As Vanderbilt University political scientist John G. Geer said to Freedman in The New York Times, invoking kumbaya "lets you ridicule the whole idea of compromise."

I think that what the Republican Party is doing when it invokes the song is rejecting the ideas of empathy and solidarity.

It is the very power and essence of the song that makes it a fitting target.

The base of the Republican Party is a bunch of so called Christians who choose not to listen when "some one's crying." Perry and the others are telling these people that you do not have to worry about his policies being affected by the cries of the poor.