Steven Biel: Republicans are about to nominate a candidate who says nice things about Planned Parenthood, likes single-payer health care and said George Bush should have been impeached.
He is in no way a conservative — except that he’s the most openly bigoted presidential candidate we’ve seen in years, attacking everyone from Muslims to Mexicans and playing footsie with the KKK.
I think it’s time to admit that the GOP has become a fundamentally racist party.
Lance Dutson: The Republican Party has been the most consistently antiracist party in American history. From Lincoln to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and even including Nixon’s position on affirmative action, the GOP has stood strongly against the forces of racism.
Steven: By the Civil Rights Act of 1964, you mean the law that LBJ passed and Barry Goldwater opposed — the beginning of the right-wing takeover of your party? And Nixon, who used the N-word like most of us say hello?
Calling him a leader against racism is like giving Reagan credit for starting a national conversation about AIDS.
Lance: LBJ was one of the most notorious racists in American history. He ascended to the presidency by carrying water for segregationists like Richard Russell, before flipping his position in the White House for political expediency.
Add Robert Byrd and George Wallace to the list — even Al Gore’s father voted against the Civil Rights Act. Historically, Democrats have been on the wrong side of the race issue since the beginning.
Steven: That’s some impressive revisionist history you’re laying out. Did you pull a muscle on that stretch?
Lance: Like it or not, both parties have had racists in their midst, but real conservatives have fought to keep those racists out. William F. Buckley took strong stands against the John Birch Society and George Wallace, to keep them from tarnishing the conservative/Republican position as steadfast defenders of the liberties of all people.
Steven: Have you noticed all your examples are from half a century ago? Today’s GOP is the party of Donald Trump.
Lance: What we’re seeing with Trump is a party being taken over by racist insurrectionists who have no interest in the values that the Republican Party has stood for over time.
Steven: But your voters are siding with the insurrectionists. Trump announced his campaign by calling Mexicans rapists and murderers. He wants a total ban on Muslims entering the country. He was asked point-blank his opinion of David Duke and dodged the question.
If he had gone down in the polls after saying those things, that would have told us where Republican voters stand. Instead he went up. Way up.
Lance: The GOP is definitely in a critical period right now. We see it in Maine, with racist hijackers like Rep. Larry Lockman trying to crowd out traditional, liberty-oriented Republicans.
But again, these people are not Republicans. They are opportunists trying to leverage people’s fears to gain populist political power.
Steven: Lance, I know you, and I have no doubt where you stand personally. But I have to tell you, you’re living in denial. The Republican Party you’re describing no longer exists.
At the end of the day, a party is defined by its voters. If racism isn’t the dominant force in GOP politics today, how do you explain Trump’s poll numbers going up every time he says something horrifyingly bigoted?
Lance: It’s hard to explain why Trump’s popularity increases with every stupid thing he says. It’s frightening.
But political movements come and go. Trump will get slaughtered by Hillary in the general election, and after that the GOP can regroup and get back to defending liberty like we always have.
Steven: To me what’s most revealing is how Republican voters don’t mind that he supports gay marriage or was pro-choice or refuses to consider even one dollar of Social Security cuts. But he checks the hate box with a giant black X, and that’s all that GOP primary voters seem to care about.
It makes me wonder — if Lincoln were alive today, do you really think he’d still be a Republican?
Lance: Our party has a lot of Lincolns in it right now. They just have to start speaking up.
Steven Biel is former campaign director for MoveOn.org and president of the Portland-based political consulting firm Steven Biel Strategies. Lance Dutson, a principal of Red Hill Strategies, is a Republican communications consultant. He has served on the campaign teams of U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Kelly Ayotte, as well as the Maine Republican Party.