Republicans giving desperately needed sensitivity training

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Earlier, I wrote about what I perceived as an impending train wreck for the GOP in regards to their attempted outreach to Black Americans.  I was thinking of a slow motion train wreck that has the potential to be thwarted, but also one of those where people are to infatuated to stop watching.  That was before I read where the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is giving male Republicans training on how to campaign against women.

In a release from Politico:

The National Republican Congressional Committee wants to make sure there are no Todd Akin-style gaffes next year, so it’s meeting with top aides of sitting Republicans to teach them what to say — or not to say — on the trail, especially when their boss is running against a woman.

Speaker John Boehner is serious, too. His own top aides met recently with Republican staff to discuss how lawmakers should talk to female constituents.

“Let me put it this way, some of these guys have a lot to learn,” said a Republican staffer who attended the session in Boehner’s office.

[…]

Boehner urged his colleagues Thursday in response to this POLITICO story to “be a little more sensitive” when running against women.

“Some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be,” Boehner said.

That doesn’t sound like it should be such a hard task.  After, there’s not a living man who doesn’t have a mother.  Whether they get along with her is a different story, but we all have a woman or women in our lives.  Therefore, it seems as though it should be quite easy to communicate with women.  Well, there’s always an exception to the rule, and the exception in this case is Republican men.  If you don’t believe me, then let me take you down a short list of fairly recent events.

From The New Civil Rights Movement website:

Today, nine-year old Liz Maquez, a U.S. citizen whose father is in danger of being deported, approached Cantor in the halls of Congress. Maquez tried to talk to Cantor about her dad and immigration reform, but the Virginia Congressman couldn’t give her the time of day.

In a video released by FIRM, the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, it took Cantor less than five seconds to blow off the nine-year old girl.

“Please” was all she got to ask.

“I can’t help you. Good to see you,” was Rep. Cantor’s response.

And perhaps he was actually, in a rare moment, being truthful.

Then, there’s my “favorite” insurance commissioner, Ralph Hudgins…

From Jim Galloway at the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

“I’ve had several companies come in and they have said just the fact — just the fact — that in the individual market pre-existing conditions have to be covered on Jan. 1, that that is going to double the cost of insurance. And if you don’t really understand what covering pre-existing conditions would be like, it would be like in Georgia we have a law that says you have to have insurance on your automobile. You have to have liability insurance. If you’re going to drive on Georgia’s roads, you have to have liability insurance. You don’t have to have collision. You don’t have to have comprehensive. You don’t have to have rental car or towing or anything else. But you have to have liability.

“But say you’re going along and you have a wreck. And it’s your fault. Well, a pre-existing condition would be you then calling up your insurance agent and saying, ‘I would like to get collision insurance coverage on my car.’ And your insurance agent says, ‘Well, you never had that before. Why would you want it now?’ And you say, ‘Well, I just had a wreck, it was my fault and I want the insurance company to pay to repair my car.’ And that’s the exact same thing on pre-existing insurance.”

Yeah, sell that pre-existing crap to parents of a child with a serious medical condition.  How about trying to sell that to someone just diagnosed with colon cancer and facing the potential of having their colon removed and using an ostomy bag for the rest of their life.  Yeah, they’re just like a wrecked car.

Sensitivity training should be the least of worries for Republicans.  What needs to be done is they need to teach humanity and humility.  It seems as though politicians are getting drunk with power and forgetting about the people they’re elected to govern for.  When a politician lacks the capacity to deal with the people that he swore an oath to serve, that person needs to leave the office.  We should not tolerate this behavior regardless to what party or sex is guilty.

I originally saw a slow speed train wreck, but I think we’re gravitating towards Acela territory.

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2 thoughts on “Republicans giving desperately needed sensitivity training”

  1. There are some issues upon which sensitivity training will have no impact. Immigration reform is one of those issues. It’s a complicated mess without an easy solution and people want easy solutions.

    Case in point:

    The Obama Heckler got it right

    http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/27/opinion/navarrette-heckling-obama/

    On the defensive, Obama unleashed the left’s favorite weapon: condescension.

    “So the easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws,” he said. “What I’m proposing is the harder path, which is to use our democratic process to achieve the same goal that you want to achieve. But it won’t be as easy as just shouting. It requires us lobbying and getting it done.”

    And what is this lobbying about which he speaks?

    Obama announced he is willing to go along with the House GOP strategy of passing a series of “piecemeal” immigration bills in a specific sequence rather than the comprehensive approach preferred by the White House and the Democrats who control the Senate. Obama said the House bills must address the same components as the Senate’s bipartisan comprehensive package, which includes a pathway to citizenship for most of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country in addition to addressing border security, the legal immigration backlog, new visas for foreign workers and other issues. The Senate passed its bill on June 27.

    “They’re suspicious of comprehensive bills, but if they want to chop that thing up into five pieces, as long as all five pieces get done, I don’t care what it looks like as long as it’s actually delivering on those core values that we talk about,” Obama said at a Nov. 19 Wall Street Journal event.

    Boehner dealt a blow to the morale of reform supporters when he announced House Republicans would not negotiate with the Senate on its comprehensive bill. But he has since reiterated that House Republicans are continuing to work on their own immigration bills and called Obama’s comments encouraging.

    Short approach vs long approach. As you can see by my lengthy post, I’m in favor of the lengthy reform approach. Haste makes for waste in politics AND life.

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    • Immigration reform will be screwed up either way. When politicians rely on think tanks and stuff instead of actually talking to the people doing the work and those affected by the legislation, they will never get it right.

      Our immigration laws have been piecemeal and patchwork “fixes” since the original Immigration and Nationality Act was written.

      I think the biggest problem that conservative politicians have today is that they perceive showing any sensitivity towards people as a sign of weakness. It is possible to stick to your principles while being sympathetic to the plight of others. The GOP has gotten so stuck on “out conservativing” each other that they lack any coherent governing ideology other than opposing what the Democrats think or want to do.

      Until we get people who are capable of thinking independently of the party, we’re screwed from both sides.

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