Will the Republicans try to impeach the President if they gain
control of both houses in 2014?
Political analysts and historians who deny race as a factor in American politics are boring
us with their simplistic nihilistic political augments because they have no basis in reality. Race has played a major role in American politics since the first African slaves landed on our shores in 1619. Too justify slavery, they needed a racial theory. They develop a scientific and religious theory which classified Africans as sub-human and uncivilized. Once laws were developed to enforce their theory, modern slavery became chattel slavery.
Modern science has debunked all the racial theories, so racial difference is no longer
used to justify racism. Since 1868, Americans have had a love and hate relationship with it’s newly freed slaves. W.E.B. Du Bois stated that Americans cannot decide where they want to draw the color line. What Du Bois was referring to are institutions which practice some forms of racism. Some institutions will allow a certain degree of equal rights at certain periods in history, while others continue to operate in the old ways.
Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton called this practice Institutional Racism;
according to Wikipedia: Institutional racism is the differential access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society. Institutional racism is much hard to fight because it cannot be associated with one or two individuals. The problem persists because most Americans are unwilling to accept the fact that Institutional racism exist.
When the first African American president was elected, many floated the idea that the country had moved into a post-racial period, so race no longer played a pivotal role in politics. Many political analysts and historians on the right and left continue to evaluate the president’s leadership based on this theory. They claim that all questions dealing with leadership must be analyzed within traditional presidential politics. It has become a little boring to here seasonal political analysts and historians rambling each week about how George Bush or Bill Clinton would have dealt with certain political challenges without any reference to race and time in history..
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In the late 1990’s, Republicans politics started shifting from the north to the southern states. Many of the newly elected politicians were members of the Tea Party and the Republican Party. With the rise of the Tea Party in the southern states, and the election of the first Black president, race has risen again to the surface because many Tea Party political positions were similar to the positions which arose out of post-civil war politics. States rights and limitation of federal powers were all questions which centered on the Civil War. This leads one to ask, how much has race relations changed since the post Civil War and the Civil Rights period. One cannot ignore the fact that many fundamental political and social changes have taken place in America. The fact that we elected the first Black president is an indication that people’s attitudes about race is changing, but to deny that race plays no role in our politics is like picking up a rock and dropping it on ones own foot.
When I was out stumping for Obama, one White senior made it clear to me that he would never vote for a Black man as president. While many things have changed, as W.E. B. Dubois pointed out, many things remain the same. Senate Minority Mitch McConnell said that his first task is to make President Obama a one term president. President Obama being keenly aware that any question surrounding race would be toxic for the first Black president, tried to stay clear of any issues dealing with race. The president spent almost two years of his presidency trying to get Republicans to work with him while ignoring the fact that their attitudes mostly centered on race with a little politics throw in to “puff the naïve”. His healthcare program was based on the same conservative program which came out of the Heritage Foundation and was first implemented in Massachusetts. Obama immigration plan was the same one which George Bush advocated and most previous politicians were always willing to increase the minimum wage. He invited Republicans to the White House, organized set down dinners and played golf with them. He also made it clear that he was open to compromise on many of the things mentioned above. Once he figured out that he was wasting his time, he decided to use his second term to unite the party and rely on presidential executives to get some things done.
He had hundreds of judges being blocked by the Senate Republicans. He had to convince Harry Reid to change the senate rules in order to get some of his nominees confirmed by the senate.
Some have criticized the president for promising to much and not delivering on his promises. This is a correct criticism in my opinion. Many young progressives who had not been steeped in our broken politics were demoralized and dropped out of traditional politics or became Independents. Some might have concluded that it was a mistake to vote for a Black president. Many also brought into the post-racial theory which was mentioned above. They concluded that since we were entering a post-racial period, Obama’s failure to follow through on his promises had noting to do with race; he lacked the leadership skills that were required for the job.
After Obama was elected, many young people went back to school or work thinking we had accomplished a major victory. Democrats were in control of both houses and we got a lot done. During the 2010 election, many young progressives and minorities did not come out to vote, so the president became a lame duck and was unable to get any of his legislative proposals passed. The Republican strategy is to block all of his legislative proposals, destroy his legacy and make him a footnote in history. If progressives stay home in 2014, the Republicans will win control of both houses and the congress will try to impeach him. If they attempt to impeach the first Black president, for breaking no clearly defined constitutional principles, this will set back race relations for the next 20 years. In closing, American needs to decide where they want to draw the color line.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism
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