...and I have to disagree - kinda.
Dr K, if you please:
dog-whistle propaganda Presentation; the rhetoric; the dog-n-pony show. Their Strategy is to knock down the number of brown people/young people/old people who're likely to go out and vote against them.
Presentation puts lipstick on the pig, making it less repellent to the voters.
And so (I think) they're feeling they really don't have to adjust their approach to anything.
They can do exactly what Limbaugh says they should do: "staying true to conservative principles" and "not caving in on special rights for LGBT" and "not knuckling under to union thugs" etc. (Remember, the only thing worse than being wrong is admitting you were wrong) Anyway, the SCOTUS decision on VRA plowed the road and Voter Disenfranchisement is speeding along nicely in about half-a-dozen states where they can make enough of a difference to practically guarantee their guys win next time out.
BTW - Krugman's right - the GOP's policies are a total clusterfuck - it's just that I feel the need to nit-pick on some important differences between Presentation, Policy, and Political Strategy (and The Goals of that Strategy).
Now - can anybody guess what those goals might be? Anybody?
Dr K, if you please:
Even the notion that the GOP might need to accommodate itself a bit to an increasingly nonwhite nation has been fading fast; the big thing now is that the trouble in 2012 was missing white voters, and that the GOP just needs to redouble its efforts to identify itself as the party of white people.
But if there really is a missing-white-voter issue — and I’d like to see some more analysis by serious political scientists before I completely buy in — what will it take to bring these people back out to play? Sean Trende, who has been making the missing-whites case, describes the missing as “downscale, rural, Northern whites”. What can the GOP offer them?Actually, it's not that I disagree with Dr K's assertions per se; it's just that I think what he's talking about is not the GOP's political strategy at all. Re-kindling and then appealing to the backlash concerning 'white guilt' or whatever - that's the "strategy" for their
Presentation puts lipstick on the pig, making it less repellent to the voters.
Policy, if well-disguised, is "accepted" by way of electoral success.
Both Presentation and Policy are tools in service of The Strategy...
...and if The Strategy works, The Goals almost take care of themselves.
And so (I think) they're feeling they really don't have to adjust their approach to anything.
They can do exactly what Limbaugh says they should do: "staying true to conservative principles" and "not caving in on special rights for LGBT" and "not knuckling under to union thugs" etc. (Remember, the only thing worse than being wrong is admitting you were wrong) Anyway, the SCOTUS decision on VRA plowed the road and Voter Disenfranchisement is speeding along nicely in about half-a-dozen states where they can make enough of a difference to practically guarantee their guys win next time out.
BTW - Krugman's right - the GOP's policies are a total clusterfuck - it's just that I feel the need to nit-pick on some important differences between Presentation, Policy, and Political Strategy (and The Goals of that Strategy).
Now - can anybody guess what those goals might be? Anybody?
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