Minorities and Republicanism

Minorities all across America do not tend to support the Republican party. According to polls by Pew, 80% of African Americans, 65% of Asians, 61% of Jewish people, and 56% of Hispanics are democratic. All of these minority groups are left leaning, and this can present a problem in our government. Popular sovereignty requires that the government reflects the wishes of the people, so if these ethnic groups do not vote Republican, their opinions and needs may not be reflected by the government policies. The party doesn’t need to care because their vote wasn’t cast towards them, which hurts our democracy. This challenges the idea that everyone has an equal say in politics, which is another problem with the way our government runs. If people’s voices aren’t being represented, then our government has failed.

However, the GOP has done things to try to reach out to these ethnic groups. The Atlantic claimed that in 2013 the Republican party tried to appoint more African American and Latinos to to prominent government positions to gain the support of those groups. In addition, The Hill wrote an article in 2013 says that the Republican National Committee is launching a $10 million push to help reach out to minority voters. They will use this money to keep reaching out throughout the year, and integrating workers to be simply a part of the community. But, this problem of single party voting within these groups is still high today.

This reinforces that the government’s efforts are not working. This is due to the undermining of these minorities by Trump and other political leaders. Our current president has made many racist remarks including things such as “Sadly, because Barack Obama had done such a poor job as president, you won’t see another black president for generations!” or “Eight Syrians were just caught on the southern border trying to get into the U.S. ISIS maybe? I told you so. WE NEED A BIG AND BEAUTIFUL WALL!”. How is this going to get minorities to want to vote for Republicans? The person representing the party is blatantly trying to make them feel bad. NBC news did a survey that uncovered that 68% of African Americans who participated in this particular poll were scared that Trump was being elected as president. If people are worried about their president, they are definitely not likely to switch parties to the one he represents. In addition, the way he handled Puerto Rico, a place of Latino descent, was very poor. He said, “ I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you’ve thrown our budget a little bit out of whack because we’ve spent a lot of money”. He should be helping them, but he is making the citizens feel uncomfortable. According to Time, 49% of people disapproved with how the hurricane in Puerto Rico was handled by Trump. The government needs to find a way to make possible for minorities to feel comfortable supporting their party, so that popular sovereignty is still possible in America.

http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/gop-minority-outreach/316816/

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/288627-priebus-rnc-to-spend-10m-on-minority-outreach-this-year

http://time.com/4968591/trump-approval-ratings-puerto-rico/

7 Responses to "Minorities and Republicanism"

Matthew Lidz says:

October 9, 2017 at 4:43 pm

Kendall, I agree with your point about how the GOP needs to improve their standing with minorities in order to remain relevant in the future. You touch on the Catch-22 that has been impeding attempts by the Republicans to reach out to minorities. The Republican base that helped them secure majorities in Congress and win the White House, makes the party unable to reach out to minority groups that they need to remain competitive in the future. Attempts at outreach to Hispanics through supporting immigration reform cause a revolt from the party base, labelling any immigration reform that led to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants “amnesty”. The base’s support for a border wall that is anathema to many Hispanics will hinder any attempts to win over Hispanics in large numbers. Younger voters who broadly support gay marriage and other LGBT issues might be reluctant to join the GOP due to the large evangelical presence within the party that opposes gay marriage. President Trump’s tweets and actions doubling down on polarizing culture war rhetoric will only inflame the GOP further while isolating the voters Republicans need to win over in the future. I think that relations between the GOP and minority groups will get worse before they get better.
Camryn Travis says:

October 10, 2017 at 6:33 am

I think an issue that you are starting to hint towards is gerrymandering. Often times, districts are defined through gerrymandering, giving advantage to one political group or another. Gerrymandering prevents competition in politics and prevents politicians from having to deal with extremely diverse public opinions. This can be extremely important both locally and nationally. Locally, representatives of a specific area that was cut to be mostly republic only have to respond or act in favor of that republican majority, which often neglects the democratic minority. Similarly, a politician in a purposefully created democratic district can avoid addressing the republican minority. This prevents politicians from executing policies that are beneficial to the entire district and not just the majority. On a national level, gerrymandering greatly factors into national elections and the electoral college. If any particular state is separated on a district level in a specific way, statistically one political party could have an enormous advantage over the other. For example, if one puts high concentrations of highly educated, hispanic women in a district one will get a very different political result than a district with high concentrations of low-income, poorly educated, white men. These separations of demographics can play a major role in how public opinion is expressed.
Emily Dunbar says:

October 10, 2017 at 9:42 pm

Although I agree with the idea that the Republican Party can not gain minority votes with a president who makes racist comments and Republican leaders who also make racist comments. However, that does not mean that minorities do not get to voice their opinions. They still vote for the Democratic Party which gives them the platform to voice their opinions on how they want their government to develop over time. People’s voices are heard through their voting, if the minorities vote for Democrats, they have voiced their opinion. The fact that the GOP is appointing minority officials, will definitely help the relationship between minorities and the Republican Party. The fact that minorities are voting for a specific party holds true the fact that our democracy is indeed working. They are voicing their political views which indeed supports democracy and popular sovereignty. The results of voting is controlled by what most of the country wants, showing that democracy and popular sovereignty is indeed working. Even though you may say that since the majority is really controlling the government, that ideal is supported by democracy which is supposed to be under majority rule. The minorities voice their opinions through voting, however the majority opinion is always followed. To change this, you would have to change our democracy and the basis of our whole governing system.
Alyssa Holt says:

October 11, 2017 at 3:55 pm

I think your point on the importance of everyone having a voice and a chance to be represented is valid; however, I think it is important to remember that many people choose a party based on their stance on key issues. The democratic party is more liberal fiscally and socially, leading them to have policies that may be more appealing to certain minority groups. Considering the data which shows that a higher percentage of the black population lives under the poverty line, it would make sense that a higher percentage of this population would vote for the party that supports and pushes legislation that will benefit them over the wealthy. We cannot say that people from one party must take into account and accommodate the stances people from the other party want. Republicans should not change their stance on taxes and health care to attract people from the democratic party. While it is very important that all minority groups are protected and fairly represented, is it fair to say that one party must change their platforms to attract more minorities? No, each person should vote for the party they feel has the best policies for them, whether or not they are democratic or republican without the parties being required to change their policies after election to be more inclusive.
Brittney Morris says:

October 11, 2017 at 6:09 pm

Kendall, you mentioned that minorities tend to lean left and do not agree with our current right leaning political system. While you are correct, isn’t that exactly how our political system is supposed to work? For the past 8 years we have had a democratic president that has been representing the interests of those minorities. Our government continually flip flops between the two parties to maintain a balance of power and avoid one party becoming too powerful. Also, the fact that minorities tend to vote democratic does not mean that the system is broken. The two parties stand for different views and have different goals. Blacks tend to have the same goals and views as other blacks, the same can be found for other minority groups. So to say that the Republican Party need to do more to reach those voter is implying that they need to change what they stand for. I don’t think an entire party should change to meet the needs of a group of people. I think it is essential to our government to have two parties that have different views and different goals.
Daniel Bonaventura says:

October 11, 2017 at 9:27 pm

Although I agree that many minority groups do not support the Republican Party, I do not believe that this is based in an unfair or broken system. The democratic and republican parties have very different stances on many issues and are increasingly polarized in today’s world. Because of this, it makes sense for certain groups to not support one of the parties or be staunchly against it. The way our government operates allows for both of these parties to have an equal chance to win any given election, which is shown by both old and recent american history. On the topic of minorities, I do not believe it is fair to say that their voices are being heard. In our two party system, the democratic party, where as you imply has the support of the majority of minority groups, has been able to stand up for and implement many policies that have been the the benefit of minority groups. In addition, it is not logical to generalize the term minority. As we discussed in class, political resources are non-cumulative. As a result, not all minorities or even specific minority groups agree on the same issues. With that in mind we must remember that on issues we must continue to go with the will of the majority because to challenge that would truly be to challenge popular sovereignty.
Colby Ritten says:

October 11, 2017 at 10:18 pm

As much as I would love for everyone’s interests and opinions to be reflected by our standing government today, the truth is, there will always be a minority in a Democracy. If there wasn’t a minority, then there probably would be no Democracy. Everyone has different opinions therefore there needs to be multiple parties that could match those different opinions. It is unlikely for everyone to share the same opinion. If they did then we wouldn’t be having this problem but having multiple parties will represent the certain people with different interests whether it is the majority or the minority. If we tried to only have one party to reflect the whole population, it would be impossible. Also it would turn into a one party system which is similar to countries such as China, South Korea, and Syria. Based on the history of those countries and the civil liberties that their citizens have, we probably do not want to go down that road. In these countries the minority is the majority. So all in all having a minority isn’t a bad thing, it is just the way it is. Not everyone will see eye to eye but that doesn’t mean that we still need to ignore the minority.

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