The ‘Party of Lincoln’ Has a Long Way to Go

Some years ago, Tom Getty, a Democratic South Carolina congressman, noted that Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation ensured that the South would vote Democratic for a century, while Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the Voting Rights Act guaranteed that the region would turn Republican for the following 100 years.

Republican leaders frequently talk about making the “party of Lincoln” more inclusive by extending a welcoming hand to African Americans. The prospect of the party becoming a “big tent” is an inspiring idea, but so far it has been a disingenuous call. Far too many Republican ideas, appointees and aims threaten the basic survival instincts of African Americans who have had to navigate through an environment that was too often hostile at best. As heirs to a history filled with broken promises, even the least sophisticated blacks closely examine the motivations of any politician seeking their support.

As an observer and child of what my deeper Southern cousins called the “upper South,” it seems to me that if we are not careful, we may repeat the behavior and ways of those decades that immediately followed the Civil War, a time when leaders of the Democratic Party joined hands with the old Southern ruling class, former slave-owners and poor agrarian whites to destroy the rights of the recently freed slaves.

Today, that old “Dixiecrat” image has been supplanted by a new type of Southern politician, now more than likely Republican and catering to the special interests of well-to-do retirees, social conservatives living in small rural towns, suburbanites, religious conservatives and reactionary think tanks.

In the eight years since Bob Dole last ran for president, the Republican Party has increased its membership by 50% in Florida, Louisiana and North Carolina and by a third in Arizona and New Mexico. The bulk of this growth has come at the expense of the Democratic Party. The seeds of the GOP’s “Southern strategy” can be traced back to the Richard Nixon administration and the 1969 publication of Kevin Phillips’ “The Emerging Republican Majority.” I believe that this Southernization of the Republican Party has the ability to metamorphose itself and spread to all corners of the nation. Strom Thurmond, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey and Pat Robertson are the embodiment of this pernicious storm blowing across the hopes and dreams of many citizens and leaving in its wake a barren reality.

These men proselytize for less government, fewer taxes, a politically active role for the religious community and school vouchers that will help finance more evangelical schools, not really improve the public schools. They also speak in coded terms that demand a more oppressive, punitive program toward ethnic minorities, women, the less able and newly arrived immigrants.

What is most intriguing about this new Southern Republican dogma of low taxes and low service is the reality that their region has contributed the least in taxes yet been the recipient of the largest share of federal government largess in the form of airports, roads, military bases and agricultural supplemental payments.

Since the 1994 election that brought the Republican Party into leadership positions in both houses of Congress, the government has been fraught with factional, ideological battles that have sidestepped most of the major issues facing this country. Few solutions have been offered to address the problems of the aging baby boom generation, a slow dissolution of the middle class, a growing class of illiterates, armed militias and wayward urban youth sporting guns, high levels of incarceration and declining health and retirement benefits.

Republicans should consider a more workable agenda for the entire nation, not one that just appeals to the special interests of a few. Without a meaningful, honest dialogue, Republicans cannot expect blacks to join or vote with their party in any substantial numbers.