- Mar 11, 2015
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There is a daily tune sung by republicans here. But it's fake news and now is the time to prove it.
How the Republican Party Became The Party of Racism
Michael Harriot
According to Pew Research, 83 percent of the registered voters who identify as Republican are non-Hispanic whites. The Republican Party is whiter than Tilda Swinton riding a polar bear in a snowstorm to a Taylor Swift concert.
And not only is the Grand Ole Party unapologetically white, recently it has been disposing of its dog whistles in favor of bullhorns, becoming more unabashedly racist every day. Aside from its leader excusing a white supremacist murder, calling Mexicans “rapists,” referring to “shithole countries” and settling multiple discrimination lawsuits, there is an abundance of evidence that shows the party’s racism.
Nearly half of the country (49 percent) believes Donald Trump is racist but 86 percent of Republicans say he is not, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. The same survey shows that 79 percent of Republicans approve of the way the president handles race. Other data points include:
All of this is correct.
They say the best jokes are based in reality. So when accusations of racism enter into any political debate, conservatives invariably regurgitate those previously-mentioned bullet points from the recurring, well-rehearsed Republican comedy routine.
What they fail to mention, however, is that the party to which they refer to no longer exists. The only thing that remains of the original Republican Party is the name. And how the Grand Ole Party transformed itself from the party of Lincoln into the current version—a white, Southern party rife with racial resentment—has become a forgotten tale that takes advantage of America’s lack of historical knowledge and abundance of short-term memory when it comes to race.
Republicans would like you to believe that Republicans supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Democrats opposed it, which is only partially true. To understand the change in both parties’ ideology, all one has to do is count the votes.
The Civil Rights Act was signed on July 2, 1964. In the presidential elections that year, 94 percent of nonwhite voters voted for Johnson boosting him to a win over Barry Goldwater.
But Goldwater, a Republican, managed to win five Southern states in that election, which was unheard of for a Republican. How did Goldwater do that? He won those states by opposing the Civil Rights Act.
After the bill passed, Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party, as did many Southern whites. In 1968, he teamed up with Richard Nixon, the 1968 Republican presidential candidate, and convinced Nixon that a Republican could win the South if he was willing to dog-whistle racism to the Southern voters.
https://www.theroot.com/how-the-republican-party-became-the-party-of-racism-1827779221
How the Republican Party Became The Party of Racism
Michael Harriot
According to Pew Research, 83 percent of the registered voters who identify as Republican are non-Hispanic whites. The Republican Party is whiter than Tilda Swinton riding a polar bear in a snowstorm to a Taylor Swift concert.
And not only is the Grand Ole Party unapologetically white, recently it has been disposing of its dog whistles in favor of bullhorns, becoming more unabashedly racist every day. Aside from its leader excusing a white supremacist murder, calling Mexicans “rapists,” referring to “shithole countries” and settling multiple discrimination lawsuits, there is an abundance of evidence that shows the party’s racism.
Nearly half of the country (49 percent) believes Donald Trump is racist but 86 percent of Republicans say he is not, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. The same survey shows that 79 percent of Republicans approve of the way the president handles race. Other data points include:
- 52 percent of voters who supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election believed blacks are “less evolved” than whites, according to researchers at the Kellog School of Management.
- In a 2018 YouGov poll, 59 percent of Republicans agreed: “If blacks would only try harder, they would be as well off as whites.”
- The same YouGov poll revealed that 59 percent of self-identified Republicans believe blacks are treated fairly by the criminal justice system.
- 70 percent of Republicans agreed that increased diversity hurts whites.
- Republican-appointed judges give black defendants longer jail sentences, according to a Harvard study released in May.
- 55 percent of white Republicans agreed “blacks have worse jobs, income and housing than white people” because “most just don’t have the motivation or willpower to pull themselves up out of poverty” according to the Washington Post’s review of data from the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center.
- Nearly twice as many Republicans than Democrats (42 percent versus 24 percent) believe that blacks are lazier than whites, according to the same NORC poll.
All of this is correct.
They say the best jokes are based in reality. So when accusations of racism enter into any political debate, conservatives invariably regurgitate those previously-mentioned bullet points from the recurring, well-rehearsed Republican comedy routine.
What they fail to mention, however, is that the party to which they refer to no longer exists. The only thing that remains of the original Republican Party is the name. And how the Grand Ole Party transformed itself from the party of Lincoln into the current version—a white, Southern party rife with racial resentment—has become a forgotten tale that takes advantage of America’s lack of historical knowledge and abundance of short-term memory when it comes to race.
Republicans would like you to believe that Republicans supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Democrats opposed it, which is only partially true. To understand the change in both parties’ ideology, all one has to do is count the votes.
- There were 94 Southern Democrats in the House of Representatives. 7 voted for the bill.
- There were 10 Southern Republicans in the House of Representatives. Zero voted for the bill.
- Northern house Democrats voted in favor of the bill 145-9
- Northern House Republicans favored the bill 138-24
- Of the 21 Southern Senators (Democrat or Republican), only 1 voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act (A Texas Democrat).
The Civil Rights Act was signed on July 2, 1964. In the presidential elections that year, 94 percent of nonwhite voters voted for Johnson boosting him to a win over Barry Goldwater.
But Goldwater, a Republican, managed to win five Southern states in that election, which was unheard of for a Republican. How did Goldwater do that? He won those states by opposing the Civil Rights Act.
After the bill passed, Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party, as did many Southern whites. In 1968, he teamed up with Richard Nixon, the 1968 Republican presidential candidate, and convinced Nixon that a Republican could win the South if he was willing to dog-whistle racism to the Southern voters.
https://www.theroot.com/how-the-republican-party-became-the-party-of-racism-1827779221
