This year we saw the Republican party get stomped. And primarily because they fielded a ton of “social conservative” candidates.
I put “social conservative” in scare quotes by the way because it’s actually a misspelling of the word “wrong.”
Several of these jerks would have won, and done so handily though if they had kept their mouths shut. Particularly about rape. I am very glad they couldn’t resist pontificating though. Social conservatism is a disease and sunlight is the best medicine. When people in conservative states like Missouri and Indiana saw how anti-choice the Republican options were, they made it clear they weren’t gonna be a part of that.
While the pundits are crying out that the GOP needs to be even more conservative, the politicians have seen the writing on the wall and are emphasizing the need to change the party platforms to make it less racist, homophobic and sexist. This is a good thing! I’m just going to go ahead and assume that this sentiment is strong enough within the party and offer a practical solution to keep the GOP on the path to recovery: eliminate social conservative candidacies before the candidate can embarrass your party.
The party and the primary voters have a responsibility, sure, but the press needs to step up its game too. Reporters should always ask about abortion in the case of rape. I think everyone is on board with that now. But why stop there? There are so many other questions that a theocrat wont be able to resist. Such as…
1. What is your position on supreme court decisions such as Griswold v. Connecticut?
2. How do you feel about women’s suffrage?
3. Are inter-racial marriages a good thing?
4. What is your opinion of single mothers?
5. What causes hurricanes?
There are of course more questions we could come up with, but this is a good start. When these candidates are forced to tip their hand, the reasonable people wake up, remember the value of voting and we end up with better representation. So reporters, I hate to tell you how to do your job, but ask those questions from now on. We’ll all be better off.
I write a lot of jokes. Some of them are in this book.
I also host the podcast of the Skepchick events team, Some Assembly Required, and cohost the WWJTD Podcast.
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