Republicans OK With Racism - But Not Nazism

There has been a lot of buzz about the two pictures above on the internet lately.   In the top picture, Richard Iott (Republican candidate for the U.S. House from Ohio) poses in a Nazi uniform with some of his buddies.   He claims he was just participating in some war "re-enactment".   But it really upset his Republican buddies and they are trying to distance themselves from him as much as possible.   They don't want to be tarred as Nazis just before an election.

I have to admit it was a stupid thing for Iott to do.   Anyone who has lived in the United States for very long has to know that the huge majority of citizens in this country have no respect for the Nazis.   In fact, being called a Nazi is about the worst name an American can be called.   It's amazing that any politician with half a brain could get his picture taken wearing a Nazi uniform right before an election.

But the guy in the center of the bottom picture also put himself in a compromising position by dressing in a Confederate uniform and having his picture taken -- especially with a couple of African-Americans in "period dress".   The picture literally screams racism.   The White guy is South Carolina State Senate president Glen McConnell (a Republican).   But strangely enough, the Republican Party had no problem with the picture.

Many on the left have been taken aback at how the Republicans have such a problem with the top picture, but not with the bottom picture.   Isn't racism (and slavery) as despicable and evil as Nazism?   How can you detest one picture and defend the other?

Frankly, it doesn't surprise me at all.   I've lived in Texas all my life (except for three years in an Arkansas college) and I'm familiar with the recent history of the Republican Party in the South (including Texas).   When President Johnson cajoled and strong-armed Congress into passing the Civil Rights Acts of the mid-sixties, he knew he had done the right thing but he also recognized the political reality.   In fact, he told a cohort that the action would lose Democrats the South for a generation.

He was right.   White southern racists blamed President Johnson and the Democratic Party.   Before the laws were passed, the Southern States (and Texas) were one-party states - Democratic.   But after the laws were passed, white racists abandoned the Democratic Party in droves.   The Republican Party offered these racists a home, and because of this they became the majority party throughout the South.  

The Republican Party is still the home for racist Whites, and they can't afford to lose those votes.   That is why they talk of "Southern Tradition" and "States Rights" -- the terms that have been code words for racism since the sixties.   As a Texan, I would like to believe that Texas and the South are no longer racist -- but that is just not true.   Things are slowly changing, but racism is still far too strong in the region.   And the Republicans know that.

Repudiating the Nazi picture was easy.   Everybody hates the Nazis -- even Southerners.   But repudiating the picture of a Republican in a Confederate uniform is a different story.   It is the uniform of those who defended slavery and committed treason against the United States, and even today it stands (along with the Confederate battle flag) as a symbol of racism.   But you won't hear that from Republican politicians because it would cost them too many votes.   They may be racist votes, but to them all votes count the same at the ballot box.

The Republicans are interested only in retaining power in the South and using that "Southern strategy" to return to power in Washington.   If they have to do it with racist votes, then so be it.   That's why the bottom picture will never be criticized by Republican officials.