The Republicans Are Building An Even Smaller Tent?

I turned on the MSNBC Live With Kate Snow show on 12/8/15 and Kasie Hunt was talking about the latest Donald Trump headlines-grabbing comments. When she was asked about Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s statement that the kind of hatred that Donald Trump is currently voicing has long been a part of Republican politics she said that his statement was hyperbole.

Let me start by saying that I totally disagree with Ms. Hunt’s assessment. Senate Minority Leader Reid was right when he said that “…Trump is just saying out loud what other Republicans merely suggest.”  The fact of the matter is that most of them are very skilled politicians who know better than to say the kind of things that Donald Trump is saying so instead they use dog whistle politics to get their point across.

While some Republican politicians and their political leaders have condemned Mr. Trump’s latest statement that all Muslims should be banned from entering the United States, they only did so under much public pressure and even then, most of them soft peddled those condemnation statements. Among those who made statements condemning Mr. Trump’s rhetoric were – finally – RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan, almost all of the 2016 presidential candidates and even conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Rush Limbaugh has long been a staunch supporter of Donald Trump so he has likely heard the majority, if not all, of the comments Mr. Trump has made while tiptoeing up to this latest one about Muslims. Therefore, if he is speaking out against him now it probably means that he feels it will have a negative impact on his show if he does not.

Many world leaders and others in the world who regularly use social media are chiming in on Donald Trump’s latest comments about Muslims. Many, including me, feel that the rhetoric that Mr. Trump has been using to court and hang on to the primary voters that he has and desperately wants to keep is divisive and plays right into the hands of ISIS and others who want to harm Americans and others that live here who are loyal to America.

Instead of working to fix this glaring problem, Republican politicians are attacking anything and everything that seeks to level the playing field between the haves – unscrupulous big money constituents, businesses and individuals – and the have nots – middleclass Americans and poor Americans. They have talked for a long time about building a bigger tent that will accommodate minorities of all colors; but are they instead building an even smaller tent than they already have?  It certainly looks that way because now they are even alienating Americans from their party, who might otherwise be interested in it, simply based on their religion!

The question is, why aren’t Republican politicians and Republican leaders expressing total outrage over this latest development surrounding Mr. Trump and doing all that they can to assure Americans and the world that this is an anomaly and is not who we are as Americans? Could it be that it is because this kind of politics has been and still is a part of Republican politics and Republican politicians and their political leaders are afraid that they will alienate their base if they conduct themselves like the statesmen that they claim to be and should be?!  Is it politics above duty again; politics above honorable service to America and the will of the majority of their constituents?!  Is it a fear of losing their job if they do their job so they choose to place their desire to be reelected above all else?!

In this particular case, I want to be wrong and hope that I am wrong in my thinking. If I am not wrong then our politicians have failed us and, as voters, we have failed and are continuing to fail ourselves and them.  When I look at what recently happened to the Voting Rights Act and see the mess that we are in since it was gutted; the very states that this act was meant to hold in check to assure that they would be fair to all of their constituents – and other states where the governance process is dominated by Republicans – are now obstructing or in some cases blocking people from voting, it is hard for me to believe that I am wrong.

Even now, because Republican politicians and leaders are scanning the political landscape and finding that they will need the votes of minorities and women if they are to ever be successful in claiming the office of US President again and that to accomplish this task will be difficult and time consuming, it appears that they have decided to abandon it. Instead, they have opted to go with obstructing or blocking the ability of those who normally vote for Democrats from voting.

The gutting of the Voting Rights Act is only one of the steps that Republican politicians have taken toward achieving their goal of claiming the Oval Office without building a bigger and more inclusive tent. Others include the ‘One Person, One Vote’ clarification question raised in the Evenwel v. Abbott case that was heard by the US Supreme Court on Tuesday December 8, 2015, the continued push for ‘States Rights’, which allows the states power and control of certain legislative decisions that are currently made at the federal level, and the gerrymandering of districts that Republicans initiated when they were swept into power in 2010.

Whether you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent and whether you agree or disagree with the opinion that I have expressed in this article, it is important that you get to the polls and vote during elections. I believe that Americans believe that The American Dream should be available to all of those who are willing to work to achieve it and that there should be a level playing field available to them on which they can  strive to accomplish their goal.  For this same reason I believe that a great majority of Americans, regardless of their party preference, will vote for the kind of fairness and opportunity just mentioned.  So, whatever your party affiliation, always remember that your vote is the most important one of all… unless you don’t use it!  Be sure to always vote!

Eulus Dennis