Saturday, April 4, 2015

GOP attacks on LGBTs are really starting to piss off Arnold Schwarzenegger

The governator is worried that the GOP is pissing off young "economic conservatives" and that if GOP registration nationwide follows the Golden State trend, there soon may not be enough Republicans to carry water for the 1% — not that California has much water left. Here's part of his Washington Post rant:
     I immigrated to the United States in the heat of the 1968 presidential campaign, when the choice — as I heard it through a friend’s translation — was simple. Hubert Humphrey, with his talk of government programs, sounded too much like an Austrian politician. Richard Nixon talked about freedom, getting the government off our backs and giving the people room to grow. I was hooked.
The moment I became a citizen in 1983, I registered Republican, and I’ve never thought about checking any other box...
     Now I’d like to speak to some of my fellow Republicans...who choose the politics of division over policies that improve the lives of all of us...who have decided to neglect the next generation of voters...who are fighting for laws that fly in the face of equality and freedom.
     If we want our party to grow and last, we must be focused on real solutions to problems Americans are facing.
     We could start with infrastructure. Traffic costs our drivers over $100 billion annually. Airport delays cost another $22 billion. Or we could get to work on education. If graduation rates don’t increase, we will have a shortage of 5 million workers by 2020 — not because we lack the manpower, but because the jobs will require education that our students aren’t receiving. We could clean up our air: MIT researchers found that pollution kills more than 200,000 Americans every year — more than traffic accidents, homicides, suicides and our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. There are so many real problems that need solving.
But distracting, divisive laws like the one Indiana initially passed aren’t just bad for the country, they’re also bad for our party.
     In California, the GOP has seen the danger of focusing on the wrong issues. In 2007, Republicans made up nearly 35 percent of our registered voters. By 2009, our share dropped to 31 percent, and today, it is a measly 28 percent. That sharp drop started just after the divisive battle over Proposition 8. Maybe that’s a coincidence, but there is no question that our party is losing touch with our voters, especially with the younger ones who are growing the registration rolls.
     ...Both sides of the Indiana debate used Twitter to voice their support, and the result couldn’t be clearer. According to Zignal Labs, as of Wednesday night, #StandWithIndiana had been tweeted 5,571 times. Meanwhile, #BoycottIndiana was tweeted 430,728 times.
     Take a quick look at Reddit’s r/news top stories for the week — there have been more than 15,000 comments on this issue, overwhelmingly in opposition to the Indiana law.
     Polls show that laws like this are not supported by independents, women, minorities or Americans between 18 and 29. Nor are they supported by big business, as evidenced by NASCAR, the NBA and Wal-Mart’s public, vocal opposition.
     Those businesses are doing the right thing, but they have also done the math...

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