Race And The Republicans

On Thursday the Wall Street Journal published a long, interesting article (link probably requires subscription) that both discussed and, in places, unwittingly magnified the obstacle the issue of race has become for the Republicans.

The authors, John Harwood and Shailagh Murray, argue convincingly that the deepest divisions between the two parties are social, not economic, and that race is the most divisive of those social issues. Writing the day before Lott’s resignation as majority leader, they noted:

Race is the social issue burned most deeply in the American psyche, as the beleaguered Mr. Lott can testify. And the partisan divides over race are the accumulation of decades of political posturing and legislative votes by both parties ….

As a result, the debate that began with Mr. Lott’s praise for Sen. Strom Thurmond’s segregationist presidential campaign isn’t likely to end there.

The authors trace this sad state of affairs to the realignment that led large numbers of Southern whites into the Republican Party in the 1960s and 1970s and, conversely, have made synonyms out of black and Democratic.

This analysis is persuasive, but in my opinion it derails when it discusses the present and future meaning and implications of this history, and it does so in a way that is threatening to become a new, and seriously flawed, orthodoxy. (See my discussion here of another example.) Here’s how it begins:

It isn’t easy, however, for Republicans to distance themselves from some parts of the party’s legacy. One reason Mr. Lott has been unable to shrug off his praise for Mr. Thurmond’s 1948 Dixiecrat candidacy is that his legislative record is marked by opposition to many latter-day causes of the civil rights movement.

Mr. Lott was far from alone. Important elements of that legislative record are shared by other prominent Republicans — including some of those who have assailed Mr. Lott in his current, weakened state.

The authors then proceed to summarize a list of issues where Republicans opposed elements of the recent civil rights agenda, such as acting on “their long-held principle that affirmative action is philosophically wrong.” When Rep. Charles Cannady and Sen. Robert Dole introduced legislation in 1995 to eliminate race preferences in federal programs (which the Republicans promptly proceeded to ignore), Sen. McCain warned that

Unfortunately, in discussing the inherent contradiction and shortcomings of affirmative-action programs, the danger exists that our aspirations and intentions will be misperceived, dividing our country and harming our party.

The argument, in short, goes like this:

1. The Republicans welcomed racists in the past;
2. They oppose much of the agenda of the current civil rights organiations;
3. So they are (or are perceived as) still racist.

In other words, the NAACP, People for the American Way, et. al. own the franchise on determinng who is racist.

A corollary to the assumption that the core Republican vote is racist, or at least opposed to civil rights, is that the Republicans are so dependent on these right-wing voters that they can’t appeal to the center.

“There’s a limit,” notes the [Emory] political scientist [Merle] Black, to how much the party can move toward the center on issues concerning race. If Republicans were to abandon their opposition to affirmative-action programs, for instance, he says a significant proportion of white voters “would view that as a sell-out.”

In addition to the conceptual error of equating opposition to affirmative action with opposition to civil rights, and hence with right-wing views, assertions like this mistakenly identify “the center” as the middle point between opposing advocacy groups. In fact, poll after poll have shown that by significant margins most Americans oppose preferences based on race or ethnicity. The prevailing Republican understanding of equality — that every person should be treated without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin — is the predominant, mainstream view of most people.

The authors conclude:

Fairly or not, Sen. Lott’s predicament has now magnified that danger for Republicans. What to do about it isn’t clear.

I beg to differ. I think “what to do about it” is perfectly clear. Having asserted their committment to equality by dumping Lott, Republicans must now aggressively and boldly promote the argument that true equality requires colorblindness. If they continue to follow their current route of McCainiac caution and refrain from vigorously affirming the principle of non-discrimination out of fear that they will be “misperceived” as racist — such as, for example, by following the advice I criticized here — they will simply add legitimacy to the current liberal orthodoxy that views colorblindness as the new racism.

In short, the only way the Republicans can successfully rebut the argument that they are covert or even conscious racists is to make a persuasive case that equality, properly understood, requires colorblindness. A fearful failure to make that case — for example, by dodging the issue in the pending Michigan cases before the Supreme Court — will send a clear message that the Republicans don’t believe their own arguments, and hence that no one else should, either.