Op-Ed: No matter what happens in the midterms, pundits will trot out familiar narratives. How can this be? One of the biggest lies about the GOP is that somehow the party’s base can be relied on to rally and fight against a Democrat and win.
In a democracy, the general public cannot be relied upon to fight to protect the most vulnerable members of society, like the poor and marginalized. But the GOP has not only failed to protect their base, it has actively sought to diminish them.
We know this because they took a stance on immigration reform in the face of broad opposition from Americans. That opposition was broad and diverse, from the very left-wing New York Times editorial board to conservative commentator Pat Buchanan and even Hollywood.
Yet the GOP blocked even moderate ideas from becoming law because they wanted to push us toward the more conservative immigration positions that they know are not sustainable for the long term. Their true goal has always been to make the problem of immigration worse, not better.
In order to prevent the problem of immigration from getting even worse, their only hope is that people won’t fight against them enough to elect people who will. And in order to prevent the public from coming together in opposition to the GOP, they will continue to lie, cheat and smear people who take a stand against the status quo.
That has been the Republican strategy since 9/11. They have never been much of a movement organization. They don’t campaign or fundraise. They win by stealing elections, destroying opposition research and then lying about how they misled the public. They did nothing to protect the health and safety of Americans, who have already been living with the consequences of 9/11 for more than two decades.
The GOP now has nothing to offer the American people, except lies and fear mongering. Their only hope is that people will be willing to vote them out of office. So their only choice is to do nothing.
The media does not help them out by telling the American public how the GOP is a “basket of deplorables.” The media should be focusing on the fact that a Republican-controlled House of
