Republicans are Racist. Now What?

Trump’s strategy of inflaming racial tensions to win elections is effective but can be readily countered by the exact same tactics that pre-Trump Republicans used against Democrats.

Oceans of digital ink have been spilled by agonizing liberals in trying to decide if Trump supporters are racist and, if so, to what degree. As a minority raised in the South, I believe that most Trump supporters are definitely racist, though they wouldn’t consider themselves such, are only shallowly racist, and that racism only makes up a small part of their overall identities and experiences. Most of them are actually friendly with some minorities and most wouldn’t, in real life, intentionally treat a non-white person differently than a white person. That said, they do express racist sentiments, have very little sympathy for situations that only affect minorities, and are generally characterized by a perpetual victim mentality that makes it easy for them to justify doing and saying anything because they think they are reacting to perceived aggression by liberals and minorities.

For the sake of intellectual honesty and moving the conversation forward, I will simplify by saying that yes Trump supporters are mostly racist and that there is absolutely nothing to be gained by trying to change their minds or getting liberals to understand their point of view. Instead, Liberals should accept that they are what they are and create strategies on how to achieve our policy objectives around that fact.

Trump’s recent remarks, where he told four congresswomen of color to “go back to your own countries” was blatantly racist but, predictably, approved of by the majority of trump supporters. It was a clever tactic because it forces Democrats to fight each other on how to respond while it forces Republicans to cleave together.

Moderate Democrats, like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, argue that we should ignore Trump’s racism entirely because any conversation about race makes most white people, even non racist white people, uncomfortable, and we don’t want to alienate the mostly white independent voters who might prove to be crucial in battleground states. Proponents of this view argue that 61 percent of the country is white, that white people disproportionately control the Electoral College because they dominate most of the lightly populated non coastal states, and that it’s not like minority voters have anywhere else to go if they are dissatisfied.

Progressives like AOC would argue that the demographics of the country are becoming increasingly less white, that minority voters could choose not to vote at all if they feel Democrats don’t care about their concerns on racism, and that since minorities, especially Hispanics, are far less likely to vote than white people, it might make more sense to stay ideologically pure and motivate more minorities to vote rather than compromise and end up getting votes from neither minorities nor independent whites.

The problem with both sides of the Democrat debate is this need to deal with the issue of racism as a moral rather than logistical problem. Moderates want to ignore racism to get white votes while Progressives want to shame racists into becoming good people. Both are terrible ideas. We can’t ignore racism because, besides being morally repugnant, it actually impacts the rights, lives, and economic well being of millions of Americans. We also can’t waste our limited time and energy trying to convert a group of people to a point of view which isn’t practically beneficial for them.

The Republican Party isn’t racist because white people are racist. White people are, in my experience, no more and no less racist than any other group of people. The Republican Party is racist because it is overwhelmingly white and so there are no political consequences for allowing racism and plenty of benefits in doing so. Racism is largely an inexpensive way for the rich, educated elite of the Republican Party (who generally aren’t racist themselves) to make poor, uneducated white people feel like they are getting something out of being a member of the party, i.e. a sense of tribal pride. You see a similar phenomenon in the Democrat Party when leaders wag their fingers at racist dialogue (like Trump’s remarks) while doing little to actually combat institutional racism. If the Republican Party was entirely Black, it would be a Black Nationalist Party. If it was entirely Brown, it would be a Brown Nationalist Party. As it happens to be entirely White, it has become a White Nationalist Party.

I can almost hear readers cringe. That is exactly our problem. Yes, the Republican Party has become a racist cult centered around one man, Donald Trump. We need to stop trying to wish away that fact or refuse to deal with the opposition until they stop being awful. That is the reality and now we need to decide how to deal with it in the way that best suits our interests. What do you when you want to motivate your base without alienating people not in your base? You start using Dog Whistles.

In the 1950’s, Racists would routinely inflame racial animosity in order to win votes. By the 60’s and 70’s that strategy no longer worked, so they hid racist goals under facially neutral policies like “State’s rights” or “Reducing the Welfare State.”

Today, Liberals need to do the same thing to combat racism. If white voters are uncomfortable talking about racism, we need to re-market policies to combat racism as something else. Instead of trying to get racists to care about Black Lives or Brown Lives or Muslim Lives or Gay Lives or any other kind of life that they will never care about, we can argue for “government accountability” as a way of reducing police discretion. Instead of talking about expanding Healthcare and Education as leveling the playing field for all Americans, we should couch them as “investing in America.” Instead of referring to the people abused by ICE as “immigrants” or, “brown people,” we should just refer to them as “women and children being held in cages.”

If Republicans bring up that they are illegal aliens, we ignore them and keep saying “women and children in cages.” If they say we are expanding big government, we ignore them and keep saying “investing in America.” If they say we don’t support the police, we ignore them and say “government accountability.” We keep ignoring whatever they say, completely refuse to engage in the conversation on their terms and keep pushing our version of events again and again, dominating headlines until Republicans are forced to talk about issues on our terms.

Hopefully, the day comes soon when racism is once again driven underground. For now, it’s here to stay and, as long as it does, we need to change our tactics if we want to be able to combat it.