They Think You’re Stupid: Why Democrats Lost Your Vote and What Republicans Must Do to Keep It
by Herman Cain
Excerpts
This book is intended to be a wake-up call to both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. If they both stay asleep at the wheel, then this book can become a mobilizing force for the millions of voters who feel politically homeless. Many people have a party affiliation as a practical matter, but more and more people are finding it harder to feel a deep sense of loyalty to either party. Party insiders will disagree, and therein lays the problem. They don’t see that there is a problem. They see the next election and the next campaign. Party outsiders want to see more results.
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Both the Democrats and the Republicans have talked a long time about being inclusive and having a “big tent.” Their tents are not getting bigger. They are simply getting wider, with more constituents at opposite ends of many issues. As a result, both parties are alienating more and more voters.
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The new voter phenomenon is occurring across the nation. Newly registered voters, young African-Americans, unhappy Democrats, and uncommitted Republicans are refusing to strongly identify with either party.
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The second great divide in our country is the racial divide. Race is often abused by candidates and so-called Black leaders to keep voters neatly on their respective plantations. …The racial divide will be closed when individual Blacks are able to throw off the shackles of groupthink imposed on them by their so-called “Black leaders.”
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Many of the ideologically moderate but politically homeless found a temporary home in the Republican Party in 2004, but Republicans still cannot convince many of these temporary residents to identify themselves as Republicans. The majority of Black, Latino, Asian, and ideologically moderate voters have still not been persuaded by the Republican Party to embrace the Republican policy agenda.
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The “new slavery” is not the slavery of one man owning another as his property, but economic slavery—slavery to a tax code and Social Security system that are out of control. The federal tax code, Social Security, and Medicare, enacted in 1913, 1935, and 1965, respectively, are the three pillars that support our nation’s economic infrastructure. All three systems are in a mess and have been for decades.
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We can force Congress to unshackle us from the chains of economic slavery and allow all citizens the opportunity to achieve economic freedom. As our nation’s forefathers have shown us, it all begins with faith, optimism, and hope.