There has been a lot of talk about America's changing demographics and increasing diversity with predictions of impending doom for the GOP. However for the time being, the U.S. is still very much a majority white country. The latest statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau puts the U.S. white population at 77.7%, black population at 13.2%, and Latino population at 17.1%. I'm a flight attendant who travels across the U.S. frequently and I can see this myself. There are times when I work flights when I'd be the only black person on a plane full of 100+ people.
The GOP is well aware of these statistics. This has played a central role in their political maneuvering. They've tried to exploit this through something called the Southern Strategy which has been much talked about here on Dkos.
Join me over the jump as I delve more into this...
The Republican Southern Strategy and Obama
The southern strategy in a nutshell is a political tactic used by Republicans to drive a wedge between majority white America and the minority population to exact maximum political gain for the GOP. Republicans have been doing this for a long time. Nixon and Reagan employed this strategy rather successfully to win landslide electoral victories. The Republicans continue to use the Southern Strategy today to some degree of success especially at the congressional and state levels of government where they currently hold majorities. However, this strategy ran into a wall when they face off with a political phenomenon named Barack Obama in presidential politics. It seems the southern strategy has finally met its Waterloo at the presidential level. But before we conclude that, let's examine this further::
One of the biggest aspects of the Republican strategy against Obama has been to ghettoize and marginalize him... to make him less than palatable to white America. They've tried desperately to incite the majority white population to turn against him. We've seen from the onset of Obama's run for the Presidency how Republican outlets like Fox News falsely reported with glee that Obama attended a muslim Madrassa while growing up in Indonesia. Then tried to tie him to the controversial rhetoric of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright whose church he once attended. Then gave a national platform to birther conspiracy theorists questioning his legitimacy and citizenship. Then sponsored and fanned the flames of the racist reactionary Tea Party movement. And if that wasn't overt enough, the deranged right wing lunatic and Fox News host at the time, Glenn Beck, went on Fox & Friends and made the following statement:
Then we saw more recently Rudy Guiliani picking up the baton after Beck when he asserted boldly:
“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani reportedly said during a private dinner in New York. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”
Other personalities in the GOP have been relatively less caustic but equally clear with their messaging in their attacks on the President. Take Newt Gingrich calling Obama the "
food stamp president". The dog whistle is more than clear there.
This effort to marginalize Obama and present him as some sort of radical ethnic threat is an intentional and concerted effort by Republicans to drive a wedge between the President and majority white America. It's part and parcel of their Southern Strategy. This has continued almost unabated throughout Obama's tenure in office. However, Republicans have ran into two major roadblocks which have thwarted their execution of this strategy nationally against Obama:
Roadblock #1: The personality and political skills of Obama
Roadblock #2: White Liberals
Let's look further into these two roadblocks to see exactly how they are thwarting the Republican Southern Strategy:
The Personality and Political Skills of Obama
For the Southern Strategy to work effectively, a critical mass of white Americans have to be willing to buy into the Republican caricature of Obama as a radical black man seeking to destroy America as they know it and exact revenge against the white majority. However Obama himself makes this very difficult for Republicans. When most reasonable whites (who tend to be liberal) look on Obama there is a disconnect between the caricature presented to them from the right and what they see for themselves. They see a highly educated man, thoughtful in his ways, tolerant and inclusive in his ideology, not given to anger or violence, devoted father and husband, inspirational orator, not fitting of any ethnic stereotype. Even some whites who may not agree with all of his policies, can't get themselves to hate the man the way Republicans would like. That is why Obama has managed to maintain a consistently high likeability rating even when his job approval numbers are underwater. This has been a major roadblock for Republicans as they seek to incite white America against the President.
Obama and the White Vote
When Barack Obama won re-election in 2012 there was much hand wringing and soul searching on the GOP side about how they so spectacularly lost an election they thought they should have won. They were convinced that Obama would be a one-term President. They did everything in their power to set the stage up for that: unprecedented obstruction, sabotage at every turn, questioning his legitimacy from the onset, whipping up their racist base against him etc. There was much debate within their ranks. Republicans wondered aloud how they would move forward as a party. There was talk of minority outreach as the party digested election results showing how the GOP got creamed in almost every minority demographic you can think of.
There were endless discussions in the media about Obama's very strong performance among the minority demographics which make up his winning coalition especially the 71% Latino (fastest growing voter demographic in the U.S.) support he received which helped to push him over the top. However two statistics that probably caused the most heartburn for Republicans but got lost in the post-election discussion were: 59% and 39%. These were the percentage of the white vote that Romney and Obama received respectively. Romney won whites, who made up 72% of the 2012 electorate, by a 20% margin against Obama... the largest winning margin of the white demographic by a Republican since Reagan's victory in 1984.
This caused heartburn for Republicans because it was the clearest indication yet that the southern strategy had become a spent force in Presidential elections. Here they had a candidate, Romney, winning a solid majority of the majority population yet still ended up losing anyways. It means Republicans could not safely rely on the white vote anymore. It upended their world. They felt like fish out of water. This is what all their weeping and gnashing of teeth was about. This is why right wing agitator Ann Coulter declared at the time: "there is no hope".
The 39% of the white vote that Obama received was very important because it created a safe buffer zone which padded his high margins in minority voter demographics allowing Obama to stitch together a wining coalition that could overcome Romney's strong performance in the white majority population. Although he got just 39% of the white vote, a majority of the total votes cast for Obama nationwide still came from white voters. That's how powerful the white voter demographic remains in American politics.
To further illustrate this point consider this: all other factors been equal, if whites voted for Romney the way Latinos voted for Obama, Romney would have easily won in a landslide. If whites voted for Romney the way Asians voted for Obama, Romney would have won an even bigger landslide. If whites voted for Romney the way blacks voted for Obama, Obama and the Democrats would have been decimated. We'd be looking at what would have been a 49 state victory for Romney (Hawaii been the likely exception) with GOP super-majorities in both houses of Congress. There would be no more blue states left. The Democratic party would be done as we know it. (Obama received 93% of the Black vote, 73% of the Asian vote, and 71% of the Latino vote in 2012).
Those Meddling White Liberals
So who are these 39% of whites who pull the lever for Obama in 2012? The majority of them are white liberals. They've refused to go along with the Republican Southern Strategy. They hear the racist dog whistles coming from the right but they refuse to respond. They make up the majority of the demographic here on Daily Kos. They've been with the Democratic Party through thick and thin. I like to think of them as "whites with a conscience". People who are willing to look beyond their privilege as members of the majority population and acknowledge the rights and humanity of minorities and others those less fortunate than them.
According to the calculations of Chris Cilliza of the Wahsington Post. Romney could have won the election in 2012 if he had gotten anywhere between 62-65% of the white vote. He very well would've gotten away with it if wasn't for you meddling white liberals.
There are times when I experience things in this country as a black man that make me shake my head and wonder if this is an irredeemably racist country. However every now and then I would meet a white person, whether in real life or online who give me hope that America can live up to its better ideals. This is a paradox of America. For all the hate out there, there is still enough good left which continue to inch this country forward towards a more perfect union.
That is why, in this age of heightened racial sensitivity, it is important not to paint all whites with the same brush. There are good whites out there who have joined blacks along in the way in our fight for greater justice. Whites who risked their lives and careers during the Civil Rights Movement to end segregation. Who helped to enact Civil Rights Legislation in Congress. Who Signed them into law as President. Who overturned discriminatory laws on the Supreme Court. Who have been our allies in the fight against racism.
The Democratic party has a fragile coalition due in part to the diversity of the various groups under our big tent. There are many things that could potentially divide us. The Republicans would love nothing more than to pick the Democratic coalition apart. They know that a united Democratic party is unbeatable. As Kos often says, when Democrats turn out and vote we win. Our strength is in our unity. We are allies in this together. Each group helping the other get further towards their objectives.