Republicans Invented the Race Card

Once more Republicans are engaging in blatant hypocrisy. After all, Republicans invented the race card.

It was launched as a means of regaining power in the mid-sixties. This occurred after President Lyndon B. Johnson, the first Southerner to become president since the Reconstruction, conceded to associates that his active leadership in the civil rights field, culminating with passage of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Bill and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, meant loss of the South for Democrats for the next 50 years.

The Republicans under Richard Nixon devised a "law and order" and "Southern strategy" campaign. Lee Atwater later admitted that his participation in this and subsequent Republican efforts to win the South involved using these code terms to signal voters regarding what they were really talking about -- civil rights.

Vice President Spiro Agnew was Richard Nixon's enforcer. His speeches to southern audiences were laced with blistering attacks against radicals and appeals to law and order. He was frequently saluted by bands striking up Dixie, a reversion to the past tradition being revered, the pre-Johnson civil rights period.

African American talk show host Larry Elder became enraged in a Larry King Live appearance over the issue of racism and a link to Republicans It is noteworthy to observe what happened at the beginning of the presidential campaign of his hero Ronald Reagan.

Reagan's 1980 general election presidential campaign against incumbent President Jimmy Carter was launched in Philadelphia, Mississippi a curious choice but for one key factor.

This was the town where civil rights workers had come from the north seeking justice for African Americans and were slain in the process.

Was the Republican campaign leadership unaware of this historical fact? Or were they sending a message to southerners that the good old boy network would be back if only their candidate gained the presidency?

What was the 1988 presidential race all about? Chief strategist Lee Atwater later admitted that the race card was at work through attempts to demonize Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis.

Not only was there the blatant Willie Horton race card 30-second ad. Not only were references made to Dukakis' Greek American ancestry through unconscionable mentions of individuals of darker skin pigmentation seeking to overrun traditional America.

No, there was even more. It took Jewish New York City Congressman Stephen Solarz to expose two European Nazi Holocaust deniers who up to the time of this exposure were heading a special European American committee on behalf of Vice President George H. W. Bush.

How about the Trent Lott incident at the birthday tribute to Senator Strom Thurmond, the 1948 presidential standard bearer for the States Rights Party? Lott, liberated by alcoholic consumption, explained that it would have been for America's betterment had Thurmond's anti-civil rights posture succeeded.

Remember just a few months back? Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, made a negative comment about Rush Limbaugh.

Steele was promptly compelled to apologize. Limbaugh had reason to boast that he was indeed the titular leader of the Republican Party.

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