Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has declared that the Republican Party has to stop acting “stupid”, and must stop backing no increase in taxes on the wealthy, and insulting the intelligence of voters by crazy statements and viewpoints.
This all sounds very good in theory, but is what Jindal suggests really possible?
The answer is NO, as the following evidence demonstrates:
1, The Republican Party insulted their own history by having loony, nutty, whacky candidates in the race for the Presidency, including Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, and Rick Santorum. And Santorum made it clear that the Republican Party would never get the backing of intelligent, educated, smart people, which is absolutely the case right now
2. The Republicans settled on Mitt Romney, who looked reasonable in 2011, but in order to win the nomination of his party, totally transformed himself into a mean, nasty, hard hearted candidate who was willing to lie, to deceive, to change his views daily, deny his whole political heritage, and came across ultimately as totally insincere and untrustworthy. Many people found Mitt Romney obnoxious, feeling privileged and entitled, extremely phony to the core, and just wanting the campaign to end so that they no longer had to see his face and hear his voice!
3. Mitt Romney proceeded to pick an absolutely horrible Vice Presidential running mate, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, who came across as totally ideological, and alienated senior citizens and others with his call for privatizing Medicare and Social Security, and his extreme right wing agenda to cut the budget ruthlessly, without ever raising any taxes on the wealthy, who have had a ten year break from reasonable taxation, because of the Bush tax cuts. Ryan helped Romney to lose the “battleground” states, and his appointment showed poor judgment by Romney.
4. The Republican Party declared “war” on women, Hispanics and Latinos, young people wanting to get an education, senior citizens concerned about Social Security and Medicare, the disabled concerned about Medicaid, those who cared about the environment and consumer rights, those who support labor rights, African Americans who saw racism in the GOP message, and many others who were totally turned off to the party message.
5. The conservative media are like poison to the Republican Party, as are the social conservatives who want to interfere with people’s private lives based on promoting theocracy in America, and the Grover Norquist promotion of never, under any circumstances, raising taxes—all of this makes the Republican Party totally toxic to most voters. And of course, the decision to repudiate science in favor of religion shows how backward the party has become.
6. To believe that the Republican Party will change under these circumstances is to be naive, and any change would seem to be phony and just looking for votes, not a sincere reform or conversion.