How the GOP Is Literally Killing Its Voters
The GOPs dirty little secret is that Republican and Tea Party policies are killing their base.
It isnt hard to understand why Republican Party strategists have been gloating over New Jersey Gov. Chris Christies landslide re-election on November 5: at a time when so much is being written about demographics working against the GOP, theyll take all the victories they can get (especially in a state as heavily Democratic as New Jersey). But Christies victory was an outlier, and Christieas right-wing as he ishas never been a favorite of either the Tea Party or the Christian Right.
Trends are more revealing than outliers, and one need only attend a Tea Party rally or look at the 2012 election results to see that the GOP base is predominantly white, older and hardly the picture of diversity. But the fact that President Barack Obama, in 2012, 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 isnt the only problem the GOP is facing when it comes to demographics. The GOPs dirty little secret is that Republican and Tea Party policies are literally killing the GOPs own base.
Not all of the older white males (and to a lesser degree, older white females) who vote Republican are affluent, and not everyone who is affluent votes Republican (some of the most expensive, ultra-gentrified cities in the United Statesincluding Seattle, San Francisco, Boston and New York Cityare overwhelmingly Democratic).
The late journalist Joe Bageant (a self-described redneck leftist and author of the 2008 book Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War) had a lot to say about white poverty and the fact that the GOP, with its emphasis on culture war issues, has convinced many older whites to vote against their own economic interests. Bageant often stressed that poverty should not be viewed as strictly an urban, black and Latino problem. He was fond of saying that when youre poor, white and rural in America, you have no choice but to get tough in a hurry. And since Bageants death in 2011, the economic conditions for poor whites have continued to worsen.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/how-gop-literally-killing-its-voters