This is a take-away from the Romney campaign: “We didn’t think they’d turn out more of their base vote than they did in 2008, but they smoked us,” said one Romney operative. “It’s unbelievable that that they turned out more from the African-American community than in 2008. Somehow they got ‘em to vote.”
Somehow? As if it's a mystery.
The building lines on election day, especially in states where republicans had clearly set up an apparatus to make it exceedingly difficult for minority voters to vote, were due to a lot of things. But one of those things was anger over this perceived disenfranchisement because there is/was a history here dating back decades. It's the reason why the Voting Rights Act was passed. Older African Americans remembered, and younger voters heard the history. Did the republican party actually think they could get away with it?
African Americans decided that no one was going to keep them from voting on election day. Young supporters came out for the same reason, among other reasons. Latinos were angry over republican calls to self-deport--placing all Latinos into the same suspect group whether they were in that group or not: which only solidified that voting bloc as a whole. Once they got into lines that were hours long, they refused to give up their places in line and were willing to stand for hours. This was an occupy movement that mattered because it resulted in a decisive victory for the President.
Republicans can actually win elections if they become an inclusive party. It's the way things work in a democracy. It's the very definition of democracy. Maybe after this fiasco, especially with the criminal nightmare that was voting in republican states, the republican party will learn some valuable lessons.