Florida State Seminoles

[eCat]

Everything IB knows about black folks he learned from watching "Blackish".

What's funny is older black folks are often very socially conservative. The republican party has done a horrible job of courting them. Ditto hispanics. My best friend is black. He is waaaaaaaay more conservative than I am, and while that's just a single anecdotal account, it is not uncommon in my experience. To hear him talk about gay marriage, welfare, gun control, and a hundred other things, you would be convinced that you were speaking with a stalwart leader of the republicans.

so how do you court them?

[Bklyn]

I'm not telling...but dog whistling to racists is a place to start.

My Dad is super conservative, but probably only voted for, Ron in '84, Bush 41 and probably Ike. He may not have voted for Bush, either, after Lee Atwater ran that Willie Horton ad, but I'm not sure. He probably still voted for him.

[sardis]

When we lived at the gated community in Charlotte, the neighbors to the left of us were black and more conservative than us with regards to social issues and moderate on fiscal. They supported Obama because, I'm sure, there was a chance that US could make history. I'm guessing they had no idea that Obama would eventually unleash the homos and transgenders during his time in the White House, but maybe they wouldn't have changed anyway.

I thought that Trump would have brought on more African Americans with the economic and immigration issue, but it didn't end up happening. Probably proves that the Republicans poisoned the waters too much in the past.

[Cletus]

When we lived at the gated community in Charlotte, the neighbors to the left of us were black and more conservative than us with regards to social issues and moderate on fiscal. They supported Obama because, I'm sure, there was a chance that US could make history. I'm guessing they had no idea that Obama would eventually unleash the homos and transgenders during his time in the White House, but maybe they wouldn't have changed anyway.

I thought that Trump would have brought on more African Americans with the economic and immigration issue, but it didn't end up happening. Probably proves that the Republicans poisoned the waters too much in the past.

Treating people with respect and decency = unleash the homos and transgenders. Nice

[eCat]

I'm not telling...but dog whistling to racists is a place to start.

so lets assume "the racists" who vote are going to choose between the two parties

you think many racists are going to go with the Democrats who court minorities?

Republicans can reject racist supporters but all it takes is David Duke to say he is going to vote for Trump and now the republicans are the party of racists.

so again I would ask - how do you as a republican party court minorities?

[eCat]

I'm guessing they had no idea that Obama would eventually unleash the homos and transgenders during his time in the White House, but maybe they wouldn't have changed anyway.

When you have 92% of a race voting for candidate of the same race, they aren't voting politics.

[Jungle Rat]

To be fair, and I don't play politics but this guy is an actual good friend of mine. I met him in rehab.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Ney

[Bklyn]

I'm not telling...but dog whistling to racists is a place to start.

Republicans can reject racist supporters but all it takes is David Duke to say he is going to vote for Trump and now the republicans are the party of racists.

so again I would ask - how do you as a republican party court minorities?

You think that the problem is when a racist supports a candidate...or aligns with a party...and not what the party does to court those voters? There are MOUNDS of papers and articles about the Southern Strategy, Nixon, Reagan rhetoric, gerrymandering, voting rights denials, legislative segregation and a long list of other actors/phenomena that made a whole generation of Black Republican voters turn and leave the Party.

This conversation is almost weird for me to embark on. It's easily one of the most written about things in modern political history.

[Jungle Rat]

My mom liked squirrels

[eCat]

I don't agree with gerrymandering but if you align with republicans then why would you care about it?

But I'm not talking about shit that happened 40 years ago anyways, I'm asking what can the republican party do now to court African American voters.

[AlabamAlum]

It's a good question, eCat.

I think you have to take a page out of Kasich's playbook, first. Kasich, as you may remember, got over 25% of the black vote as governor - which, when compared with other republican governors' single digit black vote results, is extremely impressive.

1. Listen. Go to town halls in black communities, listen and make changes.

2. Don't refuse to admit that racism still exists and do what you can about it. For example, in a recent study by the American Hospital association they found that hospital admins were 72% more likely to interview an applicant for a leadership position if they were named Bill, Steve, or Mary instead of Tarique, LaShonda, or D'Angelo. Same resumes, only difference was the name. Hospitals aren't the only industry that does that.

3. Stop with rhetoric that just serves to divide and does nothing else. It's why Paul Ryan stopped his "Makers vs Takers" line and avoid things like what Maine's governor (who blamed the state's drug problem on black men named D'Money and Smoothie) did.

4. Get a prominent black person in republican leadership. No, not Ben Carson or Clarence who are both seen as milquetoast, establishment Uncle Toms of the party, but a voice that isn't scared to buck from the establishment and admit some things are still broken and thereby change the direction of the party. Think more Condi and Colin and the like.

5. Refuse to give racists a seat at the republican table. When David Duke gives his support, tell him you don't want it. Publicly. When the KKK supports a republican candidate, have that candidate say, "Well, that's nice and whatever, but I think that the world would be a better place if your group of hatred ceased to exist. Keep your votes." While both of these actions would be largely symbolic they would serve to keep those endorsements to a minimum and it would provide a line of demarcation. Those guys are "them". They are not "us".

There are other things, but this is a start.

[eCat]

I honestly don't think any of those things would attract more African American voters.

While Trump handled the question poorly saying he doesn't know anything about what David Duke is saying as opposed to the standard strong rebuke, I think it goes without saying that David Duke and any white supremacist doesn't have a seat or a voice in the Republican party. At the same time you can't stop a David Duke from being a republican or supporting Trump or any other candidate. You also can't stop African Americans from applying a transitive property saying that because David Duke supports Donald Trump, Donald Trump must be racist.

I will admit that the Alt right is different. I can see how people associate the alt right of aligning with white supremacist ideology but I don't think its that extreme and I believe its a knee jerk reaction. I personally believe its about questioning why its taboo for white presidents to identify with race but Obama wasn't held to the same standard. For that matter , it extends to politicians or any individual.

I believe many of the millennials who identify with the alt-right are asking a basic question - why is it OK for African Americans and Latinos to push for an agenda that favors them, but white's cannot? And I understand the standard response is going to be because the nation has a history of favoring whites, but a millenial born in 1990 doesn't give a flying fuck about any of that. They see Michael Jordan as wee see MLK. The first guy they voted for president was Obama.

They see the world at face value, not with a filter of the world pre-1964

I'm really not up to speed on the alt-right as it relates to abortion, gay marriage etc. as I mostly only hear about the racial viewpoints of it.

[AlabamAlum]

Okay.

[eCat]

I think its easy to say listen to community leaders and change

but what are you going to change?

while the GOP has let Americans down over the decades with their vision of smaller government

the basic premise of the conservative voter is small, less intrusive government with a push handling more problems at the state and local levels.

All you have to do is look at the demographics of Washington D.C. to understand , at least in my opinion, that the African American community does not want nor will ever vote for a diminished role in the federal government applying policy across the nation and pushing for individual states to determine what is best for them.

With that in mind, I ask, what can the republican party do to cater to African Americans, without turning into the Democratic party?

I think it would be hard to give specifics of any magnitude that stays true to conservative roots.

Take immigration for example - 12 years ago the Paul Ryans of the world decided that the only way conservatives would win an election was to cater to latinos. Rubio got elected on a tea party ticket and immediately reached across the aisle to implement some form of Amnesty with the gang of 8. Jeb Bush identified as being Mexican. Even Ted Cruz jumped on board - all the while ignoring the polls from their base that said American conservatives do not support amnesty and will not support immigration reform without securing the border first.

Consequently McCain and Romney danced around immigration and they lost. Trump makes its a focal point of his platform - he leads with it matter of fact, and is a wrecking ball to the rest of the party who tries to play catchup and distance themselves from their pro-immigration stances to bring more voters into the Republican party.

[eCat]

Don't refuse to admit that racism still exists and do what you can about it. For example, in a recent study by the American Hospital association they found that hospital admins were 72% more likely to interview an applicant for a leadership position if they were named Bill, Steve, or Mary instead of Tarique, LaShonda, or D'Angelo. Same resumes, only difference was the name. Hospitals aren't the only industry that does that.

One last thing on that.

Did that study also find that people named Bubba, Billy Bob, Eunice and Ima Jean were just as likely to be turned down? Or did they bother to see if there was stereotyping in a host of names, not just a preference for bland unassuming names?

[AlabamAlum]

Robot truck drivers. Fast food workers being replaced by machines. Automation is coming to just about every manual labor job and those jobs aren't coming back. This will impact our economy more that any of us realize, I believe.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/when-the-ro ... 00-10aac3a

[Saint]

Besides not admitting there is still racism with regard to hiring, police stops, profiling, there is still the idea that the GOP caters to to the upper-economic strata and rightfully so. That's not saying that a large portion of the Dems (and not all GOP lawmakers do either) don't do the same thing but it has the overall effect of making lower-income voters, particularly black voters, think the GOP isn't for them. Take for instance, minimum wage. I don't think an automatic hike is going to benefit those earners the way they think it will because it will just mean higher prices on everything for everyone. But while the Dems are pushing that to get votes, the GOP is just refusing it. Why not work toward wage equality with a plan that will work instead of just refusing any attempt towards that while the right-wing media howls about shit like "wealth envy" (which I might add is the driving force of capitalism). If the GOP is truly for a bootstrap economic system, it should work harder to show people there is a way out of wage poverty instead of continually catering to the 1%.

Also, the GOP isn't doing itself any favors by enacting voter restriction laws, such as ID cards. I don't think that is a bad idea in and of itself but it assumes that people just go get one themselves, like they do drivers licenses, etc. Voting is a right not a privilege so maybe the GOP should have come out (and I'm talking about the GOP in NC) and said, you have to have an ID card to vote but because this could be an economic hardship, we are going to issue free ID cards to everyone. Then there wouldn't be as much of a notion that it was done to limit nonGOP voters.

Finally, rolling back environmental regulations is not a good look when it comes to attracting poor voters as they are often the ones who are adversely affected by few environmental laws.

There are a lot of people who think the GOP doesn't promote a rich (upper middle class at least), white agenda and maybe that's true in many cases, but there is plenty of that going on and the GOP really has stumbled over itself repeatedly in attracting lower income and minority voters. I don't think the Democratic philosophy is very sound but often it has more appeal on human terms than what the GOP offers, particularly over the last 20 years as partisanship has become the guiding force in DC.

Sorry for the disjointed thoughts. We're trying to do a solar oven science project in the driveway right now.

[eCat]

yes I would agree the GOP has a rep for catering to big business and I've never been sold on the idea of trickle down economics. In there beliefs, I think they can honestly say that all ships rise with the tide - make a guy a millionaire by giving him an opportunity and in return he hires people, spends money and everyone benefits. Reduce regulation for a small business owner and now he can make a profit - and now you put a few more people into the middle class. The problem is all we hear about is Goldman Sachs , Wells Fargo and the like where they have an effect on the economy hurting the regular people.

I've also harped on here for a living wage for years

but the danger of the living wage is the article AA just posted.

If I have to pay 12 people a $15 an hour wage then I'll just buy a robotic burger maker for $100K and run that sumbitch night and day making burgers, and retain 3 people to keep it stocked. Get my money back in a couple of years and then be able to reduce prices across the board or increase my profits. More money for me and 13 guys better figure out how to build, repair and/or maintain robots if they want a job.

Honestly I've never been too concerned with robotics replacing jobs - someone still has to build the robots, keep the supply chain going, write the code, maintain the robots, etc so the shift will be from the mundane jobs to the focus of keeping the machines going. From horses to trains to cars to airplanes - the history has been technology results in overall job creation, not job reduction. But there are going to be people left behind - and jobs like truck driving were one of the last bastions a non skilled, non educated person could go into and earn a wage capable of paying for the American dream.

Some people believe that isn't true with the technology that is coming up but I do believe freeing up man from the rote tasks makes him more creative and results in an improvement in our lives - and GDP grows because of it.

in the 90's an entire industry developed around silicon valley that was once the domain of Texas Instruments and IBM. The result was many , many millionaires who created technology Americans didn't even know they needed, made their lives easier, and threatened to replace workers. In some cases it did - but the technology also reduced the amount of work and knowledge necessary for the unskilled entry level worker to be more productive. It allowed some workers to work at home, increased their wages and freed them up to do things like fuck around on message boards all day.

I'm not sure rolling back environmental regulations hurts the poor - at least not in the pocket book. Of course they may see increased cases of cancer and what not, but in theory it would result in more jobs and typically those jobs would be living wage related jobs.

I personally can't wait to have a car drive me to where I tell it to go and I can jerk off to porn or whatever, and when I come home I have my iRobot making spaghetti and toast (the RIGHT way) and mowing the yard.

I agree about the gerrymandering and voter restrictions laws but then again, anyone pissed off by that isn't or wasn't going to vote GOP to begin with , right?

[Saint]

The gov't can't solve everyone's problems but I've always believed in effective gov't, regardless of how intrusive it may be. I think we see where lack of regulations will lead us because people are inherently greedy and self-centered and we certainly can all have better lives if we work together. But our political spectrum has turned into all or none and nobody is willing to work toward anything that hurts their party.

I think we who were born in the late 50s and 60s have to realize that the comforts we experienced in our childhoods such as affordable housing and healthcare are probably not going to come this way again. We've traded in necessities for cheaper technology and that's not a good thing. My great-grandchildren (if they exist) will be fighting for water and food.

[Professor Tiger]

IMHO, the GOP Establishment really does only care about making millionaires into billionaires, and not much else.

The current Democrat party only cares about LGBT's, blacks, Muslims, immigrants, feminists, Silicon Valley and Hollywood.

We need more parties. These two suck.