Well, the GOP is still spinning its wheels three days after its shellacking, and watching the seams come unraveled has been the highlight of it all (secondary only to our great President's resounding and decisive re-election). I've been listening to their surprise, their confusion, their attempts to rationalize what has happened, their attempts to console their bruised hearts and egos, and their so-called plans for how to reinvent themselves in the face of this "new" America that they are convinced is too lazy and ignorant to understand the ramifications of what it has done. They ask the questions; "how can we Republicans talk to those who don't look/think like us"; "how do we convey our message to people who just want free stuff?"; "what do you say to people who just don't understand how the economy works?". Well GOP, if your questions continue to be framed in that way, the answer is, you can't and you will never be able to. Your party is doomed because "traditional" America is dead, and "new" America is alive.
You see, in order to talk to us and get through to us, you actually have to take time to understand us. You have to take words like "lazy" and "ignorant" out of your vocabulary. You have to recognize that brown skin does not equal "taker". You have to appreciate that we have dreams and goals, and aspirations for our lives and our families' lives. That we want to live in a world free from judgment and persecution because of what we look like. That we want to educate our children, and to raise them lovingly, whether it be by single parents, a mom and a dad, or two moms or two dads. That we want jobs that can help us pay for our own "stuff", and by stuff, I mean the basic things we need to survive - food, shelter, healthcare. Yeah, as Americans, 100% have the RIGHT to those basic things, so we need you to understand that too. Otherwise, go ahead and label us third-world right now. That we want the opportunity to worship in the way that speaks most solidly and completely to our own souls - whether that be God, Allah, Buddha, Jehovah, or no God at all. And that our personal choices in this regard, whatever they might be, do not make us evil, or immoral, or vile, nor does it mean we hate America or the Constitution (which makes no mention of God at all by the way). That we want the freedom to exercise our own religion as well as freedom from being legislated by yours. We need you to understand that we actually do want to heal our planet and stop the rise of the oceans - just ask our brethren in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and every other state in this nation who have been brought to its knees by mother nature's awesome power. We want you to stop holding us all hostage on financial cliffs while you sip mint julips and vodka spiked lemonade on islands that are home to all your real treasure. We want you ascribe to the same sense of responsibility you want us to have for our own lives and apply it to yourselves before you go all apeshit and start laying off folks just because Obama got re-elected because you won't be able to buy that new Mercedes or afford the gas for your private jet. Stop saying that Obamacare will stop you from creating jobs because you can't afford to insure people. Listen to me right now....insurance for employees, just like the costs of your raw materials, or your equipment, or the salaries/wages you pay, are a COST OF DOING BUSINESS...I repeat....A COST OF DOING BUSINESS. You factor in that cost just like you factor in everything else. When all the rest of us make out our individual personal budgets, we account for all the "stuff" that will be taken from our checks, and we make do with what we have left. We need you to start doing the same thing and make do with what you have left, instead of deciding that you must make do without the very people who helped you "build that"....
We need you to stop trying to impose your will upon us. We want you to stop crediting God for rape babies, but not for the re-election of President Obama as something that was "intended to happen". If God truly has his hand on everything, then he has his hand on EVERYTHING...including Obama as our President. We want you to stop saying that we are evil because we voted for him. We want you to give a damn about us...
When you're vilifying the deficit that you blame Obama for, we want you to acknowledge that the deficit has actually gone down under him, and that Obamacare actually will reduce it even more. We want you to actually admit that when you look at debt, you can't look at it in a vaccuum. Some "debt" is actually "investment" - just like in our individual households, my mortgage debt is good. My credit card debt is bad. Well, our deficit is made up of good and bad debt too. Debt for two wars that we entered under false pretenses with no plan to pay for = bad. Debt for infrastructure, clean energy solutions, economic growth, and education = good. And if you're going to be a deficit hawk, be a deficit hawk when the hand that spends the money is white, not just when it is black.
Us women folk want you out of our uterus. Period.
We want you to stop lying to us about tax cuts for your wealthy circle of friends. We've been waiting a long time for the trickle down and haven't gotten so much as a drizzle. Corporations are now sitting on record profits. If they're not willing to "make it rain" jobs, wage increases, access to healthcare, and equal pay for equal work while they're just sitting on piles of moo-la, then they never will.
We want you to stop preventing new America from exercising its right to vote. Yes, we realize you're afraid of new America. That you're terrified that every month, 50,000 hispanics turn 18 years old. That in the next four years, your shellacking is only going to get worse as we the people of color expand by leaps and bounds. We want you to embrace that fact, but you will only be able to do so when you recognize that we aren't ignorant or lazy, and that when we exercise our right to vote, we do so from an informed place that speaks to the needs of our own microcosms. Until you decide to visit those microcosms, walk around for a bit and see what our day to day struggle is, you won't understand it and you won't understand us. Until you do, you can keep asking what its going to take to get us on your side all you want, but we're going to keep ignoring you. Why??? Because on Tuesday night, despite all that money you raised and spent, and all those efforts to keep us off of voter rolls, and all those intimidation tactics to keep us from Baracking our Vote, you messed around and let "new" America see what it was capable of doing. We'll be damned if we turn back now.
FORWARD!