We've had a good post-election run of gleeful schadenfreude watching the Republican party tear each other limb from limb trying to figure out how they lost. It is Karl Rove's fault for not being batshit conservative enough. It is the Tea Party's fault for running batshit conservative enough candidates. These fights have been positively popcorn-worthy, but now we're hitting the really boring part of the whole thing: overlong earnest white papers about what went wrong. SPOILER ALERT AND TRIGGER WARNING: it is BORING AS FUCK, and not only because it is one gazillion words long.
MORE SPOILERS: there is no way on earth we're going to read 100 pages of navel-gazing from Republicans. Thankfully, wonky people have done it for us:
On Monday, following its loss in the 2012 presidential election, the Republican National Committee (RNC) released an autopsy report that aims to “grow the Party and improve Republican campaigns.” The so-called “Growth and Opportunity Project” spoke with “more than 2,600 people, both outside Washington and inside the Beltway” about how the party can appeal to the nation’s changing demographics of voters and start winning elections, and produced more than 200 recommendations to help Republicans connect with every-day Americans.
The report itself starts with a helpful graphicfor those of us that are lazy, functionally illiterate, or both, but from there it descends into the veritable archetype of boring. You've got the 3-page issue discussions followed by half-page summaries of those exact same issues. You've got the recommendation of a warm-sounding, yet ultimately toothless, "growth and opportunity inclusion council."
Please to note, homosexxy people, you will not be included in said council. Even in Jennifer Rubin's positively cock-gobblingly breathless review of this thing, we learn that, at best, the GOP just hopes they can stop talking about gay sex all the time PLEASE:
But by not asking for endorsement, merely toleration of a variety of positions on gay rights and marriage, the report aims to take the issue off the national political table.
Republicans: if you could just hate gay people a little less vocally, all will be well. Get on that, please. Pro-tip: spending veritable oodles of money to defend DOMA does not exactly denote toleration, nor is it likely to stop teh gheyz from being mad at you all the time.
Hey Ladies! Don't think the Republican party has forgot about you! They'd love to listen to you prattle on about your special womanly needs, but that's sure as hell not going to include things you actually want , like birth control, abortion, or the right not to get the ever-loving shit beat out of you.
Blacks, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Native Americans: please just allow the GOP to recruit you to a mind-numbingly large number of committees, OK? Thanks.
You are probably not surprised that the Breitbart wing of the party (are they a wing, or are they just like a feather or a beak or something?) is MAD MAD MAD about this report because it does not fellate them enough:
There is nothing in the report about strengthening the Republican Party’s commitment to conservative principles--the winning formula in 1980, 1994, and 2010. Instead, the report declares that Republicans “make sure that the government works for those truly in need”--a worthy goal, but one that cannot be accomplished without shrinking it and focusing it. (The word “smaller” does not appear anywhere in the report’s 100 pages.)
Stupid Republicans. Stop focusing on how you can get African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Lady-Americans Poor-Americans and other people to join you. Just redouble your efforts to attract the howler monkeys like Breitbartmericans, and you'll win, win, win.
[ Think Progress / Washington Post / Breitbart ]
What the hell is that?
Beauty.