A time to discern

Professor Melissa Harris Perry of Tulane University is right when she says America needs the Republican Party. Diversity of thought is good for democracy. Given that sentiment, in a perverse way this will be a good year for republicans.

There are millions of good, decent, and hardworking republicans who feel they have been betrayed by the present leaders who have become the public face of the party. By letting the oddities of the party control their narrative, republicans have become a caricature more valuable for late night comedy than the values they profess.

It should not surprise anyone that the public face of the 2012 Republican Party now represents the worst not the best of the American story. As they have adopted Peter Brimelow’s suggestion to appeal simply to white voters, xenophobia has become the organizing paradigm. Over the last several election cycles, the Republican Party has been moving towards this scenario. One cannot forget the republican smear campaign in 2000, that many attributed to George Bush, that accused John McCain of fathering a black child or the anti-gay campaign championed by Bush Campaign Manager Ken Mehlman who has since admitted to being gay himself.

In a news media world that is now 24/7, it was Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign rallies that seemed to appeal to anti black and anti muslim sentiments. Those rallies began to attract what at best could be called a fringe element.

It has become a party that forgot about a republican president named Dwight Eisenhower who was able to capture 40% of the black vote in 1956. Even Richard Nixon captured 36% .

The grand old party has become the anti-America party, whose rampant xenophobia has managed to alienate women, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, gays, lesbians and Mormons. It has become a party that believes its path to victory is through voter suppression.

The republicans have become a party susceptible to being taken hostage by the likes of the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh and so-called evangelicals who are more like the Pharisees than Jesus.

The good news for republicans if it loses in November is that it will have an opportunity to purge themselves of oddities such as Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee and their version of the Marx Brothers namely Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and Paul. If they lose, the republicans will have four years to move its party away from the dominionism of Rick Santorum, the megalomania of Newt Gingrich, the obtuseness of Mitt Romney and the racist commentary of Ron Paul.What is at stake for the Republican Party is more than the 2012 presidential election but whether it is willing to be reduced to a regional xenophobic party. If the Republican Party enters into a time of discernment about its message and its messengers, the party will benefit and more importantly, the nation will benefit.