AHC: Strengthen Black Republican conservatism

Nah, can't be anything related to police brutality. There was too much law-and-order conservatism but blacks to defect to the Republicans. By the 1990s, it's total ASB.

What you need is for some type of offensive comment targeting a well-respected African-American Republican (not even necessarily a conservative), or the GOP deciding to find a way to take the race out out once and for all.

Suppose Pete Stark called Colin Powell an "Oreo" (he had a history of nasty comments towards Republicans who disagreed with him, including Louis Sullivan, George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Health and Human Services; and Nancy Johnson).

In fact, that could be the POD:
After Stark makes his "pillow talk" comments towards Nancy Johnson, Newt Gingrich, recalling Stark's spat with Louis Sullivan, pushes for more African-American candidates, and gets Connerly and Franks to run for statewide office in 1994.

With their success, he sends another batch up in 1996 (Cain), and 1998 (Rogers, Blackwell). Even when he is gone the GOP continues.

When you have two governors (Franks and Rogers) and three Senators (Connerly, Cain, and Blackwell), 1998 doesn't have as serious a reverse for the GOP. Gingrich still leaves, but in 2000, the NAACP's James Byrd ad falls flat, and actually creates a backlash. George W. Bush doesn't have a narrow win in Florida, largely because ITTL, he pulls close to 20% of the African-American vote.

Seeing that success, the GOP continues, with Armstrong Williams winning the governorship of Virginia in 2001, and J.C. Watts becoming governor of Oklahoma in 2002. That year, Gary Franks steps down as governor of Connecticut, but becomes Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. But Tim Scott and Michael Williams win Senate seats in South Carolina and Texas, respectively.

In 2004, when Alveda King announces her candidacy for the Senate seat Zell Miller is vacating, that generates tons of coverage. But it also butterflies away Barack Obama's 2008 candidacy for president, because Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece would be a huge media headline - and Obama would not get as much of the coverage. In fact, given that there are already five African-American senators, three of whom are from the South, Obama is not that big a deal.
 
Black Democrats have been making these statements toward black Republicans periodically. People get outraged, and then everyone forgets about it. Remember Harry Belafonte calling Colin Powell the house slave?
 
A Presidential list I made, in which black voters return to the GOP after the New Deal, despite the GOP being the economically right-wing (though significantly more moderate than in OTL) and pro-life party:

Solid South Forever or The Party of Lincoln
1944: Franklin Roosevelt/James Byrnes (Democratic) [1]
def. Thomas Dewey/John Bricker (Republican)
1945: James Byrnes [2]
1948: Thomas Dewey/Harold Stassen (Republican) [3]
def. James Byrnes/Brien McMahon (Democratic) and Henry Wallace/Glen Taylor (Progressive)
1952: Thomas Dewey/Harold Stassen (Republican) [4]
def. Adlai Stevenson/Robert Kerr (Democratic)
1956: Estes Kefauver/Robert Wagner Jr. (Democratic)[5]
def. Harold Stassen/George Bender (Republican)
1960: Estes Kefauver/Robert Wagner Jr. (Democratic) [6]
def. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr./Goodwin Night (Republican)
1961: Robert Wagner Jr. (Democratic) [7]
1964:George Romney/Mark Hatfield (Republican)[8]
def. Robert Wagner Jr./Albert Gore (Democratic) and Strom Thurmond/Orval Faubus
1968: Lyndon Johnson/John Kennedy (Democratic)[9]
def. George Romney/Mark Hatfield (Republican) and George Wallace/Lester Maddox
1972: Mark Hatfield/William Scranton (Republican)[10]
def. Lyndon Johnson/John Kennedy (Democratic)
1976: Henry Jackson/Jimmy Carter (Democratic) [11]
def. Mark Hatfield/William Scranton (Republican)
1980: George H.W. Bush/Nancy Kassebaum (Republican) [12]
def. Henry Jackson/Terry Sanford (Democratic)
1984: George H.W. Bush/Nancy Kassebaum (Republican) [13]
def. Terry Sanford/John Glenn (Democratic)

[1] Byrnes managed to get on the Democratic ticket, like many thought he would in OTL. Byrnes was less useful to the ticket than Truman, as his anti-labor stance and his status as a South Carolinian alienated many northern liberals, but FDR still won reelection.
[2] After FDR's death, James Byrnes became President of the United States. His clashes with organized labor lead to a demoralized Democratic Party, which lost control of both Houses of Congress in 1946. Byrnes was more successful in his foreign policy, as the Cold War began and he stood up to the Communists. Despite a spirited challenge from the left of his party, he managed to win the nomination, stopping a civil rights plank from being added in the process.
[3] With the Democratic Party split, Thomas Dewey easily won the 1948 election, ending 16 years of Democratic rule. Dewey managed to get a weak civil rights bill passed (like OTL 1957 or 1960) and issued an executive order desegregating the military, actions which made him popular among black Americans, but very unpopular among Southern whites. The right-wing Republican economic agenda was unpopular, and the 1950 elections saw many defeats for the Republicans, among them Robert Taft of Ohio, with the Democrats winning both chambers.
[4] However, the successful conclusion of the Korean War gave President Dewey the boost he needed to win reelection. The Democrats still managed to gain a couple Senate seats without losing any, and retained a majority in the house. Despite winning reelection and passing another weak civil rights law, Dewey's popularity fell during his second term, with the Democrats winning big again in 1954. By the end of his term, the Republican Party was despised by white Southerners due to Dewey enforcing liberal Supreme Court legislation.
[5] Estes Kefauver won the Democratic primaries and the nomination, and won reelection against the hapless Harold Stassen. Kefauver passed comprehensive regulations and reforms, as well as welfare expansion and pro-labor bills, but at the cost of ignoring civil rights to hold the Democrats together behind his bills.
[6] With a good economy, Kefauver got reelected. However, his health was poor and he died in November of 1961.
[7] President Wagner continued Kefauver's legacy of Progressive legislation. He also fought for Civil Rights action, but he was unable to pass anything significant through Congress.
[8] Wagner won renomination, but his civil rights rhetoric lead to the Democrats in the South revolting and an independent run being lead by South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond. George Romney, a successful Republican governor of Michigan, won the Presidency, winning moderate voters, many labor voters, and minorities. Romney fought for a comprehensive Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act, both of which were passed in 1965. Romney used the Voting Rights Act to mobilize many black voters in the South behind the Republican Party, but his religion and racial progress were used against him by Southern Democrats. Republicans could only get elected in the South in black majority areas.
[9] Economic issues and foreign policy concerns lead to the Democrats thinking they had a great chance in 1968. In order to win back Southern voters, they nominated Texan Senator Lyndon Johnson. Johnson attracted traditional Democratic voters and poor people across the nation, but the most hardcore racists, still bitter over the Civil Rights Act, ran their own third party campaign. However, no attempt to make a new segregationist political party was made, as the average Southern Democrat still sided more with the National Party. Johnson passed sweeping progressive economic legislation, but his foreign policy was less successful, as he could not stop the USSR from crushing would-be revolutions in Eastern Europe. Unable to stave off the bad economy and unpopular among many Americans for perceived over-reach in his domestic agenda, Johnson had a tough fight ahead of him in the 1972 election. He managed to defeat a primary challenge from George Wallace, and convince Southern Democrats to stand behind him to stop former Vice President Mark Hatfield, who was associated with the pro-Civil Rights Romney administration. However, a heart attack in the fall kept Johnson off of the campaign trail for weeks, and the President was unwilling to use the heart attack to gain sympathy points.
[10]Mark Hatfield won a narrow victory, although the Democrats continued to control Congress. Hatfield swept the black vote, whereas Southern white voted overwhelmingly for Johnson. President Hatfield's term soon came embroiled in controversy, as in 1973 the Supreme Court passed ruling striking down the death penalty as unconstitutional and establishing that women had the right to an abortion. President Hatfield applauded the death penalty decision, but announced he was "Pro-life in all cases" and stood against the abortion ruling. His pro-life stance irritated the Northeastern liberals in the Republican Party, while his anti-death penalty position was disliked by many midwestern and western Republicans. His strongest allies on social issues were the Southern black Republican leaders, many of whom were religious figures, who opposed the racistly applied death penalty while being against abortion. Even though he stood against abortion, the fact that it was legalized under his presidency, combined with his stand against the death penalty, as well as a general move towards a more socially liberal society occurring in the 1980s made Hatfield emblematic of a culture working class whites were growing increasingly uncomfortable with. Combined with inflation and stagnant economic growth, and Hatfield saw his popularity collapse among blue collar workers. Numerous unions went on strike, protesting the President's actions. Hatfield went into the Republican primary with challenges from his right and his left, although the party ultimately rallied around the incumbent president. The party would have to see if its support among the wealthy, racial minorities, and the evangelical pro-life movement could overcome the blue collar, "hard hat" vote.
[11] The Democratic Party went into the 1976 primaries divided. The South, ever the dominant region of the Democrats, lifted up favorite sons Jimmy Carter, Terry Sanford, and the perennial George Wallace. However, after two nominations of Johnson, and after Presidents Kefauver and Byrnes, the rest of the party had begun to resent the South's dominance. South Dakota Senator George McGovern ran on a "new left" platform, to target minority voters and women and the youth rather relying on the working class. However, McGovern's platform was rejected, and the party instead rallied around Washington Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson. Scoop's platform of strong national security and New Deal economics appealed to the working class Americans who felt left behind in the Hatfield presidency. Hatfield campaigned well, but ultimately Jackson won the Washington vs. Oregon election by a strong popular vote margin, although the electoral college was a bit closer.
Upon entering office, Jackson set to work promoting American-friendly regimes abroad and a strong economy at home. Quick action on Jackson's part saw the Shah of Iran replaced with a U.S.-aligned Republic, while the President also managed to bring Israel and Egypt to the negotiating table. Jackson also ordered military aid sent to anti-Soviet rebels in Afghanistan and the Balkans, hurting the U.S.S.R.'s military budget. Jackson saw the continued success of the Space Program, and expanded N.A.S.A's budget. He also expanded the healthcare programs started by President Johnson, finally establishing universal healthcare for Americans.
[12] Going into 1980, President Jackson felt secure in his reelection. He was facing former Governor George H.W. Bush of Connecticut, a pro-life moderate who could please both the liberal northeastern and conservative western branches of the GOP. However, in 1980 the U.S. government entered a recession, and Jackson's New Deal Keynesian economics failed to adequately address the problem. Jackson's lead slowly shrank throughout the campaign season, and Bush managed to pull off a narrow victory. After twelve years of Senators and Vice Presidents as President, a governor got elected, as the fifth president in a row lost reelection.
[13] While the first few years of his Presidency suffered from a weak economy, and the Democrats increased their 32-year majority in the House and their 28-year majority in the Senate in 1982, in late 1983 the economy began to improve again due to Bush's moderate conservative policies. Bush rejected the supply-side economic proposals, going for a more moderate route. In foreign policy, Bush kept President Jackson's popular policies, and on social issues he promoted a Christian-based rehabilitation philosophy on crime, continuing to appoint pro-life judges, and seeing the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. By election day, the President was more popular than ever, and he swept every region of the country other than the South in a massive landslide.
 

MrP

Banned
The problem with this challenge is that Blacks only supported the Republican Party when it was the more progressive one. When it became more conservative than the Democratic Party, and then compounded that by courting the racist white vote, the Black electorate shifted en masse to the Democrats and never looked back.

A disadvantaged community cannot, by definition, find its interests adequately represented by a conservative political movement, which seeks to preserve the status quo and thus keep them at the bottom of the social scale. And that's not mentioning the fact that for the past half-century, the GOP has been the party of white racial resentment. You might find the odd token Black Republican, who more often than not is going to be a crackpot or a paid-for member of the right-wing lecture circuit, but they can only be exceptions that prove the rule.

In conclusion, you can have a plurality of Black Republicans, but only if the Republican Party is not conservative. Otherwise the challenge cannot be met.
 
The problem with this challenge is that Blacks only supported the Republican Party when it was the more progressive one. When it became more conservative than the Democratic Party, and then compounded that by courting the racist white vote, the Black electorate shifted en masse to the Democrats and never looked back.

A disadvantaged community cannot, by definition, find its interests adequately represented by a conservative political movement, which seeks to preserve the status quo and thus keep them at the bottom of the social scale. And that's not mentioning the fact that for the past half-century, the GOP has been the party of white racial resentment. You might find the odd token Black Republican, who more often than not is going to be a crackpot or a paid-for member of the right-wing lecture circuit, but they can only be exceptions that prove the rule.

In conclusion, you can have a plurality of Black Republicans, but only if the Republican Party is not conservative. Otherwise the challenge cannot be met.

You can have an economically conservative and socially liberal GOP and a socially conservative and economically liberal Democratic Party.
 

MrP

Banned
You can have an economically conservative and socially liberal GOP and a socially conservative and economically liberal Democratic Party.
In which case Blacks will go for the economically liberal Democratic Party. If you're poor, a party that calls for coddling the rich and hampering the government's ability to help you is of no interest to you.
 
In which case Blacks will go for the economically liberal Democratic Party. If you're poor, a party that calls for coddling the rich and hampering the government's ability to help you is of no interest to you.

It depends. If the Republicans were the ones who passed civil rights, that raises the reputation of the GOP in the eyes of many blacks (but still not enough to vote for them), and if the Republicans are in favour of affirmative action, then they will gain a lot of black support.
 

MrP

Banned
It depends. If the Republicans were the ones who passed civil rights, that raises the reputation of the GOP in the eyes of many blacks (but still not enough to vote for them), and if the Republicans are in favour of affirmative action, then they will gain a lot of black support.
Is affirmative action economically conservative?
 

MrP

Banned
It's socially liberal.
So it is, yes. It's also economically liberal, because it requires government regulations about private businesses' hiring policies.

At some point the distinction between the social and economic realms becomes meaningless, because you don't have society on one hand and the economy on the other. If you want to improve the social order, that involves changing the way the economy works to a lesser or greater extent. There are some people who claim to this day that desegregation was a form of government overreach because it interfered with business owners' right to decide whom to accept as customers.
 
The problem with this challenge is that Blacks only supported the Republican Party when it was the more progressive one. When it became more conservative than the Democratic Party, and then compounded that by courting the racist white vote, the Black electorate shifted en masse to the Democrats and never looked back.

The Republican Party was the more economically conservative party from Day One, and when the Whigs existed, they were the more economically conservative party. The DW-Nominate scores show fluctuations among the parties, but there was never a flip, in which the Republicans became less progressive.

The other issue is that disadvantaged ethnic groups do support conservative parties today in many places, including the US. Vietnamese-Americans, one of the poorest Asian-American groups, voted for the Republicans in the 2008 election, by a small margin (55-45 if I remember correctly). Cuban-Americans are typically conservative as well. Of course, for both groups this is because they have a history of anti-communism... In Israel, disadvantaged groups of Jews tend to vote for the right-wing parties as well: the ultra-Orthodox strongly prefer Likud rule to Labor rule, and low-income Mizrahis typically vote Likud for reasons of pan-Jewish ethnic solidarity, even as many of them admit that the economic program of Labor and Meretz may be more useful for solving some of their social problems.

You even see this in the primary today. The more progressive of the two Democratic candidates today is unambiguously Sanders. But blacks are voting for Clinton by enormous margins. The far left keeps saying race isn't such an important issue, and has attacked some of the most important black US pundits today, including Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jamelle Bouie, calling them neoliberal shills.

While a POD in the 1980s or 90s is total ASB wank, a midcentury POD in which Dewey wins, or even a slightly later one in which Eisenhower establishes the Republicans as the party of civil rights, could create this pattern on a national level. In the ATL, mainstream black thought is that the union movement is racist and most unions, e.g. the AFL, did not admit black people; that minorities are better-served trying to succeed in business than in the public service; and that religion is paramount in promoting social justice.

(For what it's worth, in my Anglo-French TL, black voters are a backbone of the Liberal Party, and few of them vote for either the Conservatives or the Socialists. The TL ends in 2013, but presumably by 2016, France's first nonwhite president is a black Liberal.)
 
While a POD in the 1980s or 90s is total ASB wank, a midcentury POD in which Dewey wins, or even a slightly later one in which Eisenhower establishes the Republicans as the party of civil rights, could create this pattern on a national level. In the ATL, mainstream black thought is that the union movement is racist and most unions, e.g. the AFL, did not admit black people; that minorities are better-served trying to succeed in business than in the public service; and that religion is paramount in promoting social justice.

I think that's too late of a POD, to be honest. Emperor Julian has the best idea on keeping Truman, who implemented army desegregation, from being president because that more than anything put the Democrats on the trajectory to become the party of minorities.
 
Dewey wins 1948 with a landslide and he desegregates the army. If memory serves me right, he was a liberal Republican. This makes the GOP continue to be the party of Lincoln and the Democrats the party of social conservatism.

Current labels have little to do with how they were used in the past. Terms like "liberal" and "conservative" were used almost exclusively in reference to the New Deal, not questions about race. Yes, Dewey came from the more liberal wing of the GOP. However, pretty much all Republicans of that era regardless of whether they were "liberal" or "conservative" were supporters of civil rights. The leader of the GOP conservatives was undoubtedly Robert Taft - and far from being against civil rights, he introduced in May 1946 a draft bill that would prohibit job discrimination in regards to race.

VP Nixon pushed for a stronger 1957 Civil Rights Bill, but settled for the much weaker LBJ version in lieu of getting nothing at all.

Even Goldwater's opposition to the 1964 civil rights bill was not because he was in favor of Jim Crow. He completely supported the ending of government bans on desegregated places; he was just leery of infringing on private groups not able to determine its own members/customers. Goldwater would simply allow private discrimination with the idea that the market would eventually eliminate it entirely without government intervention.

It was LBJ passing the 1964 and 1965 laws combined with the Great Society that destroyed most of the black GOP vote even though a greater percentage of Republicans in Congress supported the measure than Democrats. The Democrats had eroded the civil rights gap with the GOP, but then gained an edge with their economic policies since low economic status was heavier in the black community.

However, now there is a stigma associated with the conservative or Republican brand because of perceived civil rights issues which might be appropriate in some candidates, but probably not most. This was mainly caused by southerners - the ones most opposed to civil rights - leaving the Democrats and finding some common cause with Republicans. There was also a white backlash against northern Democrats as crime got out of control in the 1970s. That wasn't about race, but certainly involved race as the crime statistics were highest among the black community. So blacks began associating Republicans as the party against their interests.

I think if it was Nixon or another Republican who oversaw landmark bills like the 1964-1965 acts, that the GOP would not have such a stigma today even if everything else almost remained the same.

I think there is a substantial number of black conservatives, both socially and economically. And many blacks see their interests being sacrificed at the altar of other interest groups in the Democratic party (blacks tend to support school choice, and have noticeably less support for gay rights than other Democrats). However, they can't see themselves voting Republican because of the stigma that the GOP would roll back civil rights. So they stay loyal Democrats.
 
The Republican Party was the more economically conservative party from Day One, and when the Whigs existed, they were the more economically conservative party.

It depends what you mean by economically conservative. Now the Republicans and Whigs were always the party of big industry and banking, but neither the Democrats nor Republicans of the entire advocated any kind of welfare state.

In as much as there was a "party of big government" who supported "taxpayer money on economic development", it was the Republicans and Whigs. The party of low taxes and less governmental involvement in the economy was the Democrats. Both parties also adopted progressive policies and had large progressive wings.

The Democrat best able to break the GOP stranglehold on the presidency post civil-war was Grover Cleveland, who was a Bourbon Democrat and extremely conservative economically.

One really can't say the Democrats really became the party of the progressives until Woodrow Wilson (because of the Taft-Teddy split) who was arguably the most racist man ever to be President. And even then, the GOP had a large progressive wing.

Terms like liberal and conservative begin losing their current meaning the farther back in time you go. It will really cause you to become confused prior to the New Deal era, and really don't acquire their current meanings until the period of 1968-1980.
 
The problem with this challenge is that Blacks only supported the Republican Party when it was the more progressive one. When it became more conservative than the Democratic Party, and then compounded that by courting the racist white vote, the Black electorate shifted en masse to the Democrats and never looked back.

A disadvantaged community cannot, by definition, find its interests adequately represented by a conservative political movement, which seeks to preserve the status quo and thus keep them at the bottom of the social scale. And that's not mentioning the fact that for the past half-century, the GOP has been the party of white racial resentment. You might find the odd token Black Republican, who more often than not is going to be a crackpot or a paid-for member of the right-wing lecture circuit, but they can only be exceptions that prove the rule.

In conclusion, you can have a plurality of Black Republicans, but only if the Republican Party is not conservative. Otherwise the challenge cannot be met.
Except this isn't true. After Bryan took over the Democratic Party in 1896, the Democrats, with the exception of 1904, were to the left of the Republicans on economic issues, but the black vote stuck with the GOP until 4 decades later when FDR won them over and they voted for him over Landon.

There's a substantial base in this country for the government intervening to help out poor whites only; the Democrats were once that party, and it stands to reason they could have stayed that way.
 
Black Democrats have been making these statements toward black Republicans periodically. People get outraged, and then everyone forgets about it. Remember Harry Belafonte calling Colin Powell the house slave?

True. This time, though, Gingrich decides that the best way to stop those attacks would be to have more black Republicans in office. "They can beat up on a Congressman. It'll be harder if they have to divide their attention some."

Ward Connerly ends up being just the man to really kickstart things. By unseating Dianne Feinstein, he not only is the first African-American senator from California, he also defeated the author of the 1994 semi-auto ban. When he gets company by the end of 1998 in Ken Blackwell and Herman Cain, Gingrich is gone, but the GOP keeps it up, because they see their percentage of the African-American vote rising across the board. In 2000, they draw 18% of the African-American vote. In 2004, it rises to 25%.
 
The late 90s are too late for any significant movement. A few token black politicians are not going to move the needle much, no more than Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice endeared GWB to Black voters. The Republican party was thoroughly tainted in the eyes of the Black community by 1996, enough that there was already a social stigma associated with being a black republican. Herman Cain isn't changing that.
 
True. This time, though, Gingrich decides that the best way to stop those attacks would be to have more black Republicans in office. "They can beat up on a Congressman. It'll be harder if they have to divide their attention some."

Ward Connerly ends up being just the man to really kickstart things. By unseating Dianne Feinstein, he not only is the first African-American senator from California, he also defeated the author of the 1994 semi-auto ban. When he gets company by the end of 1998 in Ken Blackwell and Herman Cain, Gingrich is gone, but the GOP keeps it up, because they see their percentage of the African-American vote rising across the board. In 2000, they draw 18% of the African-American vote. In 2004, it rises to 25%.

The problem here is that while you offer some interesting examples where black conservatives might have won election, you haven't changed the Republican party's policies which are perceived by the majority of black voters as not being in their interests. In the South, for instance, the GOP is seen as the party of the status quo socially, economically and racially. Tim Scott may be the Senator from South Carolina, but his election hasn't changed the fact that most blacks in SC are still Democrats. Ken Blackwell had some success electorally in Ohio, but his success did not carry over to GOP success in the state with black voters.

Black conservatives remain a distinctly small subset of black voters overall. The reasons for this are deep-seated and rooted in history recent and ancient. Based on my own observations, any party that worships Ronald Reagan will have a hard road in winning over most black voters, who see the 1980s not as "Morning in America" but as a nightmare from which they have yet to awaken.

To make this idea work, you have to have a different Reagan Presidency and a different Nixon political strategy where Nixon eschews the "Southern strategy" for something else.
 
The late 90s are too late for any significant movement. A few token black politicians are not going to move the needle much, no more than Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice endeared GWB to Black voters. The Republican party was thoroughly tainted in the eyes of the Black community by 1996, enough that there was already a social stigma associated with being a black republican. Herman Cain isn't changing that.

It's not a few tokens... after the 2004 elections, it's six out of 55 Republican Senators (Connerly, Blackwell, Cain, Scott, Michael Williams, and Alveda King), and three out of 28 Republicans as sitting governors (J.C. Watts, Lynn Swann, and Armstrong Williams). That is arguably close to the actual percentage of African-American population across the United States. Four of the GOP senators and two of the GOP governors are from the South.

I can buy the argument if there is just one African-American Republican in the House of Representatives, as was the case for most of the 1990s. But six Senators and three governors, the bulk of whom are in the South, in addition to Colin Powell and Condi Rice? At some point, it becomes a critical mass.

I don't see the stigma being as severe as it is in OTL with this, especially after Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece runs for the Senate and wins as a Republican.
 
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