Do "job creators" go out of their way to insult potential customers?
by digby
Sometimes you just have to wonder who raised these people:
They used to outsource this kind of crude dogwhistling to their wingnut jackasses but that's the Republican Party saying that, not Rush Limbaugh. It's not just bad manners, it's also really, really stupid. As Josh Barro points out:
Some people celebrate Christmas and some don't. It's fine to say "Merry Christmas." But sometimes, a speaker wants to be especially mindful of the fact that not all of his or her listeners celebrate Christmas, so he or she says "Happy Holidays."
Why should Republicans have a problem with that? When Republicans say they have a problem with it, what message are they sending to non-Christian voters?
Most voters are Christian, so a pro-Christmas position seems like it should be popular. But Republicans don't understand how their anti-outsider messages aggregate.
Most voters are straight, so opposition to gay marriage shouldn't be an electoral problem. Most voters aren't Mexican-Americans, so they shouldn't be too bothered by thinly-veiled (or unveiled) anti-Mexican messaging on immigration.
Add these things all together, and you get a political party that looks like it's engaged in interest group politics for straight non-Hispanic white Christians. That's not too appealing to the increasing share of voters who aren't straight non-Hispanic white Christians.
I'm fairly sure that "Happy Holidays" didn't evolve out of political correctness, it came from business public relations as a way to ensure that all of their customers, regardless of religion, were in their stores buying as much crap as possible during this holiday season. It shows just how far gone the GOP is these days that they don't understand even the simplest forms of mass marketing anymore.
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