The Republican Party keeps committing suicide with different constituent groups. Shall we recap?
After the demonization of Barack Obama in which the GOP has engaged for years, African Americans have cemented themselves as the group most likely to shun Republicans in significant numbers for generations (if not centuries). Even Rancid Pieface and the rest of the Establishment must assume that's a given. But despite its post-2012 "autopsy," the Grand Old Party has been very successful in alienating a ton of other people: gays, Millennials, women, Asians, soccer moms — and, of course, Hispanics — with their regressive policies, gun love, religious zealotry, xenophobia and general intolerance of All People Not Like Them.
To that list, let us now add Muslim Americans.
That group might not strike you right away as a critical voting bloc in a general election, but here are a few points to keep in mind.
The Muslim-American demographic is growing, big time, and in key states. And while in 2000, 70 percent of them voted for The Worst Person Who's Ever Lived, 15 years later, we don't see them maintaining that GOP loyalty when the current Republican front-runner is talking about setting up Muslim databases, issuing special IDs and closing mosques. (Whatever happened to "religious liberty"? Oh, wait.)
We cats will be happy to welcome all those Muslim Americans who voted for Bush into the Democratic Party. Particularly if it means that, while maybe a few more paranoid white guys in Roanoke vote Republican, we get a bigger edge in Northern Virginia — solidly delivering the Old Dominion to Hillary in 2016, and to the Democrats overall in elections to come.
And we'll be pleased to cede a couple of percentage points in the Godforsaken red state of Alabama if the GOP's anti-Muslim rhetoric helps take Michigan off the table for the Republicans forever.
And do you know where else a lot of American Muslims live? Texas and Florida. Hmmm! We cats PURR.
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