“Political Parties In America May Recede And Possibly Bleed But They Always Seem To Comeback In Orde

When you look back at America’s history since the 1860s’ relating to the two major political parties just when one party has seemingly been given its last rights. The dying party has been resuscitated by white Americans who needed a political party to wage a war against any form of racial equality in this nation. In the 1850s’ the Democratic Party was thriving in America with a anti-abolitionist position that eventually lead to a Civil War and the destruction of the Southern Democratic Party. Within a decade that same Democratic Party had been revived by the vile racial hatred of white Americans who couldn’t stand the thought of racial equality between themselves and their former slaves. By the end of the nineteenth century the Democratic Party deemed dead was once again thriving because of its allegiance to its racial policies. It took until the mid-1960’s before the descendants of the southern Democrats had to make choice of race over racial equality. No longer a viable position within the Northern dominated Democratic Party these white Americans choose a new political alliance. That choice was the Republican Party. 

The Republicans were a dying party after the  1964 trouncing of Barry Goldwater by Lyndon Johnson in the Presidential Election. The Republicans had lost its power base in almost every level of government. A change was needed and Richard Nixon, who had lost a razor thin presidential election to John Kennedy in 1960, knew how to fill the void and rebuild the Republican Party. Nixon appealed to what he called the silent majority. In reality that supposed silent white American was the same white American who felt that they were being ignored by the Democratic Party. It was the white American whose white ancestors at the turn of the century choose racial animosity over racial cooperation. The Republicans lead by Richard Nixon directed a southern campaign to convert those white American Democrats to white American Republicans and it succeeded. The Republican Party looked like a powerful political movement until Watergate supposedly put the Republican Party on life support. However, within Ronald Reagan’s dawning of a new day in America revived them again but using racism as a pulling force. During this period from 1980 to 1992 saw images of Willie Horton, black welfare queens, urban violence flash across television screens during the elections to draw back those disenchanted white Americans to revive renewed interest once again in the Republican Party.

The Democrats maintained a open door political front but during Clinton’s Presidential term attempted to draw back in those white racist Americans by promoting law and order and the specific policies that incarcerated black Americans. It didn’t work because the Republicans had mastered the race card. In 2008 because of a dire financial crisis even white Americans whose racism had motivated them politically choose to side with the Democratic Party to solve the nation’s financial woes. But by 2016, racists and racism was back on the front burners of white Americans who again choose race over equality and the Trump Era began. 

As in 1974, the Republican Party is torn asunder by inner turmoil caused by Trump’s rabid followers. The question is being asked now as it was asked as Nixon’s exit. Can the Republican Party survive? The answer will be yes because they have mastered the race card strategy. As long as they(i.e. Republicans) continue to play that card this nation will never be a Perfect Union. Because the imperfections will be measured by America’s bending towards racism and inequality.