What’s the Party of Lincoln To Do?
I’d like to revisit the matter of why the Republican Party continues to marginalize blacks and generally treats all people of color as second-class citizens. (The ones that are citizens, that is.)
In responses to a post yesterday on the news that only Tom Tancredo of the nine Republican president wannabes appeared at an NAACP candidate forum, a number of commenters, all presumably Republicans, sought to deflect that criticism. Some noted that the NAACP is not exactly a welcoming group (true enough), one nattered that blacks were not worth reaching out to (insulting in the extreme), and there was the inevitable tired canard that the issue is about politics and not race (nice try, but no cigar).
My interest here is less to bash the GOP for its decades’ long indifference to anyone who is not a white Christian with an American flag tattooed on their ass. That’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
No, my interest is in what a political party that has worked assiduously to marginalize itself through electing and blindly supporting a dangerously inept president with a white-bread agenda can try to do to bring back a relic from the party’s proud past called The Big Tent, which has fallen into the Republican Memory Hole along with all those congressional golfing junkets with Jack Abramoff.
Or is that task hopeless? Should the Party of Lincoln continue to automatically concede large chunks of the electorate in major elections?
opinions powered by SendLove.to
14 Responses to “What’s the Party of Lincoln To Do?”
The sad truth is that this is not the Republican party that gave birth to Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt or Ike. The right wing has the GOP in a headlock and will continue to exert its influence over how the party is run and what policies they choose for their platform.
Unfortunately, these same policies are driving out not only minority voters but moderate Republicans, libertarians and independents, who no longer can abide its socially conservative, ultra-patriotic agenda. That same narrow appeal will continue to shrink Republican coffers and cause the party to lose elections, until they either become irrelevant or the right wing decides its tired of rule by Democrats, and loosens its ideological grip on the GOP.
Maybe, within my lifetime I will see a resurgence of moderate, common sense Republicans like Olympia Snowe and David Gergen who would dump the evangelicals and their white Christian anti-science agenda.
[...] Clark Link to Article tom tancredo What’s the Party of Lincoln To Do? » Posted at The Moderate [...]
Frankly I don’t think that the GOP not courting the “black vote” (personally the idea that you must vote in bloc by your skin color is repugnant to me, but hey) has little to do with racism and a great deal more to do with balancing costs and benefits.
I’m going to make a wild generalization for the sake of argument, and pretend like there is such a thing as a “black voter”. Blacks are likely to be VERY mistrustful of any Republican. That means that no headway can ever be made with the “black voter” unless you are willing to concede some fairly extreme positions. A democrat in the NAACP probably won’t be forced to answer whether they think a national apology for slavery and reparations to descendants is appropriate, but a Republican might, since he/she has to be “tested” to see if they are “sincere” in the courting of the “black voter”. Democrats just need to set out their arguments, Republicans must first convince them that they aren’t “the enemy”. Not at all fair, but that’s the way it is I think.
In addition a Republican is likely to be asked about massive social programs, if they have any intention of expanding them and to swear they don’t want to diminish them.
In short, a Republican, in order to convince any number of “black voters” must make so many concessions that they would necessarily alienate a probably larger proportion of other Republican voters, making the “black vote” not worth their trouble.
Also, in this particular election, it’s natural that they don’t bother. The three most likely Democratic opponents consist in the wife of a president VERY popular with blacks, a black man, and a man whose central issue is poverty. It’s just not happening for the Republicans this time, and they know it.
People vote in what they believe to be their own best interest.
Lynx,
They vote as a bloc based on skin color because they are typically discriminated against in this country based on their skin color. It is the only way they have been able to fight against prejudice in this nation and gain any rights. If they had not banded together as such, Jim Crow would likely still reign. The moment they stop voting as a bloc is the moment the few gains they have made against discrimination are erased.
[...] at TMV, Shaun Mullen wrote a thoughtful challenge to Republicans about their relationship with African-Americans. In [...]
kritter,
To argue that the way for the Republicans to appeal to blacks is to go back to acting like Country Club Republicans is not a good idea. The Republicans became a national political force when they stopped being Country Club republicans. The day that they start acting like country club republicans is they day that stop being relevent.
If would be better if the became much more libertarian than become elitist.
SD- The way they became a national force was to allign with the evangelicals. But the alliance will not hold because the other factions of the party are turned off by the evangelicals’ desire for a greater governmental role in our private lives. That is one reason the party is splintering.
In many ways the NAACP has a lot in common with the ACLU. You won’t see a lot of Republicans at either organization, and there is a simple reason why this is so. Neither are really independent organizations. Oh heir charters might declare them to be “non-partisan” but there is no doubt that they function as extensions of the Democratic party.
When Republicans DO interact with more independently minded groups, like the Urban League, you hear things like “Well, that doesn’t count ’cause the Urban League are a bunch of Uncle Toms.” The Republicans get it coming and going.
This ignores the actual electoral history of the last 40 years. The Republicans have won 7 of the last 10 Presidential elections without black support. In fact at no time during those 40 years has the black vote been “up for grabs.” (At the beginning of that 40 year period it was so bad for Republicans that in the 1968 elections NBC exit polling found Nixon pulling 3% of the vote in black neighborhoods. George Wallace pulled in 2%!) At no time since 1980 has the percentage of blacks voting Republican goten above 15%. If you can win elections by drawing upon the support of folks that will more easily CONSIDER you in the first palce, that is what you are going to do. There is no reason to believe further efforts to court african-americans by Republicans woiuld have been anything other than Quixotic. When you consider that Bush won 35% of Hispanic votes in 2000, and 44% in 2004, and won 44% of asian american votes in 2004, or that in the past Congressional elections where the Republicans did so poorly they still got 30% Hispanic, 37% asian american and only 10% black (got all this info here) , it simply underscores the fruitlessness of throwing limited campaigning resources at african-american audiences.
It will continue to make little sense until african-americans cease to be culturally Democrats. I do not see any reason to believe that change is upon us.
Except that the GOP is now turning off Hispanics as well. That plus the dominance of the religious right in the party, has left it open to the charge that it is the white, Christian party. A glance at the selection of Republican presidential candidates for the ’08 race doesn’t counteract that impression.
kritter: I think because of of their different views on government entitlements you will (almost) always find immigrant groups leaning Democratic. That is the nature of the beast, and the only way the Republicans could redress the issue would be to become Democrats, so what would be the point? The trick for Republicans would be to appeal to a larger percentage of 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants, i.e. when those groups have been largely assimilated. I know Democrats would love for hispanics to be the “new blacks” but I don’t see that happening for a few reasons. For starters, inter marraige between Hispanic immigrant groups and english speaking Americans is rife, so I’m not sure the “ethnic group politics” model will hold in the long run.. Also being Catholic has tended to tilt more Republican over the last 20 years. So while there may be some shifting and Democratic tilt in response to the immigration debate in DC, I think it would be premature to read a long term trend into it, the effect may be more of a short term phenomoa.
I agree with Lynx and Iconic Midwest. There is no real point for the GPO to spend money courting the black vote in the way Shaun suggested, reaching out to the NAACP. I think where the Republicans can reach out to Blacks is in other venues, and by doing what they have done in the past – get competent people who happen to be Blacks into cabinet and other administration posts.
The NAACP and ACLU are, as noted above, basically Democratic Party supporters in everything but official name. Be polite, attend if it fits the candidate’s schedule, but don’t change the candidate’s schedule to accommodate the NAACP or ACLU.
Most of the posters here are offended by the religious right. I don’t have a problem with that, but I would posit that many people are equally offended by the extreme ant-religious secular left. So I think the Democrats have some of the same liabilities, but at the other end of the spectrum. However, this can be an avenue of contact for the GOP to reach out to one segment of the African – American community – and that is the largely conservative Christian bloc of American Blacks.
Interesting post, Shaun. I’m not sure there are any simple answers, but I wish the GOP all the best. Unfortunately, the war has become the issue the electorate will vote on, so it is pretty much a foregone conclusion that we will get a Democratic administration following 2008.
I don’t think the issue is so much government entitlements as the recent right-wing hostility towards illegal immigrants (mostly Hispanic) that surfaced during the recent debate. The GOP will now be seen by the Hispanic community as intolerant and xenophobic. This will deliver their vote to the Democratic camp.
kritter: That was the spin of some on the left who claimed that the only reason one could be against THIS VERSION of immigration reform is that you are a racist. Nevermind that according to opinion polls a majority of Democrats didn’t want it either.
That being said I think the spin will have an effect and I expect a short term bounce for Democrats among Hispanics.