Shooting oneself in the foot

The expression in the title is familiar to all. It is used when one does something inadvertently detrimental to oneself. Most of us have been guilty of such at one time or another.

Seldom, however, does a whole group of people do it to themselves all at the same time like the party of Lincoln and Reagan, the Republican Party, has done over the past several years. Even the most casual observer would have to agree that today's Republican presidential race is a mess. But it didn't just start with this year's election campaigns.

Following the election of President Obama eight years ago, the Republican leadership assessed the demographics of the loss and stated strongly that the party needed to open its policies to attract more minorities, specifically Hispanics and blacks, to its membership.

It was a reasonable conclusion dictated by the actual votes in the election that gave a significant advantage to the Democrat candidates. In 2008, President Obama polled 93 percent of the black vote and 67 percent of the Hispanic vote. Considering that he won by only a couple of percentage points, the minority vote carried the victory for him.

Instead of following the admonition of the Republican leadership, it almost seems as if the Republican candidates running for the presidency decided the leadership was wrong and they could carry the election by further alienating the minorities.

Thus, the anti-Hispanic rhetoric of the leading candidates that serves to denigrate the relatives and friends of our legal Hispanic population. How else can you characterize calling Hispanics criminals and prostitutes? And taking a stand against raising the minimum wage, an important issue to most of our minority population, was certainly not designed to attract minorities to the Republican fold.

Those are just two of several positions taken by the Republican candidates that serve to keep them from becoming a more inclusive political party.

Democrats who find the Republican ineptness comical need to sober up. Nothing in this election season seems to be going right for either side of the political aisle.

Hillary Clinton, the Democrat leader, seems to be staying just one step ahead of the law, while the Republican leader, Donald Trump, moves from one unconstitutional faux pas to the next.

Keep Muslims from entering the country? (Would you believe some states restricted the entry of Catholics back before we had a Constitution that protected freedom of religion?) Send 11 million Hispanics back south of the border? (Even if you thought it to be a good idea, how would you effect such a mass exodus?)

As a registered Republican, I can assert that the Second Amendment to the Constitution ensures I can have a gun to use when I take dead aim on my foot. It may not be smart, but at least it is legal.