Krugman: GOP Doomed If They Are Only The Party of Old White People

As if the Republican primary audiences didn't point this problem out clearly enough, Krugman underscores the GOP's problem with his blunt assessment of the base of the party. Old white people are about as unlikely to change in their beliefs and prejudices as the earth is likely to change its orbit around the sun. The good news for the rest of us however is that their base is dying off faster than hispanic immigrants can replace them. The party leadership knows both of these realities and that is why they have finally begun to come around to the positions the Democrats have had for decades on immigration. The sad part is that instead of doing something for the right reasons, the GOP will only do the right thing out of self-preservation. On the bright side, few hispanics are likely to fall for such a self-serving change of heart.

Paul Krugman: GOP's Immigration Reform 'Problem Is Their Base Is Old White People'

As the debates on immigration reform and gun control heat up, the Republican Party and the National Rifle Association have problems ahead, Paul Krugman predicted on Sunday. Those problems, he suggested, have to do with how the two groups fundamentally work.

Appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist first weighed in on the bipartisan plan for comprehensive immigration reform unveiled by eight senators last week. It's the GOP that should be getting nervous, he said.

"The Republican Party has a problem," Krugman told host George Stephanopoulos. "The leadership understands that ... they're doomed if they are only the party of old white people, to put it bluntly. The problem is their base is old white people."

Krugman added that the senators' proposal to create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants has "got to be good for everybody" and that "there's no possible reason not to do this."

Turning to gun control, Krugman said that the NRA's "bizarre" approach, in which it has dug in its heels, rather than make concessions, may actually be working against it.

"I think that the terms of the debate have shifted," Krugman said. "Now the craziness of the extreme pro-gun lobby has been revealed, and that has got to move the debate and got to move the legislation at least to some degree.

"The NRA is now revealed as an insane organization, and that matters quite a lot," he added.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/03/paul-krugman-immigration-reform_n_2611403.html

 

You actually believe in Krugman?

Krugman describes himself as liberal, and has explained that he views the term "liberal" in the American context to mean "more or less what social democratic means in Europe."[100] In a 2009 Newsweek article, Evan Thomas described Krugman as having "all the credentials of a ranking member of the East coast liberal establishment" but also as someone who is anti-establishment, a "scourge of the Bush administration," and a critic of the Obama administration.[118] In 1996, Newsweek's Michael Hirsh remarked, "Say this for Krugman: though an unabashed liberal ... he's ideologically colorblind. He savages the supply-siders of the Reagan-Bush era with the same glee as he does the 'strategic traders' of the Clinton administration."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_krugman

 

Actually, the Earth's orbit...ahhhh, never mind.

 

So you're saying that he is thought of as non-partisan? Ok.

But please, don't forget to mention his Nobel Peace Prize.

 

So he and Obama are two of a kind? Whoopee!!!!

 

Yeah, both Nobel Peace Prize winners. Thanks, I forgot about Obama.

Its good to be a liberal! Ahhhh!

 

If you forget about things like that, it might go a long ways to explaining your beliefs.

 

Actually, since nobody was talking about Obama, I really had no reason to relate the two Nobel Peace Prize winners. I should have known that EVERYTHING comes back to Obama in an obsessive kind of way for the wing nut party.

 

I forgot, they still think the earth is the center of the universe. I guess that comparison must have seemed strange to them.

 

They give those things away like candy. Big deal.

 

So where is yours kept?

 

I threw mine away. They once had value, but no more.

 

you shouldn't be so hasty. Winning the Nobel Peace Prize for being a dumbass was probably about as much success as someone like you can expect.

 

I

I said I threw MINE away, not Obama's. By the way, just what DID he do to win the Nobel Peace Prize? Enlighten us....

 

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You have all sorts of things to say about the messenger but you apparently don't want to take on the message. The Republican Faction is the Lincoln Town Car of American politics. Even Rove and the boys have figured that out. And now we have this hugely entertaining pissing match between the buttoned down global corporatist crowd on one side and the Koch-fueled theocratic Christian nut jobs and paranoid conspiracy freaks on the other. My sympathies are definitely with the latter, mainly because they're more fun to watch. In a twisted kind of way. Go Bags!