Jillian is not wrong to bring up the embarrassing quotes from various Republicans some decades ago on the "Southern Strategy". Republicans have been no angels on this issue. But neither have Democrats.
In a nutshell, what happened in American politics in the 20th Century was this: The nation found itself with a large Black population, centered in the South, which was culturally and economically far behind the whites, having been slaves and had such culture as was there own obliterated. It didn't know what to do with it, and left Southern Blacks to the tender mercies of their former owners, or their descendants. One of the things these former owners did was to effectively deny Blacks the vote.
Politically, the South was solidly Democratic. The Republican Party, based in the North, was generally the party of Blacks.
The Democrats used to be the party of the KKK and lynch mobs, so Blacks who could vote (in the North) tended to vote Republican, and the Republican Party and Northern Democrats voted for various Civil Rights Acts which the Southern Democrats would filibuster.
This was in spite of the fact that the New Deal was aimed at appealing to less wealthy social layers: in fact, many New Deal programs effectively excluded Blacks, especially in the South, so as not to upset the Democrats' powerful Southern wing. (Southern Democrats, running in an effectively one-party system, tended to have more seniority than anyone else since they were always re-elected. So they dominated the important Congressional sub-committees. Without their support it was hard to bring a bill to the floor.)
After WWII, the situation in the South became increasingly anomalous. How could the US champion democracy and freedom in the world, when its Black citizens were denied the right to vote, and subject to lynchmob justice, in the South? A consensus emerged among our national elite that this situation would have to change. And it began to change, over the next two decades.
But ... at the time of the Civil Rights Revolutions, conservatives (as opposed to Republicans) were indifferent at best to the Black plight in the South. They let Leftists make all the running in terms of organizing support for the struggle there. Bad move.
And Barry Goldwater, himself no racist, when he got the Republican nomination in 1964, repelled Black voters because of his strong emphasis o "States Rights," which, rightly or wrongly, had become the rallying cry of Southern segregationists.
This is ironic, because Goldwater himself was no racist. In fact, as an acquaintance of mine wrote
Goldwater probably had more experience at the time in effecting civil rights legislation than anyone and foresaw not only the federal power grab, but also predicted the backlash that weÂ’re still feeling. At the end of WWII Goldwater quickly became a Phoenix city councilman, and upset everyone when he managed to abruptly halt construction of Sky Harbor airport because it had segregated restrooms and drinking fountains. Through some clever political maneuvering he held the project hostage until the council agreed to make the entire facility integrated. In 1947, President Truman approached Goldwater to help create the Arizona Air National Guard at the time the Air Force was being created, but Goldwater refused because Truman would not initially consent to the Guard being fully integrated from day one. Eventually Truman conceded and Arizona ANG became the first US military unit to be designed from the ground up integrated
Then, in the late 60s, the national Democratic Party moved firmly into the pro-Civil Rights camp, and Southern whites showed strong support for Alabama ex-Governor Wallaces independent Presidential campaign in 1968. So the Republicans pursued the "Southern Strategy" to rip off the Democrats' Southern white base.
What was ironic about this was that the Republicans did not promise to restore racial segregation, take away Black voting rights, or repeal any part of past Civil Rights legislation, and did not.
But they expressed sympathy for Southern whites whose undoubted racism was also mixed with valid opposition to the kind of things that had begun to take place under the guise of "Civil Rights" -- radical anti-police agitation, and even murders; justification of violent criminals; racial preferences; the expansion of welfare benefits in such a way that they appeared to reward feckless behavior.
So the Republicans gained the Southern white vote, but appeared to be endorsing the racism of those voters. This was not true in practical terms, but in politics appearances are everything. Effectively, the two parties, agreeing on the national civil rights revolution, swapped voting bases. (Incidentally, the Democratic Party is itself not above appealing to white racism when it thinks this will be to its advantage.)
Blacks overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party now. But this does not make them liberals.
In fact, according to the findings of the most reliable national opinion poll, a slightly higher percentage of Blacks self-identify as "conservative" than do as "liberal". (About 25% in both cases, as I recall.) And a significant section of the Black population has moved into the middle class in the last few decades, although disproportionately as public employees, who tend to vote Democratic.
In any case, there exists the objective basis for Republicans to do somewhat better among Blacks than they do.
But at the moment the Republicans have lost the Black vote decisively, and have not found a way to get a significant section of it back.
There are in fact a signficant minority of Black conservatives, including some of the most popular thinkers within the conservative movement. (If the rank and file of the conservative movement had to vote for its most popular intellectual, I suspect Thomas Sowell would win, or at least come in very high in the list. )
It cannot be denied that among those who call themselves 'conservatives,' there are some pretty unpleasant, white racist ignoramuses. There is also a tendency within the conservative movement which, while not necessarily openly racist, at least is self-consciously 'white'; among these people are the so-called "Neo-Confederates". The liberals are not burdened with anything similar among their white supporters.
So I don't see a mass turning by Black people to the Republicans any time soon. However, they might provide pressure on the Democrats on social issues to partially offset the leftwing culture warriors who exert so much influence on the Party. Perhaps Black Democratic conservatives could concentrate on mobilizing culturally-conservative Black Democratic voters to raise their concerns here.
Black Republican conservatives might concentrate on helping the Republicans frame new measures which would help people on welfare to move off of it, and to providing support for those in low-income jobs.
Republicans should want to be known as the party which supports ambition, the party of strivers. While it is true that almost everything in the way of job-training and behavior modification has been tried, and failed, with the underclass, it is still the case that someone in a dead-end environment who really wants to get out of it should not find the state to be indifferent.
And one issue which shows great promise is the question of school choice. The Democrats are captives of the teachers unions, and are not about to embrace school choice. But precisely this reform might go a long way to breaking Black children out of the trap of rubbish government schools.
Another issue of great concern to Blacks, and to conservatives of any color, is mass illegal immigration of low-skilled people into the United States, which directly injures low-income Blacks who are underbid for the available jobs, and who face increased competition for the minimal welfare services that do exist.
Thus conservatives and Republicans should by no means write off Blacks. Even where they are unlikely to defect from the Democrats, they do compose a constituency which can be mobilized around a number of conservative causes -- we must remember that politics is not only about elections.
