thediasporist's blog

Many thanks to Reihan Salam for stating the obvious: the GOP will make a near-term comeback.

The key analysis:

“This is not the modern, youthful, multiethnic, forward-looking GOP that Karl Rove and George W. Bush envisioned when they were plotting a run for the White House….Like the Perot voters who were so desperate for sincerity that they turned to an eccentric and enormous-eared billionaire, this is a movement of old, flinty, very skeptical people who don’t believe President Obama when he claims that he can cover the uninsured and improve quality and lower costs long-term. They see it as their duty to save America from smooth-talking politicians.”

First of all, any first year political science undergrad can tell you that when you have one party government in Washington, characterized by sinking popularity and drastic overreach, the opposition is in a position to do well in subsequent elections.  See 2006, 1992, hell all the way back to 1938.

That the GOP might pick up seats in 2010 isn’t a shock.  However, the underlying cultural and demographic problems the GOP faces are likely to persist even in the face of short term gains.

Republican strategist Mark McKinnon thinks that former Pennsylvania Rick Santorum’s issue profile – his extreme social conservative philosophy – represents what’s wrong with the Republican Party.   Yet, McKinnon asserts in the Daily Beast that Santorum’s character is the larger concern were the good former senator to make a bid for the President.

I like Mark McKinnon quite a bit, but I disagree with his argument here.

The attention that Santorum’s traditionalist social policies will attract will do the most damage to the GOP in the long run, and make it more difficult for a more reasonable candidate to succeed in winning the nomination and the general election.

There’s one point that just shouldn’t be up for debate throughout this whole health insurance reform tussle:  the American Left ideally prefers a single – payer health insurance regime.  See here, here, and here.

As Rep. Barney Frank correctly notes, single – payer health insurance is a political impossibility.  But why don’t the President and other Democratic policyholders and left-leaning advocates of health insurance reform make an intellectual argument for it?

If you’re one of the 5% of the world that can get over the fact that I’m a black gay Republican, a simple and innocent question has probably popped into your mind; how does someone with my profile think about politics?  I will begin to answer that question here by briefly exploring each of my identities and how they intersect.  I cannot even begin to really explore such a complex subject in such a small space, and I hope to explore this area further in the future.

Let me state the obvious; I see neither law, politics, nor culture like most other black people; nor do I see it as most other gay people.  I’m sure it won’t be surprising to hear that I certainly don’t see those things as most Republicans do.  Instead, these three parts of my identity come together to form a worldview that I liken to a multicultural individualism.  I see society simply as a space where individuals reside; where people’s lives, likes and dislikes, and property are their own, not to be interfered with, judged, or challenged by any outside power.