Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of my brother Ken’s death. I spent a lot of time thinking about him and the work he did to bring about a more just world for everyone. I suppose that’s why this New York Times article hit me particularly hard. There has been much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and rending of garments on the Republican side of the aisle since November 6 left them with – horror of horrors – a Democratic President, a slightly larger Democratic majority in the Senate, and a slightly smaller Republican majority in the House.

Donald Trump was so verklempt that he tweeted a call for a revolution, although he decided discretion was better than a visit from the Secret Service and quickly deleted it. There are online petitions calling for the US government to allow 20 states to secede peacefully. Alabama is, of course, on the list. Louisiana and Texas, the first to file, are getting close to the 25,000 signature threshold that will get a response from the White House. I expect a measured statement to be issued, once everyone stops giggling.

Anyway, back to the New York Times piece. It reflects somewhat more measured responses.

…the party’s first challenge, it seems in the immediate aftermath, is to find common ground simply in diagnosing the problem. Though some leaders argued that basic mathematics dictates that the party must find new ways to talk about issues like immigration, abortion and same-sex marriage, others attributed Republican losses to poor candidate choice, messaging missteps and President Obama’s superior political operation.

“We continually crank out moderate loser after moderate loser,” said Joshua S. Treviño, a speechwriter in George W. Bush’s administration who now works for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative group. He said Mitt Romney was part of a “pattern” of Republican nominees, preceded by John McCain, Bob Dole and George H. W. Bush, who were rejected by voters because of “perceived inauthenticity.”

By contrast, Ralph Reed, the longtime Republican strategist and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said he would redouble efforts over the next four years to recruit women, Latinos and young people as grass-roots organizers.

“I certainly get the fact that your daddy’s Republican Party cannot win relying singularly on white voters and evangelicals alone — as critical as I believe those voters are to a majority coalition,” Mr. Reed said. “The good news for conservatives is there are many of those who have not always felt welcome in our ranks who share our values.”

It’s kind of sad when Ralph Reed, who started the Christian Coalition and has close ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and tax purist Grover Norquist, seems to be the only one talking about the need for grassroots outreach to the communities that voted overwhemingly for Democrats this time around. I doubt he’ll get much traction if the party continues to value fertilized eggs over actual women, fight against full equality for the LGBTQ community, demonize immigrants, and hate on poor people and pretty much anyone who isn’t a white, straight, Christian man. I suspect he’s only ahead of the game because he’s based in Georgia, which may very well be a battleground state in 2016.

Demographic trends are not in the party’s favor, but I don’t see much awareness of how to address that. Far right types are digging in their heels, saying there is no need to moderate their positions on social issues:

Can the Republicans shore up their weaknesses purely with tonal changes on issues like abortion, immigration and same-sex marriage, along with a repackaging of conservative fiscal policy? Will it require real moderation on social and economic positions that the Tea Party movement and the conservative base consider inviolate?
Or is an embrace of unyielding conservatism required to rally an electorate that has grown cynical about candidates who shape-shift after the primaries?

The debate is already roiling, with early markers laid in postelection news conferences and on the Sunday talk shows. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Carlos Gutierrez, a Romney adviser and a commerce secretary under George W. Bush, blamed the loss “squarely on the far right wing of the Republican Party.”

Countered Gary L. Bauer, the socially conservative former presidential candidate, “America is not demanding a second liberal party.”

Rush Limbaugh went off about this very subject the day after the election:

“The usual suspects are out, and they’re saying, ‘Rush, we gotta reach out now to the Hispanics and reach out to the minorities, blacks.’ Okay, let me remind you of something. Let me take you back to the Republican convention,” he said. “We had Suzanne Martinez, female Hispanic governor, New Mexico. We had Condoleezza Rice, African-American, former secretary of state. Both of those people eminently qualified, terrifically achieved. They have reached the pinnacles of their profession. We had Marco Rubio. We had a parade of minorities who have become successful Americans. And they all had a common story: up from nothing, hard work, their parents sacrificed for them.”

“Now, why didn’t that work, folks? The answer to that is our future,” he continued. “Why didn’t it work? Some people say, ‘Well, Rush, we pandered.’ No, we didn’t pander. Everybody says that we need to reach out to minorities. We have plenty of highly achieved minorities in our party, and they are in prominent positions, and they all have a common story. They all came from nothing. Their parents came from nothing. They worked hard. They told those stories with great pride. Those stories evoked tears. It didn’t work.”

Other less crazy leaders in the party have reached somewhat similar conclusions:

The imperative to reach Latinos may put pressure on Congressional Republicans to compromise with Mr. Obama on a bill that provides illegal immigrants, or at least those who arrived in the United States as children, with a path to legal status. Senate leaders in both parties announced on Sunday that they were renewing negotiations to seek a deal.

But the Republicans will also have to overcome the tone set by Republican-led states that have enacted tough new measures aimed at catching illegal immigrants. Latinos will never vote Republican, said Mr. Treviño, the former Bush speechwriter, “if they think your political party just doesn’t want you as a neighbor.”

Republican officials said that meant aggressively recruiting Hispanic candidates like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator-elect Ted Cruz of Texas, both sons of Cuban immigrants. And they said it required stressing common values, like opportunity, social conservatism and support for small business.

The point that all of them, except for perhaps Reed, are missing was summed up beautifully by a Facebook friend who responded to Limbaugh:

What Rush fails to realize is that when you say that you “paraded out minorities” or “we have plenty of highly achieving minorities in our party” (as if they are different from you) – you have missed the boat. Things will not change for the Republican party until they realize that minorities are no different than they are. Stop listening to Rush and start paying attention to an inclusive United States.

Exactly. There’s no recognition that they’re talking about actual individual human beings with lives of their own and all the joys and struggles those lives bring. There isn’t a single note of compassion or grace in all the talk of numbers and outreach and token minority candidates. There’s no call for building community power from the ground up. Until that happens, Republicans will have to be content with winning elections in red states and obstructing progress in the House of Representatives.

Except me. The current rector of All Saints Episcopal is a very thoughtful man named Jim Flowers, and if I understand his sermons correctly, God does not, like a petulant Pat Robertson, send tornadoes or tsunamis to punish us when we are naughty. But (here’s the important part) when these things do happen, and we come together as a community and help one another, now THAT is where God is present. This is an appealing idea and has the double benefit of both reassuring us that God did not deliberately slaughter 250 people in Alabama with His awesome tornado power while also encouraging us to give to the tornado relief fund.

And it seems to me that is is all poor misunderstood Mourdock was trying to say with the rape baby thing. In the middle of this heinous, violent crime, sometimes we find a precious innocent baby. And that is where God is present.

Because Mr. Mourdock is one of those who believes that life begins at conception.  And thus his rape baby vision leaves out the nine long anguished months of growing the baby, the risk to the woman’s bodily health let alone mental health, and the far more intricate complication that nine months from now, this is not going to be just some generic Baby to be handed off to one of those omnipresent loving childless couples, but a combination of her genetic material and the rapist’s.  Do you want really to give up your son or daughter? She’s yours! Look, I think she has your hands! But then she is also his.  Can you ever forget that?

Has Mr. Mourdock given a moment’s thought to all this? He claims to have struggled, so I guess he has. When you have convinced yourself that life begins at conception, and that ending any pregnancy is murder, you cannot make exceptions for the circumstances of the conception. It’s a shame the woman was raped, but now she has to suck it up and deal. I appreciate his consistency, but I do not see the presence of God here.

Wait, turns out they can’t either. Here, I’ll just let this guy talk about it. He does it better.

First we have Rep. Jon Hubbard (R-Jonesboro), who self-published a book claiming that slavery was a “blessing in disguise” for black people, who were rewarded for their enslavement with citizenship in the US.

“The institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise,” Hubbard argues in Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative. “The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of this Earth.”

Um, yeah. Hard to believe he couldn’t find a reputable publisher for that classic.

Then there’s Rep. Loy Mauch (R-Bismarck), who says Jesus was A-OK with slavery, since He didn’t speak out against it.

If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861?

I’ve been pointing out for years that Jesus said nothing about loving relationships between same-sex partners, but I doubt Rep. Mauch would see that one my way. In the annals of actual evil things that actually hurt other people – like, say, owning them - there are lots of things of which Jesus did not speak in specifics. However, that whole “Love your neighbor as yourself” command pretty much covers the contingencies, although He may have overestimated our ability to extrapolate.

Rep. Mauch is reportedly a member of the secessionist League of the South who believes the Confederate flag is “a symbol of Jesus Christ above all else.” Those stellar credentials earned him a spot last year on TruTV’s list of the 50 Worst Politicians in America.

Finally, we come to Republican House candidate Charlie Fuqua of Batesville. Mr. Fuqua, in his no doubt brilliant tome God’s Law: The Only Political Solution, opined thusly: ”I see no solution to the Muslim problem short of expelling all followers of the religion from the United States.” He followed up with a blog post that reads in part:

There is a strange alliance between the liberal left and the Muslim religion. It may be that since both are the enemies of Christianity, that they both believe that, my enemy’s enemy is my friend. However there are several similarities between the two. Both are antichrist in that they both deny that Jesus is God in the flesh of man, and the savior of mankind. They both also hold that their cause should take over the entire world through violent, bloody, revolution.

Yes, we all remember the hordes of liberal lefties who showed up to political rallies back in 2010 packing heat and talking about Second Amendment remedies. Not to mention, last time I checked, US citizenship didn’t come with a religious test. Perhaps the nice people at Wal-Mart headquarters would donate some tinfoil for this poor, deluded man.

Sadly, his particular brand of crazy doesn’t stop with the typical lefty-Muslim hate. He also thinks rebellious children should face the death penalty. It’s Biblical, don’t you know? His website says he supports the sanctity of life, but I guess it’s only of the pre-born variety, before kids can mouth off or miss curfew or refuse to potty train on command.

The Arkansas Republican Party has, to its credit, denounced all three candidates and cut off their funding, at least for now. Time will tell whether the imperative to win seats overcomes decency and common sense.

Yesterday, billionaire Westgate Resorts CEO David Seigel sent his employees a letter threatening their jobs if President Obama wins reelection.

As most of you know our company, Westgate Resorts, has continued to succeed in spite of a very dismal economy. There is no question that the economy has changed for the worse and we have not seen any improvement over the past four years. In spite of all of the challenges we have faced, the good news is this: The economy doesn’t currently pose a threat to your job. What does threaten your job however, is another 4 years of the same Presidential administration. Of course, as your employer, I can’t tell you whom to vote for, and I certainly wouldn’t interfere with your right to vote for whomever you choose. In fact, I encourage you to vote for whomever you think will serve your interests the best…

He whines for a while about how hard he worked and scrimped and saved while his friends – and by implication his employees – chose to have a life instead.

…Now, the economy is falling apart and people like me who made all the right decisions and invested in themselves are being forced to bail out all the people who didn’t. The people that overspent their paychecks suddenly feel entitled to the same luxuries that I earned and sacrificed 42 years of my life for.

Pardon me while I go bleach my brain.

Mr. Siegel, not one for subtlety, makes himself quite clear toward the end of his missive:

So where am I going with all this? It’s quite simple. If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, as our current President plans, I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company. Rather than grow this company I will be forced to cut back. This means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.

That’s right. If the eeeeeevil government takes one more dime of his money, he’s going to make sure his employees pay with their livelihoods. “We’re the most profitable we’ve ever been,” says he, but it takes a lot of Benjamins to finish that dream house. He’s planning to put it on the market for the modest price of $100 million.

****

After some intrepid readers noticed that Mr. Siegel’s letter resembled a discredited internet tome your crazy uncle sends out via mass email, he admitted that he used said letter as a “guideline”. You just can’t make this stuff up.

A lot has changed since Artur Davis was the center of attention at a political gathering in his native Alabama.

How much have things changed?

Well, when Davis made his last noteworthy appearance in Alabama he was a congressman, a Democrat, a candidate for governor.

And he was still welcomed at the White House.

Davis, who seconded the presidential nomination of Barack Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, didn’t just slide over from Blue Dog Democrat to moderate Republican – he’s gone full-blown Tea Party. He spoke at this year’s Republican National Convention, one of a series of people of color on stage in front of an almost all white audience. He’s the new “See? We’re Not Racists!” face of True the Vote, an organization whose primary purpose appears to be unsubstantiated voter challenges that (just coincidentally, of course) disproportionately target people of color.

As I listened to Davis speak [to True the Vote] in Houston, I remembered a similar summit I attended in 2006, which was organized by “Patriot” and “Minutemen” groups. These tea party predecessors were transparent about not only their anti-immigrant stances, but their hostility towards Latinos in general. They used a lot of the same language as today’s tea party groups, like “taking back America” and “restoring America’s heritage.” And like True the Vote, they had a couple of black speakers at their summit who absolved the otherwise all-white movement of racism charges.

Most of those Patriot and Minutemen groups dissolved, just before the rise of Obama. But in 2010, tea party groups that look and sound just like them emerged, better organized and better funded. Many are just as far to the right as their predecessors, but on race specifically they use softer language. They proclaim that they just want to help improve government, and are offended by charges that they threaten black and Latino people. Their politics are not racist, they say, and if you don’t believe them, just ask Artur Davis.

What happened to the man who, just two short years ago, ran for governor as a progressive Democrat, championing a new constitutional convention truly representative of the people of Alabama? This was a man who fought to win his Congressional seat against the entrenched  power structure in the Alabama Democratic Party, but he didn’t shy away from being a Democrat. (He did choose to vote against the Affordable Care Act, but  - while I disagree with his vote – I continue to believe that it was a strategic move, sanctioned by the White House, to help him in the general election.)

Then he lost. Not just lost – he was pummeled in the primary, never getting the chance to make his case to the state as a whole. He left Alabama behind to move to Virginia. He said he was done with politics. Alabama ended up with accidental Gov. Dr. Dr. Robert Bentley.

Now Davis pens op-eds claiming widespread voter fraud in Alabama’s Black Belt and elsewhere but refuses to back up his allegations:

“If you are asking if I will name individuals whose organizations regularly practice such tactics, why would I elevate unknowns to my level by identifying them and giving them a national forum? I understand that you are doing your job as a journalist but I don’t owe your readers any clarification.”

And right there in that quote is, in my opinion, the key to Artur’s party switch: he’s pissed that Alabama Democrats didn’t show him the adulation to which he believes he’s entitled. National Republicans, ever on the quest to prove their diversity, are piling on the praise that he didn’t get at home. He’s on TV! He’s invited to speak! He’s a respected pundit! He’s fawned over like a new religious convert.

I believed Artur Davis when he said he supported a new constitution that would help Alabama move forward into a better future. I believed him when he said he supported Barack Obama for president. I was disappointed when he left Alabama, letting his hurt feelings trump his principles.

Of course, that was back when I believed he had some principles. Looks like I was wrong.

Not so Archbishop Myers of Newark, NJ, who is apparently so upset about marriages he does not recognize that he has decided people who do accept them should maybe not be taking communion.

“If they continue to be unable to assent to or live the Church’s reaching in these matters, they must in all honesty and humility refrain from receiving Holy Communion until they can do so with integrity; to continue to receive Holy Communion while so dissenting would be objectively dishonest,” Myers wrote.

Of course, this only applies to Newark area gay-sympathizers. We are anxiously awaiting Archbishop Rodi’s opinion to know whether or not Mr. Del will be told he is objectively dishonest for accepting the saving Body and Blood of Christ at a Mobile altar rail.  After sinning with me for thirty years come next April, he can’t have far to fall.

And this was brought to the wealthy man’s ears, and he became angry and said, Why should all the people of the city be able to pick the peaches from that branch? for by rights they belong to me. 

And the wife of his bosom said, Do not mind the branch, for we have more peaches than we can eat, nay, we have more than we and our children and our servants can eat, or yet the birds of the air. Our peaches lie on the ground within the wall and rot, and the wasps and the beetles feast on them.

But the man heeded not the words of his wife. And he called to him his man of business, that he might advise him on the matter. And the man of business said,  Your gardener planted the tree, and it is he who tends and waters it, and you pay him to do so. The tree draws its strength from the soil of your garden and the care of your gardener. I cannot see but that the peaches of every branch are yours by right, even this branch which is outside the wall. For if that branch was to be hewn from your tree, it would surely wither and die.

And the man could not forget his peaches. He thought of them night and day and it disturbed his peace, and at night he lay upon his bed but he slept not.

And so his wife caused peach pie to be made, and peach cake and peach preserves and peach chutney, and peach buckle and Melba and tart. And the man ate of peach pancakes and roast chicken with spiced peaches and peach sorbet and peach tea. For his wife was a wise woman.

But the man was uneasy in his mind, for he knew that the people of the city were also eating peach crisp and peach cobbler and peach salsa, and that though these things might taste of ashes now to him, they did not taste so to the people.  For it is not well said, that the dinner which costs a man nothing hath a great savor? So then the man called to him his man of law, and said to him, is there nothing I can do to prevent the people from reaching out and plucking these peaches, which by rights belong to me?

And the man of law said, Alas, there is nothing. For though the garden is yours and everything within it is yours, the air above the garden is not yours, nor is anything outside the wall yours. And thus the peaches on this single branch belong to no one and to everyone, and those passing by may freely take of them and eat. But take heart, for all the peaches within the wall are yours, and these they may not pluck.

And the man’s wife brought peach liqueur in golden cups and urged the man to drink of it.

But the man became enraged and dashed the golden cup to the ground, spilling the liqueur. And he called his gardener to him and said, Take now your sharpest ax and hew the branch of the peach tree which hangs over the wall, that it might wither and die. And the gardener did as he was bid. And the people of the city lamented and cursed, because there were no more peaches hanging over the wall for them to pluck.

And the next year, when the time came for the peaches to come into season, the man felt a great peace, that there would be none outside the wall. And he went forth, to pluck the first peach with his own hand, and to eat of it. For the winter had been long, and the memory of peach crumble was faded and dim to him. But lo, the tree was stunted and sere, and it bore but one small, hard fruit The man called his gardener to him and he said, Why is my tree, which last year bore so much fruit it fell to the ground for the wasps and beetles to feast on, now so barren? And the gardener replied, Sire, when you caused the large branch to be hewn, a rot entered into the tree from the wound, and it is this rot which has caused the tree to sicken.  It will not live out another summer.

And the man stretched forth his hand and plucked the single peach, and ate of it, and it was bitter as gall.

Here’s the party line in August:

“This is undoubtedly a difficult time for Congressman Akin, but the stakes in this election are far bigger than any one individual.  By staying in this race, Congressman Akin is putting at great risk many of the issues that he and others in the Republican Party are fighting for, including the repeal of ObamaCare.

“It should not be lost on anyone that some of the only voices not calling for Congressman Akin to do the right thing and step aside are Claire McCaskill and the leaders of the pro-abortion movement.   Senator McCaskill knows that the only way she wins re-election is if Todd Akin is her opponent in November.

“We continue to hope that Congressman Akin will do the right thing for the values he holds dear, but there should be no mistake – if he continues with this misguided campaign, it will be without the support and resources of the NRSC.” [emphasis mine]

Note the primary concern has nothing to do with Akin’s magical thinking re: rape and pregnancy. It’s all about the fear that Claire McCaskill would beat Akin like a drum. And, since Akin is now their candidate, like it or not, here’s the new statement:

“There is no question that for Missourians who believe we need to stop the reckless Washington spending, rein-in the role of government in people’s lives, and finally focus on growing jobs in this country, that Todd Akin is a far more preferable candidate than liberal Sen. Claire McCaskill,” NRSC executive director Rob Jesmer said. “As with every Republican Senate candidate, we hope Todd Akin wins in November, and we will continue to monitor this race closely in the days ahead.”

Continue to monitor, huh?

I suppose that gives them some wiggle room just in case Akin says something else stupid. Oh look – he already did:

“I think we have a very clear path to victory, and apparently Claire McCaskill thinks we do, too, because she was very aggressive at the debate, which was quite different than it was when she ran against Jim Talent,” Akin said. “She had a confidence and was much more ladylike (in 2006), but in the debate on Friday she came out swinging, and I think that’s because she feels threatened.”

She’s threatened? Sounds to me like the man who thinks he’s an expert on ladyparts is scared to death of an actual woman. I know some Republicans want to move us back to the 1950s, but apparently Todd Akin thinks he’s already living there. He may know even less about manners than he does about biology.

Perhaps for their next debate he will demand that she wear a Sunday hat and white gloves.

As Obama’s lead grows, so does the number of conservatives who claim polls in general are biased and cannot be trusted. Similar to their dismissal of fact-checkers who flagged lies in Romney’s ads and Paul Ryan’s convention speech, conservatives are now claiming the media outlets that conduct the polls are attempting to discourage Republicans from voting by falsely tipping the polls toward Democrats.

Seems to me Republican voters who really want Mitt Romney to be president would see these polls and be doubly determined to vote for their guy. Why would the media want to skew the results anyway? A foregone conclusion wouldn’t do much for ratings. They want a horse race; it keeps eyes glued to the page and screen.

So. Why are conservatives going down this path? I don’t think they really believe respected polling organizations would deliberately report flawed results. That leaves a couple of options:

They know they’re going to lose, but they think they can de-legitimize Obama’s reelection with constant whining about media bias.

Or they’re ginning up the whole “the polls are skewed” meme because they’re counting on voter suppression efforts to turn the tide. Should they succeed, we will, no doubt, be subject to much self-righteous crowing that they were right all along.

That prospect alone should encourage every good Democrat to help get out the vote.