Is the GOP Finally Waking Up to Race in America?

In their hunger to toss aside Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam for his racism and rank idiocy, the Democrats are flaunting their devotion to the full spirit of American egalitarianism.

There is no statute of limitations, they’re saying, on the crime of fully displaying one’s bigotry. Disguising your bigotry? That’s another story. Calling it by some other name? Another story, too.

As everybody knows by now, Northam’s medical school yearbook page has photos of two people. It’s unclear if one of them is Northam, since his story has shifted. But one of these creeps is covered in blackface and the other is in the full Ku Klux Klan regalia.

The photos go back about 35 years but resurfaced just last week, setting off days of apologies from Northam and recriminations from people of both political parties. And that’s where matters get a little tricky.

The Democrats want Northam gone because they want to assure voters they’re pure of spirit on matters of race and religion. The Republicans want Northam gone because …

Well, that part’s a little unclear.

Partly, they want him gone because he’s a Democrat and this is their chance to show a little backbone on matters of racial insensitivity. But,if that’s the case, where have they been for the last two years?

Or for that matter, the last 60?

They are, let’s not forget, the party that fought every civil rights measure back in the post-war years — the really basic ones, like the right for black people to vote, or go to any restaurant or theater.

And then there was Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy, overtly dividing the country by race, to get himself elected president. And George Bush the elder’s Willie Horton TV ads, thrusting another dagger into racial harmony.

But before we get too deep into the historical weeds, let’s focus on the malignant modern-day race divider: President Donald Trump.

Unlike Northam, Trump’s never been dumb enough to wear a Klan outfit or dab on blackface. His racism has always been couched in euphemisms. But whether it’s his refusal to rent apartments to black people decades ago, or his hunger to give the death penalty in the Central Park jogger case, or his birther garbage about Barack Obama, or his wall along the U.S. southern border, or his anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim rhetoric, or his remarks after Charlottesville, it’s always about people of color.

And on every one of these cases, where’s the outcry from Republicans?

The answer we get most of the time is that they’re afraid to buck Trump – that he’s the president, he’s powerful, and he’ll come after them if they even hint that they’re not loyal to him.

But it’s more than that. Trump’s supporters know racism when they see it – and they voted for him anyway, and largely continue to support him.

And they do this either because they ignore the bigotry … or they embrace it.

So it’s interesting to see Republicans – politicians as well as Trump voters – go after Northam for his decades-old display of racism. But where have they been over the last two years? Or the last 60?

A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.