Tim Scott: Why are Republicans accused of racism? Because we’re silent on racism

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Republicans have been silent on the issue for race for two major reasons. 1. Political expediency and 2. Fear.

Since the 1960's, Republicans have banked on Democrats being the party more for minorities and improving the lot of minorities and thus by extension making the Republicans the "lesser of two evils" and also default party for Southern whites over the course of the last severak decades. So if you start shifting your rhetoric and saying using things like the Bill of Rights and the Constitution to make the case for protecting minorities, or doing what say Rand Paul does in terms of supporting restoring felon voting rights, the strategies presume that this will cost far more in terms of racist white votes then it will gain in minority voting for Republicans. Historically, they like to point to examples like Eisenhower or Ford where such efforts were disappointing in the results, compared to say Nixon or Reagan who achieved far more success employing dog whistle strategies. This positive feedback loop perpetuated this line of thinking, that really was born in reaction to the disappointment on the part of GOP activist/strategist base following the 1956 elections when a solid majority of blacks still voted Democratic against Ike, even with a Segregationist on the Dem ticket.

2. The other one is mostly fear of it backfiring or being taken out of context. Republicans are typically afraid to talk to blacks and black voters and thus you rarely see them address groups like the NAACP, with the exception once again of Rand Paul whose more libertarian social policies on prison. crime and drugs, not to mention foreign policy align rather well with the issues facing minority communities (Then they look at the economic dogma and say no thank you, but that is beside the point).