On Election Day it’s white voters vs. everyone else
OPINION - Looking at the polls, this presidential election season is poised to give birth to the most racially polarized electorate in U.S. history...
Some commentators might argue that black voters and others will vote for Obama because he is black, while African-Americans voted for white Democratic presidential candidates in nearly equal numbers.
Their overwhelming preference for the president speaks to policy—the Democratic Party’s commitment to working families and social programs such as social security, Medicare and so-called Obamacare.
In contrast, the Republican Party has become a captive of its most extremist wing, and has made a conscious decision to go for broke and consolidate the white working-class vote. This includes Romney’s claims that Obama removed welfare work requirements to “shore up his base,” a thinly-veiled reference to the Reagan-era black “welfare queen” who made $150,000 through government checks she did not deserve.
Republicans have doubled down on intolerance, xenophobia, and the shunning of racial diversity as a winning strategy. Blacks, Latinos, Arabs, Muslims and others need not apply—or vote, for that matter. They are not part of a winning Republican strategy. Rather than change their product to appeal to consumers who won’t buy it, the GOP has decided to eliminate those who won’t do business with them. Voter ID laws and Tea-Party-sponsored voter purge operations such as True the Vote are attempts to disenfranchise voters who will not vote Republican. Jim Greer, the former Florida GOP chair, told theGrio that voter fraud is a nonexistent issue, and voter ID a marketing tool to suppress the minority vote.
The voter suppression problem throughout America is so serious that the NAACP, the ACLU and other groups have called for international monitoring of U.S. elections. The Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE)—a United Nations affiliated group dealing with election integrity— has decided to dispatch diplomatic poll watchers throughout the country to monitor polling places on Election Day.
Meanwhile, in a move reminiscent of the civil rights era, Greg Abbott, the Republican Attorney General of Texas, threatened to arrest OSCE representatives for breaking the law.
Further, part of the Republican plan includes race baiting President Obama, and invoking stereotypes of black intelligence— naked appeals to racial solidarity, all for white votes. Disagreeing with the nation’s first black president over policy is legitimate. However, rejecting Obama because he is black is a virulent form of racial politics, the Southern Strategy injected with steroids.
Regarding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Sarah Palin penned a Facebook post titled, “Obama’s Shuck and Jive Ends With Benghazi Lies.”
Conservative talking head and provocateur Ann Coulter tweeted after the last presidential debate that “I highly approve of Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the retard.”
And birther mogul Donald Trump has offered to give $5 million to the president’s favorite charity if Obama will release all of his college and passport records.
If the GOP imperative is to win by maximizing the white vote and simultaneously ignoring or suppressing voters of color, that scheme could very well work in 2012, or not. But the browning complexion of the U.S. suggests this is their last election to make it happen. They are running out of time and white votes.
Follow David A. Love on Twitter at @davidalove
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