If you’ve noticed all the construction happening on the National Mall lately, like me, you probably assumed it was for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

But apparently, a more fitting tribute to the civil rights movement’s long history of struggle for African Americans would be the erection of a monument to Sen. Rand Paul. After all, as Sen. Paul so helpfully explained to us last week, “I don’t think there has been anybody who has been a bigger defender of minority rights in the Congress than myself.” The sentiment echoes another headline from earlier this year, stating: “Rand Paul Says No Other U.S. Lawmaker Has Better Civil Rights Record.”

If that’s the case, then I suppose it’s only appropriate that someone who can so casually dismiss the contributions of Rep. John Lewis—the youngest speaker at the March on Washington and one of the heroes of Bloody Sunday—should rightfully take his place alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Abraham Lincoln.

Or, back in the realm of reality, we can take a critical look at what Sen. Paul has actually done for the African-American community.

The political reality is that as long as President Barack Obama is in office and can veto bills he doesn't like, Republicans aren't going to be able to achieve any of their legislative objectives. So why try?

"If Republicans proclaim that they have to govern now that they run Congress, they maximise the incentive for the Democrats to filibuster everything they can - and for President Obama to veto the remainder," they write. "Then the Democrats will explain that the Republicans are too extreme to get anything done."

Not only that, they say, attempting to pass legislation will risk opening the divide between the establishment and hard-core conservative wings of their party.

The alternative, the editors write, is for Republicans to do what they can to lay the groundwork for a presidential victory in 2016. Then, with control of both the executive and legislative branches, the party will be able to effectively implement its agenda.

CHRIS: Teddy came to town, and he was eating Philly pretzels and meeting with the Cardinal. You could do that in those days. And Carter was in his Rose Garden because of the [Iranian] hostages. And I’m handling Philly. These guys rolled us over.

ED: But we only won by 7,000 votes statewide. It was almost a Pyrrhic victory. Because by the time [the nomination battle] reached New York and Pennsylvania, it was over.

Good times. These two guys adore one another. Which is nice. Except for their politics.

ED: I think you’re gonna have a divided government no matter who wins in ’16. But I would say there are two people in the field who have the ability to maybe bring the Congress together: Hillary on the Democratic side, and Jeb Bush on the Republican side. Part of it, Chris, is just the interpersonal skills. I had a Republican legislature for six of the eight years [I was governor], and yet everything I talked about in the 2002 campaign, we made significant progress on. Because I knew how to sit down and horse-trade.

Why do African-American voters overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party?

To hear conservative radio host Laura Ingraham tell it, it has nothing to do with their support for liberal policies on issues like jobs, healthcare and education. Nor is it a reaction against the ugly racial rhetoric emanating from leading Republicans or the vile voter suppression measures pushed by the Republican Party. Instead, Ingraham asserted on her radio program today, black voters support Democratic candidates because Democrats won’t allow “the black population” off “the plantation.”

Highlighting the case of an African-American pastor who alleges that the robbery of his church may be linked to his endorsement of Illinois GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner, Ingraham decried what she depicted as Democrats’ demonization of African-Americans who stray from the liberal fold.

“Look at what they did to Col. Alan West. Look at what they did to Justice Clarence Thomas, or tried to do. This is what they do,” Ingraham argued.

I used to be a serious Republican, moderate and business-oriented, who planned for a public-service career in Republican politics. But I am a Republican no longer.

There’s an old joke we Republicans used to tell that goes something like this: “If you’re young and not a Democrat, you’re heartless. If you grow up and you’re not a Republican, you’re stupid.” These days, my old friends and associates no doubt consider me the butt of that joke. But I look on my “stupidity” somewhat differently. After all, my real education only began when I was 30 years old.

This is the story of how in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and later in Iraq, I discovered that what I believed to be the full spectrum of reality was just a small slice of it and how that discovery knocked down my Republican worldview.

I always imagined that I was full of heart, but it turned out that I was oblivious. Like so many Republicans, I had assumed that society’s “losers” had somehow earned their deserts. As I came to recognize that poverty is not earned or chosen or deserved, and that our use of force is far less precise than I had believed, I realized with a shock that I had effectively viewed whole swaths of the country and the world as second-class people.