Dismissal, though, would do a disservice to Leah Wright Rigueur’s interpretation of a political evolution that conservatives ignore at their peril. The Republican party she depicts, for much of the last century, had its share of black voters, and could claim to be an influential voice within the African-American community. But today it is a brutal fact of life that the Republican party is simply loathed by an overwhelming number of black Americans. To most, the source of that loathing is deeper even than their affinity for a black Democratic president, and it rests on a gut suspicion that the modern GOP is a comfortable enabler of white racial resentment. Rigueur’s implication is hard to refute. There are no sensible Republicans who view this as a good space, morally or politically, for a national party to occupy, and it is worthwhile to take a close look at how generations of Republicans tried, in vain, to avoid this moment.