Democrats quickly learned that along with that loyalty came a powerful new weapon: the race card. Today Republicans and Conservatives are regularly accused of racism.
No, hold on I've got a few more links: Racism, Racism, Raaaaacism!!!!!
To put this into perspective: In the 2004 election a higher percentage homosexuals voted for Bush then blacks, and that was when gay marriage was one of the biggest issues. That's not to imply that civil rights isn't a big issue, because it is, but why was it worth almost 50 years of blacks voting Democrat almost universally. Surely the Republicans opposed this legislation in some big, or otherwise unforgivable way:
- A higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act.
- Howard W. Smith, a Democrat, used his position to block the legislation, and was only forced down after Lyndon B. Johnson used his political experience and the assassination of JFK to push the legislation forward
- Senator Robert Byrd from West Virginia was a former KKK member and lead the charge against the Civil Rights Act. Today he is the longest serving member of the Senate.
Not only did Republicans have a higher percentage of support for the bill, but one of the Senators who lead the charge against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 still serves as a Democrat on the Senate TODAY. Not only did he oppose the bill, but Senator Byrd was a former member of the KKK. Its insane to think that the same people who constantly accuse their opposition of racism count a former Klan member not just as their own, but as the highest ranking member of the Senate and third in line to become President after Biden and Nancy Pelosi.
Republicans didn't oppose the Civil Rights Act, but perhaps they did something after the act that earned the animosity of blacks:
- Nixon decreased the number of black children attending segregated schools in the South from 70% to 18%.
- Nixon also implemented the Philadelphia Plan, the first significant federal Affirmative Action program.
- George H. W. Bush appointed Clarance Thomas to the Supreme Court, making him the second black to be a justice in the court.
- George H. W Bush also promoted Colin Powell to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest position in the Department of Defense, and making him the first black to hold that position.
- Ronald Reagan appointed Colin Powell as the first black assistant to the President in National Security Affairs.
- George W Bush put together the most ethnically diverse cabinet in US history.
- George W Bush appointed Colin Powell as the first black Secretary of State. At the time this was the highest position a black had ever reached in the US government.
- Bush launched the largest medical relief program in the world, which saved over one million African lives and reduced the number of AIDs related deaths in the countries it affected by 10%. In addition, Bush also increased trade to Africa and played peacemaker in places like Liberia and parts of Sudan.
One of the most commonly use excuses for the black switch to the Democrat party is how Nixon used States Rights and Social Conservative values to reach out to the Southern States in 1968. The problem with this is that blacks had already abandoned the Republican party in 1964, so this argument isn't really valid.
Looking into the events before the Civil Rights Act also helps solidify the Republican position:
- The Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, was also the first Republican President.
- The first black Senator and member of Congress was a Republican.
- Ulysses S. Grant passed the first civil rights act, the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
- Teddy Roosevelt welcomed Booker. T Washington to dinner at the White House, causing a great deal of controversy.
- Eisenhower introduced and then signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and 1960.
- Eisenhower also enforced the desegregation in the military.
- When Arkansas refused to desegregate their schools, Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and used them to defend black children.
The fact of the matter is that there really isn't much of a basis for why blacks abandoned the GOP and have remained fanatically loyal to the Democrats. Yes, racism exists in this nation still, but it's exists only on the far fringe and certainly not within mainstream Republican or Conservative politics, at least no more then it does within Democratic politics. Teddy Roosevelt has a quote which, while extremely outdated, is fairly accurate for how I feel Republicans have viewed blacks. Don't focus too much on the non-bold:
"I have not been able to think out any solution of the terrible problem offered by the presence of the Negro on this continent, but of one thing I am sure, and that is that inasmuch as he is here and can neither be killed nor driven away, the only wise and honorable and Christian thing to do is to treat each black man and each white man strictly on his merits as a man, giving him no more and no less that he shows himself worthy to have."
For the time this was pretty radical, and I feel like this is the key separation in how each side approaches race. A Liberal looks at a black man and sees a poor, beaten down man who needs to be lifted up. The Conservative sees a man, just like any other, who has the ability to turn himself into anything he wants if he works hard enough for it. The Liberal judges us based on the past of our ancestors, while the Conservative judges for what WE do with our lives. Where Conservatives see you as an equal, Liberals see you as a victim that cannot take care of himself.
In my previous post I called blacks tools for the Democrats, and the current day situation with Obama illustrates this perfectly. The last polls I saw that gave race showed Obama with a upper 80% approval rating with blacks, an approval rating in the 40s among whites, but what has Obama done to earn such an approval rating from blacks? When Katrina happened Bush was blamed and called a racist despite it not being his fault. When Joe Wilson said "You lie!" to Obama we were told it was because he was a racist. But when Obama killed a voucher program that primarily helped poor black students in DC go to better schools, where were the black leaders who are supposed to protect the black community? And when Obama couldn't find the money (a rare occurrence in his Presidency) to continue the wildly successful anti-AIDS program in Africa, why was the only group complaining the Global AIDS Alliance? Where was Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the NAACP, and the ACLU? They'll defend the Communist Truther Van Jones, but not Africans and black school children?
Obama has done nothing for blacks, and yet they lend their support in a most fanatical way. Yes, a large chunk of that is because he's black, but does anyone else get the feeling that there would of been no outcry from the black community unless he was a Republican? Blacks today follow a political party and ideology that does not care for them as anything other then a source of votes. Their leaders care less for the community then they do politics. The truth is that there is no justifiable reason for them to call racism on the Republican party, but they do so anyways because its political convenient to stir up the black masses against the Conservative opposition. They crack down on free thought, and they create an environment which says one thing: "You are oppressed, abused, and are unable to escape the hell that surrounds you. You must follow us, the Liberal Democrats, in order to find freedom."
They have, in effect, created a modern day form of slavery.
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