The GOP’s Southern Strategy and race
Recently commenter “Christopher” recommended this 2004 article by the Claremont Institute. It’s about allegations that the GOP purposely appeals to racism, and that racism is somehow inherent in conservatism.
Well worth reading.
Within the Marxist system, “racism” is indeed the same as conservatism.
Leon Trotsky coined the term to disparage ethnic groups that rejected the “enlightened” Marxist ways of reorganizing society. Trotsky dismissed backward “Slavophiles” who objected that communist rule violated “the way we’ve always done things” as backward and “racist.”
That sense, of course, is always lurking in the minds of those who use that accusation as a hammer to silence opposition to leftist, big-government projects.
I’ll go read it. At least as far as the last time I did any digging on this (five or six years ago) I couldn’t find any academic papers correlating the republican gains in the south to racist, possibly former, democrats becoming republicans.
Its just looks like another narrative thing. Republicans start campaigning again in the south (dems never stopped) ergo they’re soliciting the southern racist vote… Isn’t it obvious!?! 😉
I did find a couple papers that claimed republican gains in the south were due to the growth (finally) of a large middle class in the period in question. Republicans do well with that group….
The Republican = racist goes something like this:
Blacks and hispanics are mostly in the lower echelons of material wealth in the country. The only way these poor people can get ahead is to be helped by big government. Republicans are against big government. Therefore, they are against these racial minorities getting ahead. That is the core of it. Progs believe the minorities can only advance with big government using its power. If you want to rein in welfare, reform immigration, are opposed to illegal immigration, are opposed to affirmative action, opposed to unlimited spending on education, opposed to abortion, or any number of big government programs you are a racist. Thus, to be conservative is to be a racist.
When blacks or hispanics do get ahead (Too many examples to list), they are “traitors” to their race. If a black athlete talks like an educated gentleman (RGIII), he is a traitor to his race. The inanities go on and on.
Sheesh, this is a tedious meme. White, black, brown, yellow, green, purple, or pink; we are all islands in an archipelago.
That review by Alexander is a gem. I need to come back and read it again – it opened up some new aspects as to how the Republican party rose to prominence in the South that I hadn’t been exposed to.
I live in S CA and it is so ironic that the people (e.g. Dem – often minorities) running around accusing others (e.g. Rep often whites) of being racist with the tiniest provocation are themselves extremely racist and intolerant. That the Republican party is built on racism is taken as a given.
Alexander points out that a great many whites who at one time were reliable members of the Democratic alliance shifted allegiance as Reagan did when the Democratic party moved too far to the left.
I suspect there are fissures within the current Democratic blocs that could easily and quickly shift. Many Republicans are eagerly anticipating that Asians and Mexicans will make the move once they figure out just how far to the left the Democratic barons of the party really are.
Of course, the Republicans have their own fissures – e.g libertarians are not always comfortable in the same tent with some of the more religious / creationist types.
Michael Barone just came out with a column about how the ‘Mexican Migration May Be Over’ – and none too soon. If the new immigrants slow to a trickle maybe the assimilation momentum will pick up allowing that fissure to finally crack open.
Predictions of a new Democratic age may be premature as the Republicans gather in the emerging middle class from among recent immigrants naturally moving towards the center/center right as they settle among us.
Of course we could be playing the role of the Romanized Brits of around 4-500 AD as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes settled in great numbers. Eventually they stopped coming, but only after the neighborhood had been changed with the Brits being assimilated instead of visa versa.
That is a great article, I urge everyone to read it. Left unsaid is that it is the Dems and the left that have turned MLK’s famous quote about “content of their character, not the color of their skin” on its head by making *everything* about race for their cynical political gain.
Thank you for the hat-tip, neo!
I would like to respond to this article (even though, like probably every one else, mostly I’m thinking about the tragedy in Connecticut) however, as a preface to my remarks, I would note that my views are not particularly representative of liberal thought, though I am most certainly informed by it, especially Krugman.
So, I live in Chicago, and here racism and the Democratic Party are both venerable institutions. The difficulty in separating politics on different levels, in different contexts, and so on, is often made apparent by contemporary discussions, such as Alexander’s review posted above. American conservatism has a reasonable need to disavow any relationship with past racism: many of the humanitarian abuses that took place (and still take place) are made possible by the disregard for humanity that manifests in behavior that is called racism, and nobody wants to advocate for treating people like animals, or commodities, or disposables. And it’s a critique that both sides make– liberals accuse conservatives of being racist, and conservatives accuse liberals of being racist– and so it can be reasonably said that neither has a definitive claim on being the champion of racial justice.
The insufferable smugness of liberalism notwithstanding, the Congressional Black Caucus is comprised of 39 Democrats and a single Republican (Allen West, who will be out in January). It was LBJ who saw the Civil Rights Act through congress, who appointed Thurgood Marshall, and who remarked, significantly, that the Democrats had “lost the South for a generation.” As I have come to understand it, Liberalism, for many conservatives, is embodied in the activist governments that existed under FDR and LBJ, and it is the long term goal of contemporary conservatism to ameliorate the damage done to the traditional social order by the Federal Government by overturning the essential institutions that underpin the artificial order of the Government (ie entitlements: social security, medicare, etc, etc)
As a liberal, I favor reforming and developing institutions as a way forward. Like conservatives, I feel a strong desire to differentiate my views from the racist politics of the past, but I believe that doing so comes from the recognition that racism is really wrong- and it is, so it’s good to know that everyone sees that now. The point of divergence for me is how to protect social stability: federal subsidies for the elderly, the young, the disabled, the unemployed, are all really important to domestic security, and we should be enlarging the social safety net right now instead of shrinking it. And this is why Black Congressman are virtually all Democrats: because the Democratic party is the party of social welfare programs, and it is through those programs that the middle class has been able to thrive in this country.
As I understand them, conservatives favor policy that they believe will return the state to a form wherein their social expectations will be reinforced and perpetuated. Liberals, by contrast, favor policy that develops the state towards their own expectations. Perhaps you think my expectations are thoroughly unreasonable. I can likely say the same of yours- so where does that leave us?
I favor state expansion, and, I am fairly sure, conservatives favor state austerity. Ethnic minorities seem to generally favor expansion, since that facilitates their becoming a part of the whole. But let’s assume conservatives aren’t racist. That still leaves us with austerity.
I appreciate the posts here and may find myself in the minority with this view. In regards to liberals and conservatives the primary issue of concern for most minorities is white supemacy. In all its forms…RGIII may speak intelligently but in the end if he is “dressed the wrong way” he would be easily ostracized as thug in a predominantly white neighborhood. I don’t think that is a lib. or con. point of view that can diffused that reality. For example most black Americans are conservative on some issues and liberal on others. Nines times out of ten the just want to be Americans. I am glad that the conversations here are moving in a direction that addresses the concerns of liberty, freedom, individual responsibilty, and private property rights, etc. I hope that the social context doesn’t dwindle into an inclusive abyss because that will continue the division we now.
I appreciate the posts here and may find myself in the minority with this view. In regards to liberals and conservatives the primary issue of concern for most minorities is white supemacy. In all its forms…RGIII may speak intelligently but in the end if he is “dressed the wrong way” he would be easily ostracized as a thug in a predominantly white neighborhood…Even in a predominantly black one. I don’t think that is a lib. or con. point of view that can diffuse that reality. For example, most black Americans are conservative on some issues and liberal on others. Nines times out of ten they just want to be Americans who share some ideologies with either group. I am glad that the conversations here are moving in a direction that addresses the concerns of liberty, freedom, individual responsibilty, and private property rights, etc. I hope that the social context doesn’t dwindle into an inclusive abyss because that will continue the division we now.