“I’d just let them show up.” Rush Limbaugh’s top-secret strategy session with the Hollywood right-wing group Friends of Abe shows just how cynical and dismissive the GOP is regarding female and minority voters.

Last year, Rush Limbaugh spoke to a secret meeting of the ostensibly “underground” Hollywood right-wing group, “Friends of Abe” (FOA). For those unfamiliar with this collection of chicken hawk one-percenters, the FOA leadership consists of Clint Eastwood, Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight, Gary Sinise, Patricia Heaton, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Robert Duvall. Last year, FOA’s director, a filmmaker named Jeremy Boreing, appeared on Fox News whining that the IRS refused to grant this wholly partisan group of millionaires tax exempt status (which the IRS promptly did, following Boreing's media blitz).

The private, unadvertised, invitation-only soiree with Limbaugh was held last August at the federally-operated Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. The entire library was closed to the public, and no one without “Friends of Abe” wristbands could even get close to the entrance. But one FOA member, a disgruntled Ron Paul supporter, broke rule #1 of “Right Club:” you do NOT talk about “Right Club.” This member not only talked to me about the organization, he also showed me video he snuck during Limbaugh’s talk (the penalty for taking video at an FOA event is immediate expulsion).

The footage was taken from the balcony-level, in a corner. The audio is not great, but passable considering the circumstances. Limbaugh begins with a defense of the rich (no surprise considering the net worth of the room) and an attack against the poor for daring to think that the system is unfair to the disenfranchised. Standard GOP talking points.

Limbaugh then segues into the question of how the GOP can “get the Hispanics” and “get the women” (to vote GOP). His answer? “Oh that’s easy for me; I’d just let them show up.”

Loud applause follow. Limbaugh begins to segue again into a loving (and completely fictional) “memory” of how amazing and utopian the U.S. was in the ‘80s under Reagan.

The video then does a quick pan of the upstairs balcony seating, and cuts out.

For several minutes after viewing the video, I was fixated on the words “”I’d just let them show up.” The implication is, these “special interests” (as Limbaugh calls them) are not worth pursuing. His message is that the GOP should not make any effort to “get” Hispanic or female voters. Limbaugh dismisses these segments of society as unworthy of effort.

If they “show up,” fine. But damned if we’re going to work up a sweat.

This is the lunacy that is, and will be, the seed of the GOP’s destruction. Rather than pursuing women and Hispanics (and by implication in Limbaugh’s remarks, African-Americans too), rather than treating them as Americans deserving of the simple, basic respect of having their concerns heard and taken seriously, they are to be ignored. If they show up, fine. If they don’t, to hell with them. This is what the GOP believes. This is what Sinise, Eastwood, Grammer, Bruckheimer, Duvall, and Voight applauded.

Just as insulting is how Limbaugh tries to argue that Republicans shouldn’t see people as “special interests.” As though the GOP doesn’t bend itself into pretzels catering to its own “special interests:” Big oil, one percenters, anti-choicers, climate change deniers, evangelicals, the homophobe lobby, etc. Those “special interests” merit being courted. Women and Hispanics? Not at all. Judging by the applause, the Friends of Abe don't mind it when women, Hispanics, African-Americans, and Limbaugh's other "thems" buy movie tickets or watch their TV shows. But how dare these "special interests" expect any level of representation from their government.

The message from the Friends of Abe is loud and clear: Watch our movies and TV shows, help us get richer, but don't try to participate in "our" politics.

Republicans may feel as though big money can insulate them from having to face the reality of American demographics. And perhaps for the time being it can. But not in the long run. As the rest of the country moves forward with a diverse, inclusive vision, the GOP will find itself more and more isolated.

And by the time Republicans realize how disastrous Limbaugh’s “let them show up” strategy is, they’ll be the ones who’ve been shut out.