The suicide of the Republican Party
This week the Republican National Committee issued a 100-page “autopsy” of the 2012 presidential election and recommended a “rebranding” that guarantees the end of the Republican Party as a contender in national elections.
There are no surprises here. No one expects much from the RNC, and this embarrassingly stupid report follows a long line of RNC missteps...
This RNC “autopsy report” is a suicide note. Its endorsement of a policy of amnesty for 15 million illegal aliens – and the tens of millions sure to follow – effectively “seals the deal” and gives a pass to any conservative Republican congressman who wants an excuse to vote for amnesty legislation. So, historians can duly note the date and time of the demise of the Republican Party and can give it its proper name. It was not an assassination, nor a death by natural causes. Republicans did it to themselves: a suicide.
The RNC is choosing to endorse and repeat the disastrous 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty plan despite the plain evidence of its failure. Amnesty for 3 million illegal aliens was granted immediately, while border security and interior enforcement were promises made and never kept. But this time, it’s not 3 million, it’s 15 million or more.
It may be relevant to point out that in 1986, when Congress was debating the amnesty proposal, the official government task force estimate was that 1.4 million would take advantage of the amnesty. The true number turned out to be more than double that number. So, let’s not kid ourselves that we are talking about only the 11.5 million in the official U.S. Census estimate. The true number will be 15 or 20 million or more. Thus, in doubling down on a failed plan, the RNC is re-rebranded itself (again) as the Stupid Party...
Only “comprehensive immigration reform” was identified as dictating a change of course for the party. Why? Because according to these experts, only Republican opposition to amnesty stands in the way of Republican success among the most important electoral demographic, Hispanic voters.
Only an incestuous political consultant class could get away with offering such delusions and nonsensical arguments as self-evident truths. In any other industry outside politics, such hubristic stupidity would be laughed out of the room. The report avoids any acknowledgment – mush less a fact-based refutation – of the inconvenient truth that Hispanic voters have been registering Democrats and voting Democratic by a 2-to-1 ratio for over 40 years, long before immigration became an issue!...
A suicide is always a sad, heartbreaking event. That it will be celebrated in some quarters as a rebirth does not diminish the tragedy, but it does render it a tragi-comedy.