There really are black Republicans. Here is one man who has always been courageous and thoughtful. Now, Artur Davis is also a Republican.
Why did he switch parties, after being a co-chairman for Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign? Let Davis explain.
President Obama ran on two central themes in the fall of 2008: that he would devote his presidency to transcending our political and ideological divisions, and that he would restore the economy to good health. What he has given us is the most relentlessly ideological presidency in my lifetime, a political operation that shamelessly cultivates division, and the most inept economic recovery since the 1930s — one so weak most Americans haven’t felt it. The Obama administration has also managed to shift the Democratic Party to a place where it is as intolerant of opposing viewpoints as the Washington establishment routinely imagines Republicans to be.
As a long-standing member of the old center-right in the Democratic Party, I found the party moving inexorably to the left. Among other things, I felt that Democrats were wrong to embrace tax increases during a time of weak business confidence; wrong to coddle an empty-headed movement like Occupy Wall Street; wrong to resist meaningful entitlement reform; wrong in their overhaul of health care; wrong in their enthusiasm for overregulation and mandates; and way too hostile to any worldview that doesn’t suit the Democratic orthodoxy on same-sex marriage or abortion on demand.
It should be noted that Republicans far more than Democrats are providing a pathway for African-Americas, Latinos and Indian Americans who dare to move beyond being spokespersons for their own communities. Condi Rice, Susanna Martinez, Nikki Haley, Brian Sandoval, Tim Scott, Allen West, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio: They are a roll call of Americans of color who have won the privilege to speak for more than their own kind, and Mia Love and Ted Cruz will join them this November. In the Democratic Party, with precious few exceptions, minorities are consigned to represent and to speak for their own.
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