The Republican Leadership may be doing just fine with the Wall Street crowd and various rightwing extremists but for the majority of ordinary Americans its actions over the last several weeks have rapidly begun to seal its fate as a minority party.
First, let's start with the fact that the Republican Party is -- at this very moment -- a distinctly minority party in American politics. The Gallup poll reports that the number of Americans identifying as Republicans has fallen to its lowest level in the quarter century it has been tracking the number: 25 percent.
Republicans lost the last presidential popular election by almost five million votes.
The FEC reports that combining the total number of votes cast by Americans for president, House and Senate in 2012, Americans voted for the GOP 158,605,000 times and for the Democrats 176,167,000 times. In other words they cast over 17 million more Democratic votes than Republican votes in 2012.
And even though Republican gerrymandering(corrupt but still legal practice) allowed the party to maintain control of the House by a slim margin, 1.17 million more votes were cast for Democratic House candidates than for Republicans.
Right now, GOP hopes for victories do not rest on their ability to appeal democratically to the majority of voters. They hinge entirely on successful gerrymandering and voter suppression policies that reduce the turnout of ordinary Americans. That means their hopes for political success in the future rest on very, very thin ice. And -- amazingly -- they seem to be doing everything they can to make the ice that separates them from complete political marginality thinner and thinner.
For instance, last month the House voted to authorize its leaders to sue President Obama for "exceeding his executive authority" -- even though he has issued fewer executive orders than most recent Presidents from either party.
Polling revealed that most Americans think the lawsuit was a political stunt that will cost the taxpayers millions of dollars -- and many believe it is a first step toward attempts by House extremists to impeach the president.
Polling also shows that the issue of the lawsuit simultaneously convinces swing voters to support Democrats and fires up Democratic base voters. And it allows President Obama -- who has leaned into the GOP lawsuit -- to say, correctly, that the GOP is suing him for doing his job helping ordinary Americans, while the GOP leadership has prevented votes on scores of bills that would benefit ordinary people and would pass if they were allowed to come to the floor.
That includes the minimum wage bill that would immediately benefit 28 million ordinary Americans and would indirectly benefit millions more by putting money in people's pockets to spend on goods and services sold and produced by other workers and businesses across the country. Polling shows that over 70 percent of Americans agree that America should increase the minimum wage and over 80 percent agree that no one who works full-time should live in poverty. No matter, the GOP leadership won't bring the bill to the floor -- because if it did the bill would pass.
Recently my wife, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, and I joined other Democrats taking the "Minimum Wage Challenge" to call attention to how difficult it is to live on today's minimum wage. We worked very hard at trying to live on the $77 per week of discretionary income that the average minimum wage worker has to buy groceries, transportation, gas, pet food, entertainment, clothing, cleaning, etc. We still went over by about $5. The "Minimum Wage Challenge" makes it really clear how little workers take home who work hard flipping burgers, cleaning hotel rooms, or bussing tables.
And to those in the Republican Party and corporate community who claim the minimum wage is adequate, I say: take the "Minimum Wage Challenge" yourself -- see what you think after a week.
Of course the minimum wage is just one of a series of popular measures that the GOP leadership refuses to consider -- including extending unemployment payments for the long-term unemployed -- many of whom have worked all of their lives, paid their taxes, and now have been kicked by the GOP to the side of the road.
On the other hand the GOP was right there, passing extensions of tax breaks for Big Business.
The fact that the GOP leadership does the bidding of Wall Street does not go unnoticed by the voters. Neither does the fact that they would rather engage in costly political stunts like suing the President instead of dealing with bread and butter issues of concern to working families.
Most everyday Americans haven't seen meaningful increases in their average wages in 30 years, even though productivity per person and gross domestic product per person have gone up over 80 percent. The GOP has addressed this fact by claiming -- incorrectly -- that the problem is caused by huge "welfare" payments to people who don't work. But, as willing as some people are to accept that myth -- even those who do are increasingly aware that the real culprits are the extravagantly paid CEO's and gang on Wall Street. And pretty much every ordinary working American believes that the rules of the game have been rigged against them and in favor of the 1 percent.
Everyday that the GOP fails even to consider increasing the minimum wage -- which obviously benefits only working people -- they are further marginalized in the minds of ordinary Americans.
Now consider the way the GOP moved last week to marginalize themselves with Hispanic voters. Today Hispanics represent 16% of ordinary Americans. By 2050 they will represent 30%. No matter. Not only did the House GOP leadership refuse to bring a popular immigration reform measure to a vote that was passed by a large bi-partisan majority in the Senate. But last Friday, the Republicans also passed a bill to eliminate the Dreamer program that was established by the President to defer the deportation of children brought to America as minors who have known no other country except the USA.
Most Hispanic Americans do not think of these questions as "policy debates." They take them very personally. They hear the GOP saying that Republicans are not on their side, and that they don't respect their community. And when Hispanic Americans see the vitriol directed by the right wing extremists at buses containing Central American children, they know for a fact that the GOP is opposing immigration reform because much of their base simply does not like Hispanics.
If anyone had remained unconvinced that was true, the vote on the Dreamer program sealed the deal. To find something to address the children border crisis that would pass with the support of their caucus, the GOP leadership had to keep making their bill meaner and meaner until they satisfied their most extremist members.
Together, Hispanics and African Americans currently comprise almost 30% of the population of the United States. With every passing vote the GOP demonstrates over and over again that it has completely written them off.
If you add women -- particularly single women -- the GOP math gets downright bleak. Remember, 98 percent of all women in American will use birth control at some time in their lives. That's what you get when you oppose equal pay for equal work. That's what you get when you discount the concerns of millions of moms for the safety of their kids by blocking the popular bill to require background checks for all gun purchasers.
And as its leadership makes the GOP more and more the party of Wall Street instead of working families, regular white working men increasingly realize that GOP candidates are simply out of touch with ordinary people and are not on their side, either.
What should the Progressive response be to the increasing marginalization of the GOP from the mainstream of ordinary Americans? Simple. We need to keep standing up straight for progressive values because they are, in fact, American values.
Progressives and Democrats represent the aspirations of the vast majority of ordinary working families, instead of the interests of Wall Street bankers. Progressive positions on immigration, unemployment insurance, minimum wage, student loans and college affordability, equal pay for equal work, gun violence -- almost every issue -- are embraced by super majorities of the American electorate.
And the social base of the extremists who have taken the helm at the Republican Party represents a smaller and smaller percentage of the American population every passing year.
You can't build your future as a party on the thin ice of gerrymandering and voter suppression forever in a society where everyone has the right to vote. In the end you have to convince the majority of Americans that your party embodies their interests and their hopes or you will lose.
Of course Progressives can't take anything for granted. The arc of history does indeed bend - but we have to provide the hands that make it so.
-Robert Creamer
Yea, a fairly good swipe at the GOP but what we need is a good alternative to the Republican party, and although the GOP should win this mid-term election virtually by default because the party out of the Whitehouse generally wins the mid-term wouldn't it be much less of a nose holder for some if there was a better alternative. You think?
What we need is a party that puts it's money where it's mouth is and doesn't pretend to be something it's not. We need an alternative political party that is Christian and progressive where socio/economic issues are concerned while at the same time taking firm stands against the proliferation of homosexuality and personal moral transgression.
Personal behavior relative to God's commandments is as important as the call to compassion and love for others and in fact they all intertwine. Integrity of the inner produces integrity of the outer. God calls us to have a disciplined personal life according to his word and commandments and it can not be ignored or rewritten out of the word of God. As Christians we must maintain the integrity of both, that is THE TRUTH and the integrity of both will compliment each other onto a greater thing.
We should care greatly for the poor and use whatever means available to help the poor not strain at a gnat over where the help comes from. There are means for providing help in our society and we should show support for the available means instead of fighting over it while those in need suffer.This doesn't mean intermingling ministry and secular assistance, it means showing support for government assistance as a Christian witness to those in need. In this case it means being progressive rejecting the old anti-government ideologies born out of ulterior motives from past fears, resentments and hates. For a certain number of Christians it is time to get over it and realize a new Christian political party will steer as far from those old dark mentalities as possible but will maintain the integrity of God regarding personal transgressions. Let our love or our stand on personal social issues distinguish us, not the lofty indifference that comes from the discrediting and debasing compromise to money and greed.
Those on the left or on the right shouldn't want to be a part of something if it isn't correct and true down at the core. Such an endeavor based on spiritual power will be in vain and undercut if not rooted in truth and what a waste of time when such a great thing is on the horizon of possiblility, the possibility of a truly empowered Christian movement or political party. This is the aspiration, whether men can attain it is left to us that have the opportunity. Knowing the history of the world such an opportunity is without price.
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