Four years ago I wrote a post entitled “The
Newtonian Code: An Evening of Satire on MLK Day!” (http://thesphinxofcharlotte.blogspot.com/2012/01/newtonian-code-evening-of-satire-on-mlk.html). In the event you’d like to peruse it, click
the preceding link. FYI, it appears on BlogSpot,
my former platform, not WordPress.
The post includes a brief discourse recalling
key elements of that Monday evening’s GOP Debate, which most notably featured a
series of electrifying exchanges between GOP Candidate Newt (hence Newtonian)
Gingrich and Fox News (the Network sponsoring the Debate) Anchor Juan Williams.
The Debate, took place on the evening of the Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. Holiday. It was held at the Myrtle
Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Frankly, I viewed this as a huge irony,
primarily based upon some of Mr. Gingrich’s responses, unfolding on the
occasion of The MLK, Jr. Holiday. When Williams posed a question about whether
some of Mr. Gingrich’s remarks during the Campaign were insulting to
blacks, the former Speaker haughtily dismissed him, engendering wild
applause from an audience, apparently in perfect synchronicity
with Newt.
Williams soldiered on,
attempting to reframe the exchange by referencing a black woman who had
questioned Gingrich about referring to President Obama as a Food
Stamp President. At this point, the audience not only cheered the
candidate, they booed the questioner (Williams).
In a bygone yesteryear, GOP
candidates fashioned a strategic policy initiative loosely known as the Southern Strategy. The policy featured a pattern of behaviors
and practices designed to appeal to Southern white voters by exploiting racism
and whites’ irrational fear of lawlessness by blacks.
As I noted at the time, I’m
not a mind reader; I cannot even begin to say what resided in Mr. Gingrich’s
heart, or anyone else’s for that matter.
Then, as now however, I can say with great certitude that when Mr.
Gingrich then, and others in his Party now, make such blanket acrimonious
assertions as Mr. Obama is the Food Stamp President, black high school students
should seek jobs as janitors, and African American adults should eschew Food
Stamps and instead pursue paychecks, despite the fact most Food Stamp
recipients are white, regardless of intent, such commentary will inflame a
significant portion of the black community.
Fast-forward four years and January 2016
presents us with the next round of politicking, fundraising, polling, voting,
and yes, debating. We have yet another
edition of prickly GOP candidates, several of whom are doing their dead-level
best to raise the ante to even higher levels than we saw in the toxic
environment that was prevalent in 2012.
We now have an entire subset of candidates who
seem committed to outdo one another in terms of which one can establish
themselves as the most hostile to immigrants in general, and Mexicans and
Muslims in particular. Donald Trump has
pledged to build the biggest, most bodacious wall ever, separating the United
States from Mexico. He has proposed
sending up to 11 million illegal aliens back to Mexico, denying entry to all
Muslims, apparently including the leaders of Muslim countries, requiring
Muslims who are already here legally to wear ID bracelets (akin to Jews in the
Hitler era), and shutting down Mosques.
He has suggested ending the practice known as Anchor Babies, which would
have conceivably eliminated two of his competitors (Rubio and Jindal), and once
again raised the specter of Birtherism, which threatens the candidacy of
another competitor (Cruz). Oh, did I
mention he promises to carpet bomb Muslim countries until the sand glows in the
dark? The most interesting thing about
all of this is, one or more of his fellow GOP candidates has agreed with and
co-signed each of the aforementioned gambits.
While all of the above patently reflect the
trademark over-the-top nature of the Trump approach to campaigning, and his
appeal to many of his supporters, it doesn’t even touch upon his and his
Party’s tenuous relationship with black voters.
The Black Lives Movement emerged from a series of incidents in which
blacks have been shot and or killed, usually by police officers. The group has taken a number of steps to
protest this seeming unchecked, and frequently unpunished violence on black
folks. Protest is a typical staple of
their repertoire. Mr. Trump, especially,
has dissed the movement, refused to engage their representatives, and had
representatives of the group brusquely, if not violently, removed from his
rallies.
I understand that, Herman Cain
in 2012, and now and Ben Carson, notwithstanding, the GOP regularly writes off black voters. Both, in their own way, have suggested that
blacks are brain washed. Neither the
Hermanator, nor Dr. Gifted hands is here to defend himself. Still, I suggest that black voters are not
brain washed, and thankfully, neither are they brain dead. In fact, given all the points cited above,
such a relentless stream of abusive rhetoric
is bound to temper any likelihood that African Americans, Latinos in general,
Mexicans in particular, and Muslims would think twice, at the very least,
before voting for Mr. Trump. Curiously,
that has not prevented him, when handicapping himself, from asserting that he
will not only do very well with these groups, but that he will win the
Latino/Mexican and African American vote.
Moreover, he insists that we “love” him.
Last night Trump took
another controversial step in his quest to win in Iowa, and ultimately the
Presidency. Party insiders will likely debate
the virtue of this move for some time.
He added the endorsement of 2008 Vice Presidential candidate Sarah
Palin. In endorsing the Donald, the
former Governor gave a rambling soliloquy in which she insisted Trump, he of
the gold-plated personal jet, is not elitist.
She intoned that his largess sometimes gets in the way of his quiet
generosity. Say what?
A readily discernible irony
about all this is there is a historical context for black folks supporting the
Republican Party. After all, President
Lincoln ended slavery for God’s sake.
That surely positioned the Party as the odds on favorite. The Civil Rights Movement and the ensuing
legislation that emerged as a result were instrumental in rewiring the
political grid. In the CliffNotes
version of this segment of the story, President Johnson signed fundamentally
axis-tilting Civil Rights legislation, followed by President Nixon fostering
and implementing the Southern Strategy.
When the dust from those two mega-policy shifts, whites in the South
moved in significant numbers to the GOP column, and black all across the
country, by numbers at least as substantial moved to the Democratic Party. Thus it has been since the 70’s.
The Party line as recited by
GOP operatives is President Obama has destroyed the country, wrecked the
Presidency, killed the economy, strengthened our enemies, and made enemies or
at the very least, political agnostics of our historical allies. The make this contention despite having
colluded to oppose, deny, and defeat his every initiative, starting the day he
was originally Sworn-in. In keeping with
their commitment, they refused to approve President Obama’s jobs bills, (every
single one of them) voted against his Healthcare legislation, they opposed his
auto bailout, stimulus package, and bank bailouts, and of course, refused to
approve immigration legislation, common sense gun reform, even after 26
elementary school children were murdered, as you recall, they shut down the
government. On top of all that, they
refused to extend the debt ceiling in time for the country to avoid losing for
the first time ever its highest level Triple A Bond Rating.
This pervasive and insidious
anti-government mindset is the ideological bent that has taken hold of the
Grand Old Party and it threatens to hold our country hostage. They (the GOP-T Party rank and file whom
support Trump’ and his ilk’s brutishly abrasive hectoring) wish, they say, to
take “their country back.” Some folks
inquire, from whom? I, alternately, am
more prone to ask, “to where?” It seems
to me this effort is about turning back the clock, and taking us “back” to a
period when the Stars and Bars prevailed, when people of color had no rights
that white folks were bound to recognize, and the Confederate States of America
did what they damn well pleased. During
the recent debate over removing the Confederate Flag from the South Carolina
Statehouse, supporters argued the flag was a symbol of heritage. I believe it was a symbol of heritage, and
that the heritage it represented was that of slavery and pre-Emancipation. To wit, I leave you with a single thought…”The Modern GOP: Trending Toward Legacy or Lunacy?” The jury is out, the verdict pending.
I’m done; holla back!
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