Is the GOP re-inventing its image to be more inclusive to minorities and the poor?
The Republican Party hasn’t had much support from blacks and other minorities since the 1960s. It was during that period that the Party of Lincoln saw President Lyndon Johnson and his Democratic cohorts pass legislation to help minorities and the poor.
The programs came under the banner of “The Great Society.” From that came the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Voting Rights Act of 1965, Community Action Program, Head Start, and other services to combat racial injustice and poverty.
Since that time, the Republican Party has sought to dismantle many of these services. As a result, the Party has further alienated itself from the minority population. That doesn’t mean the GOP hasn’t tried to reach out to minorities through the years.
Ronald Regan spoke of a new Republican Party in 1977, one that would seek black voters. But while running against Democratic President Jimmy Carter, Reagan dissed a NAACP invitation to address its annual meeting.
After winning the presidential election, Reagan reverted back to the old Republican way. He publicly compared welfare programs to slavery.
Today since Democratic President Barack Obama overwhelmingly won a second presidential term, we have a GOP that is still alienated from the minority population. And once again, the party seeks to correct the problem, this time by launching a $10 million dollar minority outreach program.
But barely two weeks after Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus’ outreach announcement, a member of the party let slip some of the same old racist rhetoric.
During a radio station interview, Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young told the interviewer that his father had a ranch and “we used to have 50, 60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes.”
Young and several members of his party have since apologized. But the Republican stigma of racial exclusion still exists.
Tony Sayegh, a political strategist and Fox News contributor agreed there is a disconnect, but says Republican Party policies far favor the middle class and minorities more so than those of Democrats and the Obama administration.
“While the Democratic agenda offers big government as the solution to every problem and relegating minorities to virtual permanent dependency on government, the perception is they care more than we do,” Sayegh says. “Republicans believe government should provide safety nets, but that more should be done to empower individuals to achieve prosperity through a growing and vibrant private economy that offers jobs and opportunity for anyone willing to work hard.”
Sayegh said the Republican Party should therefore change its tone but not its message to win back that support. The message is that the Republican Party is a party of hope, growth, and opportunity for all Americans.
Robert Smith, a San Francisco State University professor of political science, said first one has to distinguish between minorities in assessing the issue.
“With respect to blacks, I think there is little the party can do short of changing its fundamental principles of limited government and market based solutions to economic and social problems,” Smith says.
The Republican line on limited government and low taxes has some appeal among Latinos and Asians. But immigration becomes a sticking point.
“More enlightened rhetoric and policies on immigration should ‘stop the bleeding’ and in the long run keep these groups from going the way of blacks,” Smith says.
Finally, there is the risk that if the Republican Party moves too far too fast to accommodate minorities it will alienate its largely white voting base.
“One thing is for sure, the recruiting and spotlighting of minority faces like (Mark) Rubio, Tim Scott, or Mia Love will be of only marginal value in the Party’s outreach efforts,” Smith says.
Comments
If that were the case, I couldn't tell
Honestly, even if the GOP changed its rhetoric about minority people, I think we would still have ads like this one for Amendment 64 where Mexico is characterized as the home of "the bad guys" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KAOq7XX2OY While this ad was NOT a GOP ad, I think the institutional discrimination will be buried in voting records and become more implicit rather than explicit.
Even if many mainstream members of the party want to include minorities in their victory planning, there are vocal people in the party who want to continue the white strategy like Scott Terry. I don't think the GOP is united in its effort to appeal to minority voters. When prominent politicians make racist gaffes, utterly fail to issue a meaningful apology, and the media outlets jump on it, it looks as if this is normal operating procedure for the GOP. To be honest, I can't think of an instance off the top of my head when a politician made a substantially apologetic remark and perhaps a promise to work on their own biases so that they change as people rather than simply trying to not make the same mistake again.
As a female minority, I look upon candidates like Rubio the way I look at Palin. I don't want to be pandered to on the basis of the identity of a candidate. What I want is someone who calls out people in their own party when that person makes racist remarks instead of only speaking up if the opposition did it. I look at prominent conservative thinkers like like Michelle Malkin and Clarence Thomas and I don't care much for their rhetoric.
In the wake of the Boston Marathon incident, she alluded to racial profiling of the suspect https://mobile.twitter.com/TwitchyTeam/status/323961402136076289
When I see conservatives in favor of racial profiling, or the news speculating on the person of interest's identity, I see explicit racism and tacit acceptance of this norm. I don't see any newspeople coming out and saying "hey, that's racist" when you have investigators telling people to be on the lookout for a "darker skinned, or black male" when I doubt anyone saw a guy definitively planting the bombs or setting them off. On top of this, the "warning message" is being parroted everywhere like it's a fact that a dark-skinned person did this. It couldn't possibly be the FBI's current target demo for domestic terror.
Change the tone?
The republican party has a long way to go before they will accomplish their goals in attracting far greater minority support. One of their key problems is not that they need to change their tone it is the message. Wanting to place restrictions on birth control, cutting welfare, deportation and taking children out of school based on their parents legal state in the country is why minorities don't support them.
In addition, the all too many racist comments that slip out while speaking publicly is insane. It feels more like trying to silence a racist grand parent who spent too long thinking it is alright to speak in such a way. And I have to wonder if prejudice and derogatory slips happen while on camera, what are they possibly saying while in the privacy of their homes?