The propensity for word salad and outrageous statements are not an accident but a carefully concocted plan. A plan detailed by a man named by Lee Atwater who truly said it best:
The late, legendarily brutal campaign consultant Lee Atwater explains how Republicans can win the vote of racists without sounding racist themselves:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.” “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
Now the voting block the Republicans were courting were the Whites of the South, primarily of the Kluxer variety. But this strategy bled over into other things. The Republicans found they could throw red meat to the Evangelical Christians to get their vote and disrupt Democratic gains at the same time. But that quickly delved into a completion of whom could be most pious.
Bush, the third candidate to answer in the debate, said, "Christ, because he changed my heart."
Moderator John Bachman pressed for more and Bush added: "When you turn your heart and your life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as the savior, it changes your heart. It changes your life. And that's what happened to me."
Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Mormon from Utah, followed Bush. Hatch cited Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan as his political role models, then added: "But I bear witness to Christ, too. I really know him to be the savior of the world. And that means more to me than almost anything else I know."
Gary Bauer, a Baptist, quoted Scripture in naming Christ as his favorite political thinker. "If America's in trouble in the next century, it will be because we forgot what he taught us," Bauer said.
The religion bit is the easiest grift of all for them, all they need to do is parrot empty theological sounding sound bites and the Christian base eats it up. And when they do something like restrict women's rights to appease them it puts the Democrats on the defensive.
Now to the translations.
“We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning to value the culture of work, so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.”
By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires.
"But one of the things I’ve talked to the secretary of agriculture about: Why don’t you have the kids pay a dime, pay a nickel to instill in them that there is, in fact, no such thing as a free lunch? Or maybe sweep the floor of the cafeteria -- and yes, I understand that that would be an administrative problem, and I understand that it would probably lose you money. But think what we would gain as a society in getting people -- getting the myth out of their head that there is such a thing as a free lunch," he said.
By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires.
18. “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so… what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.” ~ Andre Bauer
By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires.
9. Rick Santorum: “I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you… rape victims should make the best of a bad situation.” - January, 2012
By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires.
Speaking to a reporter for the Marietta Daily Journal, Everhart furthered the GOP’s outreach to LGBT voters and those who support LGBT rights by saying, “Lord, I’m going to get in trouble over this, but it is not natural for two women or two men to be married. If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.” Everhart wasn’t finished, though. She also warned that gay marriage would lead to straight people pretending to be gay in order to reap the benefits of same-sex marriage. Seriously.
By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires.
You can see which voters the Republicans are courting by looking at the content of their gerrymandered districts. Actions speak louder than words.