He talks about Republicans, the Southern white vote, and racial polarization.
Krugman lays out the case that Ronald Reagan used race to divide and conquer. He did it in a stealthy manner, but he did it.
[Reagan] never used explicit racial rhetoric. Neither did Richard Nixon. As Thomas and Mary Edsall put it in their classic 1991 book, “Chain Reaction: The impact of race, rights and taxes on American politics,” “Reagan paralleled Nixon’s success in constructing a politics and a strategy of governing that attacked policies targeted toward blacks and other minorities without reference to race — a conservative politics that had the effect of polarizing the electorate along racial lines.”
Thus, Reagan repeatedly told the bogus story of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen — a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud. He never mentioned the woman’s race, but he didn’t have to.
There are many other examples of Reagan’s tacit race-baiting in the historical record. My colleague Bob Herbert described some of these examples in a recent column. Here’s one he didn’t mention: During the 1976 campaign Reagan often talked about how upset workers must be to see an able-bodied man using food stamps at the grocery store. In the South — but not in the North — the food-stamp user became a “strapping young buck” buying T-bone steaks.
Now, about the Philadelphia story: in December 1979 the Republican national committeeman from Mississippi wrote a letter urging that the party’s nominee speak at the Neshoba Country Fair, just outside the town where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964. It would, he wrote, help win over “George Wallace inclined voters.”
Sure enough, Reagan appeared, and declared his support for states’ rights — which everyone took to be a coded declaration of support for segregationist sentiments.
By gleefully slamming Reagan, Krugman's intends to expose the ugly underbelly of Republicans' exploitation of racism to gain power, specifically by winning over the Southern white vote.
Krugman implies that Southern whites are racists and Republicans take advantage of their socially and morally unacceptable attitudes.
He says that Reagan may not have been personally bigoted but that didn't stop him from using race to his advantage as a political strategy.
I don't agree with his assessment, but that's not what annoys me most about Krugman's column.
What's missing from Krugman's analysis?
He completely ignores the fact that Democrats are just as likely as Republicans, or more likely, to exploit race to win over voters.
It's the Democrats who visit black churches, pander to black voters, and then fail to deliver on campaign promises.
As Al Sharpton said, "We must not be in a relationship with a Democratic Party that takes us for granted. We must no longer be the political mistresses of the Democratic Party. A mistress is where they take you out to have fun but they can't take you home to mama and daddy."
For years, Democrats have taken black voters for granted. Dems are shameless race-baiters.
And like Krugman, they consistently and unfairly paint Republicans as the enemies of minorities.
Krugman asks:
Why does this history matter now? Because it tells why the vision of a permanent conservative majority, so widely accepted a few years ago, is wrong.
The point is that we have become a more diverse and less racist country over time. The “macaca” incident, in which Senator George Allen’s use of a racial insult led to his election defeat, epitomized the way in which America has changed for the better.
And because conservative ascendancy has depended so crucially on the racial backlash — a close look at voting data shows that religion and “values” issues have been far less important — I believe that the declining power of that backlash changes everything.
This is such a crock.
I believe we have become a more diverse and less racist country.
That's what made the lib media Washington Post's hit job on George Allen so despicable. It was character assassination, pure and simple.
Democrats use racial and ethnic slurs, but they get a pass. A former Ku Klux Klan member and Dem is a U.S. senator. Ex-klansman Robert Byrd used the term "white nigger" in an interview as recently as March 2001, on FOX News Sunday.
It's disingenuous for Krugman to discuss the conservative movement as grounded in racism while totally ignoring the racial elements that have bolstered the liberal movement in America.
Krugman concludes:
Now, maybe I’m wrong about all of this. But we should be able to discuss the role of race in American politics honestly. We shouldn’t avert our gaze because we’re unwilling to tarnish Ronald Reagan’s image.
Let's discuss the role of race in American politics honestly.
Krugman fails to do that in this column.
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