The Republican agenda and "the old bigotry"

If you give the Republican Party the benefit of every possible doubt, their platform on immigration and racial justice looks something like this:

We love immigrants, but they have to be legal immigrants. And they have to adopt the basic structure of American society, including adoption of the English language.

Also, we feel that enough progress has been made on economic equality, voting rights and other race-concerns that most remedies (affirmative action, etc.) are outdated.

Indeed, at this point such remedies reflect a kind of reverse racism which perpetuates bigotry.

Unfortunately, the GOP has a long history of skating very close to — and over — the line on racial issues, including the well-documented Southern Strategy, first articulated by President Richard Nixon.

In 2005, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman apologized for his party’s efforts to use racial tensions to improve loyalty among white voters.

Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.

With an agenda that still clashes frequently with the desires and aspirations of most people of color, you would think that Republicans would have learned the need for temperance and caution.

(If you’re making an unpopular and controversial argument, you have to make it more carefully, more clearly — right?)

Sadly, no. In the last couple of weeks, a top staffer for a Georgia state Senator sent an email depicting President Barack Obama as a faceless “spook.”

In an essay, conservative Pat Buchanan (a former Nixon aide) argued that Sonia Sotomayor’s use of affirmative action to advance her career was so offensive that he “prefers the old bigotry.”

At least it was honest, and not, as Abraham Lincoln observed, adulterated “with the base alloy of hypocrisy.”

The notion that America’s long history of racial bigotry has been free of hypocrisy is so witless that it makes one sputter.

Meanwhile, a Republican political activist in South Carolina has apologized for saying on his Facebook page that an escaped gorilla was nothing to worry about. Why?

“I’m sure it’s just one of Michelle [Obama]’s ancestors – probably harmless,” he wrote.

Top conservatives also attacked Judge Sonia Sotomayor for being “a racist” for her views on affirmative action. Republican activist – and former congressman – Tom Tancredo accused her of being part of “a Latino KKK.”

This week, Republicans are taking a very hard line with Senator John Ensign, who disclosed that he had an adulterous affair.

They should take a similar line with those in their party who don’t grasp how destructive “the old bigotry” still remains — to America and the GOP.