From Lawyers, Guns and Money:
As always when questions of motivations rather than actions come up, I think we have to return to George Wallace. Even politicians who make overtly racist appeals may be much more committed to winning elections than to racism. So I’m not sure it matters much what precise mixture of partisan advantage and racism motivates Republican efforts to suppress the African-American vote; the efforts are, in the end, racist even if wholly motivated by the former. Similarly, I don’t know how much racism and how much partisan advantage led to, say, Reagan kicking off his campaign in Philadelphia, MS to deliver coded appeals to southern racists (as well, of course, as the 3 Americans consistently committed to “states’ rights” principles), but it’s indefensible either way. Attempts to figure out whether the tunes played on Nixon’s Piano are authentic expressions of subjective racist beliefs or mere self-interested cynicism are both impossible and beside the point.
While you’re at it, check out this column by Bob Herbert, focusing on the modern Republican’s party’s dedication to denying the vote to as many Black Americans as possible. Herbert ends his (otherwise excellent) column by writing “Blacks have been remarkably quiet about this sustained mistreatment by the Republican Party, which says a great deal about the quality of black leadership in the U.S..”
Actually, if it weren’t for black activists and leaders, I don’t think many of us would have heard about most of these problems at all. The problem is that no one listens to them. I wish Herbert had instead written: “Democrats have been remarkably quiet about this sustained mistreatment by the Republican Party, which says a great deal about the quality of Democratic party leadership in the U.S. ”
Curtsy: David at The Debate Link.
They’re pragmatic racists and that’s all that really matters.
(This comment is in response to a comment Amp deleted, in which someone asked why this thread was locked only to “people who agree with you”:
It’s a policy on this site that certain posts are locked to commenters who agree with the premises of the discussion. They don’t have to agree with the whole concept of the post, just the premises. We do that so we can have a more advanced conversation.
It’s like, if you want to talk about how best to implement the dissolution of class in the US, it’s not helpful to have people around who want to derail the conversation by saying that poor people deserve it and they’d get unpoor if only they worked harder. In this case, the premises of the conversation are listed in the commenting rules. You’ll note that this box exists on this thread, and not on other threads (though other threads may have other rules).
If anyone wants to discuss this policy, please go to one of the recent open threads to do it. There’s always room for your complaint there. Also, if you have comments on a post that’s locked so that you can’t reply to the thread there, you can go to an open thread and talk about the issue in that place.
Here’s the most recent open thread: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2007/09/26/mandolin-is-interviewed/ )
Not all racists are Republicans, but all Republicans are racists.
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