GOP Is Now A White Man’s Party

On Morning Edition today (Monday, August 31, 2020), NPR reporter Steve Inskeep spoke with conservative GOP strategist Shermichael Singleton – Race Is A Hot Button Issue Ahead Of November’s Presidential Election.

As an experienced political analyst, Mr. Singleton’s bona fides are impressive, and includes addressing Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, contributing to several broadcast and news media outlets including The New York Times, C-SPAN, The Washington Post, CNBC, The Hill, CNN, MSNBC, and The Washington Times magazine, among others.

Mr. Singleton, who was born in Louisiana, spent his formative years in Dallas, Texas, earned his Bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College in Political Science, and before that, the Associate in Arts & Science from Southern New Hampshire University.

Having spent time with the organization Lauren’s Kids, a south Florida-based non-profit which works to eradicate sexual abuse through educating adults and school-age children, he later worked as a Field Opposition Researcher with America Rising LLC – a PAC formed in 2013 by Mitt Romney’s Campaign Manager.

In addition to working with Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, Mr. Singleton, who is just age 30, has worked with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s 1991 presidential campaign, and most recently, worked with Dr. Ben Carson M.D.’s 2016 presidential campaign, and followed him into the Department of Housing and Urban Development where he was the youngest-ever Deputy Chief of Staff.

On Monday, October 24, 2016 The Hill published an OpEd authored by Shermichael Singleton critical of the then-candidate Trump’s characterization of Black voters. When as President, Trump discovered it, he fired Shermichael – who was “led out of the department’s headquarters by security” Wednesday, February 17, 2017.

It wasn’t the first time Trump had axed someone over an opinion with which he disagreed. Then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson chose Foreign Policy Advisor Elliott Abrams to be his Deputy Secretary of State, but after Trump had discovered some of Mr. Abrams’ anti-Trump writings – an OpEd headlined “When You Can’t Stand Your Candidate” in the May 2016 edition of The Weekly Standard – he had him nixed.

Again, NPR’s Steve Inskeep interviewed Mr. Singleton on Morning Edition about the future of the GOP, and the role that race had in the Republican National Convention.

And if you haven’t figured it out by now, or know otherwise, Mr. Shermichael Singleton is Black.

Mr. Singleton, who has since abandoned the once Grand Old Party – or, as some have said, the party abandoned him – didn’t mince words in the interview.

In his introduction of Shermichael, Steve Inskeep said in part that, “in July, as an African American, he’d had enough of the party.”

He said his choice came down to one question:

“Do you continue to be a part of this thing and association, though it no longer represents or embodies anything dignified –or– do you separate, and say, in its current form, this thing must be destroyed? And I chose the latter of the two.”

Inskeep: Did you have a particular goal during your years in the Republican Party?

Singleton: Oh, of course! One of the biggest goals for me was always to change some of the things in the Republican Party that made many minorities apprehensive, or made many minorities absolutely distrustful of the party. And I worked very diligently on trying to work with various members. And I’ve worked for multiple Republican campaigns, presidential campaigns, in trying to make sure that certain policy positions played a more pivotal and central role with Republican candidates. As the goal of politics, is to bring people in. In order to bring people in, you have to understand where these people are, and you have to understand the language, the culture, the experiences. To try and work on that, again, to me was just a noble cause, an honorable cause, and unfortunately, I failed. And I think many other individuals who attempted to do the same thing, also failed.

Inskeep: Now, I’m thinking of the Republican convention just past, in which people of color had vey prominent roles – Nikki Haley spoke, to give one example. Senator Tim Scott spoke. What did you think of that convention?

Singleton: The overall convention, I didn’t like. I thought the convention focused too much on grievance politics. I believe they played into a White identity grievance politics of fear. I thought a lot of the speeches were oftentimes dark. I thought some of the speeches about folks going into the suburbs, and the violence, you know, attacking individuals… and White individuals should be concerned about… we all should be concerned. That’s not a White thing. I think whether you’re Black, Hispanic, Asian, or whatever you may be, all people should be concerned about crime. I don’t think you have to be White for that. So there’s a way to condemn the outright violence while saying ‘now, there is a process for you to air your grievances.’ Our Constitution permits that, and we as a party that loves the Constitution – at least purportedly – we want to permit that. But instead, most of the speakers approached it in a way that, again, I believe, attempted to arouse fear out of a lot of White Americans, and I think that’s very dangerous, because…

Inskeep: (interrupting) You’re saying that when the President said in his convention speech, that he was defending against a, quote, radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy the American way of life, that’s the kind of stoking fear you’re talking about, I suppose.

Singleton: Precisely! Because when you use those type of dog-whistle words and rhetoric, what type of symbolism are you attempting to instill in people’s minds? So those things that I noticed, made me very concerned, again, about the future, very concerned about the Republican party, and very concerned about Mr. Trump’s re-election.

Inskeep: Did you say at the beginning of this interview that you thought it was time for the Republican party to be destroyed?

Singleton: I didn’t say that, but I said something close to it. I do think it’s time for the Republican party to have a rebirth. And in order for something new to be born again, something must be thrown away – I’ll put it to you that way. I think it is very clear, that in its current form, the Republican party just cannot… it cannot be permitted to exist. It’s just not possible. The Republican party does not represent conservative values anymore. It does not represent any of those foundational principles. This has morphed into something else. And that something else, as I call it, is a cancer. And you either beat the cancer, or the cancer consumes everything until it’s dead. One of the two things are gonna’ happen here.

Inskeep: Shermichael Singleton, thanks so much for your time.

Singleton: Thanks so much, my friend, and I hope to join you again soon.

The Congressional Research Service has published a report entitled “African American Members of the U.S.Congress: 1870-2019” which was updated January 22, 2020 and is numbered RL30378.