Jindal Bells: Why They Won’t Ring in Washington Dept. 0
Shorter version: By embracing Richard Nixon’s odious Southern Strategy four decades ago, the Republican Party finds itself today backed by historical reality into a corner where it is outnumbered and trapped.
Picking public faces of color, such as Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal, cannot erase a history of appeals to bigotry, prejudice, and nativism.
David Swerdlick at The Root:
Republicans’ long-term problem isn’t Jindal’s recent decision to oppose the president by signing on to Rush Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” mantra, or that Steele could face a premature vote of no confidence . . . .
The “elephant” in the room is post-Goldwater Republican reliance on antipathy toward minorities among the hallowed voter demographic known alternatively as Reagan Democrats or “real” Americans. And in the present-day reality of an Obama world, it takes more than a loquacious black dude or true-believing, Indian-American public policy whiz to bootstrap that party into the 21st century.
