We Are What We Are

It should be simple enough. Your political party needs to attract some combination of women, Hispanics, African Americans and gays to survive.

Your base is old and white and dying out. Sooner or later you will die out with them.

So, you have to figure out some way to appeal to a broader demographic.

It isn't that hard. It really isn't. You know what you need to say and do. Everybody knows what you need to say and do. It isn't rocket science, after all.

But every time you try, every single time, you end up shooting yourself in the foot.

One of your geniuses says something so offensive, so reactionary, so antebellum South in its nature that people laugh at you.

Oh, not all of the people. Just the ones you're trying to court.

You end up repelling and offending the very people you need to survive.

Why?

The truth is, you can't help yourselves. 

Because, at the end of the day, we are what we are.

The world changes, but people don't change much. We just get older. So if you were taught hatred and bigotry and racism as a child, if those were your family values, odds are you still harbor those characteristics at your core.

You are what you are. And you were raised without any empathy for anyone who might be different.

You genuflect before money. You are living in the past and you fear the prospect of change. You believe all the Bible stories you learned in Sunday school. Science is just a bunch of theories. Minorities are inferior. Women are chattel. And don't get you started on the "gay agenda."

You are what you are.