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I have wondered the same thing that Lloyd mentions, and I think that I know how it happened that the Republicans have been neglecting Blacks.

It has been going on for many, many years. First, we should recall that before the Depression, most Blacks were Republican. They were largely blocked from voting in the South, and in the North (believe it or not) most of the big states were rather solidly Republican, so the GOP had not much need to reach out to the minorities.

The Democrats, on the other hand, worked like beavers in the North to get new constituents. The best yields they got were among the hordes of Irish immigrants, whom they corralled under the wings of big-city machines.

The Depression changed everything. FDR, unable to really do anything about the economic situation, and being a person of weak principles anyway, allowed himself to be turned by a coterie of left-wing advisors into a defender of the “little guy.” In other works, this pampered scion of a family rich through the opium trade, managed to pull this off (and parallel trickery has been pulled off since).

Blacks saw themselves not just as an ethnic group, but as poor. Forgetting by this time the primacy of freedom, they turned through the class appeal. Well, why not? Most of the intelligentsia of the day favored statist solutions for all problems: the Progressives (both Republican and Democrat), socialists, most European intellectuals, &c. A good proportion of whites fell also for the New Deal line. The Blacks have been cultivated and “played” ever since by the left.

I recall a Republican campaign rally of around 1960, at which I found myself talking to a Black couple. They complained to me that the Republican leaders never bothered to come to their neighborhood, but they knew why: the GOP did not expect to find much support there, and they felt that as a matter of short-term strategy, it was better to leave those neighborhoods alone, and hope for a low turnout there.

Well, there is one big thing which has changed now, and that is that the Black turnout in elections is high, often higher proportionately than any other group. There is no use hoping that they forget to vote. Paradoxically, this may eventually lead to a change in Black voting patterns, at least marginally. Also, TV ads reach everyone, so there is much less validity to the old GOP strategy.

How patient should the GOP be in waiting for some signs of alertness in the Black electorate? Well, I think forever would be justifiable. After all, it is a sad fact that most people do not vote their intellect: they are more influenced by group identity, by family traditions, and by propaganda. That is true of just about everyone. The second most solid voting block in the country is probably the Jewish vote, which rather consistently votes against its own interests. We are still waiting! Some very important Jewish intellectuals have become conservatives, and even leaders in the conservative intellectual movement. There are few better; and yet some 80% will continue to vote liberal-democrat, like zombies.

The ethnic identity factor is difficult to change, and often it is very irrational. Why should so many Irish vote for liberals? Why do more Italians vote Republican than do the Irish? Why do Asian-Americans support the Democrats overwhelmingly, when all their interests, and even their cultural predispositions, would seem to be conservative? Why should Poles and Slovaks vote Democratic: not all of them, but why any?

Politics is a difficult business, but we must continue the effort, or die off as a nation.