Fixing the morality disconnect

Liberals and Democrats are beginning to see why they keep losing ground amongst middle America.

The vast sea of red states give the impression that the GOP owns the Mississippi basin lock, stock, and barrel. This isn’t quite true, however, because plenty of those red states are being won by relatively narrow margins. But why are those states tilting red?

The short answer is the “moral” issue. The GOP media machine has painted a very distorted and dishonest picture: that Dems/libs are all a bunch of hedonists who hate God and Country but love sin and communism. Pure nonsense, but it has traction because the Democrats haven’t countered it. (Note to Dems: Just because you think an accusation is stupid and unfounded doesn’t mean you don’t have to refute it. Your silence will be treated as proof that the accusation is true.)

The key strategy by the Republicans (with great help from Evangelicals, oddly enough) is to separate “morals” from the issues. Every poll this election cycle asked what people are most concerned about, and every time “morals” got its own entry. You had to choose: morals or Iraq, morals or terror, morals or the economy, morals or the environment.

These are trick questions. Because these issues ARE about morals. Iraq is a moral issue, how we fight terrorism is a moral issue, how we handle the economy is a moral issue, preserving the environment is a moral issue.

But the GOP media machine (with help by major media) has managed to keep these separated. The only issues allowed to be categorized as moral are those officially approved by the GOP as relating to religion. The GOP fights hard to limit the list of religious issues to gays, abortion, and public prayer.

Why? Because if the folks in the red states woke up and realized that Jesus told us to feed the poor (welfare), heal the sick (health care), render unto Caesar (pay your taxes), and be moderate (discourage greed and consumption), they’d start discussing morals the same way Dems/libs do. That there is more to morality than the limited list the GOP offers.

The GOP can’t afford Americans thinking (again, like they did decades ago) that valuing families means fighting the labor causes such as wages, health care, and reliable social security. And that crime rates go down when working people prosper.

If the Democrats want to win back the margin of victory in red states, they need to show the direct connection between morals and public policy issues.