A Brand New Problem for GOP.

by Staff August 23, 2013 9 Comments News Opinion Politics Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) During the past year, we have watched monumental change take place all over the world; not just in terms of democracy, but in terms of culture, law, and politics, etc.

Our major institutions have not been immune from this change that is sweeping across the globe. There has been a major push to redefine what a family is; we have redefined marriage; we have redefined sexuality—no longer is there male or female, now there is other; there are now gay Christians; we now have Christian gangsta rappers, etc.

Everything seems to be changing other than the Republicans approach to engaging the Black community.

My readers know, that I think the RNC, under chairman Reince Priebus, seems to be the only one that has had a substantive approach to dealing with this issue. He has hired Black staffers, he has gone into the Black community, and he actually listens to Blacks who bring ideas to him that make sense.

Now juxtapose that with our members of the House, Senate, and our 30 governors.

In June, there were two major decisions issued by the Supreme Court—voting rights and affirmative action. Neither the house or senate leadership had any coordinated response that would speak directly to the Black community. Even more problematic is the fact that the leadership in the Congress has no Black Republicans that they seek out for advice and guidance.

You have White members and their staffs who think they know more about the Black community than a Black person. You have absolutely no engagement with the Black media from these members.

The Democrats constantly parade Black liberal all over various news outlets. They constantly brand the Republican Party as racist, bigoted, and non-caring about the poor. And what is our party’s response? Total silence.

In PR, a brand that is allowed to be denigrated beyond a certain point with no one to defend it; sooner or later becomes damaged beyond repair.

So, it is no wonder that when Blacks are asked their thoughts about the Republican Party, you hear words like: racist, against Obama, don’t like poor people, homophobic, voter suppression, etc. We must fight this onslaught in the media, but Republicans have very few Blacks with credibility to utilize in this capacity.

With the winds of change blowing all around, the Republican Party’s leadership seems to be stuck in the past. If they continue to surround themselves with the same white staffers, White consultants, and white media advisers, guess what—let me paint the picture for you.

There will be no more marriage (as we know it), there will be open borders, taxes will be north of 90 percent, and Republicans will be true minority party (as in numerically).

Republican governors are passing ID laws loaded with things that undercut their whole message. North Carolina is a perfect example. I am a huge supporter of voter ID, but it is insane not to allow a student to use their college ID as valid identification. This indeed does open the door for the liberals to use the race card. We must be smart with our legislative agenda, not just be right.

What is ironic about North Carolina is that the governor’s chief of staff is Black. But this fact proves my point. Just because a person is Black, does not mean he understands PR or media strategies. North Carolina presents an opportunity to study, in real time, the impact that a negative brand can have on actual elections. On paper, we should be able to pick up the senate seat there next year; but my greatest fear is that our brand will be so bad as a result of the recently passed voter ID law, that we will lose an easy pickup.

Being right is not enough. We Republicans are very good at utilizing our majorities to force our political agenda into law; but we are horrible in explaining to those outside of the party why and how our actions will benefit them.

Unfortunately, this is not a brand new problem; but rather a brand problem.

Staff Writer; Raynard Jackson

Mr. Jackson is also founder of a political and industrial consultant firm which is based in Washington, DC; Raynard Jackson & Associates.

9 Comments

hmmm says:

August 29, 2013 at 11:54 pm

Someone’s got their focus all wrong. Democrats are celebrating Planned Parenthood and suing Louisiana for giving school vouchers to poor students that live in communities with failing schools as an opportunity for these students to receive an education to be able to lift themselves out of poverty.

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Anne says:

August 29, 2013 at 8:14 pm

@ewill:

You still haven’t addressed the issues of voter suppression which is directed at Democratic-voting populations in such states as Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. You also haven’t addressed the Republicans’ concerted efforts to interfere with women’s reproductive and health care rights, all in the name of eliminating abortion. Many of them also oppose the very birth control and sex education that would drastically reduce abortions. Yet, their policies would produce more children who would require the very welfare for survival that the GOP would like to gut. This is what the GOP of 2013 is all about, and plenty of other folks besides just black people reject them for these very reasons.

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ewill says:

August 26, 2013 at 4:16 am

Anne,

I hear you talk, now some facts for you.
Dem- California Highest Welfare rate 3.3%
Dem- Washington D.C. Lowest graduation rate at 59 %
GOP- Mississippi with highest teen pregnancy 55/1000
GOP- Texas most un-insured at 25.5%
GOP/Governor Dem- West Virginal highest Obesity rate 33.5%

Also 40hr week and min wage were set by government acts not unions.
I think by the GOP.
I might make some comments about Ike and other things, naybe not.

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Realman says:

August 25, 2013 at 4:23 pm

This is the first time I have ever come across an article on this website that accurately portrays the GOP. It rightfully criticizes the GOP for its stupidity and arrogance regarding black voters and black issues.

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Anne says:

August 25, 2013 at 9:34 am

@ewill:

On the contrary, we know our history quite well. Our history also includes events from the 20th and 21st century, and the GOP has changed drastically since the 19th and early 20th centuries. Back when Richard Nixon ran as president, he employed what’s called the Southern Strategy. That strategy involved playing on the grievances of poor and working class white folks,especially in the South but also elsewhere, against black folks. The racial divisions were always there, but he and other Republicans since his time played on them to win elections. People like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, who were definitely Republicans, played on those divisions at the state level. The last Republican president who was actually about something was Dwight Eisenhower, whom my paternal grandmother and others voted for in 1952 and 1956. However, in 2013, the party has become one that is not only about voter suppression aimed at folks who normally vote for Democrats. It has also become a party that’s about interfering with women’s reproductive rights. While they are anti-abortion, in some places, they are also anti-birth control. Then there are those in the GOP who want to redefine rape. Republicans like Todd Aiken of Missouri and his stupid remarks about “legitimate rape (whatever he thinks that is), and Ken Cuccinelli of Virginia with his comments about what should be outlawed in people’s bedrooms are alienating women in droves, even some Republican ones. They also want to abolish programs that help the poor get back on their feet, or people who are unemployed through no fault of theirs. These groups also include a large number of white folks. It’s ironic, because in the Red states, those run by Republicans, that’s where most welfare can be found. It’s also these states that have the lowest rates of high school graduation as well as high rates of uninsured people, teen pregnancy, and obesity, to mention just a few quality-of-life measures. They also want to bust unions, which I admit are not perfect. Just the same, they are responsible for things we all take for granted like paid leave, 8-hour work days, 40-hour workdays, and workplace safety. Even non-union companies have adopted these things in order to remain competitive. As a black woman who is also a unionized employee, my problems with the GOP today go beyond just race for all the reasons above. Since the party is not what it once was, most of us black folks are dealing with the reality of what the party IS in 2013, not what it once WAS. The party turned its back on us, not the other way around.

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ewill says:

August 25, 2013 at 12:33 am

Many former Confederates were stripped of the right to vote and they resisted Reconstruction with violence and intimidation. James Loewen notes that between 1865 and 1867, when white Democrats controlled the government, whites murdered an average of one black person every day in Hinds County, Mississippi. Black schools were especially targeted; school buildings were frequently burned and teachers were flogged and occasionally murdered. In 1866-70 the terrorist group the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) formed, attacking freedmen and their white allies. It was broken up by the Federal Government by 1870.
Nonetheless, blacks continued to vote and attend schools. Literacy soared, and many African-Americans were elected to local and statewide offices, with several serving in Congress. There were limits to Republican efforts on behalf of blacks; for example, a proposal of land reform made by the Freedman’s Bureau which would have granted blacks plots on the plantation land they worked never came to pass. However, for several years, the federal government, pushed by Northern opinion, showed itself willing to intervene to protect the rights of black Americans. The Force Acts and state action reduced the power of the KKK by the early 1870s. Because of the black community’s commitment to education, the majority of blacks were literate by 1900.
“Colored Rule in a Reconstructed(?) State”, Harper’s Weekly, March 14, 1874. Nine years later, Nast had given up on racial idealism. He caricatured black legislators as incompetent buffoons
Continued violence in the South, especially heated around electoral campaigns, sapped Northern intentions. More significantly, after the long years and losses of the Civil War, Northerners had lost heart for the massive commitment of money and arms that would have been required to stifle the white insurgency. The financial panic of 1873 disrupted the economy nationwide, causing more difficulties. The white insurgency took on new life ten years after the war. Conservative white Democrats waged an increasingly violent campaign, with the Colfax and Coushatta Massacres in Louisiana in 1873 as signs. The next year saw the formation of paramilitary groups, such as the White League in Louisiana (1874) and Red Shirts in Mississippi and the Carolinas, that worked openly to turn Republicans out of office, disrupt black organizing, and intimidate and suppress black voting. They invited press coverage. One historian described them as “the military arm of the Democratic Party.”
In 1874, in a continuation of the disputed gubernatorial election of 1872, thousands of White League militiamen fought against New Orleans police and Louisiana state militia and won. They turned out the Republican governor and installed the Democrat Samuel D. McEnery, took over the capitol, state house and armory for a few days, and then retreated in the face of Federal troops. This was known as the “Battle of Liberty Place”.
Northerners waffled and finally capitulated to the South, giving up on being able to control election violence. Abolitionist leaders like Horace Greeley began to ally themselves with Democrats in attacking Reconstruction governments. By 1874 there was a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. President Ulysses S. Grant, who as a general had led the Union to victory in the Civil War, initially refused to send troops to Mississippi in 1875 when the governor of the state asked him to. Violence surrounded the presidential election of 1876 in many areas, beginning a trend. After Grant, it would be many years before any President would do anything to extend the protection of the law to black people.

Negros dont know their history. They turned thier back on the GOP that first fought for them. You didnt help the GOP and let the Dems get control and mess things up right from the start. Why should the GOP help people that dont want to help themselfs. You dont want to work for what you get.. You all just stay ignorant, angry, and violant….waiting for the Dems to give you 40 acres and a mule.

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Anne says:

August 24, 2013 at 9:53 am

@Terrence:

You are 100% right, and the GOP is extremely forthright about their intention of magnifying this problem with their divisive policies. The attacks on voting rights, especially for racial minorities, on women’s health care choices, on workers’ rights, and even stoking homophobia, are the means to that end.

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Terrence the Pterodactyl says:

August 23, 2013 at 9:14 pm

Income Inequality is the number one problem for Black People and all working class folks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCvpZW4wK78

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ROBERT says:

August 23, 2013 at 6:28 pm

THE homosexual issue is something I believe we all should be concerned with because obviously its being promoted by very powerful people.
ALTHOUGH sexual perversion has always played a part in white peoples psychological make up it has had its periods of rise and decline we are now in the time of its rise.

MOST of the people of the planet had never heard of a pedophile ;necrophile or a zoophile until they had contact with whites.
I only mention this because the homosexuals we see today are not the ones we have to worry about ;its what’s coming next and that is more open sexual perversion.

HERE is a article from the DAILY BAIL dated 7/6/13

[BESTIALITY BROTHELS ARE SPREADING THROUGH GERMANY]
BESIALITY brothels are spreading through Germany faster than ever thanks to a law that makes animal porn illegal but make sex with animals legal.
MADEILINE MARTIN a livestock protection officer told the [FRANKFURTER RUNDCHAU] that current laws were not protecting animals from predatory zoophiles who are increasingly able to turn to bestiality as a lifestyle choice.
THERE are even erotic zoos which people can visit to abuse animals ranging from llamas to goats.
LAST NOVEMBER the GERMAN authorities said they were planning to reinstate an old law forbidding sex with animals after a sharp rise in bestiality along with websites promoting it.

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