays, because African Americans are “faith based” and “traditionally minded” (when they’re not waiting in line to vote?). They warn the RNC – sans irony – not to go ‘vanilla’, “It is the faith-based community which offers Republicans their best hope of expanding their support in these groups. Going ‘vanilla’ or even changing long held positions would quickly end this opportunity.”
We are to presume that African Americans will line up to align with the party that is actively threatening their right to vote, if only conservatives can get them ticked off enough about the non-existent threat of same-sex marriage to “traditional” marriage. This deliberate strategy worked in the past, but that was before the GOP became synonymous with stealing minorities’ vote.
In closing, “We respectfully warn GOP Leadership that an abandonment of its principles will necessarily result in the abandonment of our constituents to their support.”
So they say. But where would they go? They can’t vote for the devil (aka; Democratic Party). We all know evil lurks among Jesus’ message-following socialists. Perhaps they are threatening to stay home or third party it.
Republicans are having a heck of a time rebranding thus far. From hosting a “Friends of Hamas” conspiracy theorist at a state convention to North Carolina’s Republican governor closing the Office of Latino Affairs to Eric Cantor’s desperate attempt to rebrand via plagiarizing an Obama speech, it’s been a bumpy road fraught with rape gaffes resulting in Republican rape boot camp, and awkward speech utilizing terms like “wetbacks”, “colored people” and “n*gger-rigging”.
Republicans’ big tent dreams are deflating under a constant stream of bigotry, resulting in part from the Republican party’s deliberate attempt to Southern Strategy their way into winning elections by stirring up resentment. It’s easy to get them riled up, but much harder to get them cooled down. The problem for the GOP is that their base believed their fear-mongering.
For a full list of signatories, click here to NBC News.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
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