GOP's updated targets Editor -- It's so nice to see that President Bush and Republican National Chairman Ken Mehlman have renounced the racially divisive "Southern strategy" that helped the GOP capture the South ("GOP renounces '60s racial strategy," July 15). The problem is they've replaced it with a moral-values strategy that is demonizing gays and lesbians in the same way that the GOP created the myths of welfare moms and of illegal aliens taking American jobs.
The new strategy is to convince "values voters" that Democrats are part of a "gay agenda" -- undermining marriage, promoting pedophilia, advocating for unisex toilets and other loony claims.
Just as the GOP managed to turn out angry white voters in the last three decades by exploiting racial stereotypes, it is now winning elections by exploiting and perpetrating a fear of gays and lesbians.
The targets may have changed, but the strategy has stayed the same.
MICHAEL COLBRUNO
Oakland
While I agree with the sentiment of this message, I would actually take it a step further in another direction. When I read about the republican 'apology' I didn't think about their new 'southern strategies'; instead I considered how empty the 'apology' was in the first place. It's not as if the republicans are 'apologizing' for anything more than that they feel badly about it-- they're not making any kind of recompense, fixing voting problems, overseeing attempts at racial integration and equal voting opportunities, etc. They used the strategy to get what they wanted, screwing over a population for their political benefit, and now that they have what they want they want to pretend that they shouldn't have done it. The 'apology' was hollow and simply a publicity stunt to try to get more voters to back their incindiary politics. Not even close to a real satisfactory 'apology'.
3 Comments:
Please; when have politicians ever offered something beyond platitudes and mea culpas for the wrongs they've committed? As for the sentiment, let's face it: to the far right, gays and lesbians are the niggers of the 21st century. The strategy has worked for them so far, so don't even expect them to change.
Jeff, I actually meant the same kind of thing when I wrote my piece too. That's why I put 'apology' in quotes because it's not real and just a publicity stunt. Besides, it's not as if they would have done anything different in the past-- as we can see them do the exact same thing now to another group given similar circumstances. So we agree that they're evil through and through.
I never doubted it, hon. It's just that sometimes my inner Julia Sugarbaker insists upon coming out, and she will *not* be denied.
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