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GOP: Losing Race by not Entering
On Monday, Arizona Republicans showed casual contempt and a dismissive attitude towards racial equality, and the public in Mesa, AZ saw it. The East Valley Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parade and Festival is a public-private partnership, with the City of Mesa officially involved in organizing and sponsoring the event. I will post photographs later, illustrating the parade as I did for Veterans’ Day, but what I saw, and did not see, prompts me to write before the day is gone.
What follows is a first-hand report of the parade: organization, the crowd, parade entrants, and the festival following the parade.
Parade Organization:
Unlike the Veterans’ Day parade, where a non-profit group has had primary responsibility for organization and funding over the years, today’s parade was a public-private partnership event. The City of Mesa takes lead responsibility:
The East Valley Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parade is a collaboration by the City of Mesa and Mesa Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Committee.
Once again, the Mesa Police Department ran a first-class operation, discreetly providing excellent security without a heavy hand.
The Crowd:
The crowd looked like Mesa. There were young families and senior citizens. Most of the people who lined the parade route, standing or sitting in folding camp chairs, were white or Hispanic, with apparently more blacks marching in the parade than lining the route. This reflects Arizona’s demographics, as reported by the US Census Bureau:
Race and Hispanic Origin
White alone, 83.1%
Black or African American alone, 5.0%
American Indian and Alaska Native alone,5.3%
Asian alone, 3.5%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, 0.3%
Two or More Races, 2.8%
Hispanic or Latino, 31.4%
White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, 54.9%
The Parade Entrants:
There was some overlap in participants between the Veterans’ Day Parade and the Martin Luther King Jr. Parade. Groups dedicated to commemorating African Americans’ participation in our military, especially the Buffalo Soldiers role in the American West, were in both parades. The Civil Air Patrol and Commemorative Air Force were sure to get in front of the public, as were some school bands, cheer, and dance groups. The Mesa and Chandler Police Departments marched, the Mesa PD band leading and the Chandler restomodded police cruiser lighting up the bubble light, siren, and tires.
Historically black churches were well represented in the parade, still core institutions in community life. Music radio stations were represented, while conservative talk stations were not, differing from the Veterans’ Day radio station contingent. A highlight of this parade, which was not in the most recent East Valley Veterans’ Parade, was a group of Buffalo Soldier reenactors, on foot and mounted.
There was little overt ideological messaging, except for a few hand-crafted signs and a few standard leftist chants. Police officers walked the route shaking hands and giving children “junior police” stickers. The overall atmosphere was positive and celebratory, complemented by a wonderful Arizona January day, shirt sleeves, a few fluffy clouds, and sunshine.
A Tale of Two Parties:
Witnessing today’s parade, seeing who showed up to march, or set up a booth, and who did not, brought to mind Justice Clarence Thomas’s indictment of the national GOP in My Grandfather’s Son (emphasis added):
…I’d come to realize, as I told a reporter, that “conservatives don’t exactly break their necks to tell blacks that they’re welcome.” Was it because they were prejudiced? Perhaps some of them were, but the real reason, I suspected, was that blacks didn’t vote for Republicans, nor did Democrats work with President Reagan on civil-rights issues. As a result there was little interest within the administration in helping a constituency that wouldn’t do anything in return to help the president. My suspicions were confirmed when I offered my assistance to President Reagan’s reelection campaign, only to be met with near-total indifference. One political consultant was honest enough to tell me straight out that since the president’s reelection strategy didn’t include the black vote, there was no role for me.
The Democrats showed up today. Two state legislative districts were proudly represented–as was Arizona State University, which has an East Valley campus–by their Democratic Party chapters. There was not a single self-identified Republican in the parade, which lasted over an hour, nor was there a single conservative group booth to be seen at the festival following the parade. This obvious snub is sitting at some level in the minds of all the parade viewers, ready to be activated by Democrats as they turn Arizona from reliably Republican to dependably Democrat.
A tweet is not sufficient engagement. Indeed, if you roll out this tweet, acknowledging you are aware of the holiday, your failure to show up becomes even more offensive:
“There is nothing more majestic and sublime than the quiet testimony of a people willing to sacrifice and suffer for the cause of freedom.”
This #MLKDay, we remember the impact Dr. King's life had on American civil rights and our dedication to building a more perfect union. pic.twitter.com/uzo48rKKh2
— AZ Republican Party (@AZGOP) January 21, 2019
Mitt Romney was rightly lambasted for writing off 47 percent of the American electorate. Donald Trump expressly reached out to all Americans who have been left behind, and continues to do so to this day. Romney, the “conservative” commentariat, and the Arizona GOP have shown they are not truly interested in being the Party of Lincoln, whereas President Trump, who they disdain or at best grudgingly acknowledge, has truly striven to gain back long-abandoned voters.
Laziness leads to losing. You can’t win if you don’t play. The fastest way to lose a race is by not showing up at the starting line.
Published in Politics
Three comments:
1) nice post. keep ’em coming.
2) with the Left declaring war on religious people, all religious people of every creed and heritage, need to band together.
3) listening to some MLK speeches today makes me realize he fits better with the Right than the Left.
You are dead right about our failure to play well at the local level for all kinds of events. We have elegant fund-raisers, luncheons and ladies teas while the Dems have rock music and picnics in the park for the whole family. Few of us run for city council as evidenced by the majority of Dems in charge of many of our cities. The result is we are seen as the party of the elites.
Mesa has been rated as the most conservative city of 250,000 or more people. That we did not show up is such a missed opportunity.
Please forgive me for this tangent, but I believe that South Carolina’s Tim Scott should be a Vice Presidental Candidate on the Republican ticket sooner rather than later. He is a pro-life, Tea Party conservative who can speak conservative values. He was born and raised in South Carolina. He can also speak to white folks like me for his being pulled over for “driving while black.”
I am sick and tired of us ceding black and Hispanic voters to the Democrats. If we don’t show up, we can’t win them over.
Republicans first emphasized equality in the 1860s. Republicans helped pass the Equal Rights Amendment out of Congress in the 1970s. May we return to our roots, and realize that the cries for equal treatment are really cries for freedom that burn within the heart of every American.
A big issue is that that few Republicans have MLK day off. It’s primarily a holiday for government workers, i.e. Democrats, and for others it’s just another work day that passes with hardly a notice. I had the day off during a stint working for the federal government, but not since.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had a far higher percentage of Republicans voting for it than Democrats. 80% or more of Republicans in the House and Senate voted for the bill. The votes by the Democrats were all less than 70% in the House and Senate.
Duplicate.
Great post, and so true. We don’t show up, we don’t do a thing, then we whine about how one sided things are.
Yes, AND note that the local party representatives are likely college students, who do have the day off.
I think that’s a mischaracterization of what he said. Stating facts should not be considered racist. If that’s the way the world is now, we are in a lot of trouble.
A Republican Party presence is almost an invitation to a world of hurt. I joined Ricochet back when Artur Davis was anti-Obamacare Democrat. Then he became a Republican, voted for Mitt Romney, and joined Ricochet. Apparently he he joined the Democrats in 2015.
Stacey Dash decided to vote for Mitt Romney and received a mountain of ridicule and probably lost Hollywood income for this action. This daughter of a Mexican-American mother and an African American father was apparently the only non-political black celebrity to endorse for Mitt Romney.
Then there is almost a chance that some Republican person could accidentally say something stupid on camera. The Republican Party should show up, but there are some of risks for this too.
I just listened to part of Ben Shapiro’s interview with Allen West who said that he hated the term “outreach” as the Republican Party or organizations like that need to be there all the time, but it’s not an easy task for most introverted white folk to venture into possible dangerous neighborhoods and to be viewed and confronted as the crazy outsider.
Thanks for sharing. This was disappointing to read. These are the type of posts that make this site so valuable.
In 2016, in Lake County, Calif, we had a Memorial Day parade that went down the Main Street of Lakeport. The only party represented during this important election year was the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. No traditional Dems and no Republicans at all were involved.
BTW, if you and your candidate(s) seek crowd appeal, and what candidates don’t? having a pony, or else a horse or two to help get the attention of the kids is a very simply employed solution.
I have come to believe Republicans do not want to win. They would prefer staying in the minority where they don’t have to lead–they only have to complain. When some major accident happens and they actually do gain power, the Republicans are totally unprepared and tend to just languish the time away, accomplishing not much, while awaiting anxiously to return the power to the Democrats. Nice report @cliffordbrown.
We ought to do more than show up. Rev. King did a great work for all Americans, and we should all express gratitude for that. Planning ahead for the next opportunity to do so is a good place to start.
I believe that but I also think there’s a certain facet that hates anything other than a calm rational discussion of principles and expecting people to buy in, as opposed to “going after” opposition.
I also think on minorities we don’t actively court because if you say “we’re against affirmative action because it’s bad” or “welfare has hurt more black families than helped”…it’s going viral as a “racist statement” so one keeps their mouths shut to not reveal themselves as lacking empathy.
Mitt tried to pander (the cringeworthy “who let the dogs out” video). But I thought his point was valid. It’s hard to run principle against “free stuff”
Ditto!
Everybody should break their necks to tell me that I am welcome.
You hit the nail on the head.
Failure is over-determined. There are millions of good reasons why conservatives, Republicans, &c. don’t do anything to assemble a majority coalition. One begins to desire that pundits at least tell us their pious hopes for how something could actually be done!
This was not a missed opportunity!
MLK Day is one of those Democrat holidays; government employees and bankers are the only ones who get the day off. The rest of the folks in attendance likely don’t work and rely on the government for subsistence – unemployed, retired, disabled or living off the largess of others.
On the other hand, we Conservatives were busy doing our jobs, making a paycheck, keeping our economy humming, paying our taxes. For most of us, this day was like every other.
The Left can have this day if they want it as long as they remember that opposition to the Civil Rights Act came from Democrats, not Republicans. (Of course they don’t and would never believe it if you proved it to be true. )
The problem wasn’t that it was racist. The implication of Romney’s statement was Republicans can’t win the votes of people who don’t pay taxes because they won’t benefit from “tax cuts for the rich.” OMG, it was both the complete acceptance of leftist narrative (Republicans only want to do favors for the rich) and an insult to people who would be taxpayers if they had a job that paid more!!
Such words should never cross a Republican’s lips. I’d call it tin-eared, but that would be too mild. It was simply idiotic. It should be the subtitle to a book called, How to Show Contempt for Ordinary Americans, by Mitt Romney.
If we allow MLK to be seen as a “Democrat Holiday”, that is a massive defeat. Frankly, I think that MLK may be the most overrated Americans in our history but that does not diminish the many great things that he said and that we rightfully embrace as a Christian, conservative, western culture. We must concede nothing to the evil destroyers in our midst.
Lefty corporations like Microsoft were advertising their bona fides with salutes to MLK. I was sorely tempted to respond on social media that their diversity programs directly contradict MLK’s speeches. But doing so would generate more noise than clarity. One-on-one conversations are more effective.
I have known Republican voters who write off urban blacks as hopelessly enslaved to Democrats. Certainly, public figures should at least make the arguments when topical. Privately, it really is difficult to find times when such conversations are welcome. Democrats of all kinds are trained to shut down or avoid debates, rather than engage in critical thinking.
Incidentally, here is a Martin Luther King Jr quote I only learned this year.
So, you must be suggesting that corporate America add MLK Day, Columbus Day, and Presidents Day to their acknowledged paid time off? Most companies already provide paid time off for New Years Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you add in five paid sick days and two weeks of vacation, an average full-time employee gets 22 days off per year. If you add three more days to that burden, that would represent a 1.3% reduction in worker productivity (based upon days alone) as well as an additional 1.3% burden on Corporate America (to pay for those employees who can now counter the left’s monopoly on the politicization of all the lesser holidays). With an economy considered robust when the GDP grows at a rate above 3%, this would potentially add a 2.6% boat anchor drag on overall full-time labor costs with no reciprocal increase in actual expendable income. Obviously, Corporate America will never do this.
MLK Day was always a Democrat Holiday. Columbus Day has now been hijacked as well. Presidents Day remains relatively apolitical. Conservatives can never counter this trend. We have work to do.
I think Corporate America should give people time off as they themselves see fit. I don’t care if people have the day off or not. I care that when the day is celebrated by political figures, that the reason for the celebration is not weaponized effectively by leftists for political gain.
Agreed.
On the other hand, it can be self-defeating to let oneself get drawn into a debate over whether a historical figure better fits one side or the other, rather than focusing on the more important underlying debates on current ethics and policy.
Definitely. Referring to MLK as a great Republican (which I believe he was), is a big mistake. Just celebrate the many conservative aspects of his speeches and attack his socialist ideas.
Probably also should not go on any “welcome to the GOP” literature
I don’t know that honoring someone means we get the day off. It might be a fitting tribute offered by those who admire MLK Jr but have to work that day to do something else to celebrate. My plan for the future is to make sweet potato pie as a celebratory gesture. Also I tend to put up things like a quote or photo somewhere on social media. I share his values. Certainly I don’t feel the Democrats have the right to claim ownership over him. Allowing that to happen makes him a slave to the man.
I’m not sure the OP was necessarily describing the political leaning of the crowd, although we can probably guess that fairly well. And yes, we conservatives were, no doubt, busy doing our jobs (except for me…I’m retired). I think the OP was pointing out our Conservative/Republican professional politicians whose actual job description would include attending events exactly like MLK parades should have been there on display promoting the inclusive nature of the Republican Party and its desire to attract African Americans.