How Republicans can kill two birds with one stone.

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

Embrace Latinos.

Can someone please explain to me why the Republican Party hasn’t used Latinos as an example of the come-from-nothing, sweat-of-your-brow, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps representation of their American Dream? Latinos (especially immigrants) work harder than anyone in this country. They have a strong work ethic, are extremely frugal, and take responsibility for their situation. On top of it all, they are devoutly religious and family-oriented. Is this not exactly what the GOP has been telling us all Americans should be?

And by putting Latinos front-and-center, they would be winning themselves a game-changing voting bloc. They may even be able to cut into the “all Republicans are racists” perception.

So why haven’t they done this? Aren’t all these benefits surely worth dropping the immigration reform fight? Surely someone way smarter than me in the Republican Party has to have figured this out by now.

#2

Maybe they don’t like Latinos very much.

#3

The Republicans would love to have Latinos become part of their base. The problem is they don’t want to pay the price.

The current Republican party, unfortunately, seems to be a bunch of straight white Christian men asking what they have to do to get other people to vote for straight white Christian men. They’re willing to offer some tokens for votes but the goal is to keep straight white Christian men in charge.

It’s a dying strategy. At some point, the Republicans are going to have to offer genuine power to other people as well. Or they’re going to find they can’t get the votes.

They need to stop asking “what do we want from these people?” and start asking “what are we offering to these people?”

#4

Right? I pointed out a couple years ago that conservatives should love Mexicans. Not only for the reasons in the OP, but they drink Budweiser and drive Chevys. How American is that?

#5

Decades ago Republicans were saying the same thing about black voters, who were generally more conservative and religious than white Democrats. You can see how that worked out.

#6

Here’s an analogy. You’ve just graduated college and you have a professional degree. You’re looking around for a job and get offers from two good companies in your profession.

One company offers to hire you. They offer you a good salary to be an employee of their company.

The other company offers to make you a partner in their company so you’ll own a share of the company.

Which company are you going to join?

The Republicans are going to Hispanics and blacks and women and offering them good jobs to work for the Republican party. The Democrats are going to Hispanics and blacks and women and offering them partnerships in running the Democratic party.

#7

It’s the ‘especially immigrants’ part. They’re taking good jobs that native-born European descendants can do away from the native-born European descendants who wouldn’t be caught dead doing them.

Not exactly. They tend to be devoutly or culturally Catholic, rather than some variant of Protestant. And the family-orientation tends toward large extended families which means they are passing the European descendants in sheer numbers so that, well, see above. Furthermore, that family orientation tends to play out as an extended-family -centered socialism – building and sharing funds, family obligations and responsibilities, and even hearths and pantries. That’s uncomfortably close to Communism to a lot of eyes.

No.
Surely there aren’t people who believe that’s true of absolutely ALL Republicans.

BTW Nemo: your analogy is beautiful!

—G!
I’m gonna get burned for this one, aren’t I?

#8

They aren’t white, they aren’t Potestant, and they didn’t speak English.

3 strikes, they’re out.

#9

For one thing, most of the Latinos in question can simply look around at their surroundings and see that America doesn’t actually work that way.

They are hamstrung in any such efforts by the fact that the party is overwhelmingly racist, and hides it poorly when they try to hide it at all.

#10

Der Trihs hits the nail on the head. The Republicans can’t pick up the Latinos without offending their racist base. It’s one or the other, they can’t have both. And if they dump the white racists, they are essentially dumping THEMSELVES. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.

#11

Yes. I know it is the case that all Republicans are not racist. But most of the ones I know are.

#12

Sure. And maybe they can cut into the ‘perception’ that they are hostile to women, blacks, young people, poor people, gays. Of course to truly do that they’d have to change both their policies and their base voters and the GOP isn’t going to do that anytime soon. The perception the GOP is hostile to certain groups is because the GOP is hostile to certain groups.

The base of the GOP is hostile to non-white non-americans. Considering that most latinos are dark skinned and come from latin america, they aren’t very welcome.

Not only that, but polls show latinos are not as conservative as the GOP says.

The GOP, if it wants to win demographic group X is going to have to listen to that group and make them feel welcome. I don’t see them doing that anytime soon. They will continue harboring open and dog whistle hostility while promoting policies that are hostile. And if that group doesn’t vote for them it is either because they are too lazy, stupid or unworthy of conservatism.

Of course the democrats are better, but not a whole lot. The dems take it for granted that young people, blacks, latinos, etc aren’t going to vote for the republicans so they feel comfortable ignoring these groups.

#13

Brown.

#14

Because they made a conscious decision in the '60s and '70s to embrace Southern White Racists. It was called The Southern Strategy and it was mainly started by Nixon and perfected by Reagan.

It was a Devil’s bargain though because while it helped them hold on to a great deal of power in the second half of the 20th Century, it has a good chance of turning them into a regional party in the 21st due to demographics. They themselves see this and, because unfortunately, Democrats picked a census year to stay home in 2010, Republicans used Redistricting and are using laws to make it harder to vote in order to hold on as long as they can to any sort of national office.

The Democratic Party got 4 million more votes in congressional races in 2012 but the GOP held the House due to redistricting.

#15

You could make similar arguments re: Asians and there’s not the racism hurdle since I don’t think Republicans are thought of as racist towards Asians as a whole, as opposed to being terrified of the brown Mexican hordes. Yet Asians are mostly Democratic. Guessing because they see Dems as more friendly towards STEM fields and are repelled by the religious right’s anti-science influence.

#16

This has been on the radar of Republican strategists at least as far back as the first 2nd Bush election, and the Bush family has certainly been pretty vocal about the party courting the Hispanic vote. I remember a lot of talk about this and these same points about the traits of Latinos ostensibly making them natural GOP fits back in 2004 or 2000. So I guess they haven’t done much about it.

#17

marshmallow. Asians in America as a whole probably share the Republican stereotypical view towards poor people. Most could give a flying f for STEM fields. Any rationale person finds the religious right’s anti science to be lunatic material.

Most Asians in American have experienced racism - either blatant or perceived.

And all Asians in America are within 3 generations of being immigrants, if not immigrants themselves.

you are not perchance Republican are you as this would be a perfect example of why Republicans don’t make much headway with a group that ought to at least lean Republican on paper

#18

Also a much smaller demographic. Same idea applies (as you’ve stated)- they’ve built their ideological base on incompatible views.

#19

I’m not a Republican and don’t much care for most of them these days. That said, at least in the political class I think Republicans are much more opportunistic than they are personally racist as a group. The same thing applies to the social/Christian-conservative base. A lot of the leaders and ones benefiting from political power don’t believe in any of that stuff. Many of them are gay, atheist, you name it. But they are also political strategists.

I think this is true of either/any party, especially in a “2 party system.” When you only really have 2 parties (our system is designed this way, so it’s a political reality), there are a lot of weird intraparty alliances/coalitions, and strategists deliberately court and strengthen relationships with these blocks. If you want to do politics in the US, you have to pick one of the two and it’s very likely you will disagree with a major plank from either party.

#20

Exactly. Suggesting the GOP gain strength by embracing Latinos is a little like saying the KKK could increase membership by trying to recruit blacks.