Sure. But the Republicans don’t want to admit it.
Don’t demonize black people and use dog whistles to the GOP’s base talking about “welfare queens” or “moochers” or “those people”. Don’t say white people are oppressed, or that minorities are trying to get more rights. Do help blacks with issues important to them, like improving inner city schools, or making sure that they can vote by not cutting back on voting times. Don’t cut food stamps, add more money to the program. Provide services like health care by expanding Mediaid to the poor in states, and helping to create an exchange to facilitate the success of Obamacare. Agree that Affirmative Action is a morally just law because institutionalize racism still exists and we need AA to even things up. Acknowledge racism is still a huge part of America, and that huge swaths of the country still cannot come to grips with it. Agree that the Confederate flag stands for a heritage of hatred and slavery and has no place in any public building.
You know, common sense stuff. Too bad this will be impossible for any national GOP figure
Basically abandon the south. Which they won’t do. You can have the south or you can have minorities, not both.
I’d dispute that.
The first obvious part I’d dispute is equating “the south” with white people. Obviously a lot of southerners aren’t white. Pretending southern voters are synonymous with white voters is part of the conservative strategy - and it’s a subset of the whole “Real Americans” strategy.
As I wrote above, contemporary conservatives are playing the us vs them game. They’re trying to get a majority of votes in the south by pushing a division between white southerners and black southerners.
But it’s not an inevitable divide. There’s no reason politicians couldn’t appeal to the common ground issues that both black and white voters share. Aside for the moral benefits, the political benefits of uniting voters behind your party should be obvious. A platform designed to appeal to all voters is obviously a strong one.
And citizens of the US of A like myself think that most States Rights are a crock. Racism aside. Why should some States allow convicted felons serving in jail to be able to vote, others to be able to vote after their sentence and others to lose the right altogether for their lifetime? You can keep going own the list but I am an American and not a Californian nor Washingtonian (State not District) nor Arizonan, nor Wyomingan (sp?), nor Idahoian (sp?) despite having lived in all those States? Or bring it down to the States I’ve actually paid taxes in and been allowed to vote?
Only on a generational timescale, which ain’t nearly fast enough.
Sometimes I think the (old) French system would be better. Every departmental prefect (governor) (departments being roughly the size and population of American counties) was not a local politician, but a career civil servant sent out from Paris. Kinda like the rejected Hamilton Plan for the U.S. Constitution, without thepresident-for-life element. And come to think of it, China Guy, a lot like the traditional-in-multiple-dynasties Chinese system, where every tien/department/county in China had an imperially-appointed Magistrate (combination judge/mayor/police chief) from the Confucian-examination-tested civil service.
Sometimes I think the (old) French system would be better. Every departmental prefect (governor) (departments being roughly the size and population of American counties) was not a local politician, but a career civil servant sent out from Paris. Kinda like the rejected Hamilton Plan for the U.S. Constitution, without the president-for-life element.
I’ve heard some American RWs (notably SF author Jerry Pournelle, at SF conventions) claim amazingly and amazingly-shamelessly that American “republican government” is under existential threat from federal centralization. That is pure-D bullshit. Republican government does not equate to decentralized government. Germany has a federal system, France has a unitary system – France is just as good a republic!
The premise is entirely wrong. According to John Mace it’s bullshit that the Tea Party Republicans are racist. If they aren’t racist then no one is racist.
If the Republicans want to attract significant numbers of black voters they will have to formulate policies, consistent with their values, that actually address the issues that those voters care about. The last significant Republican with an actual urban policy was Jack Kemp (nobody’s liberal) and he’s been dead five years.
To be fair, 2010 happened because the electorate really is that simple-minded.
“Democrats? Republicans? BAH! Oh hey, here’s this Tea Party… that’s different!”
That, and the fact that we far-lefters generally don’t have the resources to set up Astroturf groups nor have the political savvy to stop making the perfect the enemy of the good.
I’ve got news for you: There are minorities in the South, too. Quite a few African-Americans, of course. We’ve always had lots of Hispanics in Texas & the numbers are growing. Not just “illegally.” Many cities attract folks from all over the world. And we’ve got a lot of whites who have *no *Confederate roots. I even know a few whose folks were here back then but who treasure some traditions & gladly toss out the obsolete ones…
The Republicans’ Southern Strategy assumed the South would never change. But it has and it will, with time. The Republicans who realize this fear the future.
Speaking of “Sheesh”…
He’s right, though, that some Republicans can’t bring themselves to consider that maybe black people vote Democrats on the issues. Among those Republicans it’s an article of faith that black voters have been bought off with social programs, that they vote Democrat out of habit and nothing else, that it’s all machine politics, or worse: Herman Cain, Allen West and Ben Carson have all compared black people who vote Democrat to slaves on a plantation.
I think part of that is that when they “leave the plantation” they get attacked viciously. Democrats get away with some pretty awful racial epithets when attacking minority Republicans. Or they get away with basically just saying that minority Republicans aren’t “really” black or Hispanic or Jewish or whatever.
While I think comparisons to slavery are overwrought, Democrats do sometimes act as if they are entitled to African-American support and those that do not support them are traitors.
Really? I’ve never heard any of that. Not personally, not here, and not in the media. Could you provide some examples of these “pretty awful racial epithets” used against minority Republicans?
Marley, thing is though that many Blacks and Hispanics who agree with GOP positions on many issues and social positions, who would be classified as “conservative” in several dimensions, still would not vote for the GOP specifically because of certain actions the Party and those of the Party promote and have promoted in the past. Past behaviors create the brand and brand preference is somewhat sticky: it would take more than one election cycle of repudiation of past policies with changes on those positions for the GOP to change voting behaviors. OTOH people can develop a brand distaste pretty quickly (think the lash out against New Coke) and a “New GOP” with a different flavor would lose some sooner than they gained more.
Fox News ran those comments of Herman Cain, Allen West and Ben Carson but just put a “D” after their names, as is their wont.
The problem with that thinking is that you are expecting all of America to become like what you want it to be. The reality, though, is that all of America is going to become, at least partly, like those states you don’t care for.
I live in CA, and I don’t want the fine folks of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia to have any say in what we teach in our schools, how we regulate firearms, what hoops a woman has to go through before she has an abortion, etc etc etc. We have almost 40M people living here, and are just as large, if not larger, than most European Countries whether you measure that by population or GDP. And I’d feel the same way if I lived in MA, where I spent most of my younger years, even though that is a much smaller state.
Perhaps you could address the broader issue instead of ignoring it and trying to justify the disgusting rhetoric.
No, Republicans act like they’re entitled to that support. You can see it because some of them think black people have no intelligent reasons for voting Democrat and only do so because they are stupid, bribed, or mentally enslaved.
That’s true, but it’s still an entirely sensible reason for those people to refuse to vote Republican and Republicans won’t acknowledge it is a legitimate grievance. Why should large numbers of black or Latino voters switch to a party that clearly holds them in contempt? If Republicans stopped doing this they could start to reverse it over time, but if anything we’re seeing more of this behavior today, not less.
As well it should, of course. It ought to take time to reverse all of that history.