I am very tired of Republican conservatives being called racists by the Democratic liberals who are indeed the true racists. If you don’t know your party’s history, better learn so you know what you are talking about when you make accusations to others.
Here are some facts. The Republican Party was founded to oppose slavery and they eventually abolished it. They also wanted to give slaves full citizenship, equality, and rights. The Democrats fought to maintain slavery and wanted to expand it. The 13th Amendment did away with slavery. 100% of Republicans voted for it while only 23% of the Democrats voted in favor of the amendment. 94% of the Republicans voted in favor of the 14th Amendment, giving citizenship to slaves, while 0% of Democrats voted in favor of it.
In 1861, all slave owners were registered Democrats. The following is what these slave owners proposed. Little is said of the Chicago Platform proposed by the south to end the Civil War. Their idea of a compromise was to have slavery as a permanent institution in exchange to end the war and restore the Union. Here are two other facts: 3/4 of the South didn’t own slaves and the Democrats were responsible for starting the KKK.
The Democratic Party is being disingenuous by professing to support minorities while they are purposely keeping them in financial bondage.
So next time you want to wrongly call Republicans racists you better look in your own backyard and see who the true racists really are in this country.
Dee Gibney
Hamilton
Howard says
It should be telling that this author had to go back to the 1800’s to find examples of Republicans not being racist. The current Republican party bears no resemblance to the party of Lincoln. Republicans today would decry the Emancipation Proclamation as a violation of their precious “states rights” and would say that the campaign to end slavery was “anti-agriculture,” “anti-small business” and an example of Federal government overreach.
In truth, both parties have essentially switched positions since the events D. Gibney describes. The current Republicans gained the bulk of their base by appealing to pro-segregation, and inherently racist, southern white males during what was referred to as the Southern Strategy. It is the resentment of angry white males that has driven the GOP to nominate Trump.
I think our country desperately needs a functional, moderately conservative political party. A moderate conservative would probably win this years election in a landslide. Instead, the GOP has nominated a buffoon that offers no real, workable plan for the country and is only interested in shameless self-promotion.
The moderate Republicans may need to leave their party and start a new one with a platform based on sensible, common sense conservatism that does not try to subtly (or not so subtly in the case of Trump) appeal to white peoples’ racial resentment. Between the Tea Party folks and the Trump supporters, the Republican party may be beyond saving at this point. It leads me to question whether or not any Republican can be trusted to govern at any level, federal, state or local. If they’re picking Trump to be their standard bearer at the top of the ticket, how can they be trusted to pick good candidates further down the ballot? I don’t like voting Democrat, but these days they’re really the only politicians I hear have rational, informed, adult discussions about policies.