Ann Coulter and the Republican Problem

I can hardly stand to listen to Ann Coulter. She is a hot mess.

Needless to say after Tuesday night she was despondent and took to the airwaves lamenting Mitt Romney‘s loss and discussing what she views as the problem that the Republican party has stating,

Mitt Romney was the president we needed right now, and I think it is so sad that we are going to be deprived of his brain power, of his skills in turning companies around, turning the Olympics around, his idea and his kindness for being able to push very conservative ideas on a country that no longer is interested in conservative ideas. It is interested in handouts.

It may be true that Mitt Romney was the president we needed, but she is wrong about why he is not packing up for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Most Americans are not looking for a handout; they are being given an impossible choice: economics or civil rights?

Those of us who consider ourselves political moderates often feel the same way. We have  great deal of concern over the economy, fiscal responsibility in government and the size of the national debt. We also tend to be socially liberal: in favor of marriage equality, reproductive rights, and if not fully pro-choice at least understanding that the argument has gray areas including issues of rape, and incest.

So on Tuesday anyone who feels this way had to decide where their priorities lie, and much to the chagrin of conservatives everywhere, a majority decided that civil rights had to trump economic concerns. Therein lies the Republican Party’s problem. When they aligned themselves with social ultra-conservatives they left huge groups of voters either without a reason to vote for them or with serious concerns about what a vote for them would mean. Women voters, Hispanic voters, LGBT voters, and the voters who care about them. In fact, the only demographic in which Mitt Romney soundly beat Barak Obama was white male voters, and that is only a small part of the population that makes up this nation.

I have found my Facebook wall to be a disheartening place all week. People who I care about and respect calling Obama voters stupid and idiotic. The level of anger was breathtaking and says one thing loud and clear to me: Everyone is happy to live in a democracy when they are in the majority, but boy, if you find yourself in the minority, democracy doesn’t seem quite so rosy anymore.

And whether you agree or disagree, conservative social values are quickly becoming a minority viewpoint. I’m not making a commentary on whether those values are correct or incorrect; I’ve made my own personal feelings pretty clear in other blog posts, and I’m not in any way saying that anyone needs to compromise their values in their own lives. However, facts are facts, and as long as the social conservatives are speaking more loudly for the Republican party than the fiscal conservatives, Republicans are going to have a hard time getting elected to the office of President.

It’s human nature to want people to see the world as you do, and when we feel passionately about a subject it’s often hard to understand how anyone could feel any differently. Sometimes, though, we have to take a step back and see the big picture…to see the forest, not just the trees…to understand that there is the world we might wish we lived in and the world that we actually do live in. To ignore that is not clinging to your ideals, it is sticking your head in the sand.

If there is anything all of us can agree on it is that politics in this nation is a mess. Everything that gets done or doesn’t get done is about what it will mean in the next election cycle, and that brings me to the second part of the Republican problem. Their spokespeople say they want bipartisanship and our government to work together for compromise.

To which I say:

When President Obama and Governor Chris Christie were walking through the rubble of New Jersey a few days before the election, how did you feel? What did you think bout Christie’s respectfulness and appreciation of Obama coming to see first-hand the destruction of the storm? The photo ops?

Because what I heard was a lot of complaining about how he shouldn’t have done that and shame on him for not keeping his distance.

I thought it was great. Not because I think it made Obama look good (which it did), but because Governor Christie did the right thing, in spite of the flack I’m sure he know he was going to get because of it. It was about getting a job done despite major ideological differences. It was about Obama prioritizing a trip to help citizens who were likely voting for him anyway, and leaving other potentially more beneficial campaign stops to do what was right.

That is what is needed at ALL levels of government right now. Men and women who are willing to hurt themselves or help the other party to get done what needs to get done, because let’s face it, we won’t be able to go on like this for much longer.