There are several reasons (so far) I've never voted for a Republican. The first being their twisted formulation of the Southern Strategy which is a direct response to the Civil Rights laws passed under Lydon Johnson's administration. The Southern Strategy was always in the background after Johnson passed Civil Rights legislation but reactivated by Nixon and fully reignited under Regan when he held a rally and kicked off the remaining portion of his campaign (after the conventions) in Philadelphia, Mississippi; the same Philadelphia, Mississippi  where three Civil Rights workers were killed. By kicking off the final stretch of the 1980 presidential race in this Mississippi town, Regan was saying that if he was elected, he would make sure that federal government mandated Civil Rights laws would be roll back to pre-Johnson norms.

The first person I associate the Southern Strategy with is Barry Goldwater. He seized the opportunity to appeal to the most base instinct among a certain segment of Americans--he wasn't by far the first prominent American politician to use race like a wedge. Nixon picked up where Goldwater left off. I wanted to believe that this country, my country would cease to use dirty political racial tricks like the Southern Strategy but Nixon perfected it. Nixon was so bold, that he often expressed--listen to his released tapes-- his disdain for black people. The New York Times reports another piece of this twisted puzzle. Nixon was breathing new life into that all American tome wherein black and white people should not have children together. Through his actions he announced that blacks and whites procreating was the ultimate trespass. Imagine if these so-called eugenicist had their way in the United States--in some cases they did.  I can't say that it would have resulted in a genocide but look what happened to the Jews in Europe as Germans employed the nefarious theories they learned from early 20th American eugenicist like Charles Davenport. The Southern Strategy in all its forms is the notorious follow-up to the 1924 Racial Integrity Act.

It is pure racism when the politically powerful can by fiat, dictate the terms of lives of those they govern. And I am not blind to see that Democrats have taken the African American vote for granted for far too long. I just wish the Republicans would stop politics based in theories which are faulty to say the least.