The GOP is dying; why not pull the plug
It all began with the Southern Strategy.
Starting in the 1960s, the Republican Party made a conscious effort to win votes in the South by appealing to racists. As Kevin Phillips, a political strategist for Nixon,explained to The New York Times in 1970: "The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."
The cynical strategy has, sadly, often paid off. However, by appealing to the lowest common denominator, Republicans have become the party of white identity politics. Donald Trump has taken that to the next level.
But a shift in demographics is quickly making this strategy ineffective, if not downright counterproductive — as we're seeing with Trump.
After the GOP's struggles in 2012, the GOP released a 100-page autopsy report about what went wrong and how to fix it. It emphasized reaching out to women, minorities and gay voters. The report said the party is "continually marginalizing itself, and unless changes are made it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future."
It goes on, "Young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the Party represents, and many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country." Unless the GOP becomes more inclusive and welcoming on social issues, the report says, "we will limit our ability to attract young people and others, including many women, who agree with us on some but not all issues."
So how's that new strategy gone for them?
Regarding those youngsters "rolling their eyes," Trump gets just 9 percent among Americans younger than 30, according to a McClatchy-Marist Poll conducted in early August. That's lower than Clinton's 41 percent, and Gary Johnson's 23 percent and Jill Stein's 16 percent,