Is the GOP a White Party? Let's take a look at Congress?

[Sandpiper]

The U.S. House of Representatives is the body that is supposed to be a mirror of America.

Let's take a look at the Demographics of both parties in the House:

231 Republicans:

224 Whites, 5 Latinos, 1 Asian, 1 Native American


202 Democrats:

138 Whites, 42 African Americans, 19 Latinos, 3 Asians



White people account for 97% of elected Republicans and 69% of elected Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Now, which party looks like America, and which looks like an upscale country club?


Looks like Dr. Dean was onto something.

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Thank you. Well put. nt

[Carolab]

2. Course, they can always BUY some "people of color ".

And I'm not so sure about BILL RICHARDSON, yo.

[EFerrari]

6. I am. We Brown people have a word for people like him.

VENDIDO

[Carolab]

7. Without looking that up--does that mean sell-out? n/t

[EFerrari]

19. Yep. n/t

[kliljedahl]

50. Only to showcase at their convention

Keith’s Barbeque Central

[truebrit71]

3. About time someone pointed this out....

...Howard Dean is not only right in saying what he said, he is also factually accurate...

But you want hear that from the MSM and the DINO's like Lieberman, Biden and Messiah Obama.... :eyes:

[CrispyQ]

4. Thank you!

I will include this in my LTTE & my letters to Dem senators who are bashing Dean.

[BiggJawn]

5. Don't forget....

The one Native American (Ben Whitehorse, right?) USED to be a Democrat...

Now, the harder to discover demographic...

How many Muslims, Atheists, Jews, Animists, etc. on the GOP side of the aisle? Betcha 98% profess to being "Christian"...

[LeftHander]

8. Republican racist undercurrent

Exists....
and has been well documented. It is the dirty rotten underbelly of the Republican Base...

racist, homophobic, religious fundementalists...

Scary part is they know it.

[Sandpiper]

9. Dean scares them

Because he's the first Democrat in a long time to point them out for what they are.

[RobertSeattle]

22. And they know how to use "code words" around it

Never be blatantly racist, homophobic, etc, just use code words like "family values", "immigrant", "God fearing", etc.

[central scrutinizer]

36. they talk in code

"states rights" "law and order" "welfare queens" "no quotas" all mean: vote for us and we will keep the Negroes in their place.

"protect our borders" means: vote for us and we will keep the Mexicans in their place.

"family values" and "morals" mean: vote for us and we will keep the homos in their place.

[maxrandb]

10. Here's a Oldie but a Goody

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3014948

[Sandpiper]

18. I posted a variation of this topic in GD

Hope you don't mind! ;-)

[maxrandb]

51. Absolutely Not Sandpiper

I've heard that "great minds think alike" :patriot:

[killbotfactory]

11. The Party of Robertson, Falwell, and Savage

Let's not let them forget it.

And don't for get Rick "man on dog action" Santorum.

[Old and In the Way]

12. Great post!

[Sandpiper]

13. Dean speaks the truth to power

We can't let the cowardly, capitulating, Congressional Democrats throw him under the bus for saying what none of them would dare say.

Dr. Dean didn't say anything but the unvarnished truth and owes no one an apology for it.

[H2O Man]

14. The Southern Poverty Law Center's

spring '05 Intelligence Report has a lot of information which directly ties southern republicans to the "Council of Conservative Citizens." The CCC is the KKK wearing a suit & tie, rather than a white sheet. In 1998, the RNC warned republicans not to be publicly identified with the very racist CCC.

I suspect that the democratic party would do well to attack the racist make-up of the republican party, rather than the racial make-up.

[Sandpiper]

16. Haley Barbour is openly friendly with the CofCC

And he's the current governor of Mississippi and former RNC Chairman.

[H2O Man]

31. Haley Barbour:

CCC link: As a gubernatorial candidate, he attended the July 19, 2003 Black Hawk Barbecue in Carol County, to help the CCC raise money for their private acedemy buses. He was photographed with CCC Field Director Bill Lord.

Also, one of his top aides, Kathryn Stewart, addressed the Greater Jackson and Southern Magnolia CCC five days later. Barbour rewarded her with an appointment to the state Pardons and Parole Board.

We have a great deal of ammunition here. I say we go snake hunting.

[maxrandb]

46. Wasn't Haley Barbour the RNC Chairman??!!!!

Wow! I think he was. I don't believe I ever heard a single media outlet asking any prominent Repuke if they approved of ole' Haley's association with a white supremecist group!!!

Do you??

Here's something interesting that Haley said about Democrats practicing Christian bashing.

Could someone please point me to the links to the meida coverage and the response of the prominent Republicans at the time. Thanks :eyes:

http://www.skepticfiles.org/american/demcb.htm

"So with nothing else to talk about, Fazio adopted the new,
orchestrated Democrat campaign strategy of Christian bashing, the
left's preferred form of religious bigotry. Christian bashing will
backfire, so if Fazio and the Democrats keep it up, it will help
Republicans at the polls in November. Nevertheless, I think it is
deplorable a major political party considers religious bigotry an
acceptable campaign strategy."

[H2O Man]

47. The republicans are vulnerable.

This is an area that democrats should be hitting on, really hard. I'm not positive about Barbour's past political positions; hopefully another DUer will be able to help us on this. But he is one of the top dogs in the south. And there is at least one photo of him breaking bread with the top CCC/KKK leaders. In his home state, he apparently can get away with that type of association. But we can make him the poster boy of republican racism.

[maxrandb]

48. You Mean This Photo?

The smiling guy in the middle is Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican party from 1993-1997 and currently a candidate for governor of Mississippi. And where was Barbour when this picture was taken? Why, at the Black Hawk Barbecue and Political Rally, held on July 19 to raise money for — wink wink, nudge nudge — "private academy" school buses.

Still not clear on what the problem is? The BHBPR is sponsored by the fine gentlemen of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a bunch of well-known racist neanderthals based out of Missouri. I think most of my readers are probably aware of the CCC's handiwork, but in case you aren't you might want to visit their website and browse around. You can start with "In Defense of Racism," and then head over to "the TRUTH about Martin Luther King," and then finish up with "Angry White Female" and a report from the Mississippi chapter about how Abraham Lincoln was an imperialist warmonger.

http://www.calpundit.com/archives/002427.html

[H2O Man]

52. That's it!!!

That is far more effective than simply calling people "white christians." The people in this photo are racist scum. And there's no denying that.

[geckosfeet]

15. Wrreeerrrrrryy eeentereesting,,,,,,,,,

Another shocking discovery.

Don't forget,,, don't ask,,, don't tell.

[boohootwo]

17. You just posted yet another divisive thread. Thanks a lot!

[EOTE]

30. Divisive? How so?

Seems like the poster is just pointing out the obvious to me. Is there any particular part of the post that you take issue with?

[Javaman]

55. freep

[slackmaster]

20. African-Americans are over-represented in our party

21% of Congress, while they're only 12.9% in the general population.

Does that make us the Black Party? :D

OTOH if you look at the makeup of Congress as a whole, it DOES pretty closely match the population.

[Sandpiper]

21. Latinos as a whole are underrepresented

In both parties, but I figure that will start correcting itself within the next 10-20 years.

And no, the numbers of different minorities within the Democratic Party is not an exact reflection of their percentage of the population, the breakdown of 69% White and 31% Non-White is about dead on.

[slackmaster]

28. To me it appears that the issue is class more than race

Whites are drawn to the GOP because they still tend to be more affluent than non-whites. Non-whites see the GOP as oppressive because it caters to the wealthy.

These are broad generalities of course.

BTW - Latinos, who make up about 35% of the population of California, are not under-represented in our Legislature.

[tallahasseedem]

23. You arent actually pointing out actual numbers are you?

Bad poster! Dont you know the Freeps dont like the truth.

[Shallah Kali]

24. As AmericaBlog said no white men here:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/06/howard-dean-sure-to-be-chastized-again.html

:rolleyes:

[geniph]

25. Neither party actually looks like America...

or they'd be 51% female. However, we look a little bit MORE like America than the pod people do.

[Sandpiper]

29. In terms of gender

Women are still badly underrepresented.

If they ever voted as a bloc, they could change that in a single election cycle.

[geniph]

40. Yeppers. And then again...

I come from a state with two female Senators and a female Governor (all Democrats, of course). Yahoo! We're doing our best out here!

[meganmonkey]

26. If only Alan Keyes had won

They could have been so proud

:7

[Greyhound]

27. Hear, Hear...

Another of thousands of examples of thier campaign of lies.
Still not hearing much from "the party", except for Gov. Dean.

[Gelliebeans]

32. can't argue with cold hard numbers

thanks for putting that together Sandpiper :thumbsup:

kick and nominated

[Roxy66]

33. Ha Ha....

[MsUnderstood]

34. This proves Dean was wrong. . .not right!

Because even if you take the false assumption that the makeup of Congress is a scaled model of the political party (Where is the democratic makeup to show this is a true assumtion) Dean's words were that the republicans were white christian and you have no comparision of the religious affiliation of the congress people.

Now, just looking at the ethnicity, Dean said the party was white christian, not that 97% were--that they all were. He created a stereotype, made an exageration, misspoke about who he was referring to--whatever you want to say, he was wrong.

He is doing exactly what we bitch about the republicans doing.

How many of you have been offended when the repulicans say "If you don't support the war, you don't support the troops" or "Democrats are anti-God" or "Democrats have no moral values" or "Democrats don't believe in Jesus" or "All democrats are gay." These are stereotypes of the democrats based on a skewed perception.

We can fight against the republicans without looking like them. We don't have to stoop to their level.

[killbotfactory]

38. he said they were mostly white christians

that qualifier keeps being left out of news reports for some reason.

[Demit]

39. No, he said "pretty much", is what he said. Research is your friend!

[H2O Man]

42. I disagree.

I think yours' is a tortured interpretation of what Dean said.

[stickdog]

44. He said Repukes were "pretty much white Christians."

Try again.

[Karenina]

45. Ohhhh, get bent.

:eyes: :evilgrin:

[Pacifist Patriot]

54. MsUnderstood I do believe you misunderstood.

"pretty much" does not mean every single solitary elected official and registered Republican voter is a white Christian. Generalizations are always going to have exceptions, but that is just their nature. As generalizations go, this one was spot on.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

56. When 97% of something is one thing,

saying it is that one thing is not stereotyping, it is calling a spade a spade...strictly rationally speaking, of course.

OTOH, "If you don't support the war, you don't support the troops" is provably illogical.

OTTH, "Democrats are anti-God" is verifiably false when 80+% of Dems identify themselves as God-fearing/believing.

So, again, what exactly are we saying Dean did? B-)

On Edit: AARGH: fixed grammar.

[CambridgeDem]

35. Who's the Native American?

[Sandpiper]

37. Tom Cole

Registered member of the Chickasaw Nation.

[Pacifist Patriot]

53. Can I assume that an enrolled member who attended Yale

probably never lived a second on a reservation? Or would that be too presumptuous on my part?

[newyawker99]

43. Hi CambridgeDem!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Behind the Aegis]

41. Fun article

This is from about a year ago, but still relevant today.

End of the Rainbow
In 2000 the Republicans Paraded their Diversity. But Now the Party is Showing its True Color - White

by Gary Younge

General Colin Powell is missing in action. At the Republican convention in 2000 he led from the front, opening a line up that could have been set up by Jesse Jackson's Rainbow coalition. Of the three co-chairs in 2000 one was black and another Hispanic; national security adviser Condoleezza Rice kicked off prime-time coverage one night while Chaka Khan serenaded George Bush.

"Make no mistake about it," said a Republican strategist at the time. "Bush is personally obsessed with diversity." That obsession, even at this cosmetic level, seems to have long passed.

Powell, the secretary of state, was absent last week - not just from the podium but from the entire convention. The White House says his absence was a matter of "custom and tradition" that prevents the national security team from attending. This must have been news to Bush's father, who had secretary of state James Baker at his side at the 1992 convention. Powell did not come either because, given his misgivings on the war, the party did not want him there or because, given his misgivings about the party, he did not want to be there.

Either way, this year the most prominent black speaker was the education secretary, Rod Paige - whose low public profile only a Google search could save from oblivion. And it was downhill from there. After Paige came the lieutenant governor of Maryland and finally Erika Harold, last year's Miss America.

story continues here

[Blue_Roses]

49. Whether people like it or not

Dean was right. There's no denying the facts. People seem to get all bent out of shape when he points out the facts. Proves how much our country lives in denial.