Ridiculous post. EASILY? Go ahead and lay out this easy method for Republicans to get the black vote. You can't undo years of history. There is not a thing they could do that would make black voters suddenly think of the Republican party differently.
This... There seems to be a lot of misconceptions concerning African Americans and their voting habits. They vote for what they believe is in their best interest. They are sophisticated voters, regardless of what the Right and to some extent the Left think. The Republicans will get more African American voters when they are not as insulting. A little hint..... talking about Abraham Lincoln and a war 150 years ago is insulting and is worse than saying nothing at all.
Sorry, but this is silly. No voting block in America is "sophisticated." All groups have pockets of sophistication, but black voters are no more sophisticated than the typical white voter, which is to say not at all sophisticated. Not all Republicans are insulting. I'm not trying to say it's not with good reason, but having a discussion with a group of black voters is very difficult if you challenge democratic party ideas at all. They are very defensive of the party. That isn't going to change "easily" like Rocket River said. Even if Republicans decided to adopt all of Obama's policies that have proven to be brilliantly effective for the black community, they wouldn't win more than 6 or 7% of the black vote.
Jeez, it's not Democratic Party ideas or Obama's policies. It is basic American respect, which means you don't pander to and accept racists, you don't have a concerted national effort to diminish the vote of black people, you don't support discriminatory policies either directly or covertly, and you exhibit some human decency. A good place to start would be reforming the Young Republicans to try and foster some good people instead of encouraging the rampant dickishness that pervades most of the chapters. In 20 years when those kids are running for office, maybe the change occurs. However, the whole GOP is caught in such a restricting idealogical loop that I doubt you could even think about it now.
Just not true. So every Republican candidate who's ever run against Sheila Jackson Lee was a racist with no basic American respect, supported discriminatory polcies and lacked any human decency. Got it. I don't dispute the idea that the GOP party sucks. It does. That said, I hate to break the news to you, but young people in America, whether Republican or Democrat, who form "groups" tend to be dickish or rude or arrogant, etc.
I wouldn't say easily, but they could def do a better job of appealing to African American Christians. Though changing recently, the Church has always been the center of African American communities. Gay marriage, abortion, etc... A lot of African Americans are very socially conservative on those topics.
I agree with that. I only scoff at the idea that it's "easy" as if there is some switch they can flip that would change a 90+% voting block.
I disagree, though perhaps I didn't elaborate enough in the above post. Repubs don't have to go all in on Dem policies, but they do have to change their policies, especially the ones that target minorities. Republicans during even-numbered years: "Why don't blacks vote for us?" Republicans during odd-numbered years: "Blacks don't vote for us, so let's screw 'em." That's a reflexive answer that does not do the conversation justice, though by using the example you do, you kind of buttress my point. Still, I don't think it is a stretch to say that every Republican who has run against Sheila Jackson Lee at least lacked the courage to take on the elements of the party that are racist and discriminatory. Quite true, though it is more so in the Young Republicans and the big difference is that most of the members in those other groups grow up before they run for office.
In this CNN poll Ron Paul received 25% of the "non-white" vote when the choices were him and Barack Obama. I thought Ron Paul pointed out specific issues that would help garner some votes from black Americans: unfair enforcement of drug laws and disproportionate number of minorities incarcerated. Spoiler He also at times tied race relations into foreign policy. I'm not too well-versed in how campaigns "should" be run, but I thought this approach would have been far more appealing than anything Republicans or Democrats offered.
Josh Marshall... Hmmm. Where have I seen that dynamic in play? http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archiv...he_sweet_smell_of_your_own_crap.php?ref=fpblg
If they were more evangelical at the top of the ticket about civil rights in the '50s, when they had the most popular man in the world as President, or agnostic about affirmative action now, as both issues had bi-partisan support and opposition; they could have probably preserved some of the black vote. And the commentators could stay away from any racial stories or discussions, and let Sharpton and Jackson's "mainstream" prominence naturally fade, as it had been since the early-nineties onward; rather than depicting them as proxies for and contrasting themselves against the black perspective, mimicking their speech patterns and throwing out "hustler" and "pimp" every three seconds. Those guys probably saved talk radio and re-mobilized the party enough to take back Congress and re-balance political thought in this country; but not without incurring a hell of a tax.
I want to add that while Thomas Dewey is mocked in retrospect for crappy copy editing, and partially because Roosevelt personally despised him when they ran in '44, that part of Truman's weaknesses in '48 were because Dewey was "streets ahead" on Civil and women's Rights while the postwar Democrats were being torn apart between near communists and anti-union Klansmen. Had Truman not worked his butt off in the last leg of the campaign, Republicans would have realized that social justice was politically feasible; and would have kept and owned the black vote long enough to keep Congress. I hate to say it, but Truman's sincere but personally conflicted views on Civil Rights make me a little suspect when I hear Republicans praising him, then crapping all over FDR in the same breath.
To a point. Unfortunately there's a lot demographic overlap between anti-gay voters now and segregationists then; probably to the point that the latter group, to the extent that they still exist, is very much a subset (of the non-black portion) of the former.
Nope. Most blacks (like all other demographics) have little to no interaction with the criminal justice system. That's wholly due to anti-discrimination laws and free, ubiquitous public education; two issues on which the libertarian view is dead wrong.
I'm aware that most have little interaction. That has nothing to do with the fact that blacks tend to be short handed relative to others when it comes to justice (and education, if you want to bring that up). Those are two areas where the statists have been awful. But that aside, what in your opinion could libertarians do to appeal to black Americans? I don't know the answer to this. Most libertarian proposals are laid forth as being better for everyone rather than just certain races/religion/gender. For example, the tendency to not grant "rights" to only certain groups such as so-called "civil rights" or "gay rights" or "women's rights" and instead to favor individual rights that apply equally to everyone.
#1 There is this false belief that blacks just vote "D" no matter what, which is absurd. The Southern white male vote switch starting in the late 60's and so did the black vote. So to act as if it won't or couldn't change is stupid. Further blacks are more conservative on certain social issues than people think.
Actually, Hoover reneged on aid and reform promises he made to blacks in the wake of the '27 Mississippi flood; which initially pushed blacks towards Democrats. Then Truman integrated the armed forces and pushed the Fair Deal in '48; which first encouraged white Southerners to oppose the national party. Then Kennedy campaigned in '60 on generational change, progress and Civil rights, which compelled the Northeastern and big city GOP establishment to change to Democrat almost overnight. Then LBJ implemented JFK's entire platform in a year's time, so Republicans felt they had to nominate Goldwater as a contrasting choice and lost whatever socially liberal Republicans they had left.
