"This party does not prey on people's
prejudices. We appeal to their highest ideals. This is the Party of Lincoln."
Paul Ryan
On Super Tuesday Donald Trump won a lion's
share of Republican voters. Two days later it was "everybody hates Trump" led by
non other than Mitt Romney in response to Trump's inability to forcefully
disavow the former KKK leader, David Duke.
That lingering stench permeated the air
that carries the words coming from those breeding in the Republican
establishment sewer when they launched their "anybody but Trump" campaign, giving
rise to the possibility of a brokered convention in which the messengers may
benefit politically begging the question: just how far divorced from reality is
the Republican Party from top to those who prefer the comfortable
lie?
Some uncomfortable historical truths are
that Republicans stopped being "the Party of Lincoln" when LBJ signed the Civil
Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Up to 1965 the Democratic Party controlled
the south precisely because Lincoln was a Republican who destroyed their slave-
based economy and it was the Democratic Party that used the infamous "Jim Crow"
laws" to control the recently freed black population with well-attended
lynchings and other forms of discrimination.
After LBJ the Democratic Party in the
south was replaced by the Republican Party - that same prejudice, bigotry and
racial animus moved from one host to another. The disease of racism was
now perpetuated by the Republican Party using less overt forms of
discrimination. The new form of slavery became "The New Jim Crow" with a war on
drugs, which conveniently incarcerated more black and brown men and women, and
Republican-controlled states no longer limited to south of the Mason-Dixon
line passing voter-ID laws primarily disenfranchising people of color. That is
today's Republican Party, which sullies the name "Lincoln" while claiming to be
its embodiment.
In 1968 the Republican Party
presidential candidate, Richard Nixon, used his "southern strategy", which saw the official shift of the Republican
Party from the "Party of Lincoln" to the party that embraced white racism
towards African Americans to solidify the white vote in the
South.
In 1980 Ronald Reagan launched his official race-baiting
campaign in the Mississippi county where the KKK murdered civil-
rights volunteers Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner in 1964. During Reagan's run he
repeatedly used the "Chicago welfare queen" story, perpetuating the stereotype of
lazy black women ripping off the entitlement system that was paid for by white
tax-paying workers who played by the rules and who were being "victimized" by
some "strapping young buck." Once in office Reagan proceeded to push the new
Jim Crow laws through his "war on drugs", which resulted in the "land of the
free" becoming the world's number-one country in prison
population.
In 1988 George H. W. Bush
used a racially charged ad about a black felon Willie Horton to establish his
racist bona fides and his son, George W., reduced the number of
prosecuting civil-rights violations, continued to attack affirmative action and
his response to Katrina in New Orleans highlighted the structural racism
supported by the Republican Party.
This by no means is intended
to absolve the Democratic Party of their embrace of racism from Bill Clinton's
welfare reform to Hillary Clinton's "hard-working white people" stump speech in
2008 while 8 years later she panders for and receives the support of that same
black community. Nor does it absolve the corporate-controlled media, which
repeated the fictional reports provided by police that black residents in New
Orleans were "raping, looting and shooting at rescue workers" and their decades-long abject failure to exercise the freedom of the press to expose the racism at
the core of Republican ideology.
In 2011 Donald Trump questioned the
citizenship and the legitimacy of the first black American president, demanding
Obama prove his citizenship. This was a popular theme among a sufficient number
of Republicans to reflect an absolute lack of respect for the President of the
United States because of the color of his skin.
So impressed with someone who had the
courage to speak their racial hatred, the Tea Party base of the Republican Party
supported Trump's challenge. Indeed a founder of "Tea Party Nation" said, "The
great thing about what Donald did is he said it and he did not flinch when he
said it. A lot of the alleged conservative leaders have run like cockroaches
when the the lights are turned on from the eligibility issue."
Based on that unappealing description, who would be the
cockroaches today? Perhaps those "cockroaches" were Romney, Boehner, Ryan,
McConnell and the rest of the Republican establishment, which said nothing from
1968 to 2011 when Trump's action certainly gave the appearance of racism.
Romney certainly didn't object to Trump's campaign money even after Trump's
racially charged challenge. Where was the outrage of the Republican
establishment then? Instead they were too occupied with insuring
nothing proposed by a black president would be supported.
In addition it was just last year when it took the murder of
nine black people in a South Carolina church by a white supremacist to prompt
their governor to remove the confederate flag and the racism it symbolized for
155 years after the civil war.
Finally, Ted Cruz recently appeared before
the National Religious Liberties Conference in Iowa where he courted the support
of Colorado pastor Kevin Swanson, who called for the death penalty for
homosexuality before introducing Ted Cruz. Cruz's response was not to call out
the prejudices of these so-called Christians instead he said "any president who
doesn't begin every day on his knees isn't fit to be commander-in-chief of this
nation."
Even Marco Rubio's dog-whistle call
for "state's rights", which have long been used to "deny rights" of people of
color and now intend to deny the rights of women, Latino's Muslims and the LGBT
community, were met with silence by Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell when
the rest of their party's leading presidential candidates preyed on people's
prejudices.
In conclusion the leading voices of the
Republican establishment can claim that theirs is the party of Lincoln and as
such they don't "prey of people's prejudices", rather they "appeal to their
highest ideals", but the historical record shows that since 1965 the Republican
Party stopped being "the party of Lincoln" and since 1968 the actions and
policies of the Republican Party has in fact preyed on people's
prejudices.
If the Republican Party really believes the
words recently parroted by their leaders that they "appeal to the highest
ideals" of the people, it should be reflected in their actions; e.g., supporting
the Voting Rights Act, equal pay for equal work, an acceptance of a woman's
right to choose, and the equal rights of all citizens without regard to race,
gender, religion, sexual identity, of all U.S. citizens.
As of this writing the actions of the
Republican Party reflect the racism, sexism, homophobia, and Islamophobia that infect today's Republican Party and continues to perpetuate the divineness
that prevents this nation from ever realizing its capacity to be great. And as
of this writing the mainstream media fails to expose that chasm between the
rhetoric and reality of today's Republican Party. Silence is
complicity.
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