So how's that “Democrats invent Republican racism” theory holding up?

Written by Simon Maloy

Published

Yesterday I picked apart the theory (postulated by the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto and embraced by Fox News) that Democrats have to invent instances of Republican “racism” in order to maintain their electoral hold on African-Americans. The theory suffers from some rather crippling weaknesses; mainly that it's remarkably insulting to African-Americans, and that prominent Republicans do silly things like dismissing slavery as not “important” when celebrating Confederate History Month.

But can I really be trusted on this? After all, my analysis suffers from the fact that I'm a godless hippie liberal communist with Saul Alinsky quotes tattooed under my eyelids. Who am I to comment on what the Republican Party has or has not done with regard to race?

Now, if someone like the chairman of the Republican National Committee were to say that the GOP has exploited racial issues for political gain for the past 40 years, then that would be different. Well, as it turns out, the chairman of the Republican National Committee said just that on Tuesday night.

As noted by Greg Sargent, here's RNC chairman Michael Steele speaking at DePaul University on April 20:

“We have lost sight of the historic, integral link between the party and African-Americans,” Steele said. “This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass. The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don't walk away from parties. Their parties walk away from them.

”For the last 40-plus years we had a 'Southern Strategy' that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, 'Bubba' went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton."

Sargent notes that this isn't the version of history most Republicans would endorse, but still, there it is.

So ... are we still going to argue that Democrats use false accusations of Republican racism to trick black people into voting for them? Because I'm apparently not the only one who needs convincing.