Letters to the Editor
Continued decline of GOP
To the Editor:
Republicans seem to be plunging headlong into permanent minority party status. They have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. They have lost the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.
Their efforts to retain the power they still hold seem increasingly desperate: vote suppression, extreme gerrymandering, trying to manipulate congressional districts by skewing census data … those aren’t tactics of a party confident in its ability to win honestly.
Why do Republicans see their base shrinking? Because they deny science. Because they don’t think our country needs allies. Because their leaders’ votes show that they value money more than health. They build walls to pander to the xenophobes who don’t understand that our country was, and continues to be, built by immigrants.
They carry Confederate flags to their rallies and defend statues of slave-owning leaders of the Confederacy, failing to understand that people of color will be our country’s majority in the foreseeable future. They deny systemic racism, ignoring the awful disparities our systems continue to generate in wealth, health care, imprisonment, educational opportunities and professional advancement. Even our North Carolina Republican African American lieutenant governor sings that song.
The GOP is in decline. If the party doesn’t reorient its thinking … maybe that’s a good thing.
Larry Roth
Winston-Salem
