Slow News Day

It's monday. Nothing's happening. A snarky reply I was dropping on a "Gawker" thread about tomorrow's expected reveal of a GOP proposal to, yes, privatize Medicare (i.e. why would conservatives want to piss off, of all people, senior citizens?) turned into a mini-essay, so I figure what the hell - might as well repost it here. Also, I like the irony of it running in-tandem with the ads for the awful-looking "Atlus Shrugged" movie Google keeps putting on the site... ;)

Actual text after the jump, those not wanting to hear/read political stuff advised not to bother:


"Sadly, it's quite the opposite - this is the GOP's version of (irony!) long-term political insurance.

They play the part in public, but the (actual) Republican leadership isn't stupid; they know that their onetime powerbase - big blocs of aging white (nominal) Christians who "like things just fine the way they've always been" - is being eroded, bred and straight-up reverse-gentrified out of existence. We're about ONE generation away from the old "guns god n' gays" scare-tactic being essentially useless.

GOP "brain" guys like, say, Rove or the NRO crowd, are both aware and TERRIFIED of the looming fact that 3 decades of "culture war" - of letting the "social conservatives" be their dominant public face - has left a huge scar on the broader "conservative" brand that can't just be "dropped" all at once: The "Christian Right" is short-term propping them up, but long-term poisoning them.

The ONLY play they have to remain politically relevant into the next decade is this VERY narrow window of space in-between Generation X/Y'ers earning grownup-sized paychecks and not yet having older-grownup-sized health costs; when "WHY SHOULD I BE PAYING FOR SOME OLD PEOPLE'S MEDS!!??" actually sounds like a sensible political position. This is also why you're seeing the old "welfare queen" stereotypes conflating race/gender with entitlement programs rearing their head once again - it's ALL about rebranding The Party to appeal to white suburban douchebags with MBA's burning a hole in their pocket who probably don't give a shit about gay marriage or abortion but are FLABBERGASTED as to why they have to get "SCREWED out of a job by Affirmative Action!!!" when "everyone knows" racism is totally over because they "never owned a slave or nothing!" ;)