http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/opinion/campaign-stops/race-and-the-gops-future.html 2016-10-14 14:34:24 Race, and the G.O.P.’s Future Today’s Republican Party is built in part on fear of people who are not white. There’s no other way to say it. === This article is part of the Opinion Today newsletter. You can Last summer, in the innocent time before sexist comments from Donald Trump had become a near daily occurrence, he vulgarly insulted Megyn Kelly of Fox News, with a reference to “blood coming out of her wherever.” Hours later, the conservative activist Erick-Woods Erickson The reason was simple, Erickson said: Decency. It is a standard that few Republican leaders have met this year. Even as Trump has unfurled one form of hateful language after another — even as he has bragged about sexually assaulting women — most Republican leaders have stood with him. In today’s Times, Erickson has written an Op-Ed calling out those leaders, including pastors, and noting the personal price his family has paid for his willingness to confront Trump. In the article, Erickson also charts a post-Trump path for the party. It’s a serious one, organized around school choice, market-based economics, religious freedom and local communities. But I think it’s also missing at least one big item: equality of all Americans. Today’s Republican Party is built in part on fear of people who are not white. There’s no other way to say it. The party is committed to reducing voting rights for African-Americans. It has a history of alienating African-Americans that long predates Trump, stretching through Lately, it has begun alienating Asian-Americans and Latinos as well. Obama I understand that many conservatives see themselves as inherently supportive of equality for all Americans — so supportive that they don’t like to mention race (or gender) and foster divisions in the process. But their party is not starting from scratch. It needs to Thoughtful conservatives, like Erickson, need to start pushing for a radically different approach.