re: #52 Obdicut

I don’t think that’s fair to say. The GOP in many places has not acted as such. What we’re seeing now is, I believe, the nativism that was always present in the GOP in the south (and tolerated in the national party) rising to prominence in areas it previously wasn’t, and rising to naked display in areas it’s always been tolerated.

Thing is, it has been tolerated in the national party because the GOP has spent the last 40+ years courting the Dixiecrats and playing on racial resentments and other issues like them. Couple that with the parallel strategy of the religious right and the socons working their way into the power structures of the party, and it’s all one big recipe for disaster.

The reason we’re not seeing big outrage from the national party is because the people running the national party, by and large, don’t see a problem. Who cares if some liberals and a few squishy moderates get upset when the True Believers will still pull the switch at the voting booth? All we’re seeing now is the Southern Strategy writ large. The things they used to turn a blind eye to here in the South are now things they gloss over on a national level.