5 Reasons the Republican Party is going to Fail (it's not what you think)

Sitting on the sidelines of politics is amusing, to me. Watching the two parties go at each other just continues to show how mean spirited Democrats and Republicans have become.  But one party is getting it right while the other flounders, and here are 5 reasons why the Republican Party is going to fail:

1. They don’t know our societies social pecking order -

Today’s culture is based on youth. Everywhere we turn we see how youth is valued more than experience. We see everything from commercials about the importance of youth, to hearing jokes about how old people are more of a burden than a treasure trove of information. Steve Jobs was 52 when the iPhone came out. His grasp of innovation was built on years of experience, not youth.

Republicans know that experience trumps vigor, but what they don’t get is that America doesn't care. Our society has been programmed to believe that old people are stupid and a burden on society, but the Right continues to prop up caricatures of this mindset as their leaders and they ignore the millions of 20/30 year old Republicans who are the savior of their Party. 

The Democrats spend a lot of time referencing youth with their party, and it’s working. Young people today think that if you’re going to be cool and socially relevant you have to be a Democrat. That’s what they hear and read on a daily basis. The Republicans don’t seem to get this and they’re losing the future voting base of America.

2. They apparently didn't pass high school history -

Republicans have a wealth of ammunition at their disposal when it comes to the history of the two parties. Most people today will tell you that Republicans are racist. Why? Because that’s what they've been told over and over, but the Republicans don’t fight back. 

It’s odd that Republicans don’t simply open a history book and show people that in fact it’s the Democratic Party that was born of racism and continues to be covertly racist through less noticeable means, such as government handouts.

Republicans are doing a terrible job of showing the country their minority base, which makes it simpler for Democrats to shed their racist past on to them. 

I wrote an article on how Democrats have changed history so people don’t know simple facts, like they started the KKK. You can read it here.

3. They don’t point out that Democrats are rich - 

Democrats have spent a lot of time railing against the “rich white Republicans” and have convinced America that they’re out of touch with our society. This is mostly done by actors and singers who people seem to bow down to and believe what they say is gospel. I don’t understand why Republicans don’t point out to everyone that the very people they think are telling them the truth are actually the real rich people in this country. 

Seriously, the richest segment of this country is Hollywood. Actors, singers, producers, directors… all of them make millions of dollars a year, but have somehow convinced the public that they’re just regular Joe’s who are standing beside them fighting against “the man.” People don’t see that they’re actually standing on a $2 million yacht. 

People like Bill Maher sit on their TV programs and say completely unrealistic things about Republicans but he does it in the form of a joke so his audience laughs and thinks it must be true because it made them feel good. Democrats push these witty people to the forefront a lot, and it’s a great tactic because it makes the Republicans look foolish, when in fact their statements have no real substance or proof.  It’s sad that a smart-ass gets more credibility than a scholar bearing facts.

But believe me folks, you will never get invited to a single party thrown by any of the people you idolize in the entertainment industry because they don’t want to get your minimum wage earning dirt in their $30 million mansion.  They really don’t give a rat’s rump about you, they just know how to manipulate the masses, it’s their job. 

4. They don’t use the media -

It’s true that whoever owns the media will own the people. TV, movies, blogs, newspapers… no one can argue that it’s mostly owned by liberals, and their stories are slanted in that direction. It’s a smart move though, grab the minds of the people and you get your way. 

It never fails that as I read articles I’ll hit a section that skewers the Right with a subtle zinger. But add up 10 million zingers a year and suddenly you have traction in the minds of the masses. 

Sometimes it’s subliminally placed in media. A good example is the picture I chose for this post.  Notice that success points to the “left,” while failure points to the “right.” It doesn’t seem like much but it’s subliminally putting out a message, and you’ll find this kind of stuff in a lot of articles.  

The Left says that Republicans are all rich, and if that’s true why haven’t they taken over the media? Hollywood has become as much political as it is entertaining. Why aren’t Republicans setting up their own studios with their apparent riches and hiring conservative actors they can make famous so they can convince people that conservatism is good? Instead of having people like Rush Limbaugh spouting unhelpful spooge that just incites anger, they should build an industry like the liberals in which they can influence people.  

5. They can’t count -

Elections are tough, and Republicans seem to rely on grabbing the most votes, but as we’ve seen in several elections getting the popular vote won’t get you elected because of the Electoral College. It takes winning key states which garner the most electoral votes to win an election. 

Democrats have spent years building a suitable base in key states to draw liberals to them. It’s a simple strategy, create liberal havens to attract your voter base to move where their votes can have the most impact. It’ll be interesting to see if Republicans can win a presidential election in coming years. I have a feeling they won’t get the electoral votes.

Republicans don’t seem to have a clue about any of this. They have a road-map for success laid out right in front of them by Democrats, but they seem too stupid to replicate it, and for that their party is doomed to failure.

Forget Priorities... Blame Someone!

So recently the Affordable Healthcare Act went into effect and people can now go to HealthCare.gov (link) to create an account and find healthcare resources.  Well, it didn’t go so well.  The site has been plagued with problems, everything from not being able to sign in to incorrect pricing for insurance plans, and now it’s a daily headline about the company that created the site being substandard (link), or programmers complaining about unrealistic deadlines (link), or whether or not the president knew the site was faulty before it went live (link).

Wow, seriously?  A website that doesn’t work as advertised?  When has that ever happened?  Ummm, like every day! 

Back in 2000 I was part of a corporation that built and hosted websites, so I have a little background in this stuff.  I can tell you that building an ecommerce site can be a very delicate thing, especially with today’s programming technologies.  There are a lot of web browsers that have to be taken into consideration from Internet Explorer, FireFox, Chrome, and many others (link) which all have their own intricacies of handling code.  Programming a website the size of HealthCare.org is a really big project.  I looked at the source code for the site, and there are over 1,600 lines of visible code just to make the very first page render on your screen.

But let’s get down to brass tacks – why are we having congressional hearings about a website that doesn’t work correctly?  Really, why?!  We’re literally paying expensive congressional mouth pieces to root out the evil that caused this ginormous website to malfunction like it’s an anomaly or something.

Think about the technologies you have, has it always worked correctly?  Isn’t the fact that iOS 7.0.3 was released so soon after iOS 7 hit the streets enough evidence to prove that technologies sometimes don’t work correctly?  We’re not having congressional hearings about that, are we?  Why is it so important to find someone to blame with the HealthCare.org website?

Politics.

I’d love to see how much of our tax dollars are wasted every year on politics, I think it would be staggering.

But I’m not going start on the politics of this issue or I’ll be writing for the next week.  There are serious problems in this country that need the attention of our government.  Investigating a website issue seems like a huge waste of time when over 14 million children in this country have to rely on food banks for subsistence. (link)

Let’s get real about what our priorities should be, because I guarantee there will be another website malfunction tomorrow.

“God, please open our eyes to the priorities of your gospel: to feed the hungry, to house the homeless, and to serve the underserved.  Amen.”

Keep the Change

I have a wrist watch that’s been sitting in a basket on my kitchen counter needing repair for some time.  One of the pins that holds the band to the watch broke and I’ve been meaning to get it replaced for several months, it just hasn’t been a priority because let’s face it, most people don’t need a time piece on their wrist any longer since we have a very precise clock in our smartphones.

However, it’s a nice watch and I decided I would take some time over the weekend to find a repair shop and get the pin replaced, so after doing a search on watch repair I decided to visit the L. E. Estrada Watch and Jewelry Repair shop.  It’s a very small business in a very small strip center in an out-of-the-way part of town.

When I got there the door was locked with a hand written note on the door instructing me to knock.  I didn’t find this odd because most jewelry places keep their doors locked because the bad guys like to target places like this.

After a minute I heard the door unlock and little old man opened the door.  I went in and I could tell it was a family owned business and the gentleman who opened the door was Mr. Estrada himself.  There were two other people in the shop already so after locking the door again Mr. Estrada went back to his task of servicing his customers. 

The shop was very small with lots of interesting clocks on the walls that reminded me of my childhood and our cuckoo clock from which a bird would spring out every hour and loudly cuckoo the number of times that matched the hour it was announcing.

After a bit Mr. Estrada came to me and I showed him my watch.  In broken English he said he could fix it, and after a few minutes he returned with my watch fully repaired.  I asked how much and was told $1.50.  Of course I don’t carry cash, because it’s not 1998, so I pulled my card out only to be told “cash only.”

I told him to hang on to the watch and I’d go find an ATM, but instead he handed it to me and kindly said “you pay me later.”  I could tell from his smile that he was basically telling me that it was only a buck and a half so don’t worry about it and just take the watch.

I appreciate people who are gracious, and I could tell Mr. Estrada was the type to give people a break, even if it cost him money.  So I left and immediately pulled out my iPhone and asked Siri to find an ATM.  I’m a grace filled person too, and I was going to ensure Mr. Estrada was paid for his work. 

So I followed Siri’s directions to the nearest bank which turned out to be completely wrong.  She led me into a residential neighborhood and then as I sat at a stop sign surrounded by nothing but houses she announced that I had arrived at the bank.  “Siri you suck at directions!” I said to her and she replied “Now now, I’m only trying to help.”

Feeling a little ashamed that I just berated a non-existent person I did a manual search for an ATM and a mile later I was at my destination.  It took a few seconds to recall my pin number because it’d been a long time since I needed cash, and as I stepped through the menus to extract my money it came to a screen that said I would be charged $2.50 because we’re the bank and we can do whatever we want.  Sucka!

I stood for a few seconds looking at the screen and thinking that I was about to spend $2.50 to get $1.50 to give to someone who told me he didn’t need it.  What was I doing!?  But that answer was easy, I was doing the right thing even if it cost me. 

I got the money and bought something small so I could break up the $20 bill and returned to the shop.  The surprise when Mr. Estrada opened the door to find me holding two $1 bills was worth the effort.  I handed him the money and said “keep the change,” and he just stood there with a confused look on his face as I told him to have a great day and walked back to my car.

It’s the simple things that can mean the most to people, and although my watch repair probably ended up costing me almost $5 in gas, time and the ATM fee, it was really worth it to know that I made someone happy that day.

“God, thanks for putting Mr. Estrada in my path, and for the opportunity to test my grace.  But most of all thanks for instilling in me the desire to go the extra mile to do the best, right thing.”

Rewriting History

I’ve always been a student of history, and I love going places that have sites of historical value. It intrigued me to stand in Ford’s Theater just a few feet from where history changed course as Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. I was also blown away when visiting Italy as I stood in a Pompeii home excavated from the ashes of Mt. Vesuvius and realized that it was buried only 79 years after Christ was crucified, but the windows had glass in them. I didn’t know we had glass that far back. History is learning, and we can all benefit from this type of education.

The problem with history is that it’s subject to the whims of people who sometimes don’t want history remembered and so they bury it. In essence, they try to rewrite history by omitting pieces of it. This bothers me enough that I decided to write this piece about the history of Republicans and Democrats because I’ve seen things in the news lately about each party that isn’t accurate.

I don’t care for either party, they’re both corrupt and unhelpful in solving the real problems of this country, but it strikes me funny how the Democrats have rewritten their own history in order to push negative views away from them and onto Republicans. Mainly, they’re racism. It’s true, the Democratic party is a party of racism and has been since they organized.

I know you’re thinking that this can’t be true; we’ve all been taught that Republicans are racist southerners. Well, get out your history books kids, because the racist South was actually Democratic. It’s true, it was the Democrats who fought to keep slavery during the Civil War. The Republicans wanted to abolish it. In fact, back then the Republican party was known as the party for blacks, and Democrats vowed that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than let black loving Republicans into office.

The Republican Party was organized as the anti-slavery party back in 1854 and has always been the party of equality and freedom for African Americans. You never hear about that nowadays.

History is pretty interesting, isn’t it? The Democratic Party has been working for many years to turn their racist past onto the Republicans, and since they control most of the news media they have been able to virtually do that. But they can’t escape from history.

Look at the South during integration. Remember George Wallace? He was the governor of Alabama who swore that his state would not let blacks integrate into white schools, and he made such a racist fuss over it that the National Guard had to be called out to keep order. Well guess what, Wallace was a Democrat. It’s true, Wiki yourself to death it won’t change the facts.

You probably also didn’t know that it wasn’t President Johnson who pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it was actually a Republican named Everett Dirksen. He was instrumental not only in this Act, but also civil rights legislation in 1957, ’60, ’65 and ’68. Dirksen wrote the language for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It’s ironic that Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had to rely on a Republican to get the Civil Rights Act pushed through because they literally couldn’t rely on their southern Democratic Senators. They all wanted segregation.

Another example is David Duke, the infamous KKK guy who ran for office in Louisiana, and even for President. He was one of the most racist people known in the country at that time, and he was a Democrat. But even though Duke didn’t get elected, some racists did, like Senator Robert Byrd, a southern Democrat who was also a former recruiter for the KKK. I bet you didn’t know that the Klan was actually started in 1866 to be the terrorist arm of the Democrats to terrorize and lynch Republicans as well as blacks. Whaaat?! I know you’re thinking “Wow, this can’t be true, it’s the opposite of everything we hear today!” I agree, it’s hard to swallow, but the real history is there for anyone to look up, and it amazes me that the Republicans have all this history to tell people, but they don’t. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re stupid or if it’s because they don’t know their own history. Either way I don’t care, it’s their party; they can run it however they want.

You’re probably also wondering why African Americans tend to vote for Democrats if that party is so racist. It’s simple, the brutal tactics that Democrats used in the 50’s and 60’s to keep blacks from voting couldn’t continue, so they went a new way and now they use socialism in the form of government handouts. It’s a tactic of control, which even President Obama in his book “Dreams From My Father” describes what he and the Democrats do to poor blacks by using what he describes as “plantation politics.”

Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be a political commentary; it’s about history which I love to study. It’s about how history has been rewritten and obscured for political gain. The historical fact is that how the two main parties are being reported by the media is actually the opposite of what they really stand for; at least that’s what history shows, and I have a problem with people rewriting history.

Finding the Right Direction

In a recent interview President Obama came out of the metaphoric closet and said that he supports homosexual marriage.  That’s his prerogative as an American and this post isn’t about marriage, it’s about priorities and focus.

It’s amazing to me that homosexual marriage is such a big deal in this country.  Seriously, it’s a topic that gets talked about on the news almost every week, and it’s caused division in our society on a national scale.

So here’s my question: why is this minority group enjoying so much attention from the media?  Homosexuals only make up about 1.7% of the population¹.  So is it me, or is this miniscule number of people getting a disproportionate amount of attention?

I understand that homosexuals want to have their grievances heard and dealt with, I’m ok with that.  What I’m not ok with is that we have way more serious issues in this country that we should be focusing on.  Why is this topic talked about more than homelessness?  Why is it talked about more than poverty and starvation?  Why is it talked about more than abused children, illegal drugs, or any of the myriad other ills that pollute this country?

What does it say about us when the homeless population in Louisiana doubled in one year², but we didn’t hear about it?  Instead we were bickering about Jane wanting to marry Beth.

What does it say about us when the number of homeless families in Mississippi increased 260 percent in one year², but nothing is reported on TV?  Instead we’re spending millions of taxpayer dollars on litigation and legislator’s time discussing why John and Dave’s marriage in one state isn’t valid in another.

Why are we so busy servicing the complaints of this teeny tiny segment of our country when other segments are having problems just finding food and shelter?

The enemy wants our focus to stay away from the things that Christ wants us to focus on.  The Bible tells us "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:17-18

It’s easy for the enemy to use the media to turn us the wrong direction.  They keep us focused on things of lesser value than what Christ wants us to work on.  Our priorities aren’t in the right place, and we’re not paying enough attention to the real problems in our world.

Who knows, someday it could be you or me that’s suddenly homeless.  Will it feed you knowing that instead of focusing on programs to help people in need, we concentrated on making sure George and Craig could get married?

“God, your Word tells us that this world will continue to spin out of control and into the hands of the enemy.  Help us keep our focus on you and ignore the enemy’s attempts to make our priorities unbalanced. Amen.”

¹ Lisa Leff, Huffington Post, 4/7/11, “Gay Population In U.S. Estimated At 4 Million, Gary Gates Says.”

² M. William Sermons & Peter Witte, January 2011, “State of Homelessness in America.” Homelessness Research Institute and National Alliance to End Homelessness