Two Looming Fights The GOP Is Bringing On Itself

Time to throw down.

The last 24 hours have been very interesting, haven't they Precious?

(And it remains to be seen what the Court will do with Same Sex Marriage later today.)

After it turned out in November that PPP and Nate Silver were accurate and Karl Rove was full of shit, the GOP promised a moment of introspection and "rebranding" in order to accommodate the shifting demographics of the country.

Well, that didn't last long.

The Roberts' Rump ruling that "Hey, racism is over!" and the gutting of the VRA, means that every minority who gives a damn is now, in that memorable phrase, "Fired up!  Ready to go!"  As we saw in 2012, efforts to suppress minority turnout actually led to higher turnout.  If Democrats and democratic advocacy groups can mobilize Hispanic voters around this issue, then they can seal up that demographic for decades.

As comments at Balloon Juice noted, however, this will require sustained and dedicated efforts by Democrats over the next 6 years, which is something Democrats really suck at.  It will require not only voter registration drives, but driving registered voters to get their IDs.

We also had the spectacle in Texas last night.  As the GOP becomes increasingly a Southern, rural party, they will continue to Wage War on Women, especially women's vagi-gis.  For every mandated vaginal wand ultrasound that the GOP forces on women, they will continue to shrink their share of the majority of the electorate: women.

Wendy Davis may also have a future ahead of her as Texas conceivably shades purple in the next decade.  She's remarkably photogenic, and her personal story is pretty remarkable.  Looking at her, I was expecting some Dallas area debutante. Instead, she was a single mother at 19 who worked her way through college (first in her family) and Harvard Law School.

There is no doubt that the GOP has to embrace more and more voter suppression as their policies increasingly offend women, blacks, Hispanics, people who believe in science, people who believe in macro-economics, people who believe in the social contract, people who believe in Social Security and the New Deal and people who are tolerant of gays, brown people and pretty much everyone.

Since the GOP is going to have to double down on maximizing white votes, white male votes, I think we can stick a fork in immigration reform.  Or maybe the Roberts' Rump ruling gives them cover as they can pass immigration reform without worrying about Hispanics voting.  My guess is it's DOA in the House, unless the Chamber of Commerce can twist enough arms to get something passed.

SCOTUS has left DOMA for last.  Are they going to leaven the anger over the VRA with overturning DOMA?  Or are they going to punt and get out of town?

Whether or not the GOP doubles down on hating the Ghey, they have clearly decided to keep fighting the abortion fight and to keep charging down the Edmund Pettis Bridge.