Why did it happen? Why is the George Bush
Republican Party repudiating the policies which put Republicans in
power? The core reason is probably because the old northeast
liberal Rockefeller Republican attitudes from which the Bush
family comes is reasserting power in the Republican Party.
Rockefeller Republicans have no use for conservative Southerners
and our views.
Republicans also dropped the Southern
Strategy because of the fight over abortion and church/state
issues. Mehlman’s apology at the NAACP convention was merely the
public acknowledgment of a decision which was actually made in
1994, the year George Bush ran for Governor of Texas.
The fight over abortion and separation of
church and state politicized the religious right. And one of its
chief strategists was Ralph Reed, once head of the Christian
Coalition, now Republican political strategist, influence peddler,
and candidate for Georgia Lt. Governor.
At a 1994 meeting in Atlanta, led by then party
chief Haley Barbour (now Governor of Mississippi), Republican
strategists made a major decision: Republicans should go for the
black vote. The reasoning seems to have been this: Most blacks are
religious, and they are religious conservatives.
Once you get past civil rights issues like
affirmative action and economic liberalism, most blacks are
fundamentalist Christians, social traditionalists who like the
idea of the Ten Commandments, prayer in schools, traditional
social values, and opposition to abortion—core convictions of the
religious right. Since those things are increasingly what the
Republican Party is about, Republicans decided to recruit blacks.
The party decided to downplay or disavow any issue which could
potentially impede that goal.
Republican strategists see Southern Heritage as
perhaps the party’s biggest obstacle to winning increased black
support, and they are as opposed to it as is the NAACP. But
Republicans want to keep their southern white base even as they
desert it.
The NEW Republicans are erasing Southern
Heritage with a low, but effective, profile. They let Jesse
Jackson, Bill Bradley, Al Gore, Zell Miller, and other Democrats
get the anti-heritage publicity, while Republicans act more
quietly. For example, Democrat Roy Barnes reduced the Confederate
Battle Flag to a postcard on the Georgia Flag, but Republican
Sonny Perdue removed it entirely!
The stakes are very high, and involve
Republican plans at the highest levels. The Party plans to run the
country for the next several decades. Anyone, any idea, any group
which threatens that ambition is a target.
Many strategies are at work against Southern
Heritage, and Republican operatives are doubtless involved in some
of them. One of the best ways to destroy the effectiveness of
groups working to save our Old South/Confederate inheritance is by
dividing and misleading them--—by whatever means and tactics.
Republicans have a very strong influence in Southern heritage
organizations, so it’s easy for Party operatives to engage in
disruptive tactics intended to mislead, manipulate, and divide
individuals and organizations.
Politically active Southern Heritage groups
like GHC are inviting targets for attack by these Party
operatives. GHC is high profile, and criticizes both parties. I
expect organized efforts to discredit GHC are being planned if not
already activated. The tactics will all be aimed at discrediting
our organization and our views, painting us a radicals,
irrelevant, and ultimately, hoping to shut down our organization
if possible. It’s the price we pay for doing the right thing.
