For a long time, it’s been obvious that GOP politicians and media personalities bend backwards to avoid raising what are supposed to be settled social issues, lest they turn off certain voting blocs. Whether it’s the Supreme Court redefining marriage for all fifty states, the dismantling of Confederate monuments, or wishing to find a “path to citizenship” for various groups that are here illegally, Republican public relations experts try not to notice these issues, except to criticize those who won’t accept “necessary” or “positive” change. This attitude is partly attributable to the fact that Republicans are trying to capture at least some of the culturally leftist Millennial vote. What’s more, they’re hoping not to get hammered too badly among racial and ethnic minorities that typically vote for the left (here, in Canada, and in Western Europe).
The Republican establishment and their conspicuously neoconservative advisers, moreover, have their own interests and donor base. Evangelicals in Texas may contribute votes to Republican victories, but contrary to the prevalent opinion of the Huffington Post and the British Guardian, these pious souls don’t run the party. GOP operatives in all probability don’t give a rap about overturning the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage to please moral and social traditionalists, but they do favor what their respectable donor base want: a pro-activist foreign policy, tax breaks for corporations, and widening their electoral base among left-leaning blocs.
If any doubt in this matter ever crept into my mind, it was immediately dispelled by a conversation I heard on Fox News on January 3 between Chris Stirewalt and Karl Rove.
The topic these GOP worthies were supposed to be addressing is whether Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has a serious shot at wresting the presidency from Donald Trump. Both thought this senator is most definitely a serious competitor, who combines Trump’s populist appeal with a flamboyant speaking style. The question that Rove and Stirewalt couldn’t agree on is whether Warren believes in “markets,” as she said she did at some point in her career. Stirewalt viewed her as some kind of defender of capitalism despite her attacks on Wall Street, while Rove questioned whether she really meant whatever she once said about “markets.”
Let me make clear that from what I’ve heard her say, for example, at the Woman’s March (against Donald Trump) last year. It seems that Senator Warren is an agitated feminist, a fervent advocate of Black Lives Matter, and a champion of every demand put forth by LGBQT activists. Missing in this side of her political persona is a monumental omission, and presumably, Stirewalt and Rove were committing this omission as “professional” Republicans, who are conceding troublesome social issues to the left while focusing on something called “markets.”
