Mar 21, 2016 4 min read

Last Thursday marked a momentous occasion.

It was the second anniversary of something the Republican National Committee called the “Growth and Opportunity Project.”

I don’t know if you celebrated the event.

I did.

The Growth and Opportunity Project was a 100-plus page report that tried to rebrand the GOP as the “Growth and Opportunity Party.”

It’s failing miserably.

The Republican National Committee realized that Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat was the direct result of his lack of support from African-Americans, women, Hispanics, Asians and just about everybody not a white male.

“The definition of insanity, according to the over-used proverb attributed to Einstein, is ‘doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,'” the report says.

Republicans are doing the same thing again, thanks to Donald J. Trump.

The crux of that report was that women and minorities have either been ignored by Republican candidates, or, worse, marginalized by them.

That candidates for federal offices need to pay heed to the alienation many Hispanics must have felt when they heard Mitt Romney proclaim illegal immigrants should “self-deport,” as his solution for immigration reform.

“On issues like immigration, the RNC needs to carefully craft a tone that takes into consideration the unique perspective of the Hispanic community. Message development is critical to Hispanic voters.,”

it says on page 15 of that report.

So, on June 16, within minutes of his announced candidacy, Trump stuck a pin in any Republican notion of Hispanic outreach.

The man who claims he’ll build a wall on the nation’s southern border, talked about Mexicans bringing drugs, crime and rape with them into the country.

“If Hispanic Americans perceive that a GOP nominee or candidate does not want them in the United States, they will not pay attention to our next sentence,” said the report.

It also goes into great depth about how to attract black voters, since Romney only managed to get a small (6 percent) of them in 2012.

“The Republican Party must be committed to building a lasting relationship within the African American community year-round, based on mutual respect and with a spirit of caring,” the report says.

Enter Trump, the Birther-in-chief, who became the highly visible leader of an effort to discredit the nation’s first African-American president.

So much so, that 61 percent of his supporters still don’t think Obama was born in this country, and 62 percent still  think he’s a Muslim.

Inside the hierarchy of the Republican Party, there must be mass hair-pulling taking place – daily.

Especially since the man who’s become their frontrunner, had vociferously caused a U.S. president, supported by 93 percent of the black electorate, to produce a piece of paper to prove his legitimacy.

Yet Trump continues to make matters worse.

There was that nasty bit of business when Trump, trying to prove the violent tendencies of African-Americans, Tweeted a bold-faced lie.

He wanted to let his Twitter followers know that 81 percent of white murder victims die at the hands of African-Americans.

Not so.

In fact, most white murder victims (82 percent of them) are killed by white people.

Trump had merely tried to benefit by passing along racist propaganda that had been created by an apparent Neo-Nazi group.

It’s the same for Trump, dashing the RNC’s hopes of luring more women voters.

“Our candidates, spokespeople, and staff need to use language that addresses concerns that are on women’s minds in order to let them know we are fighting for them,” the RNC report says.

So much for that notion.

There’s a minute-long ad that’s currently airing on a number of cable TV stations titled “Real Donald Trump quotes about women,” in which a number of women recite him in his own words.

According to the ad, he’s called women “dogs,” “bimbos” and “fat pigs.” He’s made numerous highly provocative, and careless statements that certainly won’t cause many women to jump onto his bandwagon.

If doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result really is the definition of insanity, Republicans just might want to find a mental institution and self-commit.

Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net

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