Republicans Still Fucking Hate Women

[Kim]

Source

Congress had a lengthy to-do list as the end of the year approached, with a series of measures that needed action before 2013 began. Some of the items passed (a fiscal agreement, a temporary farm bill), while others didn't (relief funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy).

And then there's the Violence Against Women Act, which was supposed to be one of the year's easy ones. It wasn't.

Back in April, the Senate approved VAWA reauthorization fairly easily, with a 68 to 31 vote. The bill was co-written by a liberal Democrat (Vermont's Pat Leahy) and a conservative Republican (Idaho's Mike Crapo), and seemed on track to be reauthorized without much of a fuss, just as it was in 2000 and 2005.

But House Republicans insisted the bill is too supportive of immigrants, the LGBT community, and Native Americans -- and they'd rather let the law expire than approve a slightly expanded proposal. Vice President Biden, who helped write the original law, tried to persuade House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to keep the law alive, but the efforts didn't go anywhere.

And so, for the first time since 1994, the Violence Against Women Act is no more.

Welp.

[Solid Snake]

This is a wholly negative development (and it's outrageous that the Republicans' 'excuse' is mere bigotry against immigrants, the LGBT community and Native Americans), but one positive element that I've been witnessing over the past few days is the implosion of the GOP.

...The GOP's tearing itself to shreds and tossing away all its credibility at such a unprecedented pace that it's tempting to imagine they're in a death spiral.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I don't know- the most outrageously ridiculous they get the more they seem to gain followers.
I don't understand how a bill can be "too supportive" of various minorities- like even in the mindset of the republican vortex I don't even really understand how that makes sense.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Professor Smarmiarty

I don't understand how a bill can be "too supportive" of various minorities- like even in the mindset of the republican vortex I don't even really understand how that makes sense.

Any bill that acknowledges that minorities even exist in a country that Republicans like to believe solely consists of wealthy white suburban 'gentlemen' alongside their obedient submissive baby-making machines housewives is too 'supportive' for Republicans.

[stefan]

Its interesting. Anyone looking between the lines can clearly see that modern American society has had a severe backslide in civil rights in the last twenty years, that even compared to the late 90's the US as it stands is significantly more racist and sexist on an average person-to-person basis. Shit, look at the entertainment industry - just as an example, do you think something like The Cosby Show could be made today and keep a prime time slot on NBC, or would it get shuffled off into BET or some other slot where people can pretend it doesn't exist? Do you think that if Alien was made today instead of the 70's, they'd be able to put Ellen Ripley as the main character without her being a whimpering incompetent or a butch nutcase who needs to learn "the value of being feminine"?

And yet, if you try to bring this up in any sort of debate, people will argue that this is "obviously" not the case, saying that Feminism has "won" and needs to end before they start taking rights from others. I haven't seen any arguments in relation to VAWA lapsing yet, but I'm sure they'll be along the lines of it being "no longer necessary." That women have "already made it" and don't need special protections.

This is how bigotry wins the country, not with vast sweeping acts of blatant oppression, but by convincing an entire generation with subtle barbs that it already lost before they needed to fight it.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Snake, at least Don Quixote was an aimiable lunatic. Still patronizing towards women, granted, but nothing like the level the Republican party has fallen to.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Shyria Dracnoir

Snake, at least Don Quixote was an aimiable lunatic. Still patronizing towards women, granted, but nothing like the level the Republican party has fallen to.

Republicans' new slogan: "We're somehow even more regressive than a character who was deliberately written as a chauvinist who objectified women in the seventeenth century."

[Loyal]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

This is a wholly negative development (and it's outrageous that the Republicans' 'excuse' is mere bigotry against immigrants, the LGBT community and Native Americans), but one positive element that I've been witnessing over the past few days is the implosion of the GOP.

...The GOP's tearing itself to shreds and tossing away all its credibility at such a unprecedented pace that it's tempting to imagine they're in a death spiral.

I'm not entirely sure the GOP has a choice at this point. The only constituency that will abide them is the hardline jackasses in the Tea Party, which only forces them to veer further and further into xenophobia to keep that voter base (I'm not sure I can even call it "the right" at this point), simultaneously driving away more and more right and center-right voters.

If they lasted long enough to remain politically relevant in 2016 I would be super surprised. In the meantime it's both amusing and depressing to watch their death throes as they either declare their own party too extreme or, in sequence, throw each other under the bus to appear sufficiently "conservative" to their voter base.

edit: for instance.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Originally Posted by Loyal

In the meantime it's both amusing and depressing to watch their death throes as they either declare their own party too extreme or, in sequence, throw each other under the bus to appear sufficiently "conservative" to their voter base.

That and if the rest of the voting public helps throw them under the bus by vouching in no uncertain terms the GOP is on the way out, we can be done much faster.

[shiney]

47% of the country voted for Mitt Romney. The GOP is not done because they are viable as a "they are not democrats" option for the sizable portion of the country that does not vote for a candidate, but instead against one.

Everyone who says they are dying was not paying attention in 2010 where they took over basically every contested state government and gerrymandered districts to hell, ensuring a long reign of GOP-led House of Representatives. Remember 2008, how they got obliterated? It wasn't two years before they weren't just back in power, but swept ridiculously into power. I won't kid myself for even a second that it is just as easy for them to win again in 2014.