I had a long rambling conversation with my good pal David Thursday. He was staying in Westwood for a short while, taking care of some business on this coast. David and I go way back. The conversation wandered over to black politics. Well actually it went a lot of directions around that subject which gave me an opportunity to review what I am thinking with a real live brain.
My thesis these days (and I am not long likely to spout off about it as I ramp back up into the old career) is that there is some inevitability that blacks in the middle class and upper middle will migrate to the Republican party. My expectation is that within 10-15 years blacks will at least triple their representation from somewhere around 3-5% up to 15%. This is a modest goal and one I'm confident will take place, but it depends entirely upon the ability of these black Americans to make sense of their class interests. That may be a bigger hurdle than anyone suspects.
The fundamental axiom is this: There is only one black interest in American public policy which is driven by race and not class. That is the principle of anti-racism in all of its manifestations. Whatever else blacks ask of politicians today, is generally subsumed into everything the Democratic Party has done since the Depression. Consequently if all the blackfolks bolted that party, Democrats would still largely do the same things they have always done, just as Howard Dean clumsily suggested in his appeal to Southern whitefolks.
The 'natural' affinity between blacks and the Democrats is strictly class-based. Since the majority of African Americans are {poor, working poor, working class, lower middle class} their 'permanent' interest lie with the Left. Importantly, the historical imperative of the Talented Tenth has been to raise all boats of the race. This coincides with the aims of the Great Society programs. Unionization plays into this as well. It's all about getting people from square one to three squares a day. This is the logical consequence of all the assertions against the wisdom of being a black Republican. In return the Democrats tend to their specifically black constituency with very marginal pork. But, get this, the major content of that pork is rhetoric.
Rhetorical Patronage
I challenge anyone to show exactly what it is that the Democrats have done for African Americans that they haven't done for everyone else. Whatever you find, I will bet my nickel that it doesn't get any larger than a quarter of a billion in any one program out of the Federal budget. But what the Democrats do that the Republicans don't is insure that they say a lot of nice things about blackfolks. The dirty little secret is that this covers a lot of what the black electorate will settle for. If you ask someone who hates the idea of Black Republicans what it is that the Democrats will give blacks that the Republicans won't, it will all come down to warm and fuzzies. Try it. Get them to name programs when they disagree. Materially, most folks are hard pressed to talk about black patronage in dollars and cents. But they know what kind of rhetoric they like. Ask how much federal money goes to support HBCUs. Nobody knows. Ask what kind of support Affirmative Action should get and you'll hear a litany of legalese words, qualifications, provisos, tests, and other verbal requirements. What a twist of fate! It's not all about the Benjamins.
The corollary to this dirty little secret is that there is a significant amount of black resentment of 'Hispanic' politics. Why? Hispanics will get the same benefits from the Democratic party as blacks do. More in fact, when there are more Latinos than blacks. And the slap across the face of racial loyalty is that the Congressional Black Caucus is delivering up that agenda. Everything they have traditionally wanted in the Democratic tradition based on the class needs of the race applies doubly to new immigrant latinos at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.
Black Bipartisanship
I believe that since the Democratic party is going to stay its course with our without black voters, black political interests are better served throught bipartisanship. It may very well be the case that Republicans have nothing to offer blacks at all, but I find that doubtful. I think the Republican Party will serve the class interests of its traditional constituency, and since many blacks are parts of those classes they will benefit too. But this begs the question of party loyalty vs racial loyalty.
I'm going to refine and complete this over at Vision Circle, because it will sit here in draft form forever if I don't publish it soon. There's a lot more detail to this including Ideology. But the open secret is that a sizeable part of black America is conservative. They just don't like rednecks, snooty WASPs and American Gothic-type Protestants. But let me not get ahead of myself. I'll simply say that the ideological desires of African Americans are not coming from and will not come from the Parties. That is to say that black values are organically generated from their history and circumstances, not from Party thought. So the black vote should be more realpolitik than it is, but isn't because of this false fidelity to Democratic rhetoric.
The great opportunity and irony is that blacks would vote for a Republican who said the right things, but they are suspicious that the stuff that makes one a Republican renders one incapable of moral authority. They are Bush Haters like the rest of the Bush Haters. But I know other secrets too.
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