The NEW Republican Party vs. Southern Heritage - Commentary by Randy Phillips
Most Southerners vote Republican. We’ve done it going on twenty years, as conservative Democrats have
retired, died, switched parties, or been defeated. Southern heritage supporters are probably even more 'Republican' than other Southerners, partly because
Democrats have so openly embraced the ongoing campaign to erase our region’s old south/Confederate inheritance.
Southerners concerned about the South’s cultural heritage should end their allegiance to the
Republican Party. Here’s why.
The Republican Party grew to modern dominance because of the Southern Strategy initiated by Barry Goldwater’s
presidential campaign (which also ended the dominance of the GOP by eastern liberal “Rockefeller Republicans”). The Southern Strategy was based on
states rights, limited government, and opposition to judicial activism which had lead to forced school busing, racial quotas, ending school prayer,
and other liberal social and political policies which were and are out of step with both Southern and national sentiment—--but embraced by the national
Democratic Party.
The Republican Party has now publicly repudiated the
Southern Strategy.
Ken Mehlman, the Bush-Rove
Chairman of the Republican National Committee, spoke at the NAACP national convention on July 14, and in the words of USA Today...
“...marked the first
time a top Republican Party leader has denounced the so-called Southern Strategy employed by Richard Nixon and other Republicans to peel away white
voters in what was then the heavily Democratic South.”
Repudiation of the Southern Strategy by the Republican Party is a repudiation of
Southerners.
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.
Randy Phillips is a former State Representative and Director of GHC's Governmental Affairs.
Related Links
Georgia vs. Downtown Atlanta