(ThyBlackMan.com) The Republican Party doesn’t want me or my vote. I’ve known that for quite some time; but with passing day, I am reminded more of this truth. Sure, it might consider recruiting me if I was the pastor of a mega-church with 50,000 congregants. I might be more attractive to the GOP if I had been born a trust-fund baby. Perhaps I’d be worthy of their consideration if I worked as a Wall Street hedge fund manager. But since none of these are the case, I am beneath their gaze; which is fine. I love my Republican brothers and sisters; even if they willfully choose to ignore me and my areas of political concern.
The bigger question is this: What happens when you willfully choose to ignore tens of millions of Americans just like me? What are the ramifications of disregarding all of their areas of concern? Can any political party engage in such self-destructive behavior and still remain viable?
These were the very questions the GOP were supposed to be thinking about, brainstorming on, and voluntarily addressing in the aftermath of last November’s General Election. The right-wing prognosticators had it all figured out in 2012. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer, and George Will had gone on record declaring their predictions for a Mitt Romney landslide. In their minds, the scourge of Obama would at long last be washed away. The Republicans would not only keep the House, but also take back the Senate. The cow would jump over the moon. But when their carefully-laid plans were torn asunder, Republican strategists, pundits, and pollsters came together to figure out what went wrong.
In March, Republican National Party Chairman Reince Priebus stood before the National Press Club and declared all the things the GOP must do to be a party of inclusion rather than the party of exclusion. He pledged that the Republicans would immediately begin to engage in activities to appeal to Black Americans, Latino Americans, and women. Sadly, the end result of their 2013 “road map” summit to reconfigure the Republican party was long on rhetoric and short on action.
Doubling-down is so 2006. In 2013, the GOP is quadrupling-down. While stating publicly that they welcome women to join their party, Republicans are launching an all-out assault on Planned Parenthood and on women’s reproductive rights in Ohio, Wisconsin, Texas, Arkansas, North Dakota, Kansas, and New Hampshire. Such measures recently failed in Indiana.
In the midst of a media campaign designed to convince Latino Americans to give the GOP a second look, the Dream Act was defeated again just last month. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) is currently in the process of trying to deep six his own legislation on immigration reform. Somehow, he is both for and against helping 11 million undocumented immigrants come out of the shadows and take the steps to legal citizenship here in the US.
While going out of its way to tout the GOP’s desire to successfully recruit Black people to the party of Lincoln, Republicans persist in voter suppression efforts in various states. They are authorizing and passing into law measures fully intended to make it harder for Black Americans to exercise their Constitutional right to vote. Has the GOP already forgotten what an epic failure such tactics wrought just last year? A record number of Black Americans voted in November 2012 – even if it took some of them 7 or 8 hours in line to do so. Quite a few Republicans were watching the Supreme Court’s decision of whether to uphold Section 5 of the Voter Rights Act with great interest. Now that Section 4 of the VRA has been ruled as unconstitutional by SCOTUS, discriminatory electoral practices is already growing like kudzu.
Here’s some unsolicited advice to my Republican friends: It’s never wise to ostracize the very people you need to be elected to your perspective offices. If people of color and women believe in you enough to vote for you, pay them the courtesy of listening to them.
No American political party – Democratic, Republican, or Independent – can have 93% of Black Americans, 55% of American women, and 80% of Latino Americans voting against it while claiming to be a national party. That’s a regional party; or more specifically, a Southern party. A regional party cannot compete in national Presidential elections. A regional party cannot hold a majority in the House or the Senate. If the GOP doesn’t quickly put into place some wide-reaching outreach initiatives, there may not be much left of the party to save. I don’t want the Republicans to go away; I want them to get serious about dealing with America’s problems. I need them to do some significant soul-searching. I urge them to think about all Americans – just like me.
Writer; Arthur L. Jones, III
This talented brother is a local Minister, weekly featured Democratic Op-Ed columnist, non-profit advisor, and sees the Braves winning it all this fall. Rev. Jones welcomes your comments! Please email him directly at: tcdppress@gmail.com.