Strib op-ed: The GOP has gone South

[question everything]

Michael Lind
Published September 12, 2004

(snip)

By 2000, however, the Southern Right had taken over. They have turned the party of Lincoln into the party of Jefferson Davis. Their core territory consists of the states of the Old Confederacy, plus those of the mountain and prairie West. With leaders like George W. Bush, Senate Majority Bill Frist of Tennessee and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, the Republican Party now speaks with a distinctly Southern drawl. Their issues are those of the old Dixie demagogues: religion, the military, traditional values and (in coded form) race.

(snip)

Small wonder that, like the Dixie demagogues of yesteryear, today's Southernized Republicans prefer to change the subject from economics to "culture-war" issues like gay marriage. Today's Southern conservatives find many allies among working-class white Catholics in the Northeast and the Midwest. This is nothing new. From the 1800s onward, the closest allies of the Southern plantation elite in national politics were Catholics in the North, particularly Irish-American Catholics... First there are the "Yankees" -- New Englanders and Midwesterners of New England Protestant descent... In addition, white Southerners and Northern working-class Catholics have been allied throughout history against blacks. Southern whites, rich and poor alike, feared black equality because it would undermine their status as the master race in their own region. Northern Catholics feared competition with blacks for jobs and neighborhoods.

(snip)

The problem for Democrats is simple: They don't get enough of the white vote. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win a majority of the white vote was Lyndon Johnson. Clinton came close, but in 1996 he still lost the white vote to Dole by 3 points... Instead of trying to win back white voters, the Democrats have pursued a losing "rainbow coalition" strategy of appealing to blacks and Latinos with policies like racial preferences, bilingualism and amnesties, in-state tuition and driver's licenses for Latin Americans who violate federal immigration laws.

(snip)

Most of today's elite Democrats would rather die than welcome white voters opposed to abortion or racial preferences into their shrunken party -- even if the alternative is to remain not only the party of minorities but also the minority party. So the Democrats will probably continue to lose elections, while hoping that one day enough Latin American immigrants, legal and illegal, will give them an electoral college majority. The motto of today's Democratic Party -- and perhaps its epitaph--might be a quip by Adlai Stevenson: "I'd rather be right than president."

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4974919.html

Michael Lind is the Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and author of "Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics."

[rfranklin]

1. This analysis ends with Republican propaganda...

Dems the minority party? Only when Republicans gerrymander and suppress the vote. And as white folks rapidly become the minority in this nation, the Republicans will soon be a thing of the past. tht is why they are so desperately vicious now. They see it coming and are like wounded dogs barking and snapping at all around them.

[rfranklin]

3. P.S.--freely admits that the Republican party is the party of racists...

and has no shame.

[HawkerHurricane]

2. Given that the Democrats WON the last 3 Presidential elections...

Micheal Lind's answer to the Confederazation and Religious Fundementalization of the Republican party would be for the Democratic Party to follow in thier footsteps.

If they follow his advice, I'll vote 3rd or 4th party. Or flee.

Lind's saying that we should abandon doing what's right and educating others for doing what's expedient and lying. Sorry, I ain't gonna do it.

[bluestateguy]

4. Which party favored a more lenient Reconstruction policy?

The Democrats. Southerners need to be reminded of that.

[Davis_X_Machina]

5. OK. Mr. Lind -- let's assume arguendo you're right.

I can win the election your way, with one paragraph.

Here's a speech that will win the presidency outright, in a landslide, for Kerry, by locking up the white vote, particularly the white male vote:

Kerry: I want to reassure the American people that I will be at least as prompt as my opponent to go to war at the drop of a hat, that I am no less ready to kill swarthy people who worship the wrong God without let or hindrance, and to drive this point home I will, on Tuesday morning, together with key members of my transition team, be truck-bombing an Islamic center near Buffalo, NY.

Result -- Dem blowout, 65-35% style.
A Roosevelt-Landon sized win.
A Johnson-Goldwater sized victory.
Bush reduced to a footnote in the history books.

You really wanna go there, Mike?

If that's what it takes to win, and I believe there's a good chance that it is, given who's holding the balance of power in the voting, then I'm not sure even the White House is worth winning at that price.

There are worse things than losing elections.

I am not opimistic about the long-term fate of this country.

[starroute]

6. "I had rather be right than be President" -- Henry Clay, 1850

Clay made the statement in reference to the Compromise of 1850.

"To maintain an even balance between free and slave states, a series of measures was offered by the 'great compromiser,' Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky. In an attempt to give satisfaction to both proslavery and antislavery forces, the important sections of the omnibus bill called for the admission of California as a free state, the organization of the territories of New Mexico and Utah with the slavery question left open (see popular sovereignty), settlement of the Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute, a more rigorous provision for the return of runaway slaves, and the prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

With the influential support of Senator Daniel Webster and the concerted unifying efforts of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the five compromise measures were enacted in September. These measures were accepted by moderates in all sections of the country, and the secession of the South was postponed for a decade. The Compromise, however, contained the seeds of future discord. The precedent of popular sovereignty led to a demand for a similar provision for the Kansas Territory in 1854, causing bitterness and violence there (see Bleeding Kansas). Furthermore, the application of the new Fugitive Slave Act triggered such a strong reaction throughout the North that many moderate antislavery elements became determined opponents of any further extension of slavery into the territories. While the Compromise of 1850 succeeded as a temporary expedient, it also proved the failure of compromise as a permanent political solution when vital sectional interests were at stake."

http://search.eb.com/blackhistory/micro/187/52.html


Somehow it's typical of the article cited that the author would take a statement by a Southerner that originally applied to exactly the sort of mushy compromise with racism he seems to be urging upon the Democrats today and apply it as a sneer against that great liberal Adlai Stevenson.

[DaveSZ]

7. This article makes a lot of sense

I think American politics is largely race based.

[question everything]

8. It did to me. And appreciate the comments here

It appears that the ones who support Bush will do this no matter what because of the social issues. Because they are anti abortion, anti gay, anti teaching evolution... They know - the way we do - that these elections are about the future of the Supreme Court and no matter what Bush is doing - short of being found "in the act" with the governor of NJ - they are going to vote for him.

There is no room to debate with them. Their marching commands are from their god and how can one argue, persuade or even compromise with this kind of attitude?

Was really depressed after I read that this morning.

[DaveSZ]

9. Well maybe we should rethink affirmative action

[Tangledog]

10. I've read some of Lind's material

He seems to have a plausible, if unusual, handle on Texas (in his book Made in Texas). But I'm a bit suspicious of claiming plantation owners and Northeastern Catholics to be "allies" in the 19th century. To me, "allies" in this context connotes something more than a convenient alignment of interests.

In fact, I'm a bit suspicious of claiming that Northeastern Catholics are one group. Northeastern Catholics run the gamut from fiery and ill-tempered to bland and idealistic.

There may be interests in common, and through an interesting series of historical accidents their voting patterns may look familiar, but I don't perceive a Northeastern Catholic/Southern Protestant alliance that is based on any lasting affinity.

[indypaul]

11. If Zig Zag Zell's

comment regarding duelling wasn't a symbol of this
attitude, then there "ain't a hound dog in Georgia."
He might just as well have made the same remark
about slavery and "Jim Crow" laws. Simply scratch the
surface of the "Southern Strategy" of the Republican
party and there it is. I know all Republicans do not
subscribe to that strategy. However their current
leadership does and no one in their right mind should
support that leadership or its candidates.