Who Are the Racists—the Right or the Left?

The days of the race card being an effective tool against the Right are diminishing, as more minorities realize that decades of the Left's empty election promises didn’t do much to change their lives.

In a Letter to the Editor in the Columbus Dispatch on August 14, 2025 titled, "Race matters,” Joseph Eric Peters of Columbus wrote:

“[Biotech billionaire] Vivek Ramaswamy has huge fundraising lead over Amy Acton in Ohio governor’s race” reported (July 31) Haley BeMiller and Jessie Balmert.

But Republican Ramaswamy also faces a major — perhaps insurmountable — challenge: Ohio Republicans have a glaring track record of failing to turn out voters to elect Black and Brown candidates.

Since the turn of the 21st century, Ohio Republicans have failed to win the governor’s office for only one of their candidates. In 2006, Democratic Congressman Ted Strickland defeated Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell — “the first Black major party gubernatorial nominee in state history,” according to The Columbus Dispatch — by a near landslide: 60.5% to 36.6%.

Who has held Ohio’s executive offices in this period? Two Black Republicans (Blackwell and Jeanette Bradley), 16 White Republicans and fewer than eight Democrats (including Kevin Boyce, the first African American to serve on the Franklin County Board of Commissioners).

White male Republicans currently control all six executive offices: governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and auditor.

Here’s one reasonable reading of these facts: White candidates get more support from Ohio Republicans than do Black and Brown candidates.

The Ohio Legislature shows a comparable pattern. Of its current 43 Democrats, 20 (46.5%) are members of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus. But only two (2.2%) of the legislature’s 89 Republicans are Black.

The Democratic Party matters because racial justice — the 14th Amendment’s equal protection of the law — matters, Black lives matter, and Democrats deliver.

If you’d like to listen to Peters talk about himself and his interesting life, check out this link. If I heard correctly, Peters has been on retired disability from the State of Ohio since 1995 when he was roughly thirty-three-years-old due to mental health issues. Peters is sixty-three-years-old today. He is prolific newspaper letter writer and long-time Democrat. For example, Peters wrote that Donald Trump won Ohio because Ohioans were more uneducated than voters other states (you get it? dumb people vote for Trump).

In terms of Peters slur that the Right is racist, his history is a bit off. First, Ken Blackwell did in fact lose in 2006, as did every other statewide Republican candidate in Ohio except State Auditor Mary Taylor. Even moderate U.S. Senate incumbent Mike DeWine lost badly to Sherrod Brown. Peters leaves out that the 2006 election was a massive national Democrat wave election due to George W. Bush’s unpopularity and voter angst over the Iraq War. Next, Peters omits that Republicans elected Blackwell twice as Ohio Secretary of State and once as State Auditor. His inclusion of both Republican Jeanette Bradley and Democrat Kevin Boyce misrepresents their support because both of those politicians were selected/appointed versus elected. Then, Peters ignores that Blackwell, unlike virtually every other successful Republican statewide candidate over the last forty years, is an unabashed, fire-breathing social conservative. Thus, any lower support for him among Republicans likely has more to do with his unapologetically social positions on life and LBGTQ issues than the color of his skin.

Finally, Peters fails to point out the most powerful example of political racism in Ohio: namely, that Democrats have failed to elect ANY black or brown statewide candidates in the history of Ohio. Unlike Republicans, every single Democrat elected to statewide office in Ohio has been white. Peters himself unintentionally shows how bad the racism in the Democrat Party is when he points out how many blacks Democrats have been elected to lower office (46.5% of Democrats), yet not one has been pushed to victory by the Democrats despite them winning numerous statewide offices over the decades. It seems black politicians are welcome by the Democrats for lower office so long as those candidates don’t try to get in the way of the Sherrod Brown, Jennifer Brunner, Richard Cordray (multi-statewide loser), Ted Strickland, and Lee Fisher. Think of all the minority big city mayors in Ohio that never got pushed statewide by the Democrats—Michael Coleman of Columbus, Rhine McLin of Dayton, Michael R. White of Cleveland, and Mark Mallory of Cincinnati. What about Joyce Beatty?

As I’ve talked about previously, the Left also shows its racism when it denigrates Hispanic-Americans for voting Republican. The basis of this attack by the Left is that Hispanic-Americans should vote Democrat because (a) Democrats support open borders and lax interior enforcement against illegal Hispanic immigrants and (b) Democrats ushered in over ten million illegal immigrants of mostly Hispanic descent. Lest you miss the point, Hispanic-Americans (you people) should support Democrats (us) because Democrats (we) bring in illegal Hispanic immigrants (your people). That is the entire argument—race is THE only thing that matters. What the Left egregiously misses is that many Hispanic-Americans are on the first rung on the ladder of the American Dream. They know from real life experience that illegal immigrants undermine their pursuit of that dream because illegal immigrants (no matter their race) depress wages by their mere presence and, in many cases, take the jobs and opportunities of Hispanic-Americans. Hispanic-Americans also are the victims of criminal illegal immigrants. That is why Hispanic-Americans support border security, interior enforcement, and other measures to reduce illegal immigration.

Don’t even get me started on the Left’s obsession with affirmative action. The fundamental foundation of the Left is that minorities cannot compete in academia or the private sector unless they receive preferences for admissions and jobs. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas noted in a dissent, affirmative action stamps minorities with a badge of inferiority. The badge is stamped on minorities by the Left, not the Right.

While it is true the Right can and should do more to outreach to minority communities, Peters overlooks the enormous strides made under Trump to attract minority voters and candidates. As he wells knows, Trump earned more of the minority vote than any other Republican presidential candidate in modern history and continues to attract minority voters as President. Contrary to Peters’ prediction, unless he self-destructs, Vivek Ramaswamy will become the first minority governor of Ohio and will notch that historical moment due to Republican voters.

Though the Left loves to ignore actual history, the record is crystal clear that it was the Republican Party under Abraham Lincoln that ended slavery, Republicans under Ulysses Grant that killed the Ku Klux Klan and fought Reconstruction, and Republicans in the U.S. Senate that pushed the Civil Rights Act over the line, as Democrats fought for slavery, started the KKK, ended Reconstruction, rebuilt the KKK, passed and enforced Jim Crow laws, and opposed the Civil Right Act (like Al Gore’s dad). And, of course, there is the Progressive Left’s shameful role in the eugenics movement aimed at sterilizing “undesirables” (i.e., minorities) and pushing abortion via Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood on minorities, with 20 million black babies aborted since 1973. According to the Ohio Department of Health, 48.4% of abortions in Ohio in 2022 were by black women (blacks are 13% of the population). Democrat Congressman Robert E. Lee Allen from West Virginia summarized the Left’s views on eugenics best when he said, “The primary reason for restriction of the alien stream…is the necessity for purifying and keeping pure the blood of America."

Peters' letter smacks of fear. Fear that minorities are finally breaking free of the Left’s vice grip. Peters and his comrades on the Left know that if Republicans can keep the minority voters Trump got and grow that support in the coming years then Democrats won’t see the presidency or majority control of Congress and the states for a very long time. Peters would do well to adhere to Martin Luther King Jr.’s statement that we all should be judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin. Unfortunately for Peters and his ilk, the days of the race card being an effective tool against the Right are diminishing, as more minorities realize that decades of the Left's empty election promises didn’t do much to change their lives.

P.S. I’m glad to see others discover what Opportunity Ohio published back in June and July 2022 in “Projected 2050 Population & Political Power Series” on how shifting population trends would result in Blue states LOSING Electoral Votes and Red states GAINING Electoral Voters.