PHOENIX — As she’s watched her party’s presidential front-runner vilify Mexicans and Muslims and balk at distancing himself from a Ku Klux Klan figure, Randy Kendrick has been reminded of another divisive era in American political history.
During the 1960s, she witnessed segregation, riots and racial strife. That, in part, has motivated Kendrick, whose wealth and ties to the Koch brothers have now made her an influential Republican powerbroker, to help fund a campaign to stop Donald Trump’s march toward the party’s nomination for president.
Kendrick, whose husband, Ken Kendrick, owns Major League Baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks, spoke to The Arizona Republic before last week’s violent clashes between Trump supporters and protesters. Kendrick was a top fundraiser for U.S. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, but now that he has exited the race she has thrown her support behind U.S. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
The super PAC that Randy Kendrick is helping to fund, Our Principles PAC, is trying to portray Trump as too reckless to be president, using Trump’s business practices and words in ads against him.
Kendrick declined to reveal how much she and her husband are donating to the PAC, adding it will be made public in the group’s regular financial filings.
A ‘moral obligation’ to speak up
Kendrick said she and her husband have a “moral obligation” to oppose political speech that goes against American values — and they could no longer stay silent after Trump’s initial refusals to disavow a former KKK grand wizard, David Duke.
“We should be able to denounce white supremacists and we should be able to do it quickly,” said Kendrick, 69. She went on to describe a conversation she had with her husband.
“Ken said, ‘Randy, our obligation is to our own ethics, our integrity, our values. They aren’t to a particular party. We didn’t take a loyalty oath to the party.’”
Having grown up at a time when it was illegal in some states to socialize with people of another race, she said Trump’s rhetoric — if taken to the Oval Office — could erode race relations in the United States, which polls indicate are worse than at any point in the past two decades.
Kendrick said, “I don’t, for a minute, think that Donald Trump followers are made up of racists. But I will say I think he thinks that.”
She said some of his followers may not “realize what kind of tinderbox you could set off if you exacerbate” racial and ethnic tensions. She said the violent clashes at Trump rallies last weekend show how groups like Black Lives Matter and MoveOn.org are already exploiting Trump’s rhetoric for their own political advantage.
Witnessing racial injustice firsthand
Kendrick’s father was an Air Force pilot. When she was 10, a squad car came to her family’s home to break the news that he had been killed in a jet crash.
Kendrick’s mom married another jet pilot. They moved frequently, from Alberta, Canada, to Montana to Massachusetts. She moved 23 times before she turned 21.
She was always an outsider, she said, and so she “identified first with my country.”
When she was in 10th grade, in the early 1960s, they moved to Alabama, where racial segregation was still the law. Her parents, who enjoyed entertaining, were warned against inviting black officers into their home.
“We were all outraged on that," she said, “People were friendly and nice, and Christian, and kind,” so it was difficult for her to reconcile that with segregation.
Regardless, her family invited black officers to their home.
“They didn’t think of it as ... mistreating someone, they thought this was the way the world was,” she recalled. “But I did not shut up about it, because I did not agree. My parents had raised me that way.”
Finding a way to bring people together
Years later, Kendrick witnessed a performance of What Color Is God’s Skin by a racially diverse song-and-dance-troupe, Up With People.
She was so inspired, she presented an appeal to her speech class at Auburn University about why every student at the university should see the performance.
The teacher said, ‘Randy, I think that right now we feel you ought to go right over the Dean’s office and see if you could bring that group here.”
She did, and in the fall of 1965 the troupe performed on campus.
She believes it was the first integrated group to stay inside the dorms and fraternity and sorority houses.
Students packed the performance.
They “wanted to show they weren’t prejudiced,” she said. “They wanted to show they agreed with this.”
Kendrick worried the town’s older residents would have a problem with the group, but some attended.
"I was somewhat afraid, but I thought this is right, this is the right thing to do,” she said. “I believe in this stuff. I believe in integration — now, I don’t believe in quotas ... but I believe in fairness and diversity.”
‘I feel like a lot of things could go crazy here’
Trump’s campaign threatens the progress the country has made, Kendrick said.
In her mind, his rhetoric is capitalizing on economic anxiety and a dangerous nativist message that could provoke others to be violent and push for racial hostilities.
Trump has said he wants “peace” and “happiness,” but his rallies have featured white supporters attacking minority Trump protesters.
“He said, 'I’d like to punch him in the mouth,'" Kendrick said, referencing Trump’s remark about a protester. “Punch him. That’s the leadership he’s providing.”
She added, “All of this incredible stuff is being used by the Democrats and we’re supposed to defend it? I don’t want to be in the position of defending (it).”
Kendrick also questions Trump's true stance on illegal immigration. She says she's "very frustrated" that current immigration laws are not being enforced by President Obama, and she does not trust Trump to enforce them given recent statements he's made — including a suggestion that he had supported a pathway for citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.
In a new ad on trumpquestions.com, Our Principles PAC attacks Trump's stance by highlighting his company's hiring of undocumented immigrants, as well as statements about a pathway for citizenship.
"I want a consistent conservative who won't flip-flop," Kendrick said.
Kendrick declined to talk about what she and her husband would do if Trump became the nominee.
“I feel like a lot of things could go crazy here,” she said. “I’d like to take things a step at a time. And the truth is, I don’t even know.”
