This morning I learned with great annoyance and dismay that
Rand Paul is the latest Republican to jump on the Republicans-need-to-be-more-inclusive
bandwagon. At a dinner event with GOP
Senator John Cornyn of Texas, Paul suggested that Texas would be a democrat
state within 10 years if the Republican Party doesn’t change its ways.
“…we have to be a more welcoming party,” Paul said. “We have
to welcome people of all races. We need to welcome people of all classes -
business class, working class.”
“We need to have people with ties and without ties, with
tattoos and without tattoos; with earrings, without earrings,” he said. “We
need a more diverse party. We need a party that looks like America.”
There are plenty of reasons to find fault with the
Republican Party but for right now let’s focus just on Senator Paul’s remarks. This strategy of using phony reasons to
castigate one’s own party in order to supposedly “save” it absolutely
dumbfounds me. What kind of an idiot
thinks he can “broaden the Republican tent” by reinforcing the Democrats’ false
mantra that the Republican Party is nothing but of bunch of old white men who
hate everybody else? Whose
side is Rand Paul on, anyways? I
challenge Senator Paul to bring us one, JUST ONE, person who has embraced
conservative ideas and wanted to be part of the Republican Party but was
rejected because of his skin color or his appearance. He can’t because there aren’t any.
Mr. Paul says, “We need a party that looks like America.” As nice as it would be if characteristics like
race, gender, age and culture played no role in people’s political persuasions
that’s not the reality. The Democrat
Party has made sure of that and you’ll note, Senator Paul, that the Democrat
Party doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned that their own party in no way
mirrors the demographic make-up of the American population. The Republican Party is not a social club. It has a purpose and that purpose is to
promote leadership that will live by the Constitution. The goal of the Party should be to build a
following around that, regardless of what it ultimately looks like, so please
get your priorities straight.
There are two ways to broaden a political tent, Senator
Paul. One way is to welcome anyone
regardless of where they stand on the issues.
This means you lose the focus on your Party’s mission and control of its
direction, of course. It means that you
really have no purpose for existing except to bring people together under the
meaningless banner of ‘Republican Party,’ for what little that’s worth. The other way is to persuade people, either
through education or by forced experience, that your platform is the right
one. In doing so you may or may not have
a Party that “looks like America,” but you’ll have a Party that actually stands
for something and has meaning.
In light of his remarks and his presidential aspirations, I
would urge conservatives to be diligent in their attention to Rand Paul. As a long-time Republican he knows as well as
any of us that the Party does not reject people for the way they look or for
their socio-economic status, so what is he doing here? The “we-need-to-be-more-inclusive” song is
often a prelude to suggesting that Republicans need to relax their stance on
issues like illegal immigration, same-sex marriage, welfare programs and
national defense, among others. If Paul
truly believes we’re on the wrong side of those issues, fair enough. Let’s have an open, honest debate. But let’s NOT do it in a misguided effort to broaden
the tent.
˜CW
