Presto, Chango! GOP Is Now Racist

AllSouthwest News Service ^ | December 30, 2002 | Bob Ward

[asneditor]

Displaying a virtuosity that would have impressed George Orwell, the Democrats and their minions in the media have transformed segregation and racism into a Republican product.

Typical of this effort is the Los Angeles times column by Harold Meyerson. Meyerson asserts that Sen. Trent Lott's inane remark about Strom Thurmond "uncovered an entire history that the Republicans would greatly prefer to keep under wraps."

Meyerson goes further, saying that the GOP "would rather not be reminded of its origins." In reality -- in case anyone in the media cares about reality -- the "origins of the Republican Party were just fine as far as race is concerned. The GOP came into existence because the Whigs, the only contemporary party opposing the Democrats, were too timid to take a stand against slavery and secession. The party's first presidential candidate was Abraham Lincoln who, as the saying used to go, "freed the slaves." In fact, Lincoln was the reason that blacks, up until Roosevelt built his coalition, voted overwhelmingly Republican, except in the South, of course, where Democratically controlled state governments prevented them from voting at all.

But it didn't stop with Lincoln. There are more recent and more relevant points that expose the lie that links the Republican Party's to racism and segregation. For decades, the Southern tier of states was known as the Solid South because they voted solidly Democratic. In most of those states, if a politician won the Democratic primary it was tantamount to winning the election because the Republican presence was so feeble. So unless we're to believe that segregation -- separate waiting rooms, drinking fountains, schools and restaurants -- was the law in Boston and New York, it was the Democrats in the South that established segregation.

In fact, the civil rights movement of the 1960's, which saw many people from the Republican northern states challenge the authorities in Dixie, was a crusade to dismantle a system created and maintained by Democratic state legislators. The names associated with that struggle still resonate -- Orval Faubus, Ross Barnett, George Wallace, Bull Connor. The fire hoses and vicious dogs that were turned on civil rights marchers were in Democratic hands, not Republicans.

But even before the main thrust of the civil rights movement took hold, in 1957, there was a Federal court order mandating desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Four black children showed up to attend the school and a Democrat governor turned out his state's National Guard. Soldiers in full battle dress, equipped with rifles and bayonets bravely held out against the four black children.

Those kids might never have seen the inside of Little Rock's Central High School if it hadn't been for a Republican president who nationalized the state National Guard and sent in Federal troops to ensure the court orders were obeyed by the Democratic government of Arkansas. It was Democratic -- not Republican -- governors who stood in the schoolhouse door and cried, "Never!"

And, it's worth noting, they are still standing in the schoolhouse door crying never only now it's to prevent black and low-income kids from escaping the public schools by obtaining a voucher to attend a better, private school. Now, of course, the issue is not race but subservience to the teacher unions. But the effect is similar. It is minority children that suffer the consequences of this sellout to the unions.

The 1960s also saw passage of the landmark Civil Right Act of 1964 -- a bill that would not have passed but for Republican support. Meyerson notes that a majority of Republican senators voted for the bill but again, with considerable rhetorical skill -- uses that against the GOP but telling us that Republican congressman Tom DeLay "hastens to point out" that fact. Somehow, DeLay reminding us of the Republican role nullifies it.

Meyerson even resurrects Willie Horton, the black killer who was furloughed from prison by Democratic Gov. Mike Dukakis of Massachusetts. Dukakis' furloughing of Horton, who went on to kill while on furlough, was used against him in his presidential campaign against the first George Bush in 1992.

Meyerson's point seem te be that folks don't mind being killed by furloughed white convicts but if a governor furloughs a black convict who kills, voters will vote against him.

Harold is so determined to smear the GOP he tweaks history just a bit. He attributes the Willie Horton ad to Lee Atwater, the political operative who ran Bush's presidential campaign. In fact, the Horton ad first appeared in the Democratic primary. And, it was an independent group, not the Bush campaign and not the Republican Party, that used it against Dukakis in the general election.

We can look for this campaign to brand the GOP the party of racial segregation to continue right up until election day 2004. Republican voters should hope that their party leadership and their candidates have the moxie to label these charges as lies. The time for euphemisms is past.

The historical fact is that Democrats invented segregation, Democratic states spawned the KKK and the lynch mob and to say otherwise is a lie.

[evolved_rage]

The most racist people I know are good limousine liberal wannabees. They view using taxes for welfare as a type of property insurance to keep the, ahem, non-white folks drunk and happy, and away from their property.

[Consort]

The Republicans are not known for communicating well across the population. They do OK with the more educated people, but poorly with the greater number of less educated people. Bush communicates more widely than most other Republicans and that accounts for much of his popularity.

[gov_bean_ counter]

You only have to go no farther than the most recent election cycle (when the Dems chose leadership positions) to see which that the Dems will let the Black man come to the table, but won't let him eat.

[ChemistCat]

Splendid article. It's not completely true either, of course; it is dishonest to imply that Republicans are always pure in their motives and never have been and never are racist. Lincoln abolished slavery--only in states that were in rebellion, as an act of war against the Southern economy and as a way of nurturing internal rebellion. Lincoln was not exactly a lover of black persons himself, and his anti-slavery sentiment was pretty pragmatic.

Lott is racist; Thurmond always was too. It's actually silly to expect anything else from them. Few whites from their places and time avoided that attitude--and none who didn't would be elected from there. They just managed to keep their sentiment in check most of the time as the decades passed and it became politically stupid to say out loud what you say privately on the porches of your closest friends "back home." Northern Mississippi isn't going to elect a man who cannot reconcile Klan voters with black voters one way or other. Republican or Democrat, is there ANY way to do that except by being believed by both sides to be, somehow, lying to the other side? Half the Southern vote thinks Trent Lott lied when he apologized...you have to stretch pretty far now though to believe that he lied when he praised Thurmond's Segregationalist party...he meant it, and we know it.

(There is a FR article somewhere on here written by a Native American that makes a pretty good case FOR segregation...interesting reading.)

When we lived in the South we attended a Republican party rally. We were approached by a candidate who looked over his shoulder both ways and began to talk to my husband (not to me! I vote too!) about his plan to make sure the N's were kicked off welfare and hopefully get them to leave the county. We were really shocked. Is it really THAT safe to assume so much about fellow whites in the South? This WAS twenty years ago, almost, but I will never forget it. I also do not believe for a second that Dem candidates didn't do the same and worse. In the more rural areas, this is not uncommon, I'm told, still. I hope our party is consistantly better; we owe it to our legacy.

But this is exactly the kind of article one must have to counter liberal lies. No essay of this length can do other than to over-simplify things, but better to err on the side of truth! Our side might selectively tell the truth, but oh my gosh, how the other side out right lies.

[mhking]

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[asneditor]

*ping
You have met Bob at some of the RLC functions. Thought you would want to read this.
--David

[Z.Hobbs]

It is worthwhile to note that the 1964 Civil Rights act was supported by a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats.

Of course, once the South was "Civil Righted" Republicans wooed Southern Democrats as the more natural home for conservatives and local government federalists.

And the Democrats, losing the more conservative element filled the void with leftist and/or special interest groups.

The Trent Lotts of the world are only Republicans because Democrats have become leftwing extremists. Abraham Lincoln looks pretty good next to Fidel Castro.

It is interesting to note that When Woodrow Wilson, the first and foundational Democrat idealist of the 20th century, became President, Blacks were laid off from Federal jobs wholesale as a rollback of Republican policy, that being of getting more Blacks in U.S. Government employment.(Not as affirmative action but providing opportunity.

The Democrats may claim they are no longer Dixiecrats (But then who is?), but they can't claim they are no longer Wilsonians. They just found another racist methodology to manage the Black people.

[Consort]

It won't be long before the Democrat Party has to give more power to the larger Hispanic Democrat bloc and they will choose the Hispanic bloc over the Black Caucus. The flawed Democrat definition of diversity will be their undoing.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

STATEMENT:"Presto, Chango! GOP Is Now Racist"

RESPONSE: HMMM! Ok. "No justice no peace!" HMMM! OK. HAR! HAR! HAR!

[winin2000]

Splendid article. It's not completely true either, of course; it is dishonest to imply that Republicans are always pure in their motives and never have been and never are racist.

I don't argue that, but consider:

What's objectively worse? Making a veiled appeal to one's subliminal "racism," ala Nixon and the infamous "Southern Strategy, or actually enforcing a policy of segregation?

The behavior of GOP Presidents on this issue is quite schizophrenic. Nixon, by all accounts of those closest to him, was a fire-breathing "white supremacist" in his belief that blacks were innately inferior; recall the brief dustup during Rumsfeld's confirmation when a Watergate era tape surfaced with Rummy passively agreeing and replying "Yeah, uh-uh," while Nixon went on a tirade about blacks being "just out of the trees."

Nixon, of course, went on to institute the very first racial quota system and spend unprecedented money on programs for blacks. He even had a representative speak to a group of civil rights leaders and say, "Look not at what we say, look at what we do!." (They branded him a bigot anyway, of course.)

In stark contrast Reagan didn't have a bigoted bone in his body and genuinely, and correctly, believed the best route to black betterment was the same individualism and economic freedom he advocated for everyone else. Thus it was he that was probably the greatest obstacle to entrenchment of affirmative action and other racial spoils, and it won him what was, at the time, the poorest showing among blacks of any GOP candidate in history.

Isn't life ironic?

[AndyMeyers]

The Democrats and liberal media are trying to use the comments of Trent Lott and Representative Ballenger to smear all Republicans. They try and paint Republicans as being in favor of discrimination. This is not only absurd it is unconscionable!

History clearly reveals that it is the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party, which maintains that discrimination is desired public policy.

It is the Democratic Party that advocated and maintained discriminatory "Jim Crow" laws in the South for many years. Not long ago it was Democratic stalwarts such as Senator Robert Byrd, former Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan, who just last year used a racial slur for which he has never been held accountable and who the Democrats elevated to third in line to the Presidency, Senator Fritz Hollings, former Senator Albert Gore, Sr., and former Senator William Fullbright, who was honored by President Bill Clinton, who were in the forefront in maintaining discriminatory laws.

Today, Democrats are still advocating discriminatory laws. The Democrats, with the able assistance of the liberal media, continue to insist on numerical "quotas" in the guise of "affirmative action" The Democrats insist that special rights be bestowed on some Americans at the expense of other Americans and that government police powers be used to enforce the discrimination.

From the 1930’s when the Democrats enacted laws giving Unions extraordinary powers to the mid 1960’s after a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Unions had "whites only" clauses in their contracts and constitutions, effectively excluding Blacks from employment in those trades and industries controlled by Unions.

Today the "Environmentalists" Democrats enact laws to set aside significant acreage, usually next to lily-white enclaves, for "open-space" or to preserve the "fragile" environment, etc, thereby decreasing available land and increasing housing costs, which results in excluding the lower classes, mainly minorities.

Also, it is the Teachers Union, another wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party, which is preventing school vouchers going to those minority children trapped in failing, inner-city, ghetto schools.

It is Republicans who insist that the laws of the land be "colorblind". Republicans insist that the discriminatory "quota" laws, union-benefiting laws and exclusionary environmental laws be modified, repealed or overturned and that vouchers be made available to minority children trapped in failing, ghetto schools.

We sink into Orwellian "Newspeak" when a political party that advocates laws be "colorblind" and non-discriminatory is smeared as being racist and discriminatory because it refuses to embrace discriminatory "quota", "union-benefiting" and "environmental" laws.

The Legislative History of Titles VII and XI of Civil Rights Act of 1964 shows that the sponsors of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, such as Senator Hubert Humphrey, were explicit that the Act ",,,does not require an employer to achieve any kind of racial balance in the work force by giving any kind of preferential treatment to any individual or group…" That there must be an "..express requirement of intent…" before an employer could be found guilty of discrimination. They also stipulated that ability tests would continue to be legal, even if different proportions of different groups passed them. Another supporter of the Act, Senator Joseph Clark, pointed out that "…the burden of proof is on the government to prove discrimination…" And another supporter, Senator Williams of Delaware, stated that "…an employer with an all white work force can continue to hire only the best qualified workers even if all of the qualified workers are all white…"

All of these assurances from the sponsors of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are consistent with the explicit language of that Act. These sponsors did not intend to substitute discrimination by the federal government against whites in place of discrimination by local or state governments or by the private sector against minorities. The opposites of these assurances are the current requirements of the Civil Rights Act.

The original intent of the Civil Rights Act was to provide equal opportunity to all - a worthy objective. It has been perverted by non-elected and unaccountable bureaucrats and appointed and unaccountable Federal Judges into a law that requires equal results. Republican efforts to adhere to the original intent of the Civil Rights Act are characterized as discrimination - a return to "Jim Crow Law" days - by the Democrats and dominant media.

It is past time that our elected representatives took back their authority and responsibility from bureaucrats and federal judges as the ONLY officials who are to make laws.

And it is time for all fair-minded, truth-seeking citizens to speak out against the attempts by the Democrats and liberal media to smear those who will not accept institutionalized discrimination by the all-powerful federal government.

[Paul Ross]

Lincoln abolished slavery--only in states that were in rebellion, as an act of war against the Southern economy and as a way of nurturing internal rebellion

Frankly, this seriously misrepresents the depth of Lincoln's opposition to slavery. And he was absolutely crucial and, indeed, pivotal in pushing forward the 13th and 14th Constitutional Amendments (passed after his death) which abolished slavery (nationwide) and preserved their civil rights...

[Destro]

Yours is one of the coolest things I have read on this forum. Without a knee jerk jingo in your post.

[Destro]

Its just Lincoln thought preserving the Union was more important than abolishing slavery. Or in other words allowing the Union to break up was a greater evil than allowing the evil of Slavery to continue.

[freepatriot32]

anoither thing the good democrat woodrow wilson did as president wasto actually order air force planes to drop bombs on the black section of oklahoma city while he was president there is a site on the internet that has the actual order and the results of the order but i cnat remeber the url right now its been a couple of years ago that i saw it and to this day there are more majority black woodrow wilson high schools in america then martin luther king high schools aint lif e funny like that ?

[fire_eye]

I just can't get over the feeling that the Demoncrats are wasting their time with this issue. It just isn't going to fly for two years until the next election. By that time, if there are - and there are almost certain to be - larger issues of the day governing the election, the Demoncrats will have wasted all their time and energy belaboring Trent Lott's wagging tongue - and they'll be sitting there with no agenda, no plan, and no position on the issues just as they are now.

It just seems to me that because they did manage to get *some* traction with it, and it's the *only* issue on which they've gotten any traction in the last year or so, that they've gone completely, screaming, irrationally mad with it. If so, that's going to work in our interest in the long run.

In fact, one could only hope that Republican strategists were clever enough to "plant" hyperemotional, evanescent issues like this with the Demoncrats in order to keep them hysterical and distracted - Lao Tzu would bow in appreciation of anyone that clever...

[fire_eye]

Goodness... I'm getting my Chinese philosophers confused.
I meant Sun Tzu, not Lao Tzu (Or did I...)

[WhiskeyPapa]

Its just Lincoln thought preserving the Union was more important than abolishing slavery. Or in other words allowing the Union to break up was a greater evil than allowing the evil of Slavery to continue.

Lincoln's bedrock position in 1860 was that slavery not be allowed to expand into the national territories. He knew that if slavery were restricted to the area it currently occupied, it would die. The slavers knew it to.

But, without preservation of the Union, slavery would -not- die.

Lincoln had a very powerful intellect; he also had common sense.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Its just Lincoln thought preserving the Union was more important than abolishing slavery. Or in other words allowing the Union to break up was a greater evil than allowing the evil of Slavery to continue.

"Though he loved Caesar less than Rome, though the Union was more to him than our freedom or our future, under his wise and beneficent rule we saw ourselves gradually lifted from the depths of slavery to the heights of liberty and manhood; under his wise and beneficent rule, and by measures approved and vigorously pressed by him, we saw that the handwriting of ages, in the form of prejudice and proscription, was rapidly fading away from the face of our whole country; under his rule, and in due time, about as soon after all as the country could tolerate the strange spectacle, we saw our brave sons and brothers laying off the rags of bondage, and being clothed all over in the blue uniforms of the soldiers of the United States; under his rule we saw two hundred thousand of our dark and dusky people responding to the call of Abraham Lincoln, and with muskets on their shoulders, and eagles on their buttons, timing their high footsteps to liberty and union under the national flag; under his rule we saw the independence of the black republic of Haiti, the special object of slave-holding aversion and horror, fully recognized, and her minister, a colored gentleman, duly received here in the city of Washington; under his rule we saw the internal slave-trade, which so long disgraced the nation, abolished, and slavery abolished in the District of Columbia; under his rule we saw for the first time the law enforced against the foreign slave trade, and the first slave-trader hanged like any other pirate or murderer; under his rule, assisted by the greatest captain of our age, and his inspiration, we saw the Confederate States, based upon the idea that our race must be slaves, and slaves forever, battered to pieces and scattered to the four winds; under his rule, and in the fullness of time, we saw Abraham Lincoln, after giving the slave-holders three months' grace in which to save their hateful slave system, penning the immortal paper, which, though special in its language, was general in its principles and effect, making slavery forever impossible in the United States. Though we waited long, we saw all this and more."

-- Frederick Douglass, 1876

Walt