Republicans Have Answers at their Fingertips if Only They’d Listen to Themselves

As the GOP loses credibility and votes, swept aside in two consecutive presidential elections, their response has been not to reconsider their platform, but rather to double down on the rhetoric that cost them those elections in the hopes that somehow being more extreme will give different results. In other words, an embrace of Einstein’s definition of insanity.

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They are as aware as any of us of America’s changing demographics. The rise of alternative religions like my own, increasing numbers of atheists, the rise of the “nones” and so forth. Yet we see them struggle with reality even as it slaps them repeatedly in the face in fits of cognitive dissonance.

Take, for example, the Republican National Committee’s faith director, Chad Connelly, who told David Brody at CBN that the GOP has “the most pro-faith, pro-family, best platform ever put in in Republican Party or political party history down in Tampa in 2012.” Remember, this platform had, as one of its authors, David Barton. Connelly said,

The Republican Party is the natural home for people of faith. This is the place where God’s got a home.

That’s great that the GOP loves themselves some conservative Christians but fewer and fewer Americans subscribe to that close-minded worldview, so when Connelly then laments that if more people cast their ballots based on biblical values the Republicans would win more elections, it’s hard not to wonder how he doesn’t see why Republicans aren’t winning those elections.

Watch courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

Even Republicans pay lip service from time to time to thoughts of “inclusion,” as when Rand Paul says earrings and tattoos will save the GOP, but as David Brody tells Chad Connelly, words like “inclusion” are “toxic” to evangelicals. Just as the GOP is held back by Tea Party extremists, it is held back by religious extremists.

Sure they’d win if more people voted the Bible – or at least, the GOP’s cherry-picked version of it that leaves out Jesus’ condemnation of the rich and inserts an imaginary condemnation of the poor and turns the rest into one long anti-gay diatribe. But more people aren’t going to do that.

If Lindsay Graham, one of the most obtuse conservatives out there, can recognize that the GOP can’t generate enough angry white guys to stay in business, why can’t they recognize that becoming more extreme is only going to exacerbate an already existing problem?

It is painful to watch the GOP circle the intellectual and moral drain like this. It’s both messy and unappealing. Reality is there to be grasped. They can pull themselves out any time they want, but they can’t. They just can’t.

To admit that there are other possibilities is political suicide. What is toxic is not inclusion, but exclusion, and any party committed to at least a passing familiarity with our shared reality would recognize this.

Let’s face it: calling Cliven Bundy’s thugs “freedom riders” and protestors in Ferguson “lynch mobs” as did Fox News’ Laura Ingraham the other day, only exposes the ugly racism at the heart of the GOP’s rejection of inclusion.

The answers are there, but they’re toxic. It doesn’t take much imagination to see what will happen if a drowning man thinks the flotation device thrown to him is toxic. He will drown. What does take some imagination is thinking the flotation device and the breathable air it represents, is somehow more toxic than drowning.

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.