South Carolina’s conservative Republican governor, Nikki Haley, is the daughter of Sikh immigrants from Punjab. US Representative Tim Scott of Charleston, a Tea Party hero who was raised in poverty by a divorced single mother, is South Carolina’s first black Republican lawmaker in more than a century. To anyone who shares the ideals that animate modern conservatism — limited government, economic liberty, color-blind equality — it stands to reason that Haley and Scott are conservatives. And their Republican affiliation should surprise no one familiar with the GOP’s long history as the party of minority civil rights.
But many people aren’t familiar with that history. So relentlessly have liberal propagandists played the race card over the years that virtually anything conservatives or Republicans do — from opposing Obamacare to tweaking the president’s fondness for golf — somehow gets twisted into proof of racial malice. So when Haley announced last week that she would appoint Scott to the US Senate seat being vacated by Jim DeMint, who is leaving to take a job at the Heritage Foundation, I indulged in a bit of preemptive snark.
Comments
This comment has been removed.
And i thought only Sununu had fantasies like that.
Well Jeff raises an interesting issue. Are conservatives racist? I have never thought that conservatism of itself was racist. Is there a deep strain of racism in the Tea Party? Well that is pretty hard to deny. Many don't hide it. Now if being "classist" is a form of racist then the Republicans are guilty. There will be those who point out voter suppression as racist, but to me voter suppression is a purely political act that minorities because of their voting preference get caught up in. The fact is Republicans don't want the working class or the poor to vote. The fact of the matter is the only thing racist about the Republican Party is its policies. That 47 percent that became so famous is the group of people the Republican's despise and that despisal has nothing to do with race and everything to do with income and class. Minorities just happen to make up a good portion of that percentage.
When I was a young man back in the 50's my grandfather used to say the Republicans were the party of the rich and the Democrats were the war party. It really hasn't changed much except both party's now have fallen in love with the expression of power beyond our shores. But conservatism racist? I don't think so. I'm pretty much conservative on many things and I worked in the cifil rights movement. Yet today's version of conservatism is nothing but a rich man's club having nothing to do with conservative values or policies. No it's not racism with these folks it's classism the new Republican Party thinks the rest of us are not good enough or productive enough. We're not them. Our color doesn't really matter.
Well I appreciate you taking the high road here. But back on Planet Earth c'mon. I'm goingto let you in on a little secret... Southern whites are still pretty racist dude. Have you ever been to South Carolina? Have you ever been to rural Tennessee? I'm talkin' bout waaaay "outside Nashville"? well "yeah-buddy" I have, and I've seen it, heard it, experienced it first hand. You have to have been down there for "a spell" to see how it permeates Southern life. My employment took me there and the racism doesn't just affect upper class, or, well-to-do whites. This appointment is cynical and is very suspicious. But I don't care much for Republicans either. I think their policies trend to disfavor people of color disproportionately. Any person of color who doesn't acknowledge that simple fact is, again, very suspicious in my book.
This comment has been removed.
The reason the left wing has fallen into lock step claims of racism is because they now take their black supporters for granted, and are truly offended when these people embrace a conservative worldview. The conservative value system is anathema to a party who simply thrives when it can create victim groups it claims to be saving. Special interests are all the Democrats care about, and the black vote is their most important special interest. What kind of a paternal, holier than thou jerk, would declare that black people who vote for Republicans are voting against their own self interest? This is offensive on its head! The "self interest" to which he must be referring is things like affirmative action, minority set asides, and other special perks. Anyone, of any race, who votes Republican does so because it is in the best interest of the country. Only the Democrats win votes by giving away the store to any special interest who comes calling. Black should be offended by such a racist stance-the idea that "self interest" is the reason to vote for anyone.
Really! You would make the argument that "self interest" is not a reason to vote for anyone. You would hold that people should vote against their own self interest, whether it be a segment of society or an individual. If "self interest" is not a reason to vote what then is one voting for? The interests of another? Political parties are based upon self interest. It is why I said "conservatism" isn't racist. It is purely classist. Now I admit that logic implies that a goodly number of people who vote R vote against their own self interest, but that is only true if we ignore the fact that they hope that these policies will eventually make them a part of the upper class. I don't see real racism in either party except for some troglodytes taking advantage of the TP's and consrvatism.
This comment has been removed.
The message I get from republicans who rail against entitlements is they're talking about welfare people, particularly minorities. My complaint is the pass they give to corporate fraud and tax evasion, which is much, much more costly.
True, each party has it's own loyal voter / donation base to reward with taxpayer gifts!
Your commentary is unpersuasive. Wow! Two Indian-Americans and an African American (two if you count Justice Thomas)? Don't forget Michael Steele. It is manifestly apparent that the recent policies of the GOP are inimical to the interests of poor and disadvantaged people, a group in which people of color are heavily represented. Governor Haley's appointment of a black man as senator is fine, but it does not mean that her party's policies, and his, are not basically hostile to the interests of black people.
Perhaps the most troubling dimension of the GOP's post-election alternate universe is the idea that the racial voting patterns based in centuries of history and real present day policies can be overturned with a handful of high-profile minority appointments. Scott's policy positions prove him just as tone-deaf to the modern political world as his most conservative GOP colleagues.The GOP's real problem is that prominent party members have cast blacks and Hispanics as deadbeats and deviants for half a century; it is the racial subtext to Republicans' demonization of dependency that in part fuels the minority aversion to casting ballots for the GOP. Another central feature of the dynamic of tokenism is the power disparity between the majority group and the minority individual. As the token is dependent on the majority group for his livelihood, he is required to reproduce the culture of the majority, not change it. (Exerpts from 12.21.12 Atlantic article by Michael P. Jeffries called Tim Scott, Tokenism, and the Lessons the GOP Still Hasn't Learned)
The G.O.P. is the party that welcomes and nourishes minorities? Oh, puh-LEEEZE. The few examples he gives are mere opportunists, knowing they'll be welcome as window-dressing, nothing more.
Decades of liberals telling minorities that they are not capable of supporting themselves and need government handouts have not been successful. Teach people to fish, don't hand them one.
I guess they're not "black enough for you," Michael? Jeff writes this the day after an ESPN analyst gets suspended for similar stupid remarks. When are you libs going to "free" the minority and let them make a choice themselves? Some may have taken advantage of the handouts given to them in order to succeed, but know that handouts aren't a way of life. ANd that's what the dems have created.
Implicit in this column is the assumption that gays and lesbians aren't minorities. Jeff has devoted himself to promoting discrimination against gays and lesbians, so there wasn't a chance it would be any other way:
http://www.jeffjacoby.com/topics/133/same-sex-marriage
True ... but the vast majority of these are from well before even Obama 'evolved' on gay marriage. Maybe in the New Year Mr. Jacoby will come around to getting the government out of peoples lives where it has no business?
Read the columns. Jacoby predicted same sex marriage would lead to the end of civilization as we know it.
"Giermund" I live in Florida and not in some little gated community of Yankee's. I'm well aware of Southern racism as it exists, but the question related to "conservatives" and the "conservative" philosophy and no I don't think it is inherently racist. There are racist elements who have hijacked portions of the movement just as christian fundamentalists hijacked portions. However, I don't think the philosophy itself is inherently racist anymore than the Republican Party is inherently racist or that some liberals don't hide or suppress their bigotry, after all I've seen it slip out.
Yawn, again.
If the Republican party wants to know how it comes by its justly earned reputation, just look at old friends like Nixon and their "Southern Strategy". Let's get serious.
and don't forget the Tea Party!
This comment has been removed.
This column makes me a little uncomfortable because there's an undercurrent of racism.
I'm a Democrat and I rarely think about someone's race or ethnicity unless it's called to my attention. They're just a Congressman or Senator or whatever.
Although Jacoby seems to be denying tokenism, bragging about a few individuals in a sea of white seems to be exactly that.
I don't want to comment beyond that.
That's Jacoby's "genuis" such as it is. He's not openly racist - he's just an apologist for racism.
Jeff, please go back in time to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions and view the tapes of the people in the auditorium and do not be selective with 10 second slivers as you are in this column, look at 20 - 30 + minute segments over several days for each. Then do another history research project and look at the Republican intransigence on most civil rights legislation, the span of them not a cherry picking few. Oh, and just look at the road blocks to prevent minority voters voting in this year's election. Voter suppression was so obvious in Florida that even the three mice would have been aware of it. I do like reading your viewpoint(s) even when they are as weak as those expressed today.
Look, the pendulum swings. Right now it looks as if the Democrats have the majority of the (soon to be) majority on their side, and the Republicans are doing what they can to combat that. But nothing lasts forever. In a perfect world, people who do not need entitlements (I'm talking to you, wealthy Social Security recipients) don't get them. People who are capable of working (food stamp gathering hipsters) work & pay taxes. And everyone contributes to the common wealth according to his or her ability to pay. Maybe with a little more color & diversity on the Republican side, we can get all Americans to step up and be responsible. But as long as the faces at the Republican National Convention continue to reflect only one corner of our society, it'll be a long time in coming.