The theory behind the community centers is simple: open offices in areas where Democrats have been winning in order to sell a GOP message of family values, limited government and pursuit of the American dream.
Donald Trump failed at running casinos and an airline. The teetotaler failed at selling vodka and at selling steaks. His “university” was a scam. The one thing he’s been successful at is selling himself. Okay, two things: He’s convinced a large minority of the country to believe he actually won the election he lost by 7 million votes in 2020. Three things: He’s convinced the Republican Party there’s a sucker born every minute. The party is building its organizing around Trump’s philosophy.
It’s part of a national strategy to improve outreach in minority communities. Members of the Republican National Committee have opened what they call community centers in blue areas across the country. Of the 10 centers that they’ve christened in advance of the 2022 midterm elections, four are in Texas. The first three centers debuted in McAllen, Laredo and San Antonio.
And on Saturday the RNC took its offensive to Dallas County, opening a facility in Coppell. It’s an area that was once solid Republican, but has dramatically trended in favor of Democrats. Dallas County has been reliably blue since 2006, when Democrats took firm control of countywide politics.
Republicans hope that the 2022 midterm elections will begin the process of taking back Dallas County and other areas dominated by Democrats.
“We are really excited about this center here in North Texas and we’re excited about the centers all across the country,” said Republican National Committee co-Chairman Tommy Hicks Jr. “We’re reaching out and building relationships with the Black communities, Hispanic communities and Asian-Pacific American communities across the country. We want to make sure that we develop relationships right here today, and not just ask for their vote right before the election.”
Those would be the communities Republicans have tripled-down on stripping of their right to vote and/or to have votes they cast counted:
“Their message is that Black people and Hispanics shouldn’t have a right to vote like everyone else,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party.
Hinojosa is referring to a controversial elections law that restricts mail-in voting. Critics say it disenfranchises some voters, while Republicans counter that the law is designed to prevent election fraud. He added that Republicans were not committed to fully funding public education, against expanding access to health care, against raising the minimum wage and recently developed new legislative and congressional boundaries that didn’t acknowledged that minority residents made up 95% of the state’s population growth over the past decade.
“If they’re honest, that’s the message they have to sell to the people of Texas,” Hinojosa said.
But they are not. Republicans argue their policies empower minority voters, writes Gromer M. Jeffers for the Dallas Morning News.
“Republicans never believed what they were saying” about deficits, former Republican operative Stuart Stevens (“It Was All a Lie“) told Politico. Nor did their rank and file believe in family values, limited government or pursuit of the American dream for Americans other than themselves. Stevens added, “Why does the Republican Party exist today? It exists to beat Democrats. That’s not a political party. That’s a cartel.”
By winning the fawning obesisance of his party, Trump proved that what its leaders thought they and the rank and file believed were curtains on the windows of a red-light district cathouse.
What the party learned from Trump and from the conspiracy theories driving QAnon and the Jan 6. insurrection was not the flummery of its boasted values, but that there were Americans who would believe anything.
So the RNC believes it can get Native Americans, Latinos and Blacks to believe they really are Republicans and ” just don’t know it.”
Nonetheless, Democrats need to defend their turf from this latest GOP scam and, better still, make Republicans defend what they believe is their turf.