Opinion: Republicans have become 'de facto White Party' by rejecting multiracial democracy

I have been reading "Tyranny of the Minority" (2023), by Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. Through it I came to realize that America has experienced not one, but a series, of separate “beginnings.” We are familiar with the founding of the United States of America, our first “beginning,” through our revolution against Great Britain. However, we should recognize there have been other important “beginnings” since then.

Certainly, an important beginning took place with the Civil War wherein the Emancipation Proclamation freed a large segment of our population to become U.S. citizens. This was literally a rebirth of freedom to be enjoyed by the nation and African Americans, who were already important to the economy of the nation, including numerous building projects and government buildings. America was already a multi-ethnic and multi-racial society from its earliest days.

The Civil War was followed by the Reconstruction era, where the white population in Southern states that were part of the Confederacy was given free rein to reassert white domination over the former slaves. The most precious part of any democracy — the right to elect local and national government representatives — was denied to former slaves by many methods. These ranged from making unrealistic requirements on Black voters, such as reciting long passages from the founding documents, to violence against those who tried to vote.

Direct segregation (Jim Crow) laws were passed to suppress Black people by making them clearly second-class citizens. The various effects of legalized segregation and the acts and threats of violence were to create a caste society with Black people considered a lower type of citizen, unworthy and unqualified to participate actively in government. Women also were not fully integrated citizens because they were considered unqualified to vote. Another new beginning of the nation awaited granting women the vote in 1919 after World War I. This happened only after an extended struggle by women, beginning in the 19th century.

Another new beginning took place after World War II with court decisions culminating with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Until then, the Black population had not been full participants in American democracy. Adolph Hitler himself was an admirer of America for making laws that excluded part of the population from full participation. The new beginning based on court cases was backed by Democrats and Republicans. I remember clearly in the 1950s and 1960s when America took steps based on the Civil Rights movement that created a more equal multi-ethnic and multi-racial society. There was no actual Civil War, but there were serious violence and deaths.

The white population strongly supported the revolution against Great Britain, but has been a major obstacle in the new beginnings affecting America becoming more fully multi-ethnic and multi-racial. The Republican Party, under Abraham Lincoln, brought about the new beginning caused by the Civil War. But women struggled mostly alone to cause the new beginning marked by their gaining the vote. The new beginning caused by the Civil Rights Movement was supported by the Republican Party and liberal Democrats. But it was strongly opposed by Democrats in the South (Dixiecrats) and other conservatives.

Now the Republican Party, joined by some former Southern Democrats, has completely reversed itself. They rejected the effort in 2021 to restore the Voting Rights Act. A leading Republican senator, Mike Lee of Utah, questioned democracy itself. Republicans have reacted against the multiracial democracy it helped to create, becoming the “de facto White Party.” Evangelical Christians, concentrated in the South and rural areas, have been drawn by Trump toward the illiberal Republican Party or its extreme right, while the Democratic Party has become a strong follower of multi-racial or liberal democracy that includes strong support for labor unions and women’s reproductive rights.

I would remind my fellow Christians that Christianity is based in God’s love, which is for all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. Churches themselves and all religions have had to struggle to reach this goal. Christianity and America should follow this same road and continue to make new beginnings that bring more justice and equal rights to all its people. The new beginnings of our past serve as a model of possibilities to us and to the world.

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Rev. Robert L. Montgomery, Ph.D., lives in Black Mountain.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: The Republican Party has become 'de facto White Party'