TheGrio Daily

The 5 Kinds of Black Republicans, Part 1

Episode 68
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“It’s just white people keeping the Republican party afloat.” The majority of minority voters in the U.S. support the Democratic party but not all. In part one of this conversation, Michael Harriot breaks down the different categories of Black Republicans. TheGrio Daily is an original podcast by theGrio Black Podcast Network. #BlackCultureAmplified

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[00:00:00] You are now listening to theGrio’s Black Podcast Network, Black Culture Amplified. 

Michael Harriot [00:00:05] Hello and welcome to a special episode of theGrio Daily. For years, people have downed Black Republicans like Ben Carson or Candace Owens or, you know, that dude who wears, you know, jeans with running shoes and always has a haircut that doesn’t quite get taped up around the end. But it’s time we changed it. We are going to stop vilifying people just because of who they vote for or their political ideology. So welcome to theGrio Daily. The only podcast that is willing to explain The 5 Kinds of Black Republicans. I’m world famous wypipologist Michael Harriot and this is theGrio Daily. 

Michael Harriot [00:01:09] So you’ll we always got some heat for Black Republicans, right. And it’s not because we like or love the Democratic Party is just like these dudes are always weirdos, right? First of all, again, they never have, like, a really good close up. Like, you ain’t never seen a, point out one Black Republican with a low caesar. Right. You ever seen a Black Republican with a high top fade. Even, you know, Condoleeza Rice, right, you ever seen Condoleezza Rice, you think Condoleezza Rice will ever go natural? So today we’re going to, you know, talk about some of the Black population who we don’t examine enough and that’s Black conservatives, Black Republicans, Black people whose political ideology might differ from, you know, the mainstream Black audience. Now the first thing you’ve got to know is like we’re talking about a very few, a select few. And when we talk about Black Republicans, you’ve got to realize that because, you know, Republican basically is a word synonymous with white. And I know we think that Black people vote Democrat and then, you know, everybody else is split, but it’s not true, right? Like what we should focus on is that white people vote Republican. The vast majority of Black people do vote Democrat. And the vast majority of Asian people and the vast majority of Hispanic people, like every racial and ethnic demographic in America, leans heavily more than two thirds at least towards the Democratic Party. And it’s just white people keeping the Republican Party afloat. So, you know, when I talk about Black Republicans, you know, they’re kind of like unicorns, right? Not that, you know, they’re beautiful and rare. But is that like I always thought that a real unicorn just bumped it’s head and a horn grew. So. What are The 5 Kinds of Black Republicans? 

Michael Harriot [00:03:22] So the first kind that we’ll see out in the wild, in the wilderness are The Grifters, and I’m sure you know the grift. These are people who, like, they really don’t have or don’t care about a specific political ideology. They’re not invested in conservatism, right, or Christian conservatism. They just see an opportunity to make money. Like like take Candace Owens, for instance. You know Candace Owens she has been afforded a great opportunity. Right. Because, you know, you might think that she’s wrong for how much heat she has for Black people and for progressive positions. But you got to realize Candace Owens is dumb, but Candace Owens is not a college graduate. She didn’t know things. When she’s on TV giving her perspective, it’s not informed by anything. She’s never worked in politics. She never studied politics. She was very liberal in her past. She even sued for racial discrimination. And then all of a sudden she saw an opening and became the foremost, you know, edgeless Black Republican in the country. And that’s because it’s a grift, you know, like that’s why I can’t get mad at Candace Owens, because I believe in things and she does it right. Like, so she is not opposing my beliefs because she don’t believe in anything. She’s just saying things. And here’s the other reason you can’t be mad at a grifter, because white people know that they’re grifters, too. 

Michael Harriot [00:05:06] See, it’s not like white people are looking at Candace always or even conservatives are looking at Candace Owens and saying, you know, she makes some good points or, you know, I never thought about that perspective. No. Candace Owens is not educating white people. She is a weapon that they point at Black people to say, look even a Black person is saying what I believe, you know, and. It’s not because they are a token, it’s a grift. Right. Like she’s just like the person who’s willing to wear a big, huge baseball on their head because their job is being Mr. Met. Right. She’s a mascot. Right. She’s she dances. Right. She she performs at halftime. She goes to all of the conventions. She makes, you know, little white kids happy to see a Black face. She’s Diversity. And that is what grifters do because it’s lucrative. Right. Is only again as we’ve seen the data a few Black Republicans. So if you can get one of those few Black Republican jobs as a Black spokesperson for the conservative Black audience, you got a good one. So. That’s what The Grifters do. 

Michael Harriot [00:06:26] And the next one are The Converts. Right. So there are some people who have been converted over to the Republican side right. Now, among these people, they are three kinds. So they are people who were not that smart or who were pushed away by progressives or did something bad and they felt that they were attacked, so it was like, I’ll just go over here with the Republicans. And you see that a lot. Who is an example of someone who was pushed away by the Democratic Party or criticized by the Democratic Party and became a Republican? Well, one of the best examples of that is like Briahna Joy. Right? Like she was Bernie Sanders spokesperson. Right. And she was very, very, very, very, very liberal. And she was so liberal that she was against the Democratic establishment. And that Democratic establishment is, in real time we can see it now, kind of morphing into being against all the Democrats. And then because she’s against all the Democrats now, it’s almost like, she will call herself a Republican, but she’ll embrace like Tucker Carlson. And right wing conspiracy theories cause and here’s the second kind of convert. 

Michael Harriot [00:08:01] There are people who believe that they are smarter than everybody else. Right. Some democratic converts become converts because they are essentially contrarians. And they believe like they believe that they are so smart that they show their intelligence not by, you know, coming up with new ideas or citing facts, but by opposing something that people who are already considered smart say. So if I could say something that is opposite from what a smart person said, you and I might consider that stupid, but because people already consider me smart. I went to Harvard. I am a degreed person. Then I’ll become a contrarian. And then that contrarian slowly starts to slide over to anti-progressive. Anti-the thing that I always believed, because they are more invested in their contrarianism than politics or freedom or equality. Let’s continue this conversation on the next episode of theGrio Daily. If you like what you’ve heard, please give us a five star review. Download theGrio app. Subscribe to the show and share it with everyone you know. Please email all questions, suggestions and compliments to podcasts at theGrio dot com. 

[00:09:42] You are now listening to theGrio’s Black Podcast Network, Black Culture Amplified.