If there was ever time for responsible people in the Republican Party to rise up, denounce and eject the racists who have hijacked the former Party of Lincoln, it is now.
Certainly, we don’t believe that the entire Republican Party is racist. No one could convincingly argue that. However, when Republican leaders like former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and California GOP vice-chairman Bill Back make statements that lament the 1948 loss of a segregationist presidential candidate or that say the country would have been better off if the Confederacy had won the Civil War, we have to wonder about the commitment of some GOP members.
It is not hard to cheer the downfall of Lott, who lost his position after generating controversy by saying that the country would have been better off if Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. Further, Lott has been one of the larger civil rights obstructionists in the Senate, even going so far as to oppose a holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
Part of the problem with Republicans and race relations is that since the 1960s, they’ve had to cater to a new constituency: Disaffected southern white Democrats who were the old-line pro-segregationist wing. These Democrats left the party between 1947 (when President Harry Truman began modern civil rights reforms) and 1965 (President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society). Strom Thurmond was one of them, having led the unsuccessful “Dixiecrat” run against Truman in 1948. It is this constituency, which still hold racist beliefs, that Republicans have to forcefully say should not be a part of the Republican Party.
We’ve heard the Republican leaders denounce both Lott and Back, and this is a heartening start. However, the Republican party still needs to do more to reach out to black Americans — through policy initiatives. Words are cheap, especially when politicians continue to make speeches that give a wink and a nod to Southern bigotry. Dropping opposition to hate crimes laws and affirmative action policies would be a step in the right direction.
Certainly, when only 50 out of 9,040 elected black officials are Republican, there is a large image gap to overcome. We hope the new crop of emerging Republican leaders can break the trend of their elders and offer substantive change, rather than just reassuring rhetoric.