I've got a bit of a theory I'd like to advance, but it really hasn't completely congealed yet, so bear with me.

One of the things I've brought up repeatedly in discussions over the recent election was asking people who voted for Obama "Why can't you vote for a republican?" or "Why did you vote for Obama?" and how the answers were something like 80-90% about social issues, specifically gay marriage and abortion. When any kind of probing questions regarding foerign policy or economic policy were broached to these people, I was routinely met with blank stares as they had little to no knowledge or understanding of either candidates position on such things.

This is something worth noting, and it is ignored at our peril.

The Low-Information voter is the majority of America, and this is the result of our incredibly biased and increasingly tabloid media. Even among people who routinely watch the news, Im willing to bet most couldn't name more than 2 cabinet members, but they can tell you who Kim Kardashian is getting banged by at this time.

In the gaming world, you will frequently hear discussion about whether a title is a "casual' game or a "deep skill' game. So called hardcore gamers escehew the casual and gravitate towards deep skill titles, while most gamers are perfectly happy with casual titles that are easy to pick up and learn. Social issues are the 'casual game' of politics, and appeal to the low-information voter, as it is relatively easy for them to form an opinion and at least a cursory explanation for why they hold that position.

Democrats, through their manipulation of the media and education, have made themselves look like the party of inclusion and tolerance, while casting republicans in the light of hate and exclusion. When you take this spin, and combine it with the fact that basically everyone from a public school background since the late 70's onward has been indoctrinated that the victories civil rights era were the pinnacle of American morality, and that to be a "hater" is the lowest of the low, leaving the mere suggestion of such behaivior capable of rendering one a pariah among their peers, you've got a nasty cocktail.

Now before you begin to refute this with facts (and you would be right) let me remind you: These are low-information voters. We are lucky if they even watch a news program other than the daily show. The facts and reality of the situation don't even enter in to the equation here.

What this all boils down to is that most of America is playing chekers while we have been playing chess. During the last election, we set up an elaborate checkmate and were left reeling when Mr & Mrs America moved across the board and shouted "King me!". It's a sad situation, but its reality and its time we start dealing with it.

Social issues, while important, do not represent a clear and immediate threat to the continued existence of our nation. The 'deep skill' issues, however, can and will end us if left unchecked. We want and need to fix things at that level, but the gatekeeprs to being able to do that decide our worth based upon social issues.

I am a libertarian, and find the fact that most social issues are being discussed as a function of government to be odius in the extreme. One of the sayings I hear around here frequently is "Don't invite the man into your life" but I really wish more of us thought along the lines of "Don't thrust the man int other peoples lives". Social policy is something that changes at a glacial pace and will oscillate quite a bit as it figures out which way it is going. It's fungible. However, bad choiced on the economic or foerign policy front will echo for decades into the future. Look at how we are still embroiled in the shitty middle east situation, and that can essentially be laid at Jimmy Carter's feet.

As to how to deal with this, I know the obvious answer of simply dropping social issues won't fly with the social conservatives. Im still working on how to handle it and what recommendations are both viable and palpable to the electorate.

Government schools, social engineering, and gub'ment being the daddy.

All by design.
The commies will win without firing a single shot.
As will Aztlan...

You see the thing is, they aren't really going to win in the long run. Representitive repubplics tend to outlast and outproser other methods of governance for good reasons. Sure, Rome fell, but it was one of the longest lived and most influential and prosperous civilizations of its time. It wasn't until the formation of the United States that we saw such infleunce and prosperity come out in such quantity again.

What scares me is that while the existence of the Roman empire continued in one form or another up to the Napoleonic wars (or even later depending upon who you ask) when we think of the fall of Rome we think of its sacking in 401-410 AD. The idea of Rome though, it lasted for well over another thousand years. I find myself asking whether in the future historians will look back at America, and say "this is when she fell" and that date will be prior to the present. Are we still living in the America of history, or that period of the persistant idea of America much as happened with the peoples living in Rome post 410 AD?

So yes, we may already be dead. And yes, we may yet fall to the Barbarian hordes after our countrymen have looted the coffers for bread and circus (and obamacare), but I don't intend to let the idea die. If the idea lives on, eventually some other worthy fellow will pick it up and try to make it anew. And maybe they'll get it right.

Ok, I've had some more time to think on this, and I have an outside the box strategy that may work: A truce.

Basically we get somebody to stand up and say "Look, we all disagree on this stuff (social issues) but it is not the biggest problem in our way. So we propose that no legislation regarding these matters be dealt with over the next 4/8 years, and instead we focus completely on the fiscal and international issues facing the nation. Once those are fixed, we'll come back around to these other issues."

Basically stand up, be the adult in the room, and say "This stuff is boring but it's killing us, lets get it fixed, then we'll go back to your previously scheduled purse fight".

I really like this idea, truly, but I don't see it as being possible.  The American Left smells blood in the water.  The only time they have been historically willing to declare a truce and "reach across the aisle" is when they're buying time to maneuver for a new offensive.  There is no incentive for them to look like the adult because they have the upper hand acting like the enabling parent to a nation of spoiled children.  And they are winning.  There is no advantage to coming to the table to negotiate and, since no one is more afraid of being robbed as a thief, asking for such a truce would be taken as setting them up so the Right can counterattack (observe how they are perplexed by the persistence of the Benghazi investigations since "the election is over").

Everybody can relate to social issues in one way or another. Economic issues are often abstract and economic principles are sometimes counter intuitive. That's why social issues are such a gigantic distraction. We can't even begin to talk to voters about debt, trade and entitlements until the social conservatives (read: busy bodies) stop trying to dictate people's personal affairs. Fat chance of that happening, though.



 
 

You're proposing that people with whom you disagree put their concerns on hold and support you while you work to fix what you feel is important.

If the social conservatives made that proposition to you, what would your response be?
You can safely presume that the social conservatives would respond to your proposal in the same manner you would respond if the proposal was made to you.
They feel that the issues which are important to them are as important to the future of the nation as the issues which are important to you.

Good Point. It wouldn't be a truce but a hudna on their part.

Here's the thing: The social cons agree that the financial and international issues are important. It's not like Im asking them to carry a flag they aren't already lofting, Im just asking for a short term reorganization of priorities.

We need to quit arguing over what color drapes to hang in our house with no roof.

I rarely see a word I don't know.

You stumped me with hudna.

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

It's an arabic word for a temporary truce. Typically arab forces use them to regroup and rearm, then break them when its convienient.

Romney pretty much tried that. The state-run media kept bringing up the social stuff and baited knuckle-dragging retards into discussions about 'legitimate rape.' That gave them the ammo they needed to hammer away on bullshit while Romney tried to keep talking the economy and zero's performance.



The sad fact is, the majority of our countrymen are too economically ignorant to understand what the real fiscal problems are and what the real painful solutions mean. They are addicted to unicorns shitting rainbows and the party that tells them that they are hallucinating will always lose, because the other party will just promise more and bigger rainbow-shitting unicorns.



We are beyond the point of no return. Our problem isn't our leaders. They are the symptom of the true sickness of a majority population of stupid, lazy motherfuckers who outnumber and outvote the dwindling number of intelligent, productive people.



Get your Plans B through Z in order and prepare to come out on top after it all implodes.



 

This demonstrates that you have little conception of how they feel about the issues which are important to them.
They would not agree with your characterization of their issues.

You cannot gain their support by telling them that what is important to them is of secondary importance. I'm sure you don't believe me. Approach a few social conservatives and try it.

Nevermind.

Well, I have to admit being at a loss here. I hope they enjoy living in their destitute pile of ashes and rubble where gay marriage and abortion are banned. They seek a pyrrich victory at this point, and Im finding less and less reason to be burned by that fire.

unfortunately, this

hey let's not pretend that low-information voters are limited to the other side of the spectrum...

True. I know an awful lot of right leaning people who only lean that way becasue of religious convictions. At the end of the day they want a government just as authoritarian and socialist as the far left, just not catering to those who believe differently to them.

The real divide here is not between right and left, but between those who would use the state as a tool to enforce their ideology upon others as opposed to the state being a tool to protect the freedoms of the populace.

Sorry, but dropping the social issues is the only way that conservative politics is going to move forward. If the Republican party continues to be saddled with the religious right, it will fade into obscurity.

I really don't understand why anyone gives a shit about gay marriage. Because a particular interpretation of a book of fables tells then that it is bad? Seriously? That is a reason to lose elections? Fucking retarded.

I don't chalk it all up to religion.

Single-source news viewers are the biggest problem.

If you find yourself shouting "YEAH, that's right; EXACTLY wharrgarbl" at your news source more than once a week, you should broaden your exposure.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83704.html?hp=f1

As long as we allow the progressives to control the flow of information, it doesn't matter what the GOP decides on social issues.  They will always be the party of rich white men that hate everything except money.  If a different conservative party forms, then they will be the party of rich white men that hate everything except money.

And money will always be "bad" unless it's given to you by the federal government.

Agreed. I read Reddit and HuffPo regularly, just so I can try to understand the logic underpinning the other sides arguments. This should apply to any area where a person holds convictions.

Example: I am an atheist, but Im willing to bet I have a functional knowledge of religious texts and history that outstrips most folks who attend church on a regular basis. Not believe or agreeing with something does not grant a license to be ignorant of it.

I think about the most painful thing I ever did wa read some Marx. That sucked. Oh, did that suck. We are talking Smurfs theme song on an endless loop level of suck.

There it is in a nutshell.

I think non-news-source voters are the biggest problem.  I don't think your average Obama voter watches CNN or MSNBC, or news on CBS or NBC for that matter.  They get their "information" from Katy Perry, or Madonna, or Billy Jack and the Butt in the Mornings, or whatever.  I really wish the racist-ass democrats hadn't ruined the idea of a poll literacy test in this country.  

The Daily Show has done more harm in this arena than any other program I can think of. Still, I would never move to silence them, as that would be a betrayal of my principles. I do, however, try to get people to broaden their horizons a bit.

This is ignorance born of the almost total lack of economics being taught in schools. I can't tell you how many teenagers and college students I've heard rail agains "corporations" who can't even properly define what a corporation is.

theres a reason the founders only wanted land owners voting.
 

You don't really get the point of my argument here. The bolded items just handed the election to the Dems.

To an extent I agree, but to go back to this now would disenfranchise such a staggering number of people you would watch the country burn down around us.

I propose a different approach: If you are not a tax payer, you don't get a say in how its spent. That simple. Pay-to-play.

If you asked the Obamaphone "lady" to find Libya on a map, she wouldn't be able to find *the map*.
 

This comes around to the other point I was making. Simply being associated with an idea or party which has been smeared as a hater or hate group carries such weight to it that it is hard to overcome. No one wants to be a pariah from their peer group.

This is a really hard thing to overcome, and its a trap thats taken 20-30 years to properly prepare and lay. I just worry as most of what Im seeing from the GOP at the moment is doubling down on the fail.

But damn she sure knows that Mitt Romney sucks!

This is a point I made to a lawyer freind I was talking to the other day. America go asked who they want to run the show: Joe the Plumber or the Obamaphone Lady.

America done went full retard.

This.

Very well put OP. But we will no more convince the evangelical crowd that abortion and gay marriage is not the number one problem facing the nation, than we can convince the eco freaks that the planet will not explode from driving SUV's, or the neo-communists that government redistribution of wealth and punishment of job creators will make a healthy economy.

People have built their whole world view on these pillars of salt, and they will not be moved until it all collapses.

My thinking at this point is that it's too late to overcome.  Boxing has failed so now it's time for judo.  We cannot stop the momentum of our opponents so we need to find a way to harness their forward motion and then redirect it to their detriment.  Too late to push them back so we'd better figure out how to pull them forward.  

I've posted in a few other threads that the best thing the Right can do is find a way to "be defeated" so that the Left can dismiss them as a threat and then go about the business of turning on themselves.  Add some outside pressure to help in the splintering, then make sure a lot of publicity gets made about a Republican  - preferably someone non-white - going "off the res" and starting to sound more and more like a Democrat.  In his/her public speaking, they should then actually "out-D the Ds" and highlight the failures of both parties and remind the different voting blocks - with graphic examples - of how they were "screwed out of theirs" by the Democrats.  Let him run as an Independent, even, and rely on a cult of personality over party lines to rope in enough voters, then steer legislation into fiscal sanity just like Obama steered it into socialism.  You can never promise them enough so tap into their spite instead.  "Voting is the best revenge."

Sigh.  It's a disgusting mess.  Similar to you, I'm a devout apathist in my religion and a passionate leave-me-the-fuck-alone-ican in my politics.  But these are the fools that dictate the choices and freedoms we get to have so we need to find the right manipulative liar to protect us.  Oy vey.

The more I learn, the more I am amazed at how wise those men were.

I have been telling people that the Republic has been sick for a long. long time.

In 2008, we were told it was on life support.

In 2012, we were told it was brain dead.

The only question now is how long are we going to let the machines keep it going before we pull the plug?

The media offers what the people ask for
The TL;DR crowd here doesn't have the patience to read more than three paragraphs on a topic, and they reflect a society that thinks if an issue can't be shrunk into a twitter post its too long
We do have people here making posts on political issues based on Twitter posts......