If It Walks Like a Duck

It Looks Like a Duck: The Shameless Racism of the Republican Party:

Ronald E Fox

A cruel fact of the current political scene is that the GOP has allowed itself to become a welcoming home for racist and bigots. Of course, it is unfair to condemn the many because of the actions of a few. I firmly believe that the majority of Republicans do not condemn Blacks or wish them ill. They do not want to keep Blacks in their place by forcing them to attend inferior schools, nor do they condone overt racial discrimination in its many ugly forms. They would not wish that Black children be condemned to a life of poor health or treat their parents as inferior beings. To the contrary, most good Republicans would honestly maintain that they are not biased and harbor no ill feelings toward Black citizens on the whole. I believe these things are true for many, perhaps even most, party regulars. However, the actions of the modern Republican Party are another matter.

The actions of the GOP over the 4 plus decades since the Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon cannot be seen as other than the actions of a racist group; or at the very least, as the actions necessary to construct an organizational home in which racists and bigots can find refuge ---and they have done so deliberately. It is by such actions, not protestations about individual private beliefs that the party itself should be judged. If it walks like a bigot and quacks like a bigot . . . .

The Southern Strategy and its successors (Reagan and states rights, Bush I and Willie Horton, Bush II and compassionate conservatism) marks the second time the GOP has sacrificed the interests of African Americans for political power.

In the highly contested presidential election of 1876, Republicans were finally able to secure the White House for Rutherford B. Hayes by agreeing to end reconstruction in the South, thereby ending all federal responsibility for enforcing the civil rights of blacks, and leaving Democrats to do as they would for that population---which was not much. The national Democratic Party, in turn, remained silent about racist practices in exchange for the political support of Southerners. Jim Crow laws, segregated public and private institutions, open discrimination and governmentally condoned racism became the rule in the former Confederacy for the next century. .

To its shame, the Democratic Party exploited Black voters by promising much and delivering almost nothing from 1876, when it sold them out to end an intolerable and mismanaged occupation, until 1964 when it finally passed the first civil rights act under the leadership of Lyndon Johnson. After almost 100 years the Democrats finally got it right only to lose out to Ronald Reagan’s more sophisticated version of Nixon’s southern strategy. Reagan’s success was the second time the party of Lincoln sold its human rights heritage for political gain.

The new southern strategy implemented by Ronald Reagan was a plan to secure the vote of the old Confederacy by winning white votes with the promise of curtailing the rights of Blacks. The old Southern racists of the Dixiecrats and George Wallace morphed into Republicans. In essence, the GOP sold the legacy of Lincoln for the votes of the KKK. By claiming they really were for “states rights”, the party succeeded in re-branding bigotry and racial discrimination. Similarly, opposition to “forced busing” and support for “cutting taxes” were thinly disguised code for keeping blacks in their own schools, and cutting programs that were seen as disproportionately used by blacks.

The Republicans were successful in their strategy because they correctly read a shift in electoral dynamics that the Democrats either failed to see or ignored. During a time of social unrest and upheaval, middle-class Americans began to feel acutely pinched between those with the wealth to gain special access to power and various militant groups which were succeeding in gaining what was perceived to be special treatment for their members. These attitudes were more predominant among blue-collar workers especially those living in the South. The concerns of this group regarding racial tensions, crime, social permissiveness, “reverse discrimination,” gay rights, women’s lib, gun control, and so on, were blamed on liberals and minorities and the belief that regular folks were being required to pay for the ineptitude and laziness of the poor (i.e. blacks) while being exposed to the loose morals of gays, atheists and irresponsible politicians, and a godless society.

The Republicans did not cause the coalescing sentiments of white southerners, but they were prepared to take advantage of them. They saw an opportunity to meld their brand of conservatism with the fears and concerns of a critical voting block, drive a wedge into the historical voting block of the Democrats, and win control of the country.

Between 1976 when Carter was elected and 1980 when Reagan replaced him, white voters switched parties by such margin as to make the solid south of the democrats into the solid south of the republicans. And so it has remained.

It is hard to blame any political party for forming coalitions to secure power. That is the nature of such organizations. What is less understandable is deliberately exploiting racial tensions to win the support of a sub-group that condones racism as a part of its historical mission. In fact it is reprehensible. By deliberately pandering to the most base of our human failings, the Republican Party diminished not just themselves but all of us who saw it happening and remained silent.

Republicans succeeded by capturing the middle ground of traditionally conservative Southern voters by capitalizing on the fears of working class Whites. Democrats greatly assisted that takeover by abandoning the middle ground in favor of more extreme liberal positions. They failed to legitimize the anger of many Whites when their children were bused across town to a new school by dismissing, or strongly implying that such fears were racist. Racists were angry about busing but so were concerned parents who were not racists. It is not racist per se to fear inner city crime or support more police control. Resentment of the so-called (black) welfare queens getting government handouts from precious public funds is not racist, although it can be. Nor is it racist to resent special consideration for jobs or admission to college to correct injustices current voters themselves did not commit. All of these beliefs can be racist in nature. But the fact of the matter is that they also reflect legitimate concerns that were being improperly addressed. Labeling their views as racist was dismissive and insulting and pushed many White voters toward more extreme positions. The Democratic Party failed to condemn the racism while legitimizing valid concerns and lost the Solid South because of it.

The legitimate concerns of many Southern White voters about civil rights at the time were turned in the direction of bigotry when their fears were neither affirmed nor addressed in a meaningful way. The Democratic Party’s failure in that regard is a matter of subsequent dismay and shame. But an even greater shame lies at the feet of the Republican Party which knowingly and wickedly used racially charged code words to signal White voters—particularly working class evangelicals ---that their fears would not come true.

When Reagan launched his presidential campaign in back-water Neshoba County, Mississippi where three civil rights workers were murdered by announcing that he was for “states rights,” every Southern voter understood exactly what he meant: “I am on your side and I will protect you from those who threaten your schools, your children, your jobs and your way of life in the name of civil rights.” Similarly “forced busing,” “tax exemptions for private schools” (even for those who practiced racism), and opposition to “government give-aways,”, etc all became easily recognized codes for racist policies and attitudes whatever else they may have meant.

Such codes and phrases still exist: voter registration, welfare cheats, entitlement programs, family values, and so on. They are so firmly entrenched in our minds that politicians no longer have to get close to the matter of race to explain their position. They can simply refer to loftier principles such as “protecting family values,” or “getting government off our backs” to achieve the desired end. Words have many meanings and obscure as much as they reveal.

All of us in the South have known what is going on from the beginning and we have failed to bell the cat. Whatever else the Republican Party may be, and much of it may be quite worthwhile, the fact is that it has turned its back on the legacy of Lincoln for a constituency of racists. It has abandoned its noble war on slavery for a war on civil rights. It is time we all said so. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ….