Last
week I had a very long conversation with a major political operative
about whether there was a role for Blacks in the Republican Party, on
congressional staffs, on campaign staffs, or the various presidential
campaigns.
The
simple response is that the Republican Party is racist; they don’t care
about Blacks; and they don’t think they need the Black vote.
But,
as me and this operative discussed, it has less to do with race and
more to do with the “institutions” of the Republican Party.
The
party’s institutions, by nature, tend to do the things they are
comfortable and familiar with; and they are no longer comfortable or
familiar with the Black community.
The
Republican National Committee (RNC), to my knowledge, has never had a
Black finance director, chief of staff, communications director, etc. I rarely, if ever, encountered a Black staffer in non-traditional roles within the party.
I
am not aware of any Black campaign manager for a major office seeker,
or executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee
(NRCC) or the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).
So,
the typical argument is that they can’t find any “qualified” Blacks (as
though they have a plethora of “unqualified” Blacks); or they can’t
find Blacks with the necessary experience. Well,
somehow they seem to always be able to find Buffy and Biff for all sorts
of jobs within the various party structures; and the reason is very
simple—people tend to hire people they know or people that are referred
to them by people they respect.
So, these issues have less to do with race and more to do with relationships. Party operatives hire their friends and their friend’s friends Unless
you have party leaders who are totally committed to the issue of
diversity and willing to radically alter the “institutions” of the
Republican Party; there will never be an appreciable level of Black
participation in the party.
My
decades of experience within this party lead me to conclude that the
party doesn’t have the bandwidth necessary to change the face of the
party; any change in regards to the issue of diversity will have to be
forced upon the party from the outside.
This might even include losing yet another presidential election.
I agree with many Republicans that something extraordinary happened last week. Marco
Rubio, a Cuban, was endorsed by Nicky Haley, governor of South Carolina
of Indian descent and Tim Scott, a U.S. Senator from South Carolina and
Black.
The Democratic Party can only dream of having this type of diversity. But where are the Black staffers for Rubio’s campaign? Where are the Blacks on Haley’s staff? Tim Scott has an impeccable record when it comes to diversity on his staff.
But
this surface diversity means absolutely nothing unless and until you
diversity the very structures at every level of the Republican Party. The
irony of all ironies is that Donald Trump is the only presidential
candidate to have any Blacks on his staff in any significant positions;
Blacks that he doesn’t want to be invisible.
Trump is the only candidate to speak about how poorly Blacks have fared under Obama or meet with Black preachers. Trump hired Derek Hankerson as a Regional Director based upon a reference by BlakPac Chair George Farrell.
Trump
is considered a political disruptor by the establishment; but yet he
seems to be the only Republican that sees any value in the Black vote. In
other words, he seems to be the only candidate that is willing to think
outside the box when it comes to the conventional views of the Black
vote.
Maybe a
Trump candidacy is what is needed to disrupt this stagnant party and its
very institutions when it comes to the Black vote.
Trump can easily get north of 15% of the Black vote simply by cultivating relations with the Black business community. Sadly,
this is the one group most ignored by the Republican Party; the one
group that is most philosophically in synch with the Republican message
is the one group that no one pays attention to.
Could
this be part of the reason the establishment is so afraid of a Trump
candidacy; that he will radically change the face of the various
institutions of the Republican Party?
In
the immortal words of the great poet, George Bernard Shaw, “the
reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends upon the unreasonable man.”
Maybe
Trump is unreasonable enough to literally change the face of the party
and by so doing end up being elected to be the next president of these
United States. Just something that’s worth thinking about.
No comments:
Post a Comment