I sympathize with my conservative friends. 2012 was just not a very good year for you in the political realm. So, in the spirit of cooperation I want to give you a very serious (well sort of serious) New Years Resolution.
Quit Being The Party Of The Rich
That one thing alone probably cost you the presidency and several other of your recent political defeats. Let’s face it Paul Ryan’s drastic budget cuts to the nation’s safety net in order to give millionaires bigger tax breaks was the death knell of your hopes for the White House. Mr. Romney’s 47% remark certainly didn’t help any either. You have got to realize that as the disparity between the rich and the poor widens as it surely will you are in a no-win situation.
I know distancing yourselves from your rich donors will be difficult to do. After all you have depended on them for at least a century now. Let’s just look at a few of the quotes that my hero Will Rogers said about that about some eighty years ago:
“Republicans take care of big money, for big money takes care of them.”
“The whole trouble with the Republicans is their fear of an increase in income tax. They speak of it almost like a national calamity. I really believe if it come to a vote whether to go to war with England, France, and Germany combined, or raise the rate on incomes of over $100,000, they would vote war.”
I know you guys have a long history with siding with the rich but you are going to have to change your ways if you hope to win another presidency anytime in the near future. For you unfortunately it doesn’t cost anything to vote. There are a lot more poor folks than rich so surely you can understand that you are fighting a battle of diminishing returns. It is just too hard to win an election when your base is primarily made up of 1% of the electorate.
Now that us poor folks realize that our votes do count you guys are in trouble if you don’t change. We will be going to the polls like you couldn’t imagine in future elections and regrettably you found out this time that all your money won’t buy our votes.
So, if you hope to survive you just have to quit being almost exclusively the party of the rich. You are going to have to show that you care for the rest of us. I know in your heart that you do care, at least on some level, so try to nurture those feelings. You might be surprised just how far that will carry you.
I adamantly believe in a split government. That is no party should have control of both houses of congress and the White House at the same time. When that happens greed and power are too easily manifested. So, I am hoping that you can get your act together and continue to fight another day. But you just gotta get over being the party of the rich. In the spirit of my hero Will Rogers this post is partly in jest but it is also partly serious. I will leave it up to you to figure out which is which.
RJ's Corner 
Just a thought. You spend SOOOO much time bashing Republicans that I see no input as to what you would like to see in your own party (son’t say it isn’t your own- that is a cop out). You spend loads of time telling people what not to do—but what would you like the people you support TO do? Who are the people you support? You say that Republicans are mean and awful people—but what makes the other party more attractive? Who would you like to see actually lead? What things would you like to see passed? How would that be paid for?
It is easy to go on the negative—but building up takes positive perspective…. Isn’t THAT what Christ preached?
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Well Janette, no I’m not going to deny that for the last twenty years or more I have been much more a Democrat than a Republican but as presidential elections go I am pretty evenly split through my life. I don’t know how you expected me to deny that I am a social liberal, it is even in the title of this post. I truly want to see two parties that I can choose from but for the last two decades I have not had that option. When one party wants to balance the budget on the backs of the poor they are no longer on my list of possibilities.
But, I think again you are taking me much too seriously. Much of what I post is in the same vain of jest as Will Rogers did eighty years ago. As my “Quote of the Day” in my header says you need to not take life so serious. I think that compared to some of my right wing blogger friends I am a more like Bambi than Rush.
Yes, there are things about the Democrats that I can and have and probably will continue talk about but compared to the current GOP they are almost miniscule in nature. I don’t say that Republicans are mean and awful people. Most of them I know are not of that fabric, but there are those in Washington who do fit that description. You are without a doubt as strongly Republican as I am Democrat but I certainly don’t think you are mean and awful. I value your input but you just need to lighten up a little sometimes.
But again thanks for the input. It keeps me level….
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Great post, RJ. I agree with your assessment completely. Let’s all keep hammering away at this because memories are short and the Republicans are banking on that. As an example, I can already “feel” the intense reaction at guns fading following the Newtown shooting. I think there should be a constantly visible, constantly updating count of gun killings where every American could see it. How many have already occurred SINCE Newtown? Hundreds I’m sure, but nobody sees the total destruction mounting. (By the way, that’s why people go nuts over gas prices–we can easily see those big signs at stations everywhere showing the numbers. Should have those for gun killings.)
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Don, welcome to the blog. My GOP friends have an elephant as a mascot but some of the shortest memories in the world. Go figure…
I agree with you about “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. We are all appalled by the World Trade Center tragedy but fail to understand that there are three WTC’s a day of people who die because of lack of food or sanitary drinking water. How can we as a world not also mourn that fact. And as you say here there are hundreds killed every week in this country due to gun violence but we only seem to pay attention when tragedies like Newton occur.
Sometimes these types of things totally stifles my mind…..
Come back often and put in your two-cents…
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Now THAT is a great idea…have an electronic board like the one that shows the national debt only this would be the number of people killed and injured by guns each an every day. That would be a clear and constant reminder of our out of control gun culture. They could show it on the news every day. I can hear the NRA howling already 🙂
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Yeah, I like it. We are far and away the murder capital of the world but then again we have more guns per population than any other also, so naturally one goes with the other. I think many would be shocked to see just how quickly that counter turns over on a daily basis….
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