“Shooting oneself in the foot” — the expression is used when someone does something inadvertently detrimental to oneself.
Most of us have been guilty of such at one time or another. Seldom, however, does a whole group of people do it to themselves, all at the same time, like the Republican Party has done over the past several years. Even the most casual observer would have to agree that today’s Republican presidential race is a mess.
But it didn’t just start with this year’s election campaigns.
HISTORY LESSON
Following President Obama’s election eight years ago, the Republican leadership assessed the demographics of the loss and stated strongly that the party needed to open its policies to attract more minorities, specifically Hispanics and blacks, to its membership.
It was a reasonable conclusion dictated by the actual votes in the election that gave a significant advantage to Democratic candidates.
For instance, in 2008, President Obama polled 93 percent of the black vote and 67 percent of the Hispanic vote. Considering that he won by only a couple of percentage points, the minority vote carried the victory for him.
Instead of following the Republican leadership’s admonition, it almost seems as if Republican candidates running for the presidency decided the leadership was wrong and they could carry the election by further alienating minorities.
Thus, the anti-Hispanic rhetoric of the leading candidates that serves to denigrate our legal Hispanic population’s friends and relatives.
How else can you characterize calling Hispanics criminals and prostitutes? And, taking a stand against raising the minimum wage, an important issue to most of our minority population, was not designed to attract minorities to the Republican fold.
Those are just two of several positions taken by the Republican candidates that serve to keep them from becoming a more inclusive political party, a major stated goal of the Republican leadership.
TIME TO SOBER UP
Our newspapers tell us that voters seek political outsiders because they are frustrated over a government where Congress can get nothing of substance done.
What is often missing from the fine print is that the Republican Party leadership very specifically decided, in the face of their loss in the 2008 and 2012 elections, that their best tactic would be to attempt to stymie any legislative progress in an attempt to show the ineptness of President Obama. Whether one applies the word, “credit”, or “blame” to this tactic, you cannot deny its success.
An accurate, one-word description of Congress over the past several years is “gridlock.” However, the unintended outcome of this tactic is that the public has accurately identified the culprits in this dismal Congressional showing as the Republican members of Congress and not President Obama. Most, however, would admit that there is plenty of blame to go around.
Still, it answers the question of why voters are looking for outsiders in this election cycle.
Democrats who find the Republican ineptness comical need to sober up. Nothing in this election season seems to be going right for either side of the political aisle. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic leader, seems to be staying just one step ahead of the law while the Republican leader, Donald Trump, moves from one unconstitutional faux pas to the next. Keep Muslims from entering the country? (Would you believe that some states restricted the entry of Catholics back before we had a Constitution that protected freedom of religion?) Send eleven million Hispanics back to Mexico? (Even if you thought it to be a good idea, how would you effect such a mass exodus?)
As a registered Republican, I can assert that the Second Amendment to the Constitution ensures that I can have a gun to use when I take dead aim on my foot.
It may not be smart, but at least it is legal.
Dr. Mark L. Hopkins writes for More Content Now and Scripps Newspapers. He is past president of colleges and universities in four states and serves as executive director of a higher-education consulting service. You will find Hopkins’ latest book, “Journey to Gettysburg,” on Amazon.com. Contact him at presnet@presnet.net.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Nothing's going right in this election