Teaching Pigs to Juggle....

The "aftermath" of the  2012 Presidential race has been interesting to watch.   Many on the right end of the political spectrum are doing some understandable soul-searching  in the wake of Republican defeats.

The reactions  tend to be falling into one of two distinct camps.  The first is that the Republican Party needs to seriously rethink it's current course and strategy.  Rethink it's obsession with social issues and come to grips with its greatest  PR problems.  The biggest being, it is seen by a large sector of the American electorate as the party of  the 1% and only the one percent.   The next being,  it is seen as a party that is overwhelmingly male, white and old.  Consequently  the  GOP needs to break out of  the box it has crammed itself into.

My old friend and fellow University of Wisconsin alum, conservative columnist and blogger  James Wigderson ,  recently penned a  very thoughtful column  for a Milwaukee area newspaper,  on how the conservative movement is not doing itself any favors  when it embraces the  crackpot elements now firmly ensconced  in the GOP base.

Now politically James and I agree on very little,   but in this case I find far more to agree with than not.   Some of the commentors on his blog beg to differ,   and when I voiced my agreement with the piece, I  was quickly branded a communist follower of  "Chairman Axelrod".   ,,, Sigh.

Which brings us to the second camp of Post Election thought.  Which is a lot more fun to watch.  There folks are convinced  the reason they lost is because America is  full of lazy welfare queens and gay  illegal aliens all who voted for Barack Obama because they "want free stuff", and anyone who doesn't  see that  is a brainwashed socialist.  Here the the prevailing thought is the GOP wasn't crazy enough.   Romney was too soft on gays,  to soft on the Brown menace to the South,  too soft on Abortion and Birth Control and wayyyyy too soft on the need to CUT TAXES and eliminate all government spending except defence.

When I was a young boy, we would often go visit my Great-Uncle's hog farm near Waterloo Iowa.  My Uncle Dale is my Grandmother's youngest brother and could best be described as the sort of person Meredith Wilson was talking about when he wrote "Iowa Stubborn" in "The Music Man"



On only one occasion did I ever try to discuss politics with him.  We were watching the PBS Newshour on television and two pundits were arguing over taxes.  He looked away from the screen and said ; "trying to argue with someone like that is like trying to teach pigs to juggle,  all you're gonna  do is frustrate yourself, and annoy the pigs!"

Now, many years later I truly understand  my Uncle Dale's point.   Trying to have any sort of reasoned debate with people who truly feel  the reason Mitt Romney lost, was because he was  too far to the political Left, truly is trying teach pigs to juggle.

The Republican Party needs to come to grips with reality, It needs to free itself from the grip of people who truly think the greatest threat to America is our own democratically elected  Government.  Only then can it legitimately make a case for its core principles   None of which Romney or Ryan was ever able to clearly articulate without phrasing the debate as how the wealthiest of the wealthy in America are somehow victims of  all the "takers" (47% of all Americans, according to Mitt Romney) who just want the Government to give them everything.

The Republican message to Americans in the 2012 campaign was nothing but a series of cheap shots that never stuck. It made the GOP look bitter and small. Until the Republican Party, and with it the broader conservative movement come to grips with the fact that this 2012 not 1912, their electoral fortunes will continue to decline. Eventually the GOP itself will lose any relevance on the Federal level, and be reduced to a party of angry, fearful conspiracy obsessives sitting in local school board meetings yelling at how the world is really only 6,000 years old and to teach otherwise will make God angry.

The only GOP 2012 candidate who had even a remote chance  at beating President Obama was John Huntsman. Yet the sad truth is, there was absolutely no way a man who stated publicly in a GOP primary debate that Science is a good thing, was ever going to get the Republican Party’s Nomination.

Accepting reality means, the GOP needs accept that basic premise that you cannot use the Old Testament as the basis for environmental policy.  Accepting reality means to accept that being Pro-life is more than just being against Birth Control, and creating barriers to Women having access to Health Care.  Being Pro-Family is not about simply hating families that are different from yours. Being Pro-Israel is not about beating a war drum to “bomb bomb bomb… bomb bomb Iran…” Promoting American Exceptional-ism is not about building a fence on the Southern border to keep Brown People out.   

I honestly  do feel for the comment posters on conservative blogs,  for these people "wanting their country back" is less about politics are more about culture.   The era where white male conservative evangelicals are the defining voice in American politics is over, and some people find that scary.  So scary, that their natural response is to scream SOCIALISM! or  COMMUNIST!  When faced  with even the most basic of facts which contradict their established talking points.

Since 1992 the Republican Party's relationship with facts has been at best, "complicated".  The only way the GOP can climb out of the hole it is so enthusiastically digging for itself, is to quit its addiction to Crazy, and quit it cold turkey.  I am not going to argue with any of these people,  I wont post their comments or even respond any more to their shrill cries of whatever  "ism"  Fox News has told them to throw around like child with a water balloon.    

I have tried  but now,  I am frustrated and the pigs are clearly annoyed.   So it's time to move forward,  and if the Pigs want to stay in the mud of their own delusions,  that's their choice.