Journalist, Political Reporter, Cultural Critic, Editor/Proofreader
Alex V. Henderson
Philadelphia, PA
vixenatr
December 10, 2012
The Political Zone
By Alex Henderson
RealmNoir, December 10, 2012
Over a month has passed since the election of November 6, 2012, when President Barack Obama defeated Republican Mitt Romney by 332-206 electoral votes and the Democratic Party increased its majority in the United States Senate. And the Republican Party hacks of Fox News and AM talk radio, who were confident of a Romney landslide, remain in a state of shock and are still having a hard time digesting those election results. There continues to be much debate over why the Republican Party received that November 6 spanking, and some of the most insightful comments have been coming from liberal/progressive syndicated columnist Eugene Robinson of Washington Post fame.
Robinson, an Obama supporter who frequently appears as a guest on liberal-leaning MSNBC, is glad the president was reelected and doesn’t hesitate to point out that Romney ran a terrible campaign or that the GOP has become a party of far-right radicals and extremists. Robinson has cited the election results as proof that demographics are working against the Republican Party brand, and he’s right. Obama won 93% of the African-American vote, 71% of the Latino vote, 73% of the Asian vote, 67% of the non-married female vote and 55% of the overall female vote. And the fact that Obama accomplished that during such brutal economic times speaks volumes about how terrible the GOP brand has become. But Robinson, despite his liberal/progressive leanings, isn’t longing to see the Republican Party go the way of the Whigs. And he has warned that the total disintegration of the GOP would ultimately be bad for liberalism and progressivism in the United States.
Robinson, in one of his recent columns, wrote that if Republicans continue to be as clueless as they were during this election, “Democrats may win the next few elections without having to break a sweat. And that’s the danger I hope we avoid.”
Robinson went on to say, “Don’t get me wrong: I want progressive candidates to win those elections. But parties without meaningful competition become flabby, lazy, unresponsive. Democratic candidates shouldn’t win by default, and neither should progressive ideas. A smart, creative, reality-based conservative movement is ultimately good for the liberal cause—and good for the country.”
Bingo.
True competition is healthy in politics just as it is healthy in business. Robinson hits the nail on the head when he says that a Democratic Party monopoly would ultimately be bad for the U.S.’ liberal/progressive movement. To take Robinson’s argument a step further, Democrats should not only have meaningful competition from Republicans—ideally, they should also have meaningful competition from third parties, including the Green Party and the Libertarian Party. But the U.S.’ two-party system is so entrenched that it’s a major uphill battle to run for public office as anything other than a Democrat or Republican. And if third parties continue to be marginalized while the GOP brand continues to be identified with unhinged theocrats like Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin (who lost to incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri), then it is possible that many Democrats will win by default in the future. American demographics certainly don’t work in a party’s favor when that party is widely perceived as anti-woman, anti-Latino, anti-black and anti-working class.
The GOP brand has become so synonymous with racism, misogyny, religious extremism, gay-bashing and hatred for the working class that a big chunk of the American population would like to see the party of Rick Santorum, Todd Akin and Newt Gingrich go the way of the Whigs. But unless the Green Party, the Libertarian Party or another third party gains prominence, a crushed GOP would essentially mean one-party rule under the Democrats—which would not be good.
Of course, the Republican Party has bounced back in the past. After Sen. Barry Goldwater’s landslide defeat in 1964 (when Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson defeated him by 486-52 in the electoral college and by 22% in the popular vote), Republican Richard Nixon won 301 electoral votes in 1968 and a whopping 520 electoral votes in 1972 (compared to only 17 for Democrat George McGovern). But the Republican Party of 2012 is way to the right of where it was in the 1960s and 1970s. Goldwater (a major critic of the Christian Right) and pro-health care reform Nixon, who were considered arch-conservatives in their day, would be much too liberal for today’s GOP. On top of that, the demographics have changed considerably in the U.S. since the 1960s and 1970s. And the fact that Obama received only 39% of the white vote compared to 59% for Romney didn’t prevent him from winning 332 electoral votes on November 6—even during the worst economy since the 1930s.
Robinson fears that the Republican Party hasn’t learned any lessons from the spanking it received on November 6 and, instead of moving more to the center, will double down on its extreme-right agenda. Indeed, AM Republican talk radio is full of drooling wingnuts who insist that Romney didn’t move far enough to the right and should have spent even more time babbling about abortion and gay marriage.
The Democratic Party does need competition. And it needs sane, intelligent competition, not the Christian Right freak show that the Republican Party has become.
Alex Henderson is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, Billboard, Spin, XBIZ, Creem, Skin Two, The Pasadena Weekly, JazzTimes, Cash Box and a long list of other well-known publications. He can be followed on Twitter @alexvhenderson.
Syndicated columnist Eugene Robinson, a Barack Obama supporter and a frequent guest on MSNBC, has been asserting that the Democratic Party needs "meaningful competition," not the extremism of the modern Republican Party.
Copyright 2022 Alex V. Henderson. All rights reserved.
Alex V. Henderson
Philadelphia, PA
vixenatr