The Republican Plan for Relevance: How 20% can be 50.1%

Its been an interesting few weeks for Mitt Romney. The conventional wisdom was that, after a bruising primary that saw him realign his policies with the extreme Right of his party, the Republican nominee would now, somewhat clumsily, try and bring himself back back into the 'Center.' This was even the stated plan released by the Romney Campaign (remember the etch-a-sketch comment). After all, now he has to prove he wants to be the President of all Americans, not just the hardline conservatives, right?  In order to win a majority of votes, he needs to appeal to a majority of citizens, right? That's what everyone seemed to expect, but this is not what he's done. His policy speech on education embraced higher class sizes and tuition and he has sought to align himself firmly with Donald Trump's Birtherism. When confronted about this yesterday, Romney reminded a reporter that he didn't need to win every American's vote, only 50.1% of American's votes. In actual fact, that percentage that Romney needs is much smaller and it is, according to Republican strategy, in his interests for that percentage to be low.  To try and explain why this might be, I want to look at two phenomena in the modern Republican Party.

First of all, while they may not have come out and put it directly in their platform, it has basically been stated Republican policy for the past few years to try to drive down the percentage of the population that votes. This has led both to legislating against specific groups who are statistically less likely to vote for them (through the use of the poll-tax inspired voter ID laws) and to more general efforts to lower the number of voters (closing polling stations, getting rid of same-day registration, etc). Part in parcel with this is the push to make government seem like a negative entity detracting good (or should that be goods) from society rather than a positive entity of enlightened democratic empowerment. Because Conservatives believe it is in their interests to show government as ineffectual, if they cannot get exactly what they want it is in their interests to do nothing. We all have friends and some of you reading this may even be people who say they won't vote because they think that it doesn't matter, that governments just are the way they are. No matter how much truth there may be in that statement in a specific instance (my vote in New York for Obama will mean relatively little) that view is inherently flawed. Besides, there are very few ballots where there is not one close election to vote for. They may not get the media coverage of national campaigns, but Republicans have shown how much damage they can do with state and local control. Voting always matters, even just to remind ourselves that we live in a Democracy where the government is supposed to serve us, not the other way around. Voting is not enough, but it is a vital part of Democratic society.

The other half of this is the dramatic push to the Right that Republicans have made in the past half decade alone. As Rachel Maddow points out in her new book, the country has 'Drift'ed to the Right quite steadily since the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, but since the rise of the 'grass routes' (see 1% backed) Tea Party movement and the Citizen's United decision, the Republican party has turned that steady drift into a tidal wave. Republicans are preaching, pushing, and legislating Pre-Civil Rights movement voting laws, pre-Rowe v. Wade women's rights laws, pre-Progressive era labor and tax laws, and a pre-Great Society social compact at rates never before seen.

Neither of these is a great revelation, but what I think is not discussed enough in our media, even in the leftist blogosphere, is how these two facts about how the Republican Party has been acting are two sides of the same coin. They are not just different despicable things about the Republican party, they are the Republican Party's strategic plan to stay relevant in the 21st Century.

The Tea Party movement wasn't some insurgency of radicalism as much as it was the true base of the Republican Party asserting themselves. This is who the Republican Party is. They are predominately white, predominately Evangelical Christian, predominantly NRA members or supporters, and predominantly male (Sarah Palin and her Mamma Grizzlies aside... even Fox lets women on sometimes).  And they believe they are 'losing' the country. And they have a point (that is, if we cede them the point that they ever had it in the first place... which is very very debatable). A plurality, perhaps a majority already, of Americans support gay marriage. A clear majority of Americans support ending subsidies to big businesses, raising taxes on the wealthy, and protecting a woman's right to choose what goes on with her body. Only twenty six percent of Americans define themselves as Evangelical. Although we have 90 registered guns for every 100 Americans, only 30 percent of Americans own a gun (yeah, think about that). Because of immigration, Texas with its 34 electoral votes (that's second highest in the nation) may swing to a Democrat in 2020. And a few weeks ago was the first day where more non-white babies were born in America than white. The average American does not align themselves with the values of the Extreme Right.

The Republicans should be running scared. If our political parties represented the changing beliefs of the American populous both parties would be sprinting to the left, particularly on social issues. And yet, rather than try and position themselves in the mold of David Cameron ('I don't support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative, I support gay marriage because I'm a conservative') or even George W. Bush's failed attempt at 'Compassionate Conservatism' (too many syllables for W), the Republicans have been pushing policies far more in line with the Far Right Parties in Europe: Perussuomalaiset in Finland, The Alliance for the Future of Austria, The Northern League in Italy and, of course, Marie Le Pen's Front National in France. These are predominantly pro-business, anti-tax, anti-immigrant, pro-white male parties. But while some of them have gained popularity recently in their respective countries, they are, for the most part, quite clearly second tier parties. What makes Republicans feel this is a good electoral strategy?

The way that the Left in this country has explained this is mostly by pointing out that the American Corporate Media is obsessed with the idea of giving two sides of the story, regardless of the merits of those sides. The rigidness of the two party system gives them an easy structure in which to craft their 'news.' The gospel of 'compromise' has totally overwhelmed any idea of given societal values. And... the corporate media is making a bucketload of money, which makes it much easier to just not want to rock the boat (particularly since that seems to be the standard they set for their journalism as well). This is clearly part of it. But its not the long term plan. It can't be. Demographic statistics would seem to prove that an extremist Republican Party will become increasingly marginalized over the next decade and our politics is run by statisticians.

But those statistics only work if those same demographic statistics are reflected in who votes. And Republicans are banking on that not being the case. Republicans are relying on their base to vote at a much higher percentage than the rest of the population. Do they just think that their constituents are smarter and will see past the 'don't vote, its useless' charade? No, of course not.

They are relying on two other things. The first is that they will be able to outspend their opponents in any election be it for President or Town Dogcatcher. The Citizen's United decision made it possible for any campaign in the country to spend millions of dollars simply because of the whim of a particular millionaire, most of whom are, of course, conservative. And of course it also helps if you disband or weaken Unions, some of the largest donors to Progressive candidates. The adds run by the candidates and Super PACS are not centrist adds to appeal to a broader audience, they're reminders to that core voting block that, if they don't vote Republican, America will soon be part of the Kenyan Socialist Empire. That, regardless of the actual policies of the opposition candidate, he or she will work night and day to take away your guns, make your sons gay, and outlaw Christmas. And, early signs would show that its working. The advantage in polling that Scott Walker has in Wisconsin right now can be attributed to the fact that over 90% of registered Republicans are planning on voting in the recall election. Can you think of any election in America where 90% of the population voted?

The second reason Republicans believe their base will continue to vote in droves is because they have the strongest get-out-the-vote organization in the country. No, not Fox News. The Church. All across the heartland of America, radical Evangelical and Catholic preachers curse Obama with the same hellfire as Satan. They remind their constituents that they are America's (and thus, Jesus') last defense against the hordes of atheists, sodomites, and feminists that have declared war on their way of life. Supposedly mainstream Republicans court the endorsement of preachers calling for anything from putting all homosexuals in a gigantic pen so that they all die off to murdering abortion providers to burning non-Christian scriptures. I am not suggesting that most churches are like this. A plurality of American religious institutions preach tolerance and love, but they try to present themselves, on the whole, as apolitical. But the Churches that the vast majority of the Republican base attends are like this. They are there, as with the Super-PAC ads, not to convert but to remind. And, of course, it also helps if you disband or weaken Unions, arguably some of the most important collective Progressive get-out-the-vote organizations.

This is the Republican electoral plan for the future: to pander both legislatively (on the local, state, and national level) and rhetorically to the extreme right while working to lower the percentage of Americans who vote through coercion or direct disenfranchisement. To make the Extreme Right, who maybe make up 17%-20% of the over all population, a majority voting block at least on the state and local level. This is why Mitt Romney is willing to remain so firmly entrenched in the hardline Right that it may cost him the election. This is their long-game, their plan on how to remain the Dominant party in American politics while pushing fringe policies. We can't let that happen.