The Republican Party wants to Rebrand itself and broaden its appeal to the American people. In other words, the GOP wants to win back the voters they counted on but lost in the 2012 presidential election. What some Republicans understand and what many more don't understand is that the GOP lost those voters because Americans in increasing numbers are turned off by and scared by what the Repubican Party represents.
While their need is real, the party can't seem to agree on what they can do to stop the erosion of their conservative base. Some Republican leaders believe that they didn't get their message out loud enough and clear enough to enough people. But one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Clearly America heard their message and just as clearly most of America rejected it.
Other Republican leader see the need to finance a Rebranding of themselves and change the image of who they are. But can they do that? Can a leopard change its spots? Does lipstick on a pig make it more attractive? Can a conservative Republican party that has defined itself as the party whose base makes fun of intelligence, critical thinking, and a liberal education in the true sense of a liberal education really appeal to an educated thinking America?
Following the GOP's unexpected defeat in the 2012 presidential election, Bobby Jindal, the Republican Governor of Louisiana said that the GOP must stop being the "stupid" party. Author, Thomas L. Friedman perhaps said it best when he said: "The Republican Party can't win with a base that is at war with Math, Physics, human biology, Economics, Common Sense, and gun laws all at the same time"
Anyone who buys into a Republican Rebrand is buying fool's gold. Lipstick on a pig will not make a pig beautiful. Nor will glitter, patriotic platitudes, and lipstick rhetoric on the Republican Party make it attractive to critical thinking Americans. More and more Americans are rejecting the Republican brand. So if the Republican Party wants to endear itself to a majority of Americans, they can't merely be committed to Rebranding; they must evolve and change.
Obviously, the party won't evolve, even in four political lifetimes, because conservatives proudly don't believe in evolution. Perhaps a mutation is in order. But many would suggest that the party of conservative Republicans isn't what it used to be and that a mutation of conservative ideals has already taken place. Unfortunately for the party, the real problem with mutations is the relatively permenant change that occurs in the mutation process. So the party will try stoop to Rebranding itself to convince some disinfranchised voters that the GOP care about them as much as they care about billionaire white men.
Already, Republican men are being instructed on how to talk about women in order to avoid the prolific inflammatory remarks made to and about women in the two years leading up to the 2012 presidential election. Of course if men in the Republican party have to be taught how to talk to women and how to talk about women, you can see the mire in which the party finds itself. Still, its all talk, because, irrespective of what they say, they are who women know they are. And how can women hear what conservative men say when what they are keeps ringing in their ear?
On February 12, 2013, the Senate passed the Violence Against Women Act. All 22 dissenting votes against the bill were Republican. Republican women voted for the bill, but all 22 Republican men in the Senate voted against the Violence Against Women Act. In the Republican controlled House of Representatives, Republican leadership refuses to bring the VAWA up for vote. Memo to Republicans, you don't support women if you vote against or obstruct attempts to pass the Violence Against Women Act.
Second memo to Republicans: Americans aren't as dumb as you think we are. And many aren't as dumb or as scared by your divisive rhetoric as they used to be. Intelligent conservatives know that if they want to appeal to more Americans, they must stop trying to put lipstick on a pig and become a party that support all Americans. Intelligent Americans know that if they want the Republican Party to change and America to go forward, they must, starting in 2014, vote Republican troglodytes out of office.
No fool's gold in 2014.
