[ Lightning-rod issues such as critical race theory and “defund
the police” are a staple for Republican contenders.]
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'AMERICA IS NOT RACIST' BECOMES A 2024 GOP MANTRA  
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David Siders
July 28, 2021
Politico
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_ Lightning-rod issues such as critical race theory and “defund the
police” are a staple for Republican contenders. _

Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks during the Family Leadership
Summit in Des Moines, Iowa. , Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo

 

Democrats made structural racism a centerpiece of the 2020
presidential primary.

Now the Republican rebuttal is emerging as an early plank of the 2024
GOP contest: America is not a racist country.

The mantra, used by nearly all of the Republican contenders, is
unavoidable in the earliest stages of the GOP’s nominating campaign.
At the annual Family Leadership Summit in Iowa this month, all three
potential presidential prospects on stage — former Vice President
Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and South Dakota
Gov. Kristi Noem — took turns joining in the refrain, in one form or
another.

 

[South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks to attendees. ]

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks to attendees at the North
Carolina GOP convention on June 5, 2021 in Greenville, N.C. | Melissa
Sue Gerrits/Getty Images

Top Democrats, including President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala
Harris, have said publicly they don’t believe America is a racist
country. But Republicans are hoping to portray the party as out of
step with the thinking of mainstream America. And by attempting to
harness lightning-rod issues such as critical race theory and
“defund the police,” the GOP is signaling race will again be at
the center of the 2024 campaign.

“It’s a winning issue with independents, and it’s good for the
base, but I really think rank-and-file American voters who are in the
middle, whether you’re center-left, center-right, suburban votes,
parents, I think they all feel like America’s not a racist nation,
critical race theory is being shoved down everybody’s throat,”
said Bob Heckman, a Republican consultant who has worked on nine
presidential campaigns, including Sen. Lindsey Graham’s in 2016.
“I think this is a case of the Democrats going way too far, and I
think it’s a very effective issue.”

The salience of hitting Democrats on the subject of race was discussed
privately by GOP strategists on the sidelines of a Republican National
Committee dinner in California last month, and again at a meeting of
the Republican Governors Association last week in Aspen, Colo.,
according to multiple people who attended those events.

At the RGA gathering, the effectiveness of the “America is not a
racist country” line was discussed specifically, with Republicans
buoyed by GOP battleground state polling
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the idea “white Americans are inherently racist” is deeply
unpopular with voters, including independents.

By forcing Democrats to defend the rhetoric of the left, Republicans
hope to tap into a vein of discontent that is already surfacing in
suburbs where debates over racial equity initiatives in schools and
the focus on systemic racism are roiling parents.

“This is not a close call,” said Curt Anderson, a top adviser to
Florida Sen. Rick Scott, another potential presidential contender.
“This is ‘Defund the Police’ 2.0.”

For Republicans, the focus on race is not without risk. Recent
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majorities of Americans believe discrimination exists in America. More
voters trusted Biden than Donald Trump to handle race relations
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given the choice last year. And though the “defund the police”
movement polls poorly with voters
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the controversy surrounding critical race theory is not yet
especially well-known among the broader electorate
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Still, for Republican primary voters, the issue is a no
brainer. Public polling shows Republicans are paying more attention
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critical race theory than Democrats — and they view it more
negatively, making it a highly effective instrument in the party’s
culture wars. In a Fox News poll last month
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a majority of Republicans, when asked how things work in America
today, said minorities are favored over whites. And the GOP’s own
polling has convinced many Republican candidates that they can make
inroads with independent voters by characterizing Democrats as overly
focused on race.

Tim Scott, the only Black Republican senator, saw his national profile
rise after declaring in the GOP’s official response
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Biden’s first joint address to Congress that “America is not a
racist country.” This month, he announced that he had raised $9.6
million in the second quarter of this year, an eye-popping haul.

“The liberals want to teach our children that … if you’re white,
you’re automatically racist, and that’s just reprehensible to
me,” said Carmine Boal, a former Iowa state representative who
chairs the Northside Conservatives group in Ankeny. “If a Black man
runs on the platform that we are not a racist country, I think that is
one of the best things we could do.”

Scott was not the first Republican to take up the “America is not a
racist country” line. Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador and
daughter of Indian immigrants, declared as much last year.
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So did Rick Scott. In an ad condemning rioters during last year
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protests, Scott said he “thanks God I grew up in this country.”

He added, “No, America is not racist.”

Ed Rogers, the veteran Republican lobbyist and strategist, said that
if “you take middle-of-the-road, sort of marginally involved voters,
they don’t want to be told they’re a racist.”

For those voters, it may be reassuring for a presidential contender to
tell them that they aren’t. One Republican strategist who attended
the RGA meeting said the assertion that “America is not a racist
country” works because it evokes “part of what Trump’s counter
was when he was on the rise. It was simple — Make America Great
Again, proud to be an American. It’s not approaching every problem
in America as if we did something wrong, we’re awful.”

Race has long been an undercurrent in presidential politics, but the
issue was typically too radioactive to be debated in a substantive
fashion. Even the first Black president, Barack Obama, took a cautious
and measured approach. It was major news when, following Trump’s
racially charged presidential campaign in 2016, Democratic
presidential contenders in the 2020 primary responded to his rhetoric
with a raft of overt, race-related appeals
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on issues ranging from criminal justice to poverty and health care.

But Trump, the Democratic response, and civil unrest following the
police murder of George Floyd last year all served to amplify concerns
about racial justice and racial equity during the presidential
election. By the time Biden beat Trump, nearly 70 percent of Americans
said in exit polls
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racism was an important problem.

In that context, it didn’t help Republicans that the party’s
standard bearer began his 2016 presidential run by calling
undocumented immigrants rapists and criminals, that he lauded “very
fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally in
Charlottesville, Va., or that he closed his 2020 campaign with a
furious effort to juice turnout among white voters with racially
charged rhetoric about crime and chaos in the nation’s urban cores.

Today, prominent Democrats do not disagree with the assertion of
Republicans that the nation isn’t racist. Biden, responding to
Scott’s comments in April
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said, “No, I don't think the American people are racist. But I think
after 400 years African Americans have been left in a position where
they're so far behind the eight ball in terms of education, health, in
terms of opportunity.” Harris, the vice president, has echoed that
same sentiment
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In the Republican messaging on race, Democrats say they are
confronting both a straw man argument and what Jaime Harrison, the
chair of the Democratic National Committee, called “[Former RNC
Chair] Lee Atwater stuff … which is the dog whistles.”

“This is why they talk about The 1619 Project
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this is why they talk about CRT [critical race theory] and everything
else, other than the things that really have an impact on the lives of
the American people,” Harrison said. “So now, what they go back to
is the old … let's figure out how we can demonize, we can energize
the rural white folks against Black folks or against brown folks.
That's why they talk about immigration. That's why they talk about the
racial stuff, because it is the party of division and getting people,
and particularly white folks, afraid of ethnic minorities. And it's
sad, it's shameful.”

If Trump runs again, the 2024 campaign will likely feature a reprise
of the 2020 campaign’s charged rhetoric. On Friday, when
Cleveland’s baseball team announced it was changing its name from
the Indians to the Guardians
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Trump said in a statement that he “cannot believe things such as
this are happening. A small group of people, with absolutely crazy
ideas and policies, is forcing these changes to destroy our culture
and heritage.”

Trump’s style and rhetoric turned off many independent and suburban
voters in the midterm elections in 2018 and again in the presidential
race in 2020. But if Trump doesn’t run, the GOP primary field in
2024 may feature any number of less polarizing figures who,
Republicans believe, could more effectively counter Democrats on race.

Pence is already trying out a version of that message, telling a crowd
in the early nominating state of New Hampshire last month that
"America is not a racist country ... it is past time for America to
discard the left-wing myth of systemic racism."

His remark won a standing ovation
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the Hillsborough County GOP’s annual Lincoln-Reagan Dinner.

_David Siders is a national political correspondent for POLITICO._

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