Who Does the GOP Represent?

Polls show that Americans’ anti-immigration sentiments are down – way down. But listen to the GOP whining in the House of Representatives and you would believe that Americans are in more danger from the brown horde, than they ever were from the yellow peril. Or even the godforsaken Irish.

If you listen to the severely religious politicos of the evangelical right, we are a beachhead away from beingswamped by the gay agenda. Yet support for gay marriage is greater than ever – a majority, in fact. In great swathes of America, gay marriage – apart from the receptions – is banal.

Contraception use among sexually active women of child bearing age – and most of those women are – is, thankfully, high. But to listen to the GOP, mandated contraception coverage is Satan’s assault on religious freedom. It doesn’t matter that Catholic women have abortions and use contraception at identical rates to women in general – the church totters if these poor naifs have “the Obamanation” thrust his atheist agenda down their throats.

Gun ownership is down to perhaps 20% of adult Americans – no more than a 1/3rd of households have a gun. And the vast majority of Americans, including gun owners, support common sense gun control. Yet Republicans characterize this adult approach to firearms as the plot of a camarilla of wild-eyed “obamabots” intent on striping “good Americans” of their God given 2nd amendment rights. No less than an unconstitutional gun grab, in fact.

The majority of us believe that the environment should be given priority, even if it means that economic growth is curbed. An even larger number of us believe that that the danger of global warming is either accurately stated or even underestimated. And a vast majority believe that the government is doing an appropriate amount or not enough to address the environment. Yet the GOP says that environmentalists are anti-job shock troops. And that we should drown the EPA in a bathtub.

Even on taxes the GOP is out of step with ordinary Americans. A vocal TEA party (“taxed enough already” – clever right?) makes it seem as if there is groundswell of anti-taxers in the US. But most Americans support raising taxes, as well as cutting spending, to narrow the deficit. Yet Republicans ignore this strain of common sense to back the rabid right.

Why is the GOP so out of touch with ordinary citizens – even as it portrays itself as the party of “real” Americans. It has to do with its paymasters. Thanks to the Supreme Court, all politicians have to spend a large amount of time groveling for dollars. But the GOP relies more on corporate donors. And as Upton Sinclair pithily observed, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!“

They GOP has a profound capacity for ignoring stuff. Republicans have few qualms against making things up. An overwhelming 97% of climatologists accept man made global warming. Bunk! retort the lay conservatives. The scientific community accepts evolution as a scientific truth. Codswallop! huff the religious, God created us all. Some 6,000 years ago add the true believers.

It is hard to know which is worse. That the GOP is so deluded that they believe they are representing Americans, or that they are so cynical that they can casually ignore what the majority of Americans want. Whichever it is, the Democrats, by not effectively calling them out on it, remain their biggest enablers.