[link] The Rich, White, Conservative GOP Must Change, But It Won’t

The red “GOP” logo used by the party for its website (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Mitt Romney had hardly conceded before Republicans started fighting over where to head next. Some Republicans—and many Democrats—now claim that the writing is on the wall: demography is destiny, which means the GOP is going the way of the Whigs and the Dodo. Across the country, they see an aging white majority shrinking as the US heads for the future as a majority-minority country and the Grand Old Party becomes the Gray Old Party. Others say: not so fast.

In the month since 51% of the electorate chose to keep Barack Obama in the White House, I’ve spent my time listening to GOP pundits, operators, and voters. While the Party busily analyzes the results, its leaders and factions are already out front, pushing their own long-held opinions and calling for calm in the face of onrushing problems.

Do any of their proposals exhibit a willingness to make the kind of changes the GOP will need to attract members of the growing groups that the GOP has spent years antagonizing like Hispanics, Asian Americans, unmarried women, secular whites, and others? In a word: no.

Instead, from my informal survey, it looks to this observer (and former Republican) as if the party is betting all its money on cosmetic change. Think of it as the Botox Solution. It wants to tweak its talking points slightly and put more minority and female Republicans on stage as spokespeople. Many in the GOP seem to believe that this will do the trick in 2014 and beyond. Are they deluded?

[Read more: motherjones]

Related:

• Former Republican: 6 Reasons the GOP Is Doomed (alternet.org)
• The Broken GOP System and Breaking the Minority Barrier (kuuleme69.wordpress.com)
• Why the Formerly Grand Old Party Needs to Change and Won’t (prn.fm)
• Joe Scarborough To GOP: If We Have To Defend Being ‘Party Of Glocks…We Will Lose’ (mediaite.com)
• GOP image already over the cliff (firstread.nbcnews.com)
• GOP moving on state plan to help GOP win White House (maddowblog.msnbc.com)