{"id":1178,"date":"2014-11-07T21:20:56","date_gmt":"2014-11-08T02:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2014-11-07T21:20:56","modified_gmt":"2014-11-08T02:20:56","slug":"republicans-democrats-and-white-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/11\/republicans-democrats-and-white-men.html","title":{"rendered":"Republicans, Democrats, and White Men"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following their party\u2019s crushing defeat at the polls, some Democratic strategists are now claiming that it is Democrats\u2019 \u201cfailure to communicate\u201d with white men <\/em>that accounts for their dramatic reversal of fortunes.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Republican talking heads insist upon either trivializing or entirely neglecting the pivotal role of white men in catapulting the GOP to victory.<\/p>\n

Instead, Republicans have been as giddy as schoolgirls over the fact that Democrats received only two-thirds <\/em>of the Hispanic <\/em>vote, 90 percent <\/em>of the black vote, and 51 percent <\/em>of the Asian <\/em>vote! Of course, it hasn\u2019t been spun exactly this way, but the point remains the same: Even now, <\/em>most nonwhites continue to pledge their allegiance to the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

Moreover, they continue to do so in numbers that aren\u2019t appreciably higher\u2014if they\u2019re higher at all\u2014from those in which they routinely endorse Democrats.<\/p>\n

In the light of this election, the elephants no less than the donkeys need a reality check.<\/p>\n

First, without white people generally and white heterosexual men specifically, a Republican politician would have as difficult a time getting elected dogcatcher as he would getting elected to any higher office. The Republican Party\u2019s days as a major national party would come to a grinding halt.<\/p>\n

White men make the world of the GOP go round.<\/p>\n

While it is true that white men aren\u2019t sufficient, <\/em>they most certainly are necessary. <\/em><\/p>\n

Secondly, Republicans should indeed try to make their message (whatever that<\/em> is) heard as widely and clearly as they possibly can. However, given both the indispensability of whites to their political fortunes and the ease with which they attract these voters, it is wildly irrational for Republicans to spend precious resources reaching out to blacks and Hispanics who aren\u2019t likely to vote for them when a fraction of those same resources could be directed toward achieving the infinitely less<\/em> ambitious goal of garnering an ever larger share of the white<\/em> vote. For instance, just a few percentage points worth of white voters would\u2019ve made all of the difference for Mitt Romney in 2012.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, those Democrats who lament their \u201cfailure\u201d to communicate with white men are self-delusional. The party\u2019s problem is that it has communicated all too well<\/em> with white men.\u00a0 For decades, its message to white men has been unmistakably clear: \u201cDrop dead!\u201d<\/p>\n

In the leftist imagination of the Democrat Party, white men are the worse of the worst, the only beings in the cosmos capable of \u201cracism,\u201d \u201csexism,\u201d \u201chomophobia,\u201d and every other \u201cism\u201d that belongs to our Politically Correct culture\u2019s catalogue of crimes against humanity. Every policy aimed at ostensibly benefitting minorities, every protection and privilege denied <\/em>to white men while extended to women and the members of every other racial demographic, expresses this view.<\/p>\n

For white men, the Democratic Party has unmitigated contempt.<\/p>\n

Finally, this being said, Republicans have been only slightly less<\/em> contemptuous of white men than their counterparts have been.\u00a0 Actually, in a significant sense, it\u2019s arguable that they\u2019ve been more <\/em>contemptuous, for Republicans take their white voters for granted, in spite of having regularly advocated on behalf of legislation that has undermined the liberties for which white Americans\u2014beginning with America\u2019s founders\u2014have fought long and hard.<\/p>\n

And yet white men continue to vote Republican.<\/p>\n

But, as the presidential election of 2012 taught us, when enough of those white men who would otherwise have voted Republican believe that their party is abetting its rival in waging a sort of racial and gender war by other means against them, they stay home.<\/p>\n

And when this <\/em>happens, then it won\u2019t matter if Republicans raise their shares of the black and Hispanic votes by 1 percent and 5 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n

When enough white Republican men avoid the polls, the GOP loses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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