GOP Was Once Black But Can't (Or Won't) Go Back

In the wake of losing 95% of the African-American vote to the Democrats and President Barack Obama in the 2012 election cycle, the Republicans finally woke up to the reality that if they ever want to regain the White House and stay a competitive national party, the GOP can't run campaigns geared only to white people and expect to win national elections even if they attempt a massive voter suppression effort. 

All it does is piss us off and make us more determined to turn out in higher numbers to vote your politically shady behinds out of office. 

So now the Republicans are in the awkward position of having to try to approach a community they have politically abused, smeared and written off for over 40 years and ask them for their votes. 

They are also quickly finding out their standard anti-government propaganda that works with their vanillacentric privileged low information voter base doesn't work on a people who for the most part don't see government as evil and know that at times in our history we have required a strong central government to step in and safeguard our human rights. 

Yeah, once upon a time, back in the late 19th-early 20th Century the Republicans were politically tight with my people while the Democratic Party post Civil War was like the GOP is today, the party of white supremacy.    The first two African-American senators and congressmembers elected to Congress during Reconstruction and Black state legislators during that period had R's behind their names.  But the GOP lost the trust and loyalty of African-Americans as the Democrats starting with FDR made a serious push to compete for African-American voters.   That drift to the Democratic Party ranks that started in the 1930's became permanent after LBJ's landslide win in 1964 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.  

Pimping that 'Party of Lincoln' spin line, pointing out the first African-American politicians post-emancipation were Republicans and insultingly claiming that Black people are 'brainwashed into voting for Democrats'  or 'on the Democrat plantation' not only won't make us stop voting for Democrats, we damned sure will line up in droves to vote against you.

African-Americans do what every other ethnic voting bloc does in the United States.  We vote for the people and the party that aligns with our community's political and economic interests, respectfully asks for our votes, gives us seats at the policy making table and enacts that policy agenda once elected to office.

It's the Democrats deeds over the last 40 plus years backed up their words and the diversity of their party that have earned them that whopping 95% of our ballots.  Ron Brown became the head of the DNC in 1988.  It was 20 years later that the RNC elected Michael Steele as its chairman and then you badmouthed, stabbed him in the back and bumrushed him out of the seat after one term.        

We also have evidence courtesy of the NAACP Civil Rights Legislative Report Cards (another respected org in our community you continue to demonize) just how receptive Republican legislators in Congress are to the concerns of African-Americans.

*Average NAACP Civil Rights Legislative Report Card grade for Democrats in Congress -  'A'    
*Average NAACP Civil Rights Legislative Report Card grade for Republicans in Congress-  'F'
 
Conversely, the Republican Party has spent so much time demonizing African-Americans since 1964 to get the Dixiecrats and white voters in their column that for a vast majority of our community conservatism + GOP = racism.

That impression keeps ossifying in the African-American community with every all too frequent racist comment by GOP politicians, every voter suppression efforts, every rollback attempt on signature civil rights legislation, and every failure to support policies that help our community.

Every time you racistly attack, demonize and disrespect President Obama, it's like a slap in the face to Black people.  It keeps us motivated to vote the GOP bums out of office.

And it's not just disrespect of President Obama that pisses us off.   When we see a Harvard educated Black Miss America with moderate views announce she wants to run for Congress as a Republican and she is disrespected, that is convincing evidence to African-Americans that you hate us and don't want my community's involvement in GOP circles period or votes in your party.   

It also doesn't help when your 'Come Back To The GOP' campaign has a person leading it in Sen. Rand Paul.   He not only embarrassed himself on the Howard University campus when he got called out by HU students about his revisionist history of the Civil Rights movement and the insulting way he did so, he later had to let go of an aide in his senate office with white supremacist ties.

And don't even get me started talking about the long list of cookie chomping sellouts you parade as spokesnegros for your party.  

Black conservatives have proved repeatedly over time they are more concerned with their individual status in the conservative moment than being drum majors for justice for our people. 

Herman Cain, Star Parker  Sen. Tim Scott, Allen West and Dr. Ben Carson are just the latest examples of chocolate coated sycophants regurgitating the same failed policies and anti-Black rhetoric that turns us off when we hear it uttered by conservative white people at CPAC, on right wing talk radio or Fox Noise.

The point is, as someone who loves this country and is a proud Democrat, I would love to see the Republicans stepping up ther game and competing for my vote.   It would not only make my party beter but the nation, too. 

But because you continue to make the same idiotic unforced errors and bigoted mistakes, the Republican Party won't get African-American votes for the rest of this decade and the forseeable future until they come to the realization that the policies they are in love with are reviled in my community.   Doubling down on the social conservatism and ramping up the racist rhetoric may play well with your predominately white base, but will hasten your political extinction as a party