WASHINGTON — Spurred by recent scientific advances in genetics that are getting close to being able to revive long-extinct species like the dodo bird and raptor dinosaurs, House Republicans today called for emergency funding for the National Science Institute for a “priority program” to bring back “extinct and near-extinct Republican voting groups,” including John Birchers, “traditional women,” and their largest base, “old, grumpy white men.”
“If scientists can bring back dodos, they can bring back Republican voters,” declared Rep. Paul Broun, a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, who last year memorably declared at a church picnic that evolution and the Big Bang theory “are lies straight from the pit of Hell.”
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow countered on her show that the putting “dodos” and “Republicans” in the same sentence was “redundant.”
The announcement caught many political observers by surprise because in recent years the GOP has become known as the “anti-science” party, largely due to its opposition to teaching evolution in schools, its refusal to acknowledge the age of the Earth or fund stem cell research, and its insistence that climate change is not a real phenomenon.
But Lamar Smith, the current chair of the House Science Committee, explained it this way: “Most of us Republicans on the Science, Space and Technology Committee lobbied to get on it because, you know, we don’t believe in science and want to prevent it. It’s well-known that most of the stuff coming out of laboratories these days contradicts the Bible.
“But we’ve been hearing for years that the GOP base is dead or a dying breed, and it’s clear we have no clue how to reach new voters. So when we heard about genetic advances to bring extinct species back, we thought ‘Heck. Bringing back extinct Republican voters – that’s science we can get behind.’”
Lamar called bringing back arch-conservative Republicans into the fold a “conservation project,” because it would “restore America to greatness”.
Smith’s vice chairman Rep. James Sensebrenner—who has characterized climate change theory as “massive international scientific fraud”—rebutted criticism that the GOP was calling for increased spending to resuscitate its voter base during the current sequestration.
“This won’t cost the taxpayer a dime,” Sensebrenner said. “We’ll just take the money from the climate change fund. People got to have some priorities!”
Though the technology is not yet sophisticated enough to repopulate the country with right-leaning voters, Smith explained that the GOP has other electoral options to fall back on in the meantime: “Until we can revive these once-flourishing Republican voters, we’ll just continue passing more restrictive ‘voter ID’ laws and, hopefully overturn the Voting Rights Act.’”
