The Republican Party is the White Party [View all]

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Fri Jun 15, 2012, 07:15 PM - Edit history (1)

Let me rephrase something on edit, since some replies suggest I was not optimally clear.

The Republican party is a racial identity party. It is designed to appeal to white people as white people... not as union-members or as unemployed people or as home-owners... as white people.

It is a crude racial-identity party and the numbers bear that out. It is an almost exclusively white party. Many white people vote Democratic, but the Republican party is pretty close to all white. (A fact that is soft-pedaled in out national dialog because it makes the modern Republican party sound like a racist institution, which it is.

And many millions of white people vote Republican, against all real self-interest, because they perceive it as "the white thing to do." Because the Republican party presents itself as "the white thing to do."

Orginal post __________________________

That is not a critique, it is a fact of contemporary political life.

This does not mean that all white people are republicans. There are millions and millions of reliable white Democratic voters. I'm of European descent and will never vote for a Republican. But no Democratic presidential candidate has carried the majority of white votes since 1964, and it is quite possible that no future Democratic candidate ever will in our lifetimes.

(The Republican party would shift positions to retain a majority of the white vote because it is all they have. If that means becoming more liberal on this issue or that issue they will do so. We do not have 70%-30% presidential elections in this country because by the time a major party got down to 30% there would be a third party of some sort.)

The Republican party is the white party on the same way the Democratic party is the gay party, the black party, the hispanic party, the single woman party, the poor party.

The Republican party:

1) Always receives a good majority of white votes, and
2) Identifies and caters to white people as an interest group

Most (all?) issues that are identifiable as "white interest" are racist. If a voter believes there are "white issues" that person is very, very likely to be Republican.

When the racist vote shrivels over the next generation there will be resulting changes in American politics, and probably changes in the Republican party. But as long as there is a "white vote" (as there is today) the Republican party will be usefully, meaningfully identifiable as "the white party."