Why Shaming Republican Candidates For Their Bigotry Won't Work

The Democrats and media are correct in calling out the unequivocally bigoted campaign rhetoric coming from numerous Republicans, but at this point, it's very moot. Now this is by many of these heads openly taking that shame, and turning it into a badge of honor. Some on the left have every incentive to pin this spike in hateful speech on Donald Trump, but they're thoroughly going after the wrong person.

Trump is the figure who's been blurting the quieter part of the Republican Party's numerous coded and bigoted tropes out loud, which had invariably marked a change in tone. But he's not the cause for all of this, especially not the direct one. That honor falls onto greater figures of yesteryear. These are people such as James Buckley and Robert Welch, both of whom had entirely opposed the ending of segregation and the onset of Civil Rights. Doing so starting right back in 1954 with the ruling of Brown v. Board. 

So for all this bigoted horseshit that Republicans have been saying on the campaign trail, it's a clear sign that the party so taking a chapter out of Trump's playbook. But at the same time, it's also a sign that all these new Dixiecans are picking up from where their Dixiecrat ancestors were stymied in the 1960s and 1970s. Trying to get rid of the Civil Rights laws which outlawed Jim Crow. All with its unremittingly mandated segregation and discrimination.

For Republicans, it's not so much about gaining power as a party, it's about a section of America seeking total revenge for what it determines as encroachment on its rights: the White South, specifically of its elites. Some members of this clique have a thoroughly long history of using such bellicose language whenever they don't get their way. To them, it's about preserving a power structure which can actually only run smoothly upon the suffering of non-Whites, especially Blacks. They and Hispanics/Latinos are overwhelmingly targetted for either their dark skin tones, or for speaking in the wrong language, or both. Bear in mind, this is only a small fraction of this group which we're talking about, not the overwhelming majority.

Donald Trump's Increasingly Violent Rhetoric Will Undermine Republicans In 2022

As the 2022 midterm election draws closer, the Republicans are looking less likely to retake Congress. The reason is simple, Donald Trump's increasingly violent rhetoric, which is leaving them dangerously exposed. One example is the recent pledge to pardon all participants in the attack on the Capitol on 01/06/2021. The message that sends is: Be as violent as possible for me and I'll ensure your lack of any accountability.

It's this rhetoric that is  worsening just about everyone's fury of our current system of both government and governance, albeit in the most misguided way possible. By continuing to sow doubt and chaos, Trump is still consistently sending (conscientiously/subconscientiously or not — a very interesting debate at that) overtures to some of the most violent White Supremacy and White Power extremists. He's signaling them that they should be ready to act upon his cue to snuff out any opposition by Americans at-large.

What this means for the Republicans is that their chances of victory on 11/08/2022 are slipping away from them due to the electorate being turned off by Trump's rhetoric. He's doing this by inserting himself as the sole focus of the party's campaign instead of President Joe Biden. Using this as a platform for lying about how 2020 was stolen from him, he's alienating the very swing voters who the party's desparately trying to court for the general election.

Trump is attempting to use the midterm campaign to exact revenge against those who voted to impeach him early last year, and continue to call for him to face any kind of accountability. That drive for exacting revenge in Republican primaries means that the party will field his handpicked extremists as their general election candidates, which will hurt the party itself in the end. This is a final result of the John Birch Society's newest reincarnation, the MAGA movement, taking over the Republican Party.

Republicans Caught Flat-Footed Trying To Oppose Biden

 It's not lost on anyone that Joe Biden and congressional Democrats have been running circles around the Republicans in Congress with great success thusfar. While it is great to see that, it's also a warning sign, too. Here's how: It's a warning sign by illustrating just how broken our system of governance has become; and with 1 of the 2 major political parties out to lunch, fixing it is going to be a real challenge. The first means of getting control of our nation from the hijacking done by the far-right is to rein in corporate excess and wealth inequities that have been driving its extremism.

So far, the Republicans seem content on embracing this far-right extremism and making it their party's brand; rejecting the will of the rest of the electorate in the process. To them, the far-right's extremist conduct and rhetoric is their ticket back into power in 2022. That and extreme gerrymandering. Whether all of that will work or not isn't the question we should be asking ourselves. The question we should be asking ourselves is how to go about changing the culture in Washington, DC so that the Republicans have no other choice than ditching the far-right for good. That is going to take some time, and a few electoral losses, for the Republican Party to ultimately reach that conclusion. In the meantime, many veteran Republican senators and representatives are heading for the exits as they don't see any reason to remain in an environment that encourages the worst abuses of power for personal gain. Essentially they're tired of being forced into concentrating on scoring political points instead of doing their actual job, which is governing and keeping tabs on the current issues of the day to craft policy.

It's the 1 fact that Democrats in Washington are beginning to recognize, they need to start moving the government's policy-making closer to where the people are. If they keep remaining responsive to this fact, it'll help them hold strong in the 2022 midterm election; maybe even gain seats in both chambers (the incumbent party has pulled off this result 4 times in US History: 1806, 1818, 1934 and 2002). Should the Democrats continue to successfully illustrate actual governance and productivity looks like, it'll help them make the case that the Republicans should not be given any lever of power given that they don't govern at all and their party has become the unproductive do-nothing party. 10 years of Republican mismanagement has taken a heavy toll on us all, and so far the Democrats have demonstrated that they understand that point very clearly. They recognize now in 2021 that they screwed up badly in 2009 and 2010 by going by the old manual of crafting legislation, which did little to help people as the economy began to recover from the worst throes of the Great Recession.

As for the original premise of this blog post, the fact is that Republicans are not just opposing the vast majority of the electorate when trying to obstruct Biden and the Democrats. They're also opposing their own base who actually supports what Biden and the Democrats are doing with their new trifacta. Biden is able to connect with them, making it easy for them to understand what's being churned out of Congress. The other problem the Republicans are also running into is that Biden is nowhere near as polarizing as either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were when they were running for president (or in Obama's case, as president). And because he's nowhere near as polarizing, it's next to impossible to get their based all riled up in anger. Republicans have demonstrated time and again that they have nothing to offer and are bankrupt of ideas; that is with the exceptions of lowering taxes on the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations and expanding deregulation of the economy.