As the American electorate evolves toward being more than 50 percent nonwhite by the end of this decade, the Republican diversity plan (which suggests we tip Latinos more, claim to have black friends, and talk about how negative it is for the government to be “giving away free stuff”) would be funny, if it weren’t so tragic for our country.
Building on a seven year communications plan that featured calling the president a Muslim immigrant, we’re likely seeing the end of the Republican Party as it disintegrates into factions, and any one of its candidates having no chance of winning a national election.
It has become clear, highlighted by Republican Party voters’ favorable reaction to Donald Trump’s comment that Mexican immigrants are “rapists,” immigration is an anathema to a good percentage of the Republican Party voters. That cuts out many among the rapidly growing portion of our country who are in culturally or ethnically mixed families. It also doesn’t bode well for the future, as there have been more nonwhite births than white births in this country for five years. Anti-immigration sentiments crested previously in the mid 1920s, when the KKK had 3 million members and Congress cut off immigration (until 1965).
Trump’s comments about women (“Bleeding from her wherever” and “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that”) haven’t hurt him amongst his women supporters. However, his supporters are less educated, are older and earn less than the average Republican — hardly stirring demographics for the future.
Now that John Boehner has been run out of his post as speaker of the house, it’s widely anticipated that his successor will be more divisive and obstructionist than he was.
The rhetoric will likely become more extreme and therefore less likely to carry the national vote. American voters don’t like Congress — it currently maintains a 14 percent approval rating (it hasn’t been higher than 20 percent since 2011), with a mind boggling 34 percent of people feeling their own representative is corrupt.
It is difficult to imagine another scenario, where a not very likable candidate wallowing in the aftermath of a serious security violation (and subsequent clumsy obfuscation) could be leading the pack of the opposite party. This selection has devolved into trying to decide who we like out of the field (in both parties) that ranges from absolutely abhorrent to mediocre. I’ll bet voter turnout is the lowest in history.
It is interesting to me to see how the best corporate leadership has evolved rapidly in the other direction. Sophisticated understanding of diversity issues, forthright/honest commentary, proactive advocacy and pride in servant leadership has generated above average financial results, as documented by the success of the Fair360, formerly DiversityInc Top 50 expressed as a stock index — it beats the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500. One critical area, attracting and retaining high potential talent, will be a focus of the new Top 50 survey end of our future analysis. Good people attract good people.
