As long as I live no matter what Republicans or Democrats do, odds are African Americans will vote as a single unit for Democrats.
A majority of African Americans favor higher taxes (on the wealthy and the middle class), an intrusive government and affirmative action. So we shouldn’t be surprised that 60% – 70% of African Americans loyally vote for liberal candidates. There is plentiful polling to demonstrate on the issues most black voters care about they tend to side with liberals.
However we rarely see only 60% – 70% of African Americans vote for Democrats. Usually we see 85% – 95% of African Americans vote Democrat.
What makes up the difference is largely identity politics that has been forged in our complex history. In the black community being Republican isn’t much more acceptable than being a criminal.
Often criminals receive more favorable attitudes from African Americans than Republicans like Ronald Reagan or John McCain. That is how much we’re hated and distrusted in that community. You don’t overcome political hatred that deep with anything Republicans could do.
If all we cared about was the likelihood of blacks to respond to any Republican outreach we would never reach out to black voters.
However even though African Americans will probably reject our party no matter what we do, there are benefits to reaching out.
If we publicly and strongly reach out to African Americans only to receive the cold shoulder it shows the animosity is one-sided. Blacks hate us, we try to appeal to them.
Many suburban and other minority voters will view us with new respect if we strongly reach out to a community that is rejecting us without a fair hearing.
Among the 10% of African Americans who identify as Republican such an outreach could encourage their greater involvement in the party. This small slice of independent thinkers would appreciate our outreach even if the rest of African Americans didn’t. Perhaps we can even pump our support among African Americans as high as 15%. There may be that many African Americans who would listen to us if we reached out more strongly.
If we double the number of black Republican candidates that does us good with the public even if most blacks still vote Democrat no matter what.
I may not like it but many young and suburban people aren’t colorblind. If they see a party that isn’t “diverse” they recoil whether they like our ideas or not.
So even though we’re unlikely to get a hearing from black voters there are still many reasons to reach out to them. Other people are watching and will appreciate our outreach to a group that will hate us for no good reason.
We will in all likelihood continue to lose black voters as they vote as single bloc. However we can make the most of losing them by reaching out anyway and showing others that we value and respect all Americans even if they have closed themselves off to us.
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Doug Forrester can be contacted at starvingecongradstud@hotmail.com or on Facebook.
May 19th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Tragically, it’s much less acceptable.
One in nine black men ages 20 to 34 is behind bars, compared to one in 30 other men of the same age. By their mid-30’s, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison. In fact, a black male in his late 20’s without a high school diploma is more likely to be in jail than to be working.
Source: Pew Research
May 19th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
“A majority of African Americans favor higher taxes (on the wealthy and the middle class)”
Source? Especially that middle class part, since it really comes across like a rich white guy making baseless and disgusting assumptions….
May 19th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Bravo, Doug!
May 19th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
GOP Losses Span Nearly All Demographic Groups
Only frequent churchgoers show no decline in support since 2001
http://www.gallup.com/poll/118528/GOP-Losses-Span-Nearly-Demographic-Groups.aspx?version=print
May 19th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
#2, I’d appreciate if you dropped the racist attitude.
Pew found last year that 44% of blacks favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts for the middle class along with the wealthy.
33% of blacks support repealing the tax cuts for only the wealthy.
The other 23% of blacks favor keeping the tax cuts in place for everyone.
The same survey found 73% of blacks thought corporations make too much profits.
By a margin of more than three-to-one (69%-21%), blacks favor a bigger government with more services.
May 19th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
We should change the party platform to be more acceptable to black voters. One obvious problem is that schools black kids go to in the inner cities and rural South suck, while schools white kids go to in the suburbs are great. Republicans like to talk about school choice and all that, but after 6 years with President Bush and a Republican Congress they didn’t do anything. Now Obama is going to do something to improve failing schools, probably throw money at them. If that improves the quality of those schools just a little bit then black voters will continue to vote for Democrats and Republicans lost another opportunity. That’s just one example. Another idea: let cities make their own gun laws. If Washington DC wants to ban handguns then let them, don’t have the Supreme Court overturn it.
May 19th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Gallup: More Say Low-Income Americans Paying Fair Share of Taxes
No change in perceptions of taxes paid by middle-income Americans
http://www.gallup.com/poll/117472/Say-Low-Income-Americans-Paying-Fair-Share-Taxes.aspx?version=print
Byron York: The black-white divide in Obama’s popularity
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/black-white-divide-in-obama-popularity-43923897.html
Democrats Go Domestic: Analyzing the 6-28 Debate
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/531/democratic-debate
May 19th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Washington DC spend more than twice as much per student as Utah or South Dakota.
Both states rank well in educational measures while Washington DC’s government schools are some of the worst in the nation.
Money won’t do anything to help school systems that are structured more for the benefit of union employees than for children.
May 19th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
“Washington DC spend more than twice as much per student as Utah”
Huntsman for POTUS?
May 19th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
With outstanding candidates and Party leaders like J.C. Watts and Michael Steele, we are making inroads across demographic boundaries.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Pew found last year that 44% of blacks favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts for the middle class along with the wealthy.
Is there a link to that? I’d be curious about the wording, since I don’t recall Bush giving any relief to the middle class for anyone to repeal.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Though I agree with this post overall, I don’t know that I’d agree with the premise that the AA voting bloc as a whole will never change in our lifetimes. Although there are significant differences when comparing groups of voters, one could have said the same thing about the South pre-1964. As a region the South voted Democrat for generations after the Civil War even though most Southerners had already espoused Republican views (of the times) by the mid-20th Century (hence the Dixiecrats of Strom Thurmond in the 40s and 50s). It wasn’t until Goldwater ran against Johnson in ‘64 that the region as a voting bloc switched en masse to the GOP, where they’ve remained for the most part until present day. Interestingly, as Northerners begin moving south, Democrats are once again making significant inroads in the region.
Also, don’t forget that for many years after the Civil War, Blacks voted overwhelmingly for the GOP since Democrats were the pro-slavery, pro-south party at the time. The party messages, not the parties themselves, pushed Black voters towards the GOP when they received the right to vote upon the War’s end. As the two parties’ philosophies changed over the next 100 years, voters of all races switched sides. Black voters, more than most other groups, switched in massively larger numbers and have remained in the Democratic Party ever since.
It will take time, but if we as a party continue to reach out to AA and other minority voters with logical defenses of our positions, in time I think many will migrate to our side.
(My apologies for the Reader’s Digest version of political history. Obviously, there’s a whole lot more to the history of voting among racial groups in the US.)
May 19th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Time is on the GOP’s side here. The mighty pendulum will swing back and future trends suggest a return of African Americans back to the GOP, the Party of the Civil Rights Act and emancipation.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
One thing that boggles my mind as I browse through Barone’s Political Almanac:
With very few exceptions, black congressmen are on the leftist most end of the Democratic caucus. For every Sanford Bishop (centrist) there are 10 Maxime Waters. This, despite the strong SoCon tendencies in the AA community. The vast majority of blacks oppose gay marriage, and a huge number (if not a majority) oppose legalized abortion. But you wouldn’t know it by the black Congressmen elected from majority black districts with 90+% of the vote.
Why is this? Shouldn’t more black districts be electing congressmen who are economically liberal and socially moderate? Are these Reps so invincible that they can barter their constituents views away for better committee assignments? Why should they almost universally side with Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy on gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research, and late term abortion? This doesn’t reflect the views of their districts.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
#12, It required a seismic shift in American politics to move from Republican strength with African American voters to Democratic dominance.
Black voters have voted as a single bloc for most of the last 140 years.
I really hate to think the turmoil and stress that would be necessary to shift black voters back to the GOP. Short of a series of traumatic and destabilizing experiences I don’t see black voters shifting their allegiance no matter which party held which positions.
It took the Great Depression and the Great Society to shift blacks to a group Democrats could take for granted.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
I’m sorry to say it, but the point about block voting is true enough. The last time blacks voted somewhat like the national as a whole was 1956. Ike carried a narrow majority of the black vote. In 60′, Nixon won something like 35-40%. By 68′, he’d fallen to around 20-25%; we haven’t done so well as that since. But, I’m a little more hopeful then some about our medium-term prospects. “Out” groups tend to vote liberal for reasons that are mostly sociological. Blacks have been a pretty huge “out” group for…oh, the whole history of the Republic, and after the Bourbon Democrats died out, and Dems stopped nominating James Cox types, the Democratic Party has been pretty unambiguously the “liberal” party at the national level. But, my hope is, with Obama’s election, blacks will feel like less of an “outgroup”, and that will change voting patterns to reflect ideological preferences(which are maybe 70-30, not 95-5, in the black community), instead of partisan commitment. Heck, I’m a black Republican and while I may feel less at home in my politics, I feel a little more at home in my country, with Obama’s election. These sorts of changes take time, but if we’re diligent and make our case to black communities, it should yield dividends in the post-Obama era.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Of the exit polls I can find Matthew, Ike only got ~40% of the black vote in 1956 (which was a GOP landslide). Nixon got ~32% of the vote in 1960. In 1968 Nixon got less than 15%.
http://www.nationalreview.com/george/george071200.html
Matthew is it mostly a hope that blacks are becoming less of an “outgroup” with the election of President Obama or do you see evidence of that.
It would do our society a lot of good if that occurred even if our politics remained the same.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Matthew,
I hope you’re right about Obama’s impact, but I fear that he will wed the black vote to Democrats even tighter, just as emancipation wed them to Republicans for a few generations. They could be voting for Obama for another 4 generations.
Since you are one of the posters here I respect the most (along with Doug and a couple others) do you have any thoughts or perspective on #14?
May 19th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Holy Mother of God. This is the kind of drek that makes me wonder why as a black person I bother identifying as a republican. Can you suggest anything more cynical, more insincere as an approach? What you suggest is so asinine, ass backwards and defeatist and it sends the same signal that the party has been sending to blacks for years: the GOP does not consider blacks a political constituency essential or necessary to its aspirations for governence. I wish to God you would be honest and just say it, rather than blaming sorry GOP political practice on blacks. Your position is patronizing and condescending to the point of offense. You posit a black polity consumed by an irrational hatred of republicans because why? We don’t recognize and acknowledge the superiority of republican policy? Your construct of blacks is that we are an unthinking mass, not rational political actors. Your attitude is typical of GOP opinion on blacks from rank and file to party leadership and it shows up in the GOPs practice.
You complain that blacks will never give the GOP a chance so why bother, but the GOP doesn’t show up. Look at the primaries where all leading candidtates blew off the one lousy debate with Tavis. Huck was the only guy who showed up and scored points with blacks because of it. The GOP is the party of accountability, well let’s have some. For years the party has conducted funky messaging with blacks, used wedge tactics that pit blacks against the base and been missing in sustained action on issues blacks care about, like education. we talk school choice while democratic mayors built out a charter system (Indianapolis), or sentencing disparities as the GOP pushes law and order. You don’t take any responsibility for that and instead lay your lack of success off on a supposed black irrationality. To make it worse, you suggest conducting fake outreach to blacks to curry favor with other constituencies. That is the approach of a party that doesn’t give a crap and that fact is not lost on blacks.
May 19th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
CBS News/New York Times Poll
THE STATE OF RACE RELATIONS
April 22-26, 2009
May 20th, 2009 at 6:07 am
#19, A majority of blacks hold liberal economic positions as their priorities. That explains why a majority of black voters are Democrats.
I’m not suggesting it’s irrational or odd for an aggrieved minority group to vote as bloc.
It’s typical human behavior. Blacks are no more irrational or unique than hundreds of other aggrieved minority groups in Democracies around the world.
I favor showing up and reaching out to black voters but I think we need realistic expectations as a party. Republicans shouldn’t expect much support from black voters even if they do everything right.
If we expect African American voters to respond to outreach we’ll view it as a failure when they continue to vote as a bloc for Democrats regardless of how strongly we reach out. If we expect marginal benefits than we won’t be so discouraged when the community continues to vote as a bloc for sociological reasons common to aggrieved minorities.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Doug, I think you’re wrong on a variety of levels and I’ll push back that you are indeed ascribing irrationality to black voters. You specifically said that black voters hate republicans and that we view republicans as being worse than criminals. These statements are over the top exaggerations and patently untrue. Hatred connotes irrational emotion. You also used the word distrust to describe black antipathy to the GOP and thats actually a more useful adjective to use, as it suggests a path to addressing the issues.
GOP/conservatives often use this language “reach out” and “outreach” to black Americans which always strikes me as namby pamby language denoting how we’re going to do a better marketing job with blacks, when the problem is policy.
I’m all for the idea of realistic expectations, we’re not going to turn black political opinion in one election cycle, but it is entirely reasonable to think that the GOP could get 40%-50% of the black vote over the course of several election cycles were it to change its political practices and behave towards this constituency as though it was actually interested in it.
Don’t complain about blacks bloc voting for Democrats when the GOP has made zero investment in a different result. Tell me any sustained major initiative by the GOP to cultivate blacks? They don’t exist. Be truthful here. The GOP has for years rightly assumed that it could win without blacks, so no effort was ever made to achieve mindshare with this group. Now, facing an America that will be more brown than white by 2040, the GOP has to confront squarely the issue: Do we regard blacks as a political constituency necessary and essential to our aspirations for governance, or don’t we? If we do, we must act accordingly. If we don’t, we will continue ceding the black vote to the democratic party.
Its not about “outreach”. When you use that terminology, what I hear is “we’re make a extra effort to go where blacks are and tell them how wonderful and superior the GOP way of doing things is and they’ll see the light”. All you’re saying is that we will spend a little extra time explaining to blacks how wrong they are and how right we are.
Thats not good enough, not by a mile. Where is the policy and practice to address the issues blacks care about? We’ve got the goods, but we don’t spend any time engaging with blacks using tactics that will win the black vote and then we make excuses for our inaction by claiming they will never vote for us anyway. Its a self fulfilling prophecy. We expend zero tactical energy to go after the black vote, because we don’t care about it and thats not lost on black voters. They don’t see the GOP on the ground fighting for them.
On education, we talk choice, but choice is an incomplete solution on education for blacks. Its a good interim or transitional solution on the way to public charter systems, but on its own, its a half measure. We should fight for charter schools, a fight that puts us on the side of black children giving us a compelling angle for mindshare with black parents. Thats organizing 101.
On crime, we talk law and order and tough prison sentences, but we have little to say about injustice and slam blacks in urban areas as un-American when they want to limit the criminal populations access to guns. Blacks are disproportionately the victims of crime with significant numbers living in urban war zones. Its entirely rational to take steps to limit the availability of weapons in these environments, particularly when those weapons are being used by a population of badly socialized, disconnected, uneducated and alienated youth. War on drugs initiatives have meant disparate sentencing on crack offenders versus powder cocaine and the GOP has never weighed in to support fixing that. Hell, we didn’t have to say reduce the crack offenses down to the powder offenses, we could have said equalize it, make powder offenses carry the same penalties as for crack. Blacks would have applauded that, because that would be fair treatment under the law. But we didn’t.
Our practice is terrible. When you have a convention with a tiny number of blacks present, that is sending a clear as a bell message. We don’t engage in the black community, so its no surprise that blacks involved in the party is small. No surprise at all.
The killer irony in this is that blacks are still largely christian social conservatives, down deep. That means at the core, blacks operate on a value set that is entirely consonant with conservative values (not the same as GOP practice). The same blacks that showed up to vote for Obama in California carried Prop 8 on their backs too. We’re there for the taking. If GOP strategists devoted the same amount of energy to developing tactics that exploit and capitalize on the social conservative elements of black politics as an opening instead of wedge tactics and funky messaging that thumbed its nose at black sensibilities cuz the base likes it, my goodness how much further ahead of the game would we be?
But remember that word distrust that you used? Distrust exists because the GOP , having for years concluded that blacks were not needed in its camp to win, has conducted its political practice accordingly. So we message in ways that are insulting or threatening to blacks but resonate with the base, so we do it. We cut the affirmative action issue in a way that demonizes blacks as taking opportunities away from obviously more qualified whites. We tolerate up and down the party structure expressions and language that many times is clearly offensive or highly inflammatory to blacks, only to apologize for it later, if it all. Blacks notice the blatant inconsistency and rationally conclude that they are not really wanted.
You want to lay the failure to win black votes on blacks, as though we’re deficient in some way and I think this is a Man in the Mirror moment. Do you seriously dispute my statement that the GOP in the last 40 years has essentially left the black vote uncontested? Do you seriously dispute my statement that in the past 40 years the GOP has concluded that it could win without black voters and has operated accordingly? Do you seriously dispute me when I say that the GOP does not currently nor has it in the past considered black Americans a voting constituency necessary or essential to its aspirations for governance, and has acted accordingly?
Your post is representative of thinking on blacks across the GOP from rank and file to leadership. It is a position entirely consistent with a party that has never fundamentally decided that blacks are a constituency it wanted in the first place. When it comes to the democrats, no such ambiguity exists, but we wonder why we lose the black vote.
Conservative thought leaders like yourself, instead of throwing your hands up in surrender when you have not actually made any credible effort, should be the voice spurring us on to victory on this. The right message is that the black vote is absolutely winnable for the GOP. The right message is that conservative values are black American value and vice versa. The right message is that our conservatism produces policy answers to the concerns of black Americans that yield superior results to that of democratic ideology. If we did that, if we committed to it beyond platitudes, empty words and transitory, ephemeral “outreach”, if we stopped cutting issues in wedge fashion to rev the base by pitting it against blacks, we can absolutely and significantly win large numbers to the GOP banner. But it starts with a decision by the party that it wants this constituency, that this constituency is necessary and essential to its aspirations for governance. I submit to you that this decision has been made by default in the negative and we do nothing to prove otherwise. Therefore, because we make no commitment to deploying conservative principles in an effective way against the issues of concern to blacks, they give us no support. Don’t blame blacks for the GOP’s laziness and lack of desire to engage with them. Its rational political behavior that we do little to nothing to counter the reasons for and therefore should be unsurprised that our results are so poor.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Aaron,
Although I have tremendous respect for Doug, I have to say that #22 is one of the most insightful comments I have read here in a while.
I would add that the GOP’s Southern Strategy had a lot to do with it, historically. Back in the 60s and 70s, trading the black vote for the southern white vote was a pretty good trade for someone who just wanted to win. I definitely see where you are coming from, and I think you offer some worthy critique and good suggestions. On a positive note, I think (I hope) that “states’ rights” has lost its racist connotation, and we don’t hear stories about “welfare queens.”
You know, growing up I was always a big fan of Jesse Helms. I thought the famous ad where a white hand was crumpling up an application because of quotas was a fair ad, as it made the point that reverse discrimination is wrong. But as I’ve reflected on that, I realize that it is a bad way to make a good point. It is inflammatory and divisive, and the implicit message is that blacks are the enemy, not unjust laws. On the issue of affirmative action, we need to seek higher ground.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:38 am
The Republican Party is not hated in the black community, it is misunderstood and defined by Democrats who control these areas. The problem is that the GOP has not come up with an urban agenda that appeals to these areas, it has a rural,surban, agenda but no urban agend. Most blacks and other minorties live in urban settings. For at least fifteen years, David Bositis at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, has been gathering data that shows that young African-Americans are less likely to call themselves Democrats than their parents or older siblings and more likely to identify as independents, though not Republicans. Why is that? There are a number of reasons. They are more likely to be products of the middle class than were their parents. They are following what until recently were similar trends among young voters regardless of race–towards independence rather than strong partisanship. The Civil RIghts Movement and its immediate aftermath were not lived experiences for them, but rather history and therefore more distant including the grudges arising therefrom. The problems they have seen–especially in the cities–have a lot of Democratic complicity if not authorship written on them. This is not a turn away from government, which is key. Republicans won’t get very far with these voters by saying the key is to have less government. It is a turn to effective or efficient government that is responsive and perceived to be responsive to them. School choice has potential as an issue if it is framed as better schools not less government. Efficient government can be smaller, smarter, closer to the people (i.e. less federal). It can be all the things that I gather Republicans mean when they say “less government.”
While one can argue for a rational black skepticism about strong government roles, it will be equally easy to argue the converse. Republicans tend to argue in a shorthand that evokes skepticism especially for somewhat older blacks. Against activist judges? Many of the rights gained initially by African-Americans were actualized through judicial action, even fiat. Return to state and local government? It was an interventionist federal government that secured actual voting rights for African-Americans. Original intent of the framers? Let’s not even go there : ) Instead, Republicans need to focus their rhetoric not on the ideological framework, but the outcomes: governments that are responsive to the will of the people within certain bounds that respect equality under the law.
Can we sum up that the conservative message that will resonate best with minority voters is BETTER government not BIGGER government? Maybe we should start a discussion just on that item.
A “Hip-Hop Republican” aka from New York City!!!
May 20th, 2009 at 11:35 am
#22 You’ve written so much you leave me in the dilemma of a mosquito in nudist colony. Where do I start.
“I’m all for the idea of realistic expectations, we’re not going to turn black political opinion in one election cycle, but it is entirely reasonable to think that the GOP could get 40%-50% of the black vote over the course of several election cycles were it to change its political practices and behave towards this constituency as though it was actually interested in it.”
This is extremely unlikely if for no other reason, a majority of African Americans are economically liberal and wouldn’t rationally vote for any party economically to the right of center. Assuming no group dynamic was going on you’d still see ~70% of black voters voting Democrat just for ideological reasons. Social issues haven’t been a political priority for African Americans.
“GOP/conservatives often use this language “reach out” and “outreach” to black Americans which always strikes me as namby pamby language denoting how we’re going to do a better marketing job with blacks, when the problem is policy.”
I agree “outreach” is a poor use of terms. Ken Melman as Bush campaign manager and later as RNC chairman reached out to African American voters and used some tough language to describe the Republican Party’s mixed history. The reaction from African American voters was predictably to ignore Melman. The Republican Party isn’t even a topic of interest to most African American voters. There is just an assumption they’re bad/elitist/racist. It would require unexpected policy moves to even catch the attention of the typical black voter who instinctively distrusts and discounts Republicans.
“Conservative thought leaders like yourself, instead of throwing your hands up in surrender when you have not actually made any credible effort, should be the voice spurring us on to victory on this. The right message is that the black vote is absolutely winnable for the GOP.”
This is where we begin to have a fundamental disagreement. In the UK ethnic minorities also vote as a bloc for the Labor Party. Sikhs in Dehli tend to vote as a bloc.
Sociologically this is to be expected. The aggrieved minority group that doesn’t vote as a bloc is the exception and not the rule.
I don’t think it is likely any effort will result in more than a marginal shift in African American support. However I do support such efforts because even if they fail to shift African American voting habits they will accomplish much good for the Republican Party.
“Doug, I think you’re wrong on a variety of levels and I’ll push back that you are indeed ascribing irrationality to black voters. You specifically said that black voters hate republicans and that we view republicans as being worse than criminals. These statements are over the top exaggerations and patently untrue. Hatred connotes irrational emotion.”
The NAACP has used a variety of advertisements in the last 8 years to tar Republicans as racists or sympathizers of racists. Many of those ads have been hateful. Hate may be a strong word but African American voters tend to have strong antipathy to Republicans as a rule.
I ascribe no irrationality to black voters that I wouldn’t ascribe to any other group. I doubt African American voter make a cost-benefit analysis of the candidates and choose the one that maximizes their preferred outcomes. No group does that. Much of voting is irrational in the sense that it is influenced and warped by group behavior, emotions and irrelevant information.
I would be very happy to see millions of African Americans come into the Republican Party and leave an imprint on it. I think they’d be a positive influence on our policy stances. I just don’t see that as a realistic outcome. I just do not share your optimism in the likelihood of people to throw off deeply ingrained attitudes even for good reasons in a few elections.
I think it would require a period of severe national catastrophe to alter black voting behavior.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
#25 Reasonable responses mostly. I may be a little too optimistic, but not so much if you take a long view. Were the GOP to put in the work, we might all be surprised at the results. #24 makes a good point about younger blacks (like me) for whom civil rights was not a lived experience. People in my generation frankly chafe at the leadership of the old guard civil rights generation represented by the likes of many of those in the Cong. Black Caucus for example. Their cohort exists in every urban area in the county and they are still the gatekeepers to black political networks and frankly some of them will have to die and be replaced before more independent thinkers can replace them. They don’t understand how to get things done outside of government, protest and identity politics.
There is a generational element at play here. The GOP’s opportunity is to engage that independent thinking cohort now as it rises to power in black political networks, indeed, to the extent it is locked out of democratic networks, to offer it an alternative path to power within the republican party as the conservative vanguard of the GOP delivering solutions to issues of concern to black America. Why the hell not since we’re rebuilding the party anyway? Now is the time to fundamentally re-engineer and reboot the GOP’s relationship to black America. Throw out all the old assumptions and come at this thing fresh. The vanguard is here already, and we’re getting no help from the GOP (http://hiphoprepublican.blogspot.com/ just one example. These folks have other homes on the web too). Empower this emerging group with real engagement. If Steele was going to make a leadership move that would make a change with blacks, this is where the fields of opportunity lie.
The NAACP has used a variety of advertisements in the last 8 years to tar Republicans as racists or sympathizers of racists. Many of those ads have been hateful. Hate may be a strong word but African American voters tend to have strong antipathy to Republicans as a rule.
This is where I’ll express some additional frustration. The GOP spends a lot of time concentrating on the expressions of groups like the NAACP and the Urban League for example. These organizations are out of touch and increasingly irrelevant. That independent thinking cohort of young blacks is not joining these organizations, except to network. These groups are not at the forefront of cutting edge thinking in black communities. They represent the zenith of black liberal identity politics and tired civil rights protest strategies that are largely inapplicable today. Like the Sharptons of the world, they are vocal and visible, not representative. Were the GOP making a real commitment to winning the black vote, they would apply tactical analysis and know this to be the case. Those mainline organizations are bought and paid for, sold out to democratic interests. Like zombie banks, they are zombie civil institutions, animated by corrupt, corroded rhetoric and ideas. They should not be used as an excuse to not engage or an example of what most blacks think or how they will react.
We don’t need a national catastrophe. We need the GOP to craft a winning strategy of engagement and implement it. You cannot argue that blacks won’t respond to an effort that the GOP has never made in any sustained fashion.
May 20th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Frankly, I don’t think Steele’s job is to do the impossible, which would be
a massive shift in the black vote. His job is to criticize Obama without
looking like a Cracker. The fact that he is also Catholic helps too, since
he can show up at pro-life rally’s and keep the church in the tent. The
federalist solution to abortion is more Confederatist, which turns off a good
many Catholic voters. With Steele as the face of the GOP, that is a harder
accusation to make stick.
May 20th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I am a little bit more optimistic about African Americans voting republican in the future. When push comes to shove, republican issues like the military, school vouchers, social conservatism, immigration, and others are winners with the African American community. A lot can change in just a few decades and with more education and rising cadre of african american leadership, I personally think that the future is optimistic for african americans in the GOP.
May 20th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
The future will only be bright if the GOP invests the time to build the relationship with that rising cadre now. No investment, no success.
May 20th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Aaron I think you’ve got something interesting to say here even though there may be daylight between us on this.
It really deserves a frontpage post.
If you wrote fleshing out these sorts of ideas, I’d not mind posting it on the frontpage. My e-mail address is starvingecongradstud@hotmail.com
May 21st, 2009 at 11:57 pm
I’ll try working something up.