Republicans are being handed the kind of wedge issue that comes along once in a generation and they are utterly oblivious to the gift. The last great Democratic Party constituency, African-Americans, is pitted against the party’s last great organizational bulwark, public employee unions. The waves of protests over police brutality that ignited nationwide over the killing of Michael Brown have focused on race. Protestors so far have failed to appreciate why police, like so many other public employees, are consistently shielded from accountability to the people they serve.I've thought the same thing for years. Indeed, pandering by Democrats to police unions is the main reason significant criminal-justice reform didn't begin in Texas until Republicans took over the Legislature in 2003 for the first time since Reconstruction. While Dems were in charge, police unions had virtual veto power on criminal justice bills, whereas Republicans feel little need to pander to them.
No one seems to have thought to combine the protests over an unaccountable police force with the protests by some of the same people in some of the very same neighborhoods, over the failure to provide a decent public education to poor and minority communities. Both problems have the same root cause – unions that shield their members from accountability.
Media narratives have simplified these protests to fit stereotypical party alignments. Republicans are seen taking their usual law-and-order stance alongside the police while Democrats advocate for social justice and civil rights. That divide is not so clear on the ground.
All of the major officials involved in the Ferguson case, from the Governor down to the local DA are Democrats. The officials investigating the Tamir Rice case in Cleveland (keep an eye on that one) are Democrats. Only in the Staten Island case are there any Republicans in decision-making roles.
Debates over urban access to effective public safety or effective public education are exclusively intraparty fights among Democrats. Despite the black community’s importance as a Democratic voting bloc, African-Americans always lose that fight with the unions. Every. Single. Time.
When the Democratic Party is faced with a conflict between a public employee union and a black urban population desperate to gain access to the public services that union is supposed to deliver, the union wins. This is the civil rights logjam that has blocked black communities from access to the prosperity that they deserve. Republicans do not own this problem and they should not help perpetuate it.
Grits doubts Republican pols will seize the opportunity Ladd identifies, in part because the party contains too many elderly ex-Dixiecrats who flipped sides in the Reagan era and have little interest in civil rights or appealing to black constituents. But it's absolutely correct that the GOP has been presented with a "once in a generation" opportunity if its leaders possess the boldness and foresight to seize upon it.
I suspect that the author is mistaken in terms of the power unions have over the democratic party versus those of black descent but even if true, unions contribute lots of PAC dollars and represent lots of hardcore voters (20 million or so) versus a demographic that has spotty attendance at the voting booth (many cannot vote due to criminal records). Blacks, on the other hand, really have nowhere to go other than the dems lest they risk their government largess. Welcome to the realities of being a "kept" group.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, the only thing the GOP likes less than unions is diversity, so I don't see them ever being able to hold their nose and pick the lesser of their two perceived evils.
ReplyDeleteJason
For the GOP, making an effective play for African American voters in this way is Scalise they could do.
ReplyDelete2:11 shows why this strategy could never work. The Repubs are so racist they can't even see it. No way they could fake treating black people with dignity long enough for the strategy to benefit them politically.
ReplyDeleteLet's keep lying about what happened in Ferguson, Mo. If we say it often enough maybe people will start believing us.
ReplyDelete@2:11, we're not talking about all unions, just police unions, whose contributions in money and votes to the Democratic Party are FAR less than black voters. Also, as evidenced by 8:42's reaction, you should choose (and spell) your words more carefully when you generalize.
ReplyDelete@12:22, I've been calling for years for Texas pols to stop "lying" about terrorists at the the border, illegal immigrant crime waves, etc. - they say stuff all the time that no journalist or fact checker can verify and which in fact flies in the face of all evidence - but politics is about perception, not facts.
This blog has pretty much avoided Ferguson altogether - I don't know what happened and this ain't Missouri, there's plenty in Texas to keep me busy. But only an extremely oblivious person would fail to recognize that the (inter)national debate over that and other killings of black men by police has created a new discussion framework that opens the door for GOPLifer's wedge issue suggestion.
It's okay every once in a while to stop reacting and just think for a moment, which is all GOPLifer was doing. Combine this suggestion with the Right on Crime strategy and Republicans could gut the Dems national base for two generations. That aging Dixiecrat GOP base won't be there forever.
"...the failure to provide a decent public education to poor and minority communities."
ReplyDeleteThe failure to provide or the refusal to learn? We need to be aware of the anti-intellectualism that keeps many students from absorbing information. Those who learn are targeted by others in their schools and neighborhoods and an interest in learning is suppressed and essentially punished.
"anti-intellectualism," 7:47? you're talking about the folks who don't want schools to teach evolution, who bash scientists who say global warming exists, and who think Thomas Jefferson wanted a Christian theocracy, right?
ReplyDeleteWhite people believe the darndest things ...
Grits, the op-ed repeatedly mentioned teacher unions as an example as well. As a whole, the OP was neither a workable opportunity nor was it creative and novel given the specifics. I don't have the numbers on hand but given the GOP's long held disdain for all unions predating Reagan's antics to bust them, the fact that union members are far more likely as a group to vote, and their financial contributions to candidate coffers, I think there is more to it than you think.
ReplyDeleteOn the flip side, in most places felons can't vote, the poor vote much less frequently, and blacks tend to have an abundance of both, not to mention a large number that are too young to vote. It is not racist to point out the statistics, even those some don't like, nor is this about blame, merely demonstrable facts tied to both groups. Love them or hate them, most GOP party leaders have made it clear that they are not interested in pandering to the poor, the disenfranchised, or people of color any more than they embrace people that believe in abortion as a birth control method.
I believe the author is very mistaken. Unlike regular unions, most police and fire unions have closer relationships with the Republican Party than they do with the Democrats. Republican dominated groups such as the Texas Sheriff's Association have openly opposed the latest rounds of marijuana reforms. Large unions that represent law enforcement / corrections such as 1.6 million member AFSCME union have supported meaningful criminal justice reforms, along with resolutions from the AFL-CIO against mass incarceration. The author clearly doesn't know what they are taking about.
ReplyDelete"The last great Democratic Party constituency, African-Americans..."
ReplyDeleteHilarity ensues.
"...a smart and interesting case..." I don't think many people would agree with that assessment.
ReplyDelete@9:53 - "interesting" because it examined the issue from a perspective few others have suggested, "smart" because it recognized a fundamental tension that VERY few people understand in the Democratic party, one that's particularly exacerbated in right-to-work states like Texas where police and fire unions are really the only politically potent organized labor forces.
ReplyDeleteI don't give two craps about how many people would agree. Tis true nonetheless.
Police and fire union are not as politically powerful in terms of bringing change to Southern Right to Work states. Anyone who studies the history of the civil rights movement will recognize the major players were labor unions. Police and fire unions have been absent throughout history when it comes to major reforms. They will remain absent or opposed to bringing changes to our criminal justice system. At the end of the day they will be viewed as a thorn in the side of society as they remain on the wrong side or absent bringing social change.
DeleteAnon 09:53:00 AM,
ReplyDeleteI think I'd go with "novel and curious" over "smart and interesting" because for all that political strength some claim public safety unions have, their workers are still treated poorly in GOP held Texas compared to how well they are treated in Democratic bastions out west and up north. For example, Houston's city police are frequently claimed to have the biggest and strongest PAC in the state yet they are the worst paid of any major city and had drastic pension cuts allowed over ten years ago. Those cuts were to fix their system yet they are just as unfunded now as they were back then, neither the GOP governor or legislature nor their democratic mayor lifting a finger to help them.
There would have to be a scintilla of chance that blacks would leave the democratic party for the GOP for the idea to be "smart" and despite Grits' continued beliefs, no sane person believes it to be true.