The Republican Party sees the danger of alienating minorities and LGBT's, but can they adapt before they become marginalized?
"Whites" was chiseled an inch deep into the marble above the left side entrance to the doctor's office on Main Street in Shaw, Mississippi. Above the right side entrance was "Colored". The year was 1980, sixteen years after the passing of the Civil Rights Act, but nobody said anything because the marble slabs had a solid coat of green paint, and I guess some thought that was good enough to abide by what was now Federal law. But while the paint did cover the marble slabs, it did little to hide the words White and Colored.…
Article comments
26 - Dave Nalle
I love white guys telling black people what's in their best interest.
What do white and black have to do with anything? Peoples interests are all the same. Your race doesn't magically make freedom feel better or slavery feel worse.
DAve
27 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
Michael Steele might win the RNC chair? Is that the same one who apparently made up a story about "Oreo cookies" raining 'thick as locusts', supposedly being thrown at him by Democrats at a meeting? If you want to support his contention, go ahead - but the evidence is fairly strong against it.
Frankly, his and Ken "I love Diebold" Blackwell's likelihood of gaining the RNC chair are in MY opinion obvious tokenism, and will happen only in response to Obama's election.
But back to your reply #23:
Hunh? No offense meant, Dave, and maybe it's my own lack of comprehension, but I really am not sure what you mean by that statement. Please either expound upon it in a reply or in your next article.
Dave, you COMPLETELY took the quote out of context and used it in a DECEPTIVE manner. You know better than this. LOOK AGAIN at what I said: "but as long as the PUBLIC PERCEPTION remains that the Republicans are the party that accepts neo-Nazis, prefers "whites only" neighborhoods and country clubs, and has a leadership singing "Barack the Magic Negro"....".
I did NOT make an accusation of such, but pointed out that such was THE PUBLIC PERCEPTION. Please do not take quotes out of context or use them in a deceptive manner again...but perhaps that was NOT your intention. Perhaps you - as I sometimes do - was reading too quickly and subsequently did not understand the context as it was clearly written. I hope that's the case.
Again, Dave, you took my point completely out of context, posting as if I'd made accusations rather than observations.
Is it a lie that the public sees one of the two most powerful Republican pundits and a potential RNC chairman endorsing the song, "Barack the Magic Negro"?
Is it a lie that the public sees Bush moving into a neighborhood where, though legally invalid, the HOA covenant restricted blacks from living there until 2001?
Is it a lie that the public sees a potential RNC chairman oh-so-graciously giving up his membership in a whites-only country club so he could run for the RNC chair?
Is it a lie that the public sees a 19 year-old son of a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan elected to a Florida county Republican executive committee? It doesn't matter that the committee is refusing to seat him and the party as a whole is rejecting the guy! What DOES matter is that the public sees that fifty-eight percent of the Republicans in the election voted for him!
In the same article linked above, it mentions a Republican committee member in Arizona who had marched under a swastika with brownshirted neo-Nazis. Again, it DOES NOT MATTER that the Republican Party tried to get him off the committee and disavowed everything he stood for, because he must have been elected to the position in the first place by the Republicans in that district!
The public will probably see either Steele or Blackwell elected to the RNC chair - and that's good, I guess, for regardless their personal character (good or bad), it will help at least to some extent to reform the Republican Party's image...
...which is currently NOT helped by the fact that NOT ONE of the GOP senators or representatives is African-American - and only four are Latino (four Cuban-Americans from Florida).
Dave, you claim the left is 'bigoted and mendacious'...but what lies did I post? I posted NOTHING against the Republican Party platform or against party issues in the main article or in any of my replies. WHAT I DID POST are warnings of how and why the Republican Party WILL be marginalized in the coming years (bar national catastrophe) if it does not evolve and adapt to the changes in the American psyche, the public perception, the changing of the racial and social properties of the electorate.
Ah, but I'M the one who's bigoted and mendacious for saying so, I guess.
28 - Dave Nalle
Very slippery, Glenn. The reason those false public perceptions exist is because you and people like you on the left actively promote them. You say that the public perception is X while not explaining why that perception is based on falsehoods, which is EXACTLY what you did in this article. You contribute to creating the bogus public perception which you're making an issue.
Did the article include just a description of the negative perceptions, or did it include the explanations of why those perceptions are incorrect which I brought up later and which you have now acknowledged and expanded on? And in fact, you continue to build up the lie when you discuss the neo-nazi issue, by suggesting that Republican party members elected these neo-nazis, when in fact any independent voter who happens to vote in the Republican primary can vote for them in those states -- states where there are no primaries for fringe parties so they vote in the Republican primary and then voted for Chuck Baldwin or some other crazy in the final election.
Michael Steele might win the RNC chair? Is that the same one who apparently made up a story about "Oreo cookies" raining 'thick as locusts', supposedly being thrown at him by Democrats at a meeting? If you want to support his contention, go ahead - but the evidence is fairly strong against it.
Actually, the Oreo cookie story was corroborated at least in part by an AP reporter who was at the event, and the "thick as locusts" quote didn't actually originate with Steele but with another eyewitness who may have been exaggerating. Steele originally claimed that they had been handed out and that some rolled onto the stage, which is close to what other eyewitnesses confirm.
Frankly, his and Ken "I love Diebold" Blackwell's likelihood of gaining the RNC chair are in MY opinion obvious tokenism, and will happen only in response to Obama's election.
They were rising in the party well before Obama became a viable presidential candidate, but I'm sure Obama's election played some role. His win certainly motivated the party to look for leaders with a new perspective, and both Steele and Blackwell are allied with reform elements of the party. Remember, Alan Keyes ran in the GOP primary years ago with primarily white supporters and no one blinked an eye - except at his lunatic ideas. But I agree that your ill-informed outsider opinion that they are tokens will gain much traction, even if it's based on bias and misconceptions.
But back to your reply #23:
...[the Democrats'] idea of civil rights and equal rights are the forced equality of slavery and 'rights' which are just entitlements granted by their masters.
Hunh? No offense meant, Dave, and maybe it's my own lack of comprehension, but I really am not sure what you mean by that statement. Please either expound upon it in a reply or in your next article.
You can find explanations in my past articles. The ultimate goal of the Democratic party is to make people equal by forced reduction of opportunity and the creation of a huge underclass dependent on government.
I did NOT make an accusation of such, but pointed out that such was THE PUBLIC PERCEPTION. Please do not take quotes out of context or use them in a deceptive manner again...but perhaps that was NOT your intention. Perhaps you - as I sometimes do - was reading too quickly and subsequently did not understand the context as it was clearly written. I hope that's the case.
Piffle. Your attribution of these things to "public perception" is merely a convenient way to give yourself an out for your blatantly deceptive accusations. Unless you acocmpany your statements with some explanation of how the public perception is incorrect, you imply that the public is perceiving correctly and certainly that you share their perception.
Again, Dave, you took my point completely out of context, posting as if I'd made accusations rather than observations.
When you repeat falsehoods you're just as much at fault as the originators, even if you hide under the "public perception" ruse.
Is it a lie that the public sees one of the two most powerful Republican pundits and a potential RNC chairman endorsing the song, "Barack the Magic Negro"?
It's a lie that he has the potential to be RNC chairman and it's a lie that the song is offensive or racist. But when you repeat this public perception you don't address those facts, do you?
Is it a lie that the public sees Bush moving into a neighborhood where, though legally invalid, the HOA covenant restricted blacks from living there until 2001?
Actually, just as you did, a great many on the left repeat this story without mentioning that the covenant was invalid prior to 2000 and rewritten in 2000. And the fact that you even repeat this ridiculous story is reprehensible. Neighborhoods all over the country have these out of date covenants. Why is it an issue at all?
Is it a lie that the public sees a potential RNC chairman oh-so-graciously giving up his membership in a whites-only country club so he could run for the RNC chair?
This is another bullshit story which you repeat and give more cedibility. The country club in question is being called "whites only" because it is on land covered by another of these old and legally meaningless "whites only" deeds, and while he was there Dawson had worked to try to recruit African Americans into the club, before he ran for RNC chair. But do you mention any of this. No.
Is it a lie that the public sees a 19 year-old son of a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan elected to a Florida county Republican executive committee? It doesn't matter that the committee is refusing to seat him and the party as a whole is rejecting the guy! What DOES matter is that the public sees that fifty-eight percent of the Republicans in the election voted for him!
Yes it DOES matter that actual party members who are not part of the voting base which likely includes many who identify themselves as independents are trying to block him. The story here ought to be that the GOP is actively trying to fight off an attempted invasion by racists, not anything else. Same for your story from Arizona. If you're aware of these stories you ought to have the decency to point out that the Republcian party cannot control who can vote in their primaries.
The public will probably see either Steele or Blackwell elected to the RNC chair - and that's good, I guess, for regardless their personal character (good or bad), it will help at least to some extent to reform the Republican Party's image...
Except that you and people like you will be out there sneering and calling it tokenism.
...which is currently NOT helped by the fact that NOT ONE of the GOP senators or representatives is African-American - and only four are Latino (four Cuban-Americans from Florida).
For which I blame the smearmongers of the left who make sure that they will be ostracized within their own communities if they support the GOP, so most of them end up in behind the scenes positions where they deal mostly with party insiders rather than the public
WHAT I DID POST are warnings of how and why the Republican Party WILL be marginalized in the coming years (bar national catastrophe) if it does not evolve and adapt to the changes in the American psyche, the public perception, the changing of the racial and social properties of the electorate
What you basically did was repeat a bunch of lies as public perception and then suggested that the party must change because these perceptions are reality.
I agree the party needs to change, but not in some servile way to satisfy the smears of the hatemongers whose lies you repeated.
The Republican party needs to stand up for itself on its own merits and see that its true beliefs get publicized to counter the lies you bring up.
Dave
Ah, but I'M the one who's bigoted and mendacious for saying so, I guess.
29 - Brunelleschi
Dave N-
Grow the hell up already.
The world is not flat. Santa Claus does not slide down the chimney, and the GOP is and never has been a place for racial tolerance. You look more and more like a stubborn child protecting an errant parent every time you defend conservatism's nasty, bigoted legacy.
Live in the real world.
30 - Clavos
the GOP is and never has been a place for racial tolerance. (emphasis added)
Well.
Ol' Honest Abe, were he alive today, might, just might, mind you, take issue with you on that point.
31 - Glenn Contrarian
To back up Clavos, back in the mid- to late-1800's, the positions of the Republicans and Democrats are almost 180-out of what they are today.
But that doesn't excuse the Republicans of today, for to modify Brunelleschi, the GOP is not much of a place for racial tolerance today.
32 - Clavos
Perhaps, Glenn, but that's not what Bru said; I was addressing his wild exaggeration.
33 - Glenn Contrarian
Ah.
Okay - point taken. Thanks.
To Bru, on another note - even you are wrong sometimes, and even the people you hate the most are right sometimes, so let's please try to refrain from insulting language. There's an old saying, "You draw more flies with honey than with vinegar"...and old sayings become 'old sayings' for a reason.