When A Political Party Commits Suicide

Yesterday's New York Times column by Charles Blow really summed up, in one place, the toxic bile a few of the Republican candidates for president have spewed out while running for their party's nomination.


To make a long, 150 year story short: Black people are lazy. Don't invest in the remains of the American welfare state because, if you do, you're helping minorities. And only minorities, because obviously white Americans do not benefit from food stamps and other benefits.

Stuff like this shouldn't surprise me anymore. But it still hurts. Not just because of the racist tenor of it. More than that it hurts me as an American citizen. We need, we must DEMAND that we have two serious, focused political parties that intend to govern for all the people.


Instead elements of the GOP find it sufficient to play the same tired, poisonous game they've been playing since 1968: a variation on the Southern Strategy, designed to speak to lower (and let's be honest here, middle and upper middle income) white voters who loathe elements of the social safety net because of fears it benefits "other" people. The most insidious element of this newest incarnation is two fold: it's the latest in a series comments that come during a period in history in which the President of the United States happens to be Black ("food stamp president" anyone?), and it comes during a period in which so many Americans require economic assistance.

Being poor in America has always been tough, because for much of modern American history, if one is poor it is seen by large elements of the conservative political establishment as being your own fault, and something that the government should do nothing or very little to alleviate. Also, being poor has become conflated with being Black. This has especially been the case since the 1960s, when the Great Society came under increasing attack for only benefiting rioting African Americans in decaying urban centers.

As I noted before, we need more than this from our leaders. When you see statements like

 “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.”

Or

"I'm prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps,"

From Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, respectively, you realize the depths of ignorance elements of the GOP have sunk to.

Of course it will be interesting to see how Mitt Romney tackles this once he wins the nomination. He has yet to engage in such rhetoric, fortunately, and I hope that continues.

One last point: the stupidity of this reflects the fact that, despite African Americans holding a wide range of socially conservative viewpoints according to polling, they still vote heavily Democratic. Today, obviously, having President Obama in the White House, along with the frostiness between Black voters and the George W. Bush administrations, has solidified the alliance between the Democrats and Black voters. Conservatives seem to ignore what statements about self-reliance, that stretch back to Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington and can still be heard from Bill Cosby, really mean. Black Americans don't want handouts. But they also understand American history, much more than many in the GOP. Government help is sometimes a necessary need in modern society. If the Republicans ever want to make serious inroads to the Black vote, they must realize it can be done. As long as they leave this crap in the past.