Views > April 11, 2005

The GOPs Quest for Color

By Salim Muwakkil

Insistent complaints from right-wing pundits about the media’s liberal bias have been effective. Now even the most extreme right-wing notions receive a hearing in the corporate mainstream media.

This tactic has been so successful that the right is now using it to gain more exposure in the black media—a venue they’ve long criticized as left-leaning. The strategy coincides with the GOP’s aggressive attempts to gain more black votes for elections in 2006 and 2008.

The scope of this new outreach was hinted at by news that Armstrong Williams, a conservative black pundit, was paid $240,000 to promote the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind” education scheme. Republicans have talked of seeking black votes, but seldom have they devoted resources to the effort.

Because of the right’s effective pitch, African-American publications and black-oriented broadcast media now feel an obligation to showcase conservative voices.The Williams fiasco not only revealed the GOP’s attempt to exploit this opportunity, but also how out of touch the GOP is with the black community. Williams is dismissed as a political huckster in much of black America.

When choosing its black standard-bearers, the GOP seems to be clueless. Remember when the Republican National Committee’s Ed Gillespie hooked up with boxing promoter Don King during the 2004 campaign? “What’s next for the GOP?” asked one Republican blogger, “A photo-op with O.J.?”

Since at least the ’80s, when Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) famously urged Republicans “to invent new black leaders,” the GOP has been trying to nurture African-American leaders capable of supplanting the traditional, left-leaning cadre. But the high profile appointments of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice have failed to cause a discernable change in black electoral behavior. And this despite the Democrats’ anemic attempts at black outreach.

Their efforts have been hampered by a lack of connection with the cultural currents of the black community. For example, even with Republicans in charge of the government’s three branches (and, some would argue, the Fourth Estate, as well), African Americans seemed almost immune to the pro-war propaganda pushing the Iraq invasion. A Gallup Poll released March 28, 2003 revealed that 68 percent of black Americans opposed the war.

Republicans now see the Bush administration’s “faith-based initiatives” as a new opportunity to wedge the party into the black community. Because of African Americans’ unique history, the church has become the community’s dominant institution and the church’s religious values have always encouraged a kind of cultural conservatism.

Although those values share much with those of the religious right and conservative Republicans, black voters have shied away from GOP candidates. The primary reason for this disjuncture is the right-wing’s racist tradition. Republicans think this sordid history is old news to most black voters and that the time may be ripe to exploit common cultural ties.

Studies and position papers funded by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation predict GOP gains among African Americans if the party uses black churches as centers of faith-based funding for social programs and for private school vouchers.The black media is also a focus of attention because of its unique access to the black community and its prominent focus on religious affairs.

Curiously, the Bradley Foundation also is the financial fount for some of the nation’s most popular neo-racist authors. For instance, the foundation funded and still funds Charles Murray (co-author of The Bell Curve, a neo-racist sourcebook), Dinesh D’Souza, (author of The End of Racism and Illiberal Education, two neo-racist screeds) and David Horowitz (a tireless racial provocateur who runs the incendiary think tank, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture).

Despite these ignoble connections, Bradley bucks are funding the arguments for faith-based funding and school vouchers that fuel the GOP’s quest for a larger black mindshare.

President Bush won 11 percent of the black vote in the 2004 presidential election, just 2 percent higher than what he received in the 2000 election. But he got 16 percent of the black vote in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the campaign focused on issues like same-sex marriage and school vouchers.

Bush’s success in championing these divisive social issues prompted former RNC chairman Gillespie to predict the GOP would get up to 30 percent of the black vote in 2008. RNC chairman Ken Mehlman seems determined to fulfill his predecessor’s prediction. Immediately after taking office in January, he embarked on a road trip of outreach meetings in the black community. In this effort, Mehlman has focused on priming the pump of faith-based institutions and linking the purse strings to the White House.

But many black churches are fighting back. More about that in my next column.

• subscribe to print magazine

  First Name Last Name Home Address City State Zip Code Email

  2-year, 24-issues, $44.95 1-year, 12-issue, $24.95

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments

  There is no way the “street smart” black voters will back this administration on substantive issues. The only way TO reach them is through an emotional appeal through their religious leaders. Potentially all preachers come from the same authoritarian ideology that this administration does and thus some of them will feel at home with them. To the extent that these preachers can convince their people that Bush represents their interests, Bush’s numbers will go up. It is my view that Dems need to push back on the Preacher level to counter the push by Rove and Company. To either ignore this Bush push or stay focused on the black voter is to lose the battle.
  The Democratic party is the best party for the black people on the real issues that confront them. Allowing the phony issues of gay marriage and school vouchers to muddy the waters with emotional nonsense is a mistake.

  Posted by Merlin on Apr 11, 2005 at 12:09 PM

  Does something like Horowitz’s “10 reasons i am against reparations” make him a neo-racist? While i certainly admit that the reasons he enumerates can be debated, they seem like valid issues to me, and in no way racist. . .

  To those who believe that they are racist, do you also condone the stealing of papers that carried his column? Is it fair to limit free speech by illegal means, such as theft? This would seem like the beginning of anarchy and terrorism to me.  . .

  Posted by Bob on Apr 11, 2005 at 1:49 PM

  Bob,

  I think that the majority of people who post on this site would find the theft of papers to stop the spread of someone’s opinion reprehensible. That is exactly why we’re posting here, because everything that doesn’t get the “Bush stamp of approval” doesn’t get aired.  Look at the ABC, NBC and FOX newscasts.  Always little to nothing that contradicts Bush policy.  Even when sincere Republican bloggers join the thread, people discuss the points of difference--not when it’s just a troll, though.  Anarchy is always a bad idea, and not at all what most here espouse.

  Merlin,

  While many preachers of color are scrambling to get on the right side of funding through Bush’s “Faith Initiative”, you’re right in that most street-smart blacks won’t be fooled.  While I am white, my pastor (Baptist) is openly starting to question not only this Administration’s direction, but the direction of American’s in general.  There are many Christians leaving traditional churches (my family left Calvary Chapel after 16 years) because they find the hateful mentality at these churches anti-Christian.  Go to sojo.net and see what REAL Christians are saying about this Administration.

  The thing that really scares me is that the majority of Hispanics in my state voted for Bush.  Do they really think they’ll fall onto the “rich” side of the divide once he’s done his dirty work?  I have bachelor’s degree, my own business, and I have grave doubts that I will fall on that side.

  Posted by Margaret on Apr 11, 2005 at 2:15 PM

  Hi Margaret,
  You said:
  “I have bachelor’s degree, my own business, and I have grave doubts that I will fall on that side.”

  Oddly enough, it is just your point here that is the reason that they who have far less do believe they will. You recognize your limits and (if I may assume,) you are not money “driven.” The poor are further from the reality of what it takes to be “riding the gravy train” that they dream of, and thus in my view, more vulnerable to living a fantasy.
  I also am an educated, business owner (for some 37 years for what ever its worth,) a lifelong Democrat and liberal/progressive. Throw in that I’m a secular Humanist to complete the picture and see the mess a long life creates. With these admissions I soon expect the CIA/FBI to be knocking on my door and hauling me off to Gitmo, never to be heard from again.

  I enjoy your thoughts.

  Posted by Merlin on Apr 11, 2005 at 3:38 PM

  Hi Margaret,
  Your point about mainstream Christians is well taken. Sadly we are in an era of authoritarian rule brought about, in my view, by reactive fear on the part of the American people. The two part cause of this fear is the reaction to the strong leftward push of the 1960s and 70s creating insecurity, coupled with the current (actually started in the Reagan years and brought to fruition in the current wingnut case, Bush) neocon use of fear as a tactic to control them.
  The flock always looks for a benevolent (yet authoritarian) father figure to take care of things for them. In 2000, Bush poses as that, in the form of a “compassionate conservative” and strikes paydirt. This phony pose was quickly abandoned, having done its job, and providence (9/11) allowed the neocons to frighten the people and easily switch to the need for a “strong” (but still compassionate) father figure who needed to protect everyone first. (Vision of John Wayne clippity clopping onto the set.)
  It is very difficult for people to give up the view that they hold of a father figure in whom they have invested their physical and economic well being. However with continued excesses an screwups it will happen and there are ample signs of the public awakening to the naked emperor. I am confident this trend will continue, provided that the neocons don’t bring about another 9/11 situation. ( Hersh indicates that Bush has signed off on an attack on Iran for June 5. A similar sign off on Iraq was done in 2002 leading to war in 2003.) If the Iranians are foolish enough to respond to our provocations by attacking us or Israel in any way, the neocons would have the justification to scare the American public again. (Clippity clop once again.) I hope, should that happen, the emperor will nor once again have his “clothes” on.

  Posted by Merlin on Apr 11, 2005 at 4:18 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 14 posts.

Member Login

Also by Salim Muwakkil

• Getting Messy With Jesse Helps Obama
  
• Chicago’s Olympic Dreams Undeserved
  
• Israel’s Openly Secret Nukes
  
• The Vendetta Against Black Men
  
• A Speech Even Condi Could Love
  
• The Man or the Movement