“Urban Conservatism”: The New Agenda for the Republican Party
By HHR | May 6th, 2009 | Category: Brandon Brice, Featured, General, Politics, Urban Issues | 2 commentsBy Brandon Brice
In my recent article, “Jobs, Baby, Jobs”, the idea of job creation and common sense dominated the main theme. As conservatives, libertarians or moderates we realize that now President Barack H. Obama is our new Commander and Chief, but we can always look towards the future. Vice Presidential candidate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, during the debates, once suggested that America return to basics.
Gov. Palin was correct, but the audience she missed is the millions of low income families nationwide. In the next three to four years, the GOP should adopt the agenda of “urban conservatism”, a movement that targets low-income families and stresses common sense, towards financial literacy, education enhancement and self-sufficiency. Skeptics suggest that urban areas do not usually vote conservative, but they are wrong.
Imagine a Republican Party that stresses common sense and educates people on credit, financial literacy and the importance of investments. Let us think for a moment, as our grandmothers and grandfathers once said, if we cannot afford it then we simply do not need it. The common practices of our relative’s years ago to spend frugally and save for a rainy day are essential to our own personal economic development. This agenda concentrates of helping people to help themselves, via self-sufficiency.
Republicans in the past have told people not to depend on the federal government, yet have not showed people how to get off federal programs. Urban Conservatism does just that, it targets low-income neighborhoods and helps people understand how to start a business or the tools and skills needed to interview, hence getting people off welfare.
The agenda translates into action, social action that reflects showing folks how to refrain from the government. GOP leaders and politicians have a history of telling and talking about self-sufficiency, but the party until now hasn’t given any solutions. For example, former President George W. Bush was on target with the No Child Left behind Act, which sought out the real problems in education, corruption, unqualified teachers.
Brandon Brice is a graduate of Howard University and is a former fellow of the New Jersey Eagleton Institute of Politics fellow at Rutgers University. As a long time member of Republicans for Black Empowerment, Brandon is an active contributor to HipHopRepublicans.com. Brandon Brice has worked as a policy intern for the former House Speaker the Honorable J. Dennis Hastert and has served as a fellow at the United Nations. He has been featured on C-SPAN’s Road to the White House, BET’s What’s At Stake, Hot97 with Lisa Evers, a regular contributor on Fox News Strategy Room and Fox and Friends. Brandon is a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc, and attends the Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Harlem while serving as the Community Organizer to ADC Development Corporation.
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I agree that the government should be involved in educating poor people about personal finance and a host of other issues including birth control. Of all the changes over the past 40 years, birth control and the right to abortion has improved the lives of poor people more than any government program. Sadly, this was has been and continues to be staunchly resisted by Republicans. A primary example of how the Republicans have sold out their principals, in this case the idea of personal freedom, for short term votes from the religious right.
If the Republicans want to improve their chances, they ought to go back to what they claim they stand for. People want personal freedoms, pragmatic solutions, and smaller more efficient government. Not the dogma and idealogy the Republicans are still clinging too. They better learn to set those aside or accept 3rd class status as a defunct and irrelevant political party.
A better educated and financially conservative poor person is a good investment. However, this alone will not solve some of the financial unfairness of our capitalistic economy. Essentially we have a Consumption Economy based in maximum production and even above maximum consumption, ie. debt. Trying to convince a poor person to consume less (and save more) threatens our economic model. I don’t see many politicians, especially on the Right, endorsing this concept. Since when has education been a Conservative agenda? A dumb, productive and hyper-consuming worker is ideal for making profits, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican.
If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day.
If you teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime.
If that man is also taught conservative principles, he will teach others to fish, and he will give some fish back to you.