A Black American’s advice to Republicans
Unlike the 140 Republican Congressional representatives who were judged by several courts to lack standing in their objections to the results of the November election in Pennsylvania and other states, as an American citizen I have standing to call out the Republican Party for its abject failure of leadership and fidelity to the Constitution, despite the fact I am not one of them. This conclusion is even more relevant given the shameless, riotous, seditious events that took place at the Capitol.
The Georgia runoff election revealed that over ninety percent of Black Americans voted for the Democratic candidates, Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. I am pleased with this outcome. The two new senators from Georgia will make it considerably easier for Presidentelect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to get their nominees for high-level posts approved and more importantly, the control of the Senate makes it possible to move forward on addressing the significant challenges facing the country, including the pandemic, the economy, the environment, our standing internationally and our political culture.
It is on the issue of political culture that my unsolicited advice to the Republican Party is directed. Over the past four years, the Republican Party has lost control of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House. Their apparent failed strategy was to mobilize as many white Americans as possible even if their language, their policies and their actions alienated Black Americans at every opportunity. The transformation of the party of Lincoln into the party of Trump requires that Republican leaders who oppose this transformation reclaim their party or create a new party. If they choose to reclaim their party, it is imperative that they completely excise the Trump Republicans from the party. If they choose to start a new party, they must never allow individuals like Trump to ever come into the party and take it over for their own benefit.
Ever since Nixon’s 1968 “Southern Strategy” that leveraged white anger at President Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Republicans have accepted and embraced former and current segregationists, racists and fascists into their coalition of big and small business leaders, globalists and libertarians. This gumbo worked to elect Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes and Trump. But over time, the toxicity of unprincipled racists gained control, and with this, eliminated any hope that the former party of Lincoln could ever be a national multiracial party.
No matter what happens now, it is likely the party of Trump or what is left of the pre-Trump Republican Party will be a minority party for at least a generation.
The fear Republicans of all stripes have right now is their awareness that given the demographic changes taking place in the country, the “Southern Strategy” does not even work in the South anymore.
In 2017, I visited Mississippi and met with elected leaders and the now national president of the NAACP, Derrick Johnson. (He was then president of the Mississippi NAACP.) In my meetings across the state, I investigated the possibility that Mississippi would be the first state to break the “Southern Strategy” because of population dynamics. In 2016, Mississippi had the largest percentage of African Americans in the population than any state in the country at 38 percent. I was wrong. It was Georgia, with 32 percent of the population being African American, that elected the first Democratic senator from the old Confederacy, Raphael Warnock. Make no mistake, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and Florida are evolving into the “New South” because diverse populations and a coalition of young white voters and center-left white adults will represent the new political majority. The whites in this coalition said in Georgia this week, “enough is enough.” Black voters and this coalition of white voters have an intersection of interests, if we only open our eyes.
The new Republican Party can attract African Americans, but there must be change. The new Republican Party must embrace diversity, not rail against it. The new Republican Party must embrace policies that support public education. The new Republican Party must support health care for all Americans. The new Republican Party must support voting rights for all
Americans. The new Republican Party must support Black community development. The new Republican Party must support Black entrepreneurship. The new Republican Party must work to improve the health of the planet. The new Republican Party must address wealth and income inequalities and realize the support of capitalism does not mean unfettered accumulation of wealth and power. The new Republican Party must create a new relationship with Africa and the Caribbean countries. And most of all, the Republican Party must reject and expunge the racists from the party. There is no room for the Proud Boys or any of their ilk in any serious political party, or a new Republican Party.
If this sounds too much like the current Democratic Party, or it sounds like it is too heavy a lift, I am afraid the Republican Party is doomed to the dust heap of history. And it will be Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021 that will mark the end of the Republican Party. On that day, the thugs who represent the party of Trump attacked the Capitol. If Lincoln is looking down on the Capitol, I am sure he cried a tear and shook his head in disbelief.
Why do I care whether the Republican Party continues to be represented by the forces of Trump? I care because, if our nation is ever to become the great nation, our politics must not be about race. Our politics must be about ideas in the service all citizens. But until the Republican Party transforms itself, Black Americans will and should continue to vote for candidates who embrace their humanity, their interests and their legitimate claim to the status of citizen. The actions by the Trump Republicans were not the actions of citizens nor in the interests of Black Americans.