Party of Bigots

A few years ago, a business trip took me through some of the great battlegrounds on this continent. Birmingham. Montgomery. Tuskegee. Selma. To my tour guide at the time, a liberal white judge from Alabama, they were as sacred to the American text as Gettysburg and Yorktown. He spoke with deep reverence about the struggle of black pilots to fly in the Second World War, the bus boycott, the Freedom Riders, and the bombings in Birmingham. He didn't shy away from the personal history, either, and strongly recommended Diane McWhorter's Carry Me Home, the memoir of the daughter of a white supremacist family in Birmingham. Her story, he said, was the story of thousands of white sons and daughters of Alabama.

When we walked through the brilliant Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, he had a quiet suggestion: things change, Alabama has changed, we've all changed.

And he was right. We have changed. But lately, I've come to feel we're not as far down the road as many of us think we are. Even as  Alabama does a bonanza business in civil rights tourism, the history feels nearer; the bigots in our grand American tapestry are not so neatly sown into the margins. They're right there in the middle. They have a place in the national party of bigotry.

One national political party does business with bigots - openly and in thinly-coded language.

One national party came to power on the strength of a regional strategy aimed at scratching the scars of the civil rights era till they bled, and delivered a stream of bloody-red electoral votes.

One national party tolerates bigoted speech at its national gatherings, on its mainstream blogs, and on the lips of its grand commentators and media wizards.

That party is the Republican Party - the only national party where bigotry is accepted and in some quarters, openly encouraged.

In what other political movement could a prominent commentator call another human being a "faggot" at a national conference and still possess a career or a pulpit; or worse, have apologists line up to wave it off as "humor." The Republican candidates all issued the usual statements about Ann Coulter's anti-gay attack on John Edwards, but they sounded like a platoon of little captains dressed like Claude Rains in Casablanca. Shocked, one and all.

"With a single word, Coulter sullied the hard work of hundreds of CPAC participants and exhibitors and tarred the collective reputation of thousands of CPAC attendees," mourned Michelle Malkin.

But Malkin's got it wrong - Coulter didn't sully the hard work of CPAC's tribe; she represented it. She didn't tar their collective reputation; she embodies it.

Keep in mind, these people cheered and applauded wildly after Coulter's remark. These are people who believe it was fair game, that they're fighting a righteous battle against the "homosexual agenda." Coulter didn't offend any of them.

Don't believe me? Go read the comments on Malkin's blog, or over at FreeRepublic, or any of the "mainstream" clubhouses where conservative Republicans hang their virtual hats. Or take a look at some of the hats and t-shirts they were selling in the hallways. Or watch MSNBC: I just watched Pat Buchanan call Coulter "courageous" and Tucker Carlson agreed with him. Intolerance sells to this crowd. Any candidate who speaks to CPAC must know that. Indeed, this was a return appearance for Coulter. They like her. Here's what she said last year, to raucous applause:

"I think our motto should be post-9-11, 'raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'"

Coulter's word offended like a back-hand to the face of our political conscience, but Newt Gingrich showed what the real Republican Party apparatus thinks in his remarks about New Orleans at the self-same Conservative Political Action Conference. Hurricane Katrina, declared almost-candidate Gingrich, merely uncovered:

"...the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane."

Mmmmm. Those folks in the Ninth Ward aren't good citizens. We get it, Newt. We get it. Ever since Reagan's successful and utterly calculated southern strategy, one party has leaned hard on its end of the pool table - and done its best to collect the bigot vote. As blogger John Cole - no liberal - puts it:

Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are the same visible, high profile, symptom of the problem with what is modern ‘conservatism.’ Throw in Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Dinesh D’Souza, and the rest, if you still don’t understand....the reason her comments are a problem is that the majority of the ‘conservative’ movement is dominated by people who think there is something wrong with homosexuality and that there are few things worse than being a “faggot.”

Prejudice doesn't leave us easily, and our collective march toward real civil rights is not as far along as many of us think. In this year's race for President, we have a woman, a black man, and a Mormon and each has taken the arrows of bigotry. After all, this is a country where Rush Limbaugh is a millionaire and Maureen Dowd collects a paycheck from the New York Times on the basis of her ability to stereotype; in her world, Barak Obama is a little boy in need of wise (white) counsel while Hillary Clinton is a "feral" woman, conniving and calcuating.

I started this post recalling a trip to Alabama for a reason. Two Democrats were in Selma this weekend to commemorate the historic march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge, and while the press played the civil rights gathering as a battle between the Clintons and Obama for the black vote (some truth to that), I was struck by how the entire legacy of civil rights is anathema to Republicans and conservatives. It was easy to recall how the conservative intellectuals of the 50s and 60s, led by a young William F. Buckley, opposed civil rights.

Their legacy is a party in which hate and intolerance are winked at, shrugged off as humor, used in barely-coded language, and celebrated in electoral victories as "true conservatism."

UPDATE: Digby, as usual, gets it right: "For forty years the Republicans have been winning elections by calling liberals "faggots" (and "dykes") in one way or another. It's what they do. To look too closely at what she said is to allow light on their very successful reliance on gender stereotypes to get elected."

Comments

[Tom K]

First, Tom, I think it was Nixon who devised the "Southern Strategy", not Reagan.

Second, appealing to the interests of a majority of voters is not exactly antithetical to democracy. Apart from name-calling and emphasis on anecdotal excesses from the fringe, you do nothing to show that the Republican Party owes its popularity in the South to racism. And while equating anti-homosexual rhetoric with racism makes perfect sense from a while liberal perspective, and can be defended logically at a certain level, you must know that many black Americans take deep offense at the analogy, which compares prejudice based on an immutable quality (race/color) to prejudice based on behavior (homosexuality).

I know that there is controversy around how "voluntary" that behavior is, but from the perspective I'm describing, it's voluntary enough to distinguish it from skin color.

[Slappy]

Only to a Republican would appealing to the racists of America be an appeal to their "interests" and therefore be democratic. As if racism were a natural resource.

William F Buckley and Coulter are two sides of the same coin. One appeals to the Ivy League crowd reading the Wall Street Journal. The other to the FOX news viewer who still believes that WMDs are to be found in Iraq. They both are pseudo intellectuals whose sole purpose is to make the racists feel justified in their hatred. If a smart man like Buckley feels blacks should be segregated, well then it must be right. And Coulter is the anti-PC heroin who dares speak what they say in private to their family and friends. There is nothing intellectual or learned about these two. They are but props to help the Republican masses feel better about themselves.

Which brings me to this statement: "...many black Americans take deep offense at the analogy..." Justifying hatred because another group supposedly supports it. And even better a group that has suffered hatred themselves. An argument that would make Buckley proud. Comparing racism and homophobia and pretending it is an intellectual exercise that when thoroughly thought out would lead us to the obvious conclusion that... who knows? Or even cares in this context? It is an argument created from thin air to divert one from the stated issue. Segregation wasn't a horror for Buckley. It was Jeffersonian style state's rights being enforced. Psuedo intellectual horsehit Not a mental exercise but mental masturbation that serves no one but those looking for justification for an unjustifiable stance.

What better way to dilute the words of Tom W? I know, perhaps question the obvious: "...you do nothing to show that the Republican Party owes its popularity in the South to racism." Somehow Nixon gets "credit" for the Southern Strategy but of course it is up to the liberal to prove its existence.

Great f'in post Tom W.

[Elana]

Wonderful post Tom. And good timing. I watched Paula Zahn last night and kind of got ill. John Aravosis was great though.

[Campaspe]

Amen, brother. And when she used the word "raghead" last year, none of the conservatives currently reaching for the smelling salts said much beyond a pro forma tut-tut. But I don't expect decency from the likes of Michelle Malkin, or even consistency. What gets me is that Coulter continues to have a platform. CNN just had her on. Why she should be on my TV any more often than Fred Phelps? Will no one rid us (peacefully) of this turbulent blonde?

[Tom K]

There's a difference, Slappy, between the propositions that: (a) the Republicans had or have a "Southern Strategy", and (b) the Republicans Southern Strategy is racist.

I accept (a), whether it's credited to Nixon, Reagan, or elsewhere. (b) is the part I think Tom did not adequately develop. Perhaps because he thinks it is self-evident, and/or thinks his readers will regard it as self-evident.

Well, I'm one of his readers, I don't find it self-evident, so I'm letting him know that I don't think he backed up his argument. He can respond, or not, as he chooses, but what's wrong with me asking him to?

Finally, you can, and I would (from a libertarian perspective) make the case for protecting people's civil rights regardless of their sexual orientation without believing (or pretending) that the issues presented are exactly the same as those presented when discussing the civil rights of racial minorities.

[b tween]

I disagree with you Tom W, though I think you wrote a splendid piece, and I believe captured the essence of the Republican party well, because they are the home to the right-wing fringe that considers hatred of others unlike themselves to be a fundamental American Right.
But I don't agree that the Republican Party itself is a bigoted institution.
Its platform is a craven vote-getting device that morphs from hard to soft depending on the immediate needs of a given candidate.
For Republicans, a pretense of inclusiveness extends about as far as El President en Espanol! It's Pablum for the masses.
As long as there's a South to strategize to, the Republicans will do it. And the sheeple will eat it up.
Tom K: the proof of Tom W's point is greater than merely anecdotal. The platforms of the party are well documented, from Al Sharpton's kin's segregationist-Presidential bid in the 40s to today.
While it's nice to have all of the historical backing provided as footnotes, sometimes there just isn't enough space to print it all.

[Tom Watson]

TK - I yield on your Nixon scholarship. You are correct, Reagan merely brought it back. And I quote Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips explaing the electoral scheme in the New York Times in 1970:

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.

Racist? You tell me...

[Tom Watson]

Or to quote the strategist for your own political idol, TK - Mr. Lee Atwater:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say 'nigger'—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

Racist? You tell me....

[Tom Watson]

Or perhaps you dispute GOP chief Ken Mehlman's confession and apology:

"By the '70s and into the '80s and '90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out. Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."

[Slappy]

Tom K: You pretend the Southern Strategy was anything but racist. Pray tell what was this mystery non-race based strategy? And why was it termed the "Southern" Strategy? Where was the Republican's "Northern" Strategy?

"But I don't agree that the Republican Party itself is a bigoted institution."
The Republican Party isn't named the Racist Party of America but its platform is racist. Its actions are racist. Its spokespeople are racist. If a former KKK Grandwizard were running for public office, would you expect him to be a Republican or Democrat? Nope, it is a bigoted institution.

[Tom K]

1. I tend to dispute almost everything I have heard or read Ken Mehlman saying. Despite that, I will agree that Republicans should reach out more to black voters. This has begun, rather feebly, and will take a long time to gain any ground (if it ever will), but it is both practically and morally the way to go.

2. Strom Thurmond certainly proves nothing. He filibustered Civil Rights legislation while he was a Democrat, and ameliorated his racist views while he was a Republican. George Wallace was a Democrat. A greater percentage of D's than R's opposed the 1964 Civil Rights act, I believe. While Brendan is right that there is a record out there to review, and the R party's history is not free of racism, I disagree that review of the record confirms Tom's point. It shows a much more complex picture: racist and non-racist R's, racist and non-racist D's. I'm not asking Tom for footnotes, but I think some substantive analysis showing the basis for his conclusions might be in order.

3. I never heard of Kevin Phillips. His quote is obnoxious, and racial, but I doubt it's racist. I'll bet you could substitute any racial or other group for any of those named, and the Phillips type would say the same thing, if it fit the electoral math. And while I'm sure the Times of 1970 was giving Nixon's strategy a balanced look, I also suspect there were spokesmen out there for Nixon who could have managed to make enforcing the Voting Rights Act seem something other than racist.

4. The Atwater quote is insane. I completely reject the notion that favoring smaller government, lower taxes, or empowerment of communities inhabits the same moral universe as shouting racial epithets. Some racists may oppose taxes because they think the benefits are going to blacks, and other racists have used "states rights" as a cover for discrimination, but the question of the relationship between the state and the individual overarches any theory of government, or its application to any particular society.

You wanna know who the target of the Southern Strategy was, and why it worked? Ask your buddy Jim Webb.

[The Viscount]

I started to expand upon this most excellent post, but then I remembered this speech by Howard Dean, delivered in Dec. 03. Regardless of what you think of the man, please take a few minutes and read that speech. I've never seen anyone nail the Republican Party as well as he did on that day.

[Tom Watson]

Moral relativism from a conservative - tsk, tsk. I'll willingly grant that the Democrats gave up on their racist electoral politics - but that was 40-odd years ago, minimum. The GOP still holds to its southern strategy and the anti-gay stuff is its attempt to take that basic premise national.

You can easily reject Atwater. Reagan embraced him, used him, gained power because of him.

Kevin Phillips was assistant AG under Mitchell and wrote one of the key books of the time laying out the capture of the south by the republicans.

[Tom K]

Moral relativism? If we're talking in absolute moral terms, both parties are condemned. Certainly, on race and on other matters, the Republicans and Democrats both have many things to answer for. I took your post to mean that the Democrats were better on race. "Better" is a relative term, so any discussion of your point must necessarily be phrased in relative terms.

Atwater was never elected anything, and I don't believe Ronald Reagan has ever been plausibly accused of racism. (Though he has been, implausibly, countless times).

You were kind of selective in quoting Atwater, excluding the text I've set out in *__*, which immediately precedes what you did quote:

"Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. *Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964… and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster…*

So basically Atwater is saying that Reagan's Southern Strategy was explicitly non-racial, but may have appealed to vestigal racial feeling of voters who connected conservative principles such as local authority and limited government to their own racial bugaboos. Big deal. Atwater's speculation about this proves what, exactly?

Phillips is currently a partisan Democrat. If he was ever a Republican or conservative (as opposed to ambitious operative), I see no reason to assume that his cynical view of what the Republicans were trying to do in the South should be accepted as definitive. Again, have you talked to Jim Webb about this?

You might say the R are guilty of neglecting black interests (to the extent you think it wrong of them to regard color-blind policies as appropriate). But the D's have actively done acute harm in the period under discussion, through the disasterous and destructive Great Society programs that undermined black families and social structures. Happily, things appear to be getting better (I don't know how much of this is a product of welfare reform), but the D's can't look back at their performance from 1965-1995 and say: "look how well we served the black community". *Maybe* they can say, "sorry, we meant well."

And no, I don't mean they didn't do anything right: just that on balance, whatever their motives, they did far more harm than good.

[Tom Watson]

TK - there you go again.

"disasterous and destructive Great Society" hmm.

I guess the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were disastrous for black families and social structures. Not programs exactly, but cornerstones of the Great Society.

Medicare and Medicaid - bad as well. Better to go without medical care. (I guess the life expectancy for black Americans went down after that, eh?)

Head start - what a failure, how disastrous for those social structures.

PBS, envionmental regulation, education funding, the NEA, mass transit - all made life worse.

Certainly, some of the broad Great Society programs didn't work; others bogged down in bureaucracy. And the War on Poverty was only slightly more effective than the War on Drugs of the current War on Terror.

But your premise is the worn, frayed, old conservative premise - that social programs actually hurt those they're intended to help at great public cost. That premise ignores discrimination and poverty as the causes of the condition in the first place. It's crapola.

The Great Society improved life in the good old USA for millions of Americans. It wasn't perfect. But it did a gret deal.

Oh, and contrary to the false Reagan myth, it wasn't "rolled back" either. Most of the Great Society is neatly sewn into our American society today...

[Tom K]

Well, the Civil Rights act was the one that more D's than R's opposed, if I recall correctly. So as far as the topic at hand is concerned, I don't see how it helps your argument.

Call my argument worn and tired, take comfort in the fact that the Great Society benefitted some (at enormous cost, in $$ and in human terms), but at the end of the day, look at the numbers. Are there more, or less, intact black families now than there were before the Great Society? Than there would be without the Great Society? On the first point, the answer is obvious and neutrally-deteminable. On the second, each of us will import our predispositions, and probably come to different conclusions. But when that whole proces is complete, you still haven't proven that the Republican party is fundamentally bigoted.

[B Tween]

I still agree with Tom K, but it's a semantical argument, not practical at any level.
The institution of the Republican Party is agnostic on every issue. It's the *members* of the party that make it bigoted or not.
Focusing on the labels Democratic or Republican is pointless, because both institutions have merely been collective vehicles for the prides and prejudices of their membership at any given time.
Today, the Republican party provides home and hearth for reprehensible social attitudes. 150 years ago, it did not.
The problem isn't the Republican Party, the problem is Republicans. They are the foundation upon which the hateful platform is built.

[Slappy]

It was under Reagan, and under Reagan's and Republican leadership that the poor really starting getting screwed. The Dems to their shame too easily went along with it but it was the programs of Reagan that destroyed many working class families. And when you are talking poor in this country, a good number of them are minorities. I remember vividly as a student the overnight budget cuts that effected my school practically the day Reagan stepped in. And soon after the massive inflow of drugs. First hand I saw my neighborhood change almost overnight. (I grew up in Washington Heights, NYC) And along side these changes were massive attacks on unions. One way for the working class to make a decent livable wage in this country is to join a union. This was greatly shattered. Along with these changes came an attitude from lawmakers (Republicans especially) that one should no longer be a drain on society. Get a job you lazy bum. Also, this is when the drug laws went haywire and the slightest presence of a drug set you away for a long time. (Unless you lived in the suburbs.) This probably destroyed more families than anything else. I witnessed this firsthand.

NONE of above is part of the Great Society. ZERO. THe Great Society helped create the middle class in this country and helped to feed many who had no means. All of the laws and programs passed during Reagan were designed to destroy the most dependable Democratic voting groups. Blacks being the focus. If you were working poor black in this country, your life got a whole lot harder in the 80's. A group was targeted based on their race.

Many of those Dems who opposed The Civil Rights Act left their party because of it and joined the Republicans. That was the big switch and still is what differentiates the two parties more than anything. The members make the party, not the name. And the scumbags who opposed the Act turned Republican for a reason. Their Party betrayed them. Your "Dems opposed it in more numbers" line is misleading.

I hate you fucks.

[Ralph]

C'mon Tom K. you think we are idiots. The Democrats that opposed the Civil Rights act were Conservative Dixiecrats and the Republican who supported it were Liberals. That's the issue.

As for the Republican party, I can only go by what I hear. A good friend of mine who never cared about politics or religion before the age of 25, became a Republican one year. The next thing I know, he's making anti-gay jokes to myself and another close friend. The next thing we know, he's calling all Muslims enemies of America.

The fascist-leaning Republican party is on a sinking ship, and it's time for the moderate adults of the party to push the rascist, homophobic, Christian conservatives off the flooding deck.

I'd love to send so-called fiscal-libertarian conservatives back to pre-WWII America. Do you realize how many children and elderly were living in poverty? Do you know anything about Jim Crow laws, discriminatory election practices, and lynchings? Do you know how hard it was for people to afford college? Please. The Great Society lifted millions out of poverty. In 1978, the poverty rate was at a historic low. I could not have afforded college without Government grants. My Mom could not have afforded our apartment without secion 8 housing vouchers. I am sick and tired of conservative claiming that Government is evil by it's very nature and that the private sector is the answer to every problem. It's a fucking joke.

[The Viscount]

Republicanism 101

[grasshopper]

Not only do I agree whole-heartedly, I am glad you said it, and said it so definitively. To my mind, your position here can not be repeated enough. If we can admit what you're saying is all too true, perhaps that hard, cold, appallingly cruel truth will instigate--finally--some change of mind and heart.