Who knew?

Almost four hours into the PBS coverage of the RNC Convention (yes, I’ve watched almost everything since six o’clock) and I’m getting worried for my Republican friends. They’ve got two more days of this to go and are, I fear, about to run out of women and Hispanics (their black guy comes later on).

Another pet peeve: Gail Collins edition

Collins, who is, I believe, the Editorial Page Editor of The New York Times, needs to stand back and read her own stuff:

It’s thanks to Florida’s Stand Your Ground law that a crime-watch volunteer was not arrested after he shot an African-American teenager . . .

Do you see it? That brief sentence is the only reference to that recent crime, the only reference to its victim, in the entire column. So how does describing him as ‘African-American’ advance her point at all? It doesn’t. It’s habit, and one that journalists everywhere need to break.

Her column was about the NRA and its endless lobbying for irrational laws. It wasn’t about racism, it wasn’t about bigotry, it was entirely about the NRA and our gun laws. Linguistic categorization adds nothing to a discussion of gun laws.

And that’s what’s wrong with Collins’ column.

(Here in Florida the gun lobby was enormously influential in writing and passing the ‘Stand Your Ground’ law, under which self-appointed neighborhood vigilante George Zimmerman, acted legally in shooting – to death –  an unarmed kid.)

 

Hey GOP! You should, like, look around.

The combination of a growing (and splintered) libertarian movement (which sort of includes much of the Tea Party) with the ethnic and racial demographic shifts underway and we could be looking at a ‘tipping point’ for the survival of the Republican Party. Imagine what the political landscape would look like if that Party collapsed in the next five or so years. I think it’s possible.

There’s a great story in The National Journal that looks at how the demographic impact will be evident as soon as the 2012 election.  It’s here.