For each of the following, identify whether the plank is part of the 2012 draft platform or one of its antecedents…
1. The Nation's labor unions, comprised of millions of working people, have advanced the well-being not only of their members but also of our entire free-enterprise system. We of the Republican Party reaffirm our strong endorsement of Organized Labor's key role in our national life.
2. The Republican Party supports an immigration policy which is in keeping with the traditions of America in providing a haven for oppressed peoples, and which is based on equality of treatment, freedom from implications of discrimination between racial, nationality and religious groups, and flexible enough to conform to changing needs and conditions…In that concept, this Republican Administration sponsored the Refugee Relief Act to provide asylum for thousands of refugees, expellees and displaced persons, and undertook in the face of Democrat opposition to correct the inequities in existing law and to bring our immigration policies in line with the dynamic needs of the country and principles of equity and justice.
3. We fully endorse the principle of equal rights, equal opportunities and equal responsibilities for women, and believe that progress in these areas is needed to achieve the full realization of the potentials of American women both in the home and outside the home…[We have...]
Required all firms doing business with the Government to have affirmative action plans for the hiring and promotion of women;
Requested Congress to expand the jurisdiction of the Commission on Civil Rights to cover sex discrimination;
Recommended and supported passage of Title IX of the Higher Education Act opposing discrimination against women in educational institutions;
Supported the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 giving the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforcement power in sex discrimination cases;
Continued our support of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, our Party being the first national party to back this Amendment.
4. We favor self-government, national suffrage and representation in the Congress of the United States for residents of the District of Columbia.
5. Resolved, That foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development of resources and increase of power to the nation, the asylum of the oppressed of all nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy.
Answer: Trick question. None of this communist rabblerousery would pass muster with the GOP today. Numbers 1 and 3 are excerpts from the 1972 platform. Items 2 and 4 are from the 1956 platform. And number 5 is from 1864.
Of course, that was a trick question in another way, too. Despite the name, this isn't the Republican Party, not today. It's the Dixiecrat Party.
For more than a century, the South was solidly Democratic. But when the Democrats decided to support racial equality, that created an opportunity for Republicans. And their 'Southern strategy' of deliberately wooing white racists turned out to be wildly successful.
These days, there's no part of America more Republican than the South. All those old Dixiecrats, and their Northern sympathizers, are now the Republican base. They control the Republican Party these days.
African Americans left the party. Moderate conservatives left the party. Northeasterners - formerly the GOP stronghold - left the party, all but Wall Street.
Republican leaders tried to use the racists, the fundamentalists, the unrepentant Confederates, but the tail soon started wagging the dog. Now, that's the Republican base. The Dixiecrats have taken firm control of the GOP.
So of course they don't support the old Republican Party platforms. This isn't the Republican Party (sane Republicans switched to the Democrats, causing that party to shift right, too).
Now, we've got the Republicrats (Demoblicans?) on one side and the Dixiecrats on the other. And the Dixiecrats haven't given up fighting the Civil War.
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