GOP houses a host of narrow interests

Monday, 8/25/97 GOP houses a host of narrow interests
REPUBLICANS: Party’s lack of diversity becomes visible when its
platform, causes are categorized

By Darrin Hurwitz MacLane Key’s blissful commentary (Big trouble
in a little tent, January 18, 1997) about a healthy, diverse
Republican Party is chock-full of wishful thinking and gross
inaccuracy. It’s easy to wonder whether Key’s Republican Party is
the same one that I and most other Americans have observed become
increasingly divisive, extreme, and narrowly-based in recent years.
At first glance, the picture Key paints sounds neat and rosy. He
asserts that the Republican Party is the home of vigorous,
open-minded debates, in which a diverse group of Americans with
differing sets of principles and priorities, can somehow all come
together to further the interests of the Grand Old Party. Key backs
up his argument by documenting a few of the broad groups that make
up the Republican Party. There are the anti-crime advocates (i.e.
those who demand harsher prison sentences but want to do away with
that other response to crime – sensible gun control laws). There
are the free-market environmentalists who believe that the best way
to protect the environment is to turn one’s head and simply hope
that big business will treat the environment respectfully. And
let’s not forget the Reagan zealots, those mainstays of good ol’
Republican nostalgia. Somehow, they conveniently ignore the four
trillion dollar national debt incurred during his administration
and the thousands of families who lost their monthly checks so that
Reagan could add another nuclear warhead or B-2 bomber to our
already over-flowing arsenal. The problem is that while Key has
identified different groups in the Republican Party, they are not a
particularly diverse bunch and they certainly hold nothing in the
way of "broad appeal." At least not in today’s America, where,
remember, the average American is not a suburban white male earning
six figures with a vacation home. Unfortunately, the Republican
Party has responded to the splendid diversity of this nation by
becoming increasingly exclusive and reactionary. As a result, it
has become more and more out-of-touch with the everyday concerns of
working and middle-class Americans. Rather than deal proactively
with the wide range of social problems that this nation, and
particularly its underrepresented groups, face, the GOP has
undertaken two courses of action. Both are more comparable to a
child’s temper tantrum than reasoned, mature policy. The first
action has been to blame the "liberals" and their policies for
today’s social problems. That’s kind of like blaming the Band-Aid
for the wound. But perhaps it makes sense. Isn’t it easier to
rationalize spending cuts and upper-class tax breaks when the poor
and downtrodden of our society can be blamed for their own poverty
and those who have tried to help them can be blamed for attempting
to find a solution? Secondly, Republicans have attempted to play
the blame game by utilizing the "race card" to drum up working and
middle-class support. Gov. Wilson and the California GOP have
played into legitimate concerns about crime and jobs by embracing
emotional issues such as illegal immigration, affirmative action
and bilingual education. These issues unwittingly raise fear and
hostility by tapping into traditional reservations about a
multicultural, diverse America. What the GOP strategists didn’t
consider was that by identifying itself with these issues, it might
have picked up some votes in the short-run, but for the long-term
it has perhaps fatally injured its reputation among minority
voters. One case in point was the dramatic shift of Latinos, soon
to be a majority of California residents, to the Democratic Party
in 1996. Another was the extraordinary rise in this ethnic group’s
voter turnout. Ultimately, Key’s "big tent" may be standing on
quicksand. The Republican Party’s course of action in many ways
reflects the party’s 1990s turn toward the right . This is evident
by the increasing influence of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition
and the shift of the party’s leadership to the traditionally more
conservative South. The GOP’s growing problem is that the majority
of Americans do not support this harsher, more conservative agenda.
Newt Gingrich’s unpopularity and the demise of the last Congress’
"Contract with America" is testament to the fact that perhaps
Republicans misread opinion polls when they took over the reins of
Congress in 1994. While Americans do want a smaller, more effective
and less bureaucratic government, they also want to maintain a
certain level of government support for impoverished families,
college students and the elderly. And Americans also are keen
enough to see through the propaganda of a party which argues for
capital gains cuts for the rich to improve the economy but attempts
to balance the federal budget on the backs of those who can least
afford it. Those in the GOP who have come to recognize the
disparity between the party’s agenda and public opinion have been
unable to stage an organized fight for the party’s heart and soul.
Pro-choice Republicans, who recognize that over two-thirds of
Americans support abortion rights, have been unable to rewrite the
party’s platform to reflect this sentiment. Additionally, more
progressive viewpoints on such issues as gay rights, environmental
protection, education reform, and church-state separation are kept
out of the party agenda by a vocal and powerful group of religious
conservatives. The in-fighting which has taken place is anything
but the "healthy debate" which Key believes it is. Good debate
requires an open mind, a reasonable dose of skepticism, respect for
other’s opinions, and a willingness to change one’s views. The
rigidity of the religious right’s views has allowed none of this to
take place, and it is unlikely that much will change as long as it
maintains its power within the party. What we are left with, then,
is an ongoing series of confrontations between moderates and the
right wing of the Republican Party. If the duel over Weld’s
appointment to the ambassadorship of Mexico is any indication, then
it’s clear that the right is winning. Remember that Senator Helms,
who has so far successfully held up Weld’s nomination, was a
renowned segregationist who voted against the 1965 Civil Rights
Act. In 1990 he ran a campaign advertisement showing a white hand
crumpling up job papers after losing out to a black man. This is
the same guy who rails on Weld’s support for easing marijuana
restrictions but is the torch-bearer of a drug business which kills
half a million Americans a year – the tobacco industry. The fact
that Helms can single-handedly hold a president’s nomination in
check and receive nothing but a few meager complaints from other
Republicans shows where the real power lies in the GOP. Until
moderates are able to regain enough control over the party’s soul
to restore a sense of social responsibility and tolerance to the
party’s agenda, Democrats should be thanking their lucky stars and
counting their political fortunes. Previous Daily Bruin Story Big
trouble in a little tent