"5 Giant Contradictions That Are Sinking the GOP"

[applegrove]

5 Giant Contradictions That Are Sinking the GOP

By Robert S. Becker at AlterNet

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/5-giant-contradictions-are-sinking-gop

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Glaring Contradiction Five: When Social Wedge Issues Lose their Edges

So, now we know any national party warring against millions of voters -- whether women, minorities, immigrants, gays, or the jobless poor -- contradicts its core interests. 2012 confirmed the shelf life of noxious wedge issues used to elect W. (free abortions, gay rights, looming gun bans) have long expired. Even slurs against the Muslim, socialist non-citizen boomeranged. When racist, homophobic code is decoded, then exposed, even superficial headline readers gag on crude bait-and-switch politics. Indeed, we learned that divisive wedge issues that lose their edges morph into blunt instruments that bloody the maker, not the victim target. Bring on the Birthers, broadcasting the impervious, intellectual bankruptcy of the extreme, illiterate right.

The tide has turned: majorities no longer deem homosexuality immoral, nor marijuana a sinful crime, indeed, a helpful cancer drug. Rigid opposition to abortion elects otherwise hopeless Democrats (talk about irrational!). Sensible conservatives, all six of them, now defend gay marriage because staple relationships support (conservative) institutions that teach moral values, stabilizing the otherwise errant young.

Overall, the Republican Tea Party was slammed not simply because Democrats ran terrific campaigns, but because so many core GOP contradictions imploded, then exploded, the huge price for living too long in deluded bubbles. That doesn’t mean billionaires or Tea Party wingnuts will clean up their intellectual acts, nor develop Christian tolerance to other points of view. But this election displayed a growing electorate, and that demonstrated how entrenched, unbaked contradictions, when outliving all usefulness, turn into weapons of self-destruction. Reality, like truth, will out in a world where contradictions are exposed, and for me that’s what made this election memorable.

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