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

[Fuzzy Bear]

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who is Black, wrote an op-ed relating to Rep. Steve King's (R-IA} comments and the GOP's frequent silence on White supremacists like King:

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SOURCE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/2019/01/11/tim-scott-republicans-can-no-longer-be-silent-bigotry/

Scott is exactly right. People like Steve King have no place in the Republican Party, no place in Congress, and no place in our politics.

Scott is basically right, but Steve King has a place in our politics because the voters of his Congressional district are sovereign.

If the GOP want's to do something, let them censure Steve King.  Let the resolution have the massive backing of Republicans.  Strip him of his committee assignments.  Strip him of his seniority.  Boot him out of the GOP Csucus.  They can do all of those things.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Well, Donald Trump is “like King,” and he’s exactly who Republicans want. So...

same party base nominated Romney and McCain.

Also the media is to blame for Trump as much as the base is. They promoted him non stop gave him all that free media and in today world that's a huge reason why people win

Trump offered me what I wanted in a candidate, issue-wise.  On immigration, on foreign policy, on trade, I agreed with him.  I didn't need to see media over and over.  And I agreed that he represented a needed departure from the neocons.

If I made a mistake in voting for Trump, that's on me.  In the same manner, if I made a mistake on voting for Bill Clinton (twice), that's on me as well.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Its about the Southern Strategy. Which was first used by Nixon and perfected by Reagan. Clarence Thomas used quotas to become a judge. Quotas are used to help ethnics get ahead in employment and schooling


In critical elections that the Crt was up in 2004 or 2016, both Dubya and Trump emplored the Southern strategy to solidify a conservative bloc. By swift boating Kerry and calling Hilary crocked

Nixon nailed down the Southern strategy to where the South became permanently Republican at the Presidential level, but he never minded conservative Southern Democrats (amongst whose ranks were some of his bitter-end supporters) kept getting elected to Congress.  Carter carried the South in 1976 only because white Southerners perceived him as less liberal then he actually was.

The South is nowhere near as important a battleground as it once was.  VA is Democratic, FL and NC are battleground states, and I keep hearing how GA and TX will become so (although I'm far from conivniced).  The rest of the South seems to be hopelessly Republican for my lifetime.

[Fuzzy Bear]

If Tim Scott had any brains in his head he'd be a Democrat. Steve King/Trumpian racial politics will become the new norm. As America becomes less white, the Republican Party will have to win a bigger share of the white vote to stay relevant. That means they'll become more extreme, more racist, and more openly and overtly expressing white supremacist views.

The Democratic Party doesn't believe in the things he believes in, free enterprise, respect of U.S. soldiers with better pay, etc.

This statement is 100% false.

Perhaps.  But the Democratic Party has a significantly different worldview than Tim Scott does.

Tim Scott is an Evngelical Christian who has chosen to conform himself to God's Word, as opposed to his political party., at more cost to himself than many pols.  He's one of my faves.

[Fuzzy Bear]

If Tim Scott had any brains in his head he'd be a Democrat. Steve King/Trumpian racial politics will become the new norm. As America becomes less white, the Republican Party will have to win a bigger share of the white vote to stay relevant. That means they'll become more extreme, more racist, and more openly and overtly expressing white supremacist views.

The Democratic Party doesn't believe in the things he believes in, free enterprise, respect of U.S. soldiers with better pay, etc.

This statement is 100% false.

Perhaps.  But the Democratic Party has a significantly different worldview than Tim Scott does.

Tim Scott is an Evngelical Christian who has chosen to conform himself to my personal interpretation of God's Word, which I seek to incorporate into public policy whereever possible as opposed to his political party., at more cost to himself than many pols.  He's one of my faves.

Corrected

I had it right the first time.

All public policy is based on something.  The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a state religion; it doesn't prohibit public policy from aligning with any particular religion.  That a public policy may be Scripturally correct and permissable does not make it Unconstitutional.

But, yes, I will continue to work to see my vision enacted into public policy.  Just like everyone else here does.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Neither Steve King nor the Republican Party as a whole have advocated for racist policies in the last 40 or so years.

They have never advocated for discriminating against non-white citizens on the basis of race.

In fact, many members of the Republican Party have acquiesced to supporting affirmative action, which actively discriminates against whites in favor of non-whites, at almost no benefit to the Republican Party.

Beyond just policy, in terms of tone, the Republican Party is groveling in terms of how it talks to minorities, how it begs them to like them. Look at how Trump always talks about the Black unemployment rate and the Hispanic unemployment rate but never the white unemployment rate.

What exactly does Tim Scott want the Republicans do to combat racism more?

I would suggest that one thing the GOP could do is support reinstatement of the Voting Rights Act.  Blacks have good reason to believe that the Southern White Establishment is not going to be fair in terms of their voting rights.  Another thing they can do is drop their voter fraud and voter id initiatives; these are issues designed to stack the deck against blacks and Democrats.  As for Voter ID laws, a poll tax by any other name is still a poll tax.

As for Affirmative Action:  I am 62 years old, so I've seen things in the workplace that should never happen.  I remember at a social gathering, my friend's brother-in-law, who was an Exec VP of a major bank for Personnel (he recruited and hired managers) had his marching orders; he was only to hire black and Hispanic candidates for these jobs if there resumes were so overwhelmingly good that he could not avoid it.  This was the 1970s, but it was also New York, and not Mississippi, or even Florida.  Affirmative Action exists because Corporate America wouldn't be fair in hiring until they were forced to; it was the least worst way to ensure meaningful minority entry into Corporate America (as opposed to tokenism). 

America has changed attitudinally and demographically, and such attitudes won't be as easily tolerated today, but some of the old thinking dies hard.  I cannot say for certain that America would just keep being fair if there were no Affirmative Action mandates requiring them to be.  Affirmative Action DOES take factors, other than ability and credentials, into account, and that is less than perfect, but no one has come up with a better way to right the greater wrong, for the most part.

[Fuzzy Bear]

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 decade. 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).

Reason number two is beyond silly. Practically admits outright that trying to sell the GOP platform to a gathered group of African-Americans is going to result in overt hostility. At best it assumes there will be audible groans are catcalls from a restrained audience, or worst some weird racist narrative that the blacks will bum rush the stage or something.

In the past, that might be so.  Nowadays, the possibility of Maxine Waters  (or someone as unrestrained as that) interrupting the speaker, making a scene, etc. is real, and presents the speaker with a no-win situation that could have been avoided.

The NAACP is, pretty much, an extension of the Democratic Party these days.  I'm not saying this as a knock, but it's not the non-partisan organization it once was.  Of course our ideological politics represent a massive departure from the past as well, so this factor was inevitable. 

My advice for Republicans is simply this:  Drop the Voter ID initiatives, drop the opposition to former felons voting, drop the opposition to the Voting Rights Act, and talk to black audiences focusing on agreement.  This can be done once the GOP stops being on the wrong side of what blacks rightly view as "survival issues", issues vital to their ability to participate in the political system and defend their rights (something they rightfully don't take for granted).

Blacks, on the average, are more churchgoing than the average American.  They are more entrepreneurial than the average American.  Many blacks vote Democratic even though they may well agree with the GOP on social issues (abortion, secularism) and some aspects of economics (business regulation) because they view Republicans as hostile to their very participation in politics.  If THAT perception were overcome (which would take real work but it could be done), I believe that the GOP could, ultimately, end up with 25% of the black vote.  I certainly thing that LOCAL Republicans could gain a greater share of the black vote.  Such a shift in attitudes would, I believe, be healthy in that it would allow more people to be voting on issues, and it would result in greater reconciliation between blacks and the Republicans which are, for many blacks, the dominant party in their state/region.