In this election, the Democrats continue to be the party of minorities. They destroyed the GOP on the vote share of hispanics, asians, blacks, etc. They are obvioulsy the "mom" party - we'll give you free health care and fund education and social programs, etc. They have, somehow, also managed to become the "dad" party - we know what we're doing in terms of foreign policy and the other guys are amateurish newbies who don't know how to deal with other nations. Who's the "morality" party? It's a wash at best for the GOP, because the majority of Americans think abortion should be legal and that some form of marriage or civil unions should be available for gays, and it's trending more in that direction than the other.
At this point all that's left is taking over the "It's the economy, stupid", mantle. And who's to say they can't do it? I would've thought they'd be able to do that more easily than take over as the "National Security" party, but here we are.
The Republicans need to overhaul their party or it won't even be viable in a few cycles. It needs to be less about fear and casting out difference than it has been, less about picking a group of people and demonizing them, and more about a bigger tent. Here's the best example: there is no good reason that a largely blue collar, religious, plainspoken traditionalist bloc like Hispanic voters should vote 70-30 against the GOP. The GOP platform should be enough all on its own to win that group. But they have actively alienated them with the "self-deportation", build-a-wall rhetoric. The new motto of the republican party should be "we're aiming to get every vote in the country", because right now, they're picking and choosing portions of the electorate to cast as the enemy.
David Simon says it well enough that I don't need to re-write:
Hard times are still to come for all of us. Rear guard actions will be fought at every political crossroad. But make no mistake: Change is a motherfucker when you run from it. And right now, the conservative movement in America is fleeing from dramatic change that is certain and immutable. A man of color is president for the second time, and this happened despite a struggling economic climate and a national spirit of general discontent. He has been returned to office over the specific objections of the mass of white men. He has instead been re-elected by women, by people of color, by homosexuals, by people of varying religions or no religion whatsoever. Behold the New Jerusalem. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a white man, of course. There’s nothing wrong with being anything. That’s the point.
This election marks a moment in which the racial and social hierarchy of America is upended forever. No longer will it mean more politically to be a white male than to be anything else. Evolve, or don’t. Swallow your resentments, or don’t. But the votes are going to be counted, more of them with each election. Arizona will soon be in play. And in a few cycles, even Texas. And those wishing to hold national office in these United States will find it increasingly useless to argue for normal, to attempt to play one minority against each other, to turn pluralities against the feared “other” of gays, or blacks, or immigrants, or, incredibly in this election cycle, our very wives and lovers and daughters, fellow citizens who demand to control their own bodies.
Regardless of what happens with his second term, Barack Obama’s great victory has already been won: We are all the other now, in some sense. Special interests? That term has no more meaning in the New America. We are all — all of us, every last American, even the whitest of white guys — special interests. And now, normal isn’t white or straight or Christian. There is no normal. That word, too, means less with every moment. And those who continue to argue for such retrograde notions as a political reality will become less germane and more ridiculous with every passing year.
