Ideologically speaking, the modern-day Republican party is not the party of Lincoln.
In fact, they couldn’t be more opposite.
While Republicans certainly don’t have a monopoly on White Supremacy, they most certainly have an undeniable appeal to those who openly embrace White Supremacy.
When Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, he literally hired dozens of staffers to work in his administration with direct ties to White Nationalist and White Supremacist groups, including but not limited to Stephen Miller, his senior advisor and the architect of Trump’s immigration policy that separated parents from their children and then didn’t bother to keep detailed enough records to be able to return them all.
He had Jeff Sessions, Trump’s former Attorney General and Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House Chief Strategist, Senior Counselor and former CEO of Breitbart news, who both have had decade long ties with White Nationalist and White Supremacist groups.
Trump even used data supplied to him by White Nationalist groups in his ad campaigns in 2016.
Here is a list from 2019 of the current and former staffers and who and what White Nationalist and White Supremacist groups they are affiliated with.
https://americasvoice.org/blog/trump-administration-and-white-nationalists/
Does any of that sound like the party of Abraham Lincoln to you?
If Lincoln’s Republican Party was ideologically the same as today’s Republican party, we never would’ve had an American Civil War, and the only border wall going up right now would be between us and Canada to keep my Black ass from crossing over to freedom.
The irony escapes them. Do you realize how unconscionably disingenuous it is to claim to being the heirs to the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, the party that passed the 14th amendment, when President Trump as recently as 2018, tried to use his executive power to repeal it?
The person who hired a pilot to fly a Confederate Flag with the words “Defund NASCAR” over Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway last weekend doesn’t vote for candidates on the Democratic ticket.
I know it.
You know it.
Just like you know that the people who line up at gun shows to have George Zimmerman sign bags of Skittles and pose in front of Confederate flags aren’t shouting, “Give ’em hell Chuck Schumer!” when they’re watching the evening news at night.
When Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, the Republican Party was the LIBERAL party of the United States, not the Conservative party that it is today.
When Dwight D. Eisenhower pushed to speed up the desegregation of the armed forces and sent in the 101st Airborne Division to escort and protect nine Black students’ entry to Little Rock Central High School it was 1957, he was a Republican, and he wasn’t a Conservative arguing that it was Arkansas’ “right” to force Black children to attend inferior schools.
When Radical Republicans like George W. Ashburn were fighting to stop state legislatures in the South from passing Black Codes to keep freedpersons dependent on their former masters, he was opposed by Conservatives, not Liberals.
You see, it isn’t about the political party. Parties change. It’s about where you fall on the political spectrum.
It’s always been Conservatives, regardless of what brand they are under, who have been the most ardent and open supporters of White Supremacy in this country.
But listen, don’t take my word for it.
Look for yourself. Look at any of the policies that the Republican Party supported and/or advocated for before 1965 and look at the policies that they support and advocate for after 1965.
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
It’s night and day, isn’t it?
The Republican and the Democratic parties swapped places on the political spectrum after Barry Goldwater won the 1964 Republican presidential nomination. Goldwater believed that states should be able to decide how and when they decided to desegregate, if ever.
Black voters felt betrayed by the Republican Party when Barry Goldwater won the party nomination in 1964. And White Conservatives felt equally betrayed by the Democratic Party when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
Eventually the two groups, Black voters and White conservatives swapped allegiances. And so its been for the last half a century.
I saw a video just the other day claiming that the Republican Party can’t be racist because Black people started the Republican Party.
How can Americans be so dumb about our own history?
How could Black people have started the Republican Party in 1854 when Black people weren’t even American citizens then, let alone had the right to vote?
And lastly, another point conservatives love to bring up is the issue of the late West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who before he entered politics started his own chapter of the KKK. He entered politics as a Democrat in 1959 (which at that time, if you’ve been following, was the Conservative party). In an interview with The Washington Post about his memoir, Byrd said of his White Supremacist past, “I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don’t mind apologizing over and over again. I can’t erase what happened.”
Now contrast that with what I saw the other evening when Vice President Mike Pence was asked if he’d say that Black lives Matter.
He refused.
Three times.
“Let me just say that what happened to George Floyd was a tragedy,” Pence told 6ABC Action News in Philadelphia when asked directly if he would say that Black lives matter. “And in this nation, especially on Juneteenth, we celebrate the fact that from the founding of this nation we’ve cherished the ideal that all, all of us are created equal, and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. And so all lives matter in a very real sense.”
“Forgive me for pressing you on this, sir,” anchor Brian Taff said to Pence, “but I will note you did not say those words, ‘Black lives matter,’ and there is an important distinction.
“Well, I don’t accept the fact, Brian, that there’s a segment of American society that disagrees, in the preciousness and importance of every human life,” Pence said. “And it’s one of the reasons why as we advance important reforms in law enforcement, as we look for ways to strengthen and improve our public safety in our cities, that we’re not going to stop there.”
“And yet, one final time, you won’t say the words and we understand your explanation,” Taff responded.
This was an interesting exchange because one would think, that if someone truly believes that ALL lives matter, then saying Black Lives Matter wouldn’t be a problem.
If ALL lives matter certainly that includes Black lives, right?
All you’d have to say is, “Of course Black Lives Matter. ALL Lives Matter.“
But they don’t say that. Or come anywhere close to saying that.
Ever.
And that’s deliberate.
Vice President Mike Pence like so many modern-day Republicans are seemingly willing to put ANYTHING in front of the word “Lives Matter” but the word BLACK.
In the last 20 years of his life Senator Byrd, a former Klansman, voted in favor of more legislation that African Americans benefited from than most, if not all, Republicans serving in the U.S. Senate.
If there is anything that Republicans need to explain to me, it would be how a former Klansman can manage to do that.
Yeah, they can start with that.