Dean And The Tarbaby

Susanna Cornett links to an article in The American Prospect about Dean and the Confederate flag, says it is not all bad, and asks what we think.

Not much. Jefferson Cowie, a Cornell historian, repeats the familiar tale of a) LBJ being aware that by signing the Civil Rights Bill in 1964 he was pushing white southerners out of the Democratic Party for at least a generation, and b) the Nixonian Southern Strategy of 1968 succeeding in luring racist Southern whites into the Republican party, where they remain. Cowies implication is the same as Deans: but for their voting on the basis of race, Southern pickup truck drivers would be voting Democratic. Thus Cowie writes:

By littering their politics with thinly veiled racial rhetoric (“silent majority,” “law and order,” “welfare queens,” “Willie Horton” and the rest) Republicans have done an outstanding job of driving — and keeping — much of the white working-class out of the Democratic Party.

This story is not, of course, purely a fable, but it does leave out quite a bit, some of which has already been noted by commenters to Susannas post. I would like, however, to note an irony (but if its not irony dont give me a hard time; Im not committed to its ironicalness) that has been too little noticed: LBJs strong and necessary support of writing the non-discrimination principle into federal law did indeed drive many whites out of the Democratic Party of his day, but the Democratic Partys abandonment of that principle has also played a large role, in our day, of keeping them out.

If todays Democrats campaigned on the same principle that led LBJ to push through the Civil Rights Act, and that was in fact embedded in that act that no individual should be burdened or rewarded on the basis of race they would be able to win back many of those disaffected Southern whites. Take a close look and listen at what is widely regarded as an almost exquisite example of the worst excresence of white, conservative, Republican, Southern racism in the modern era: Jesse Helms white hands ad from his 1990 campaign against Harvey Gantt. That ad featured a close-up of a pair of white hands crumpling what was described as a rejection letter as the voice over said You needed that job, and you were the best qualified, but they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota…. According to Helms consultant Alex Castellanos, surveys had identified Gantts support of affirmative action as highly unpopular.

The message in that spot’s very clear and that is nobody should get a job, or be denied a job because of the color of their skin. The vast majority of Americans believe that. And if it’s wrong for us to discriminate that way it’s wrong for our government to discriminate that way….

Helms, who had been several points behind in the polls, went on to win the election.

This ad can certainly be called divisive, in todays pc-talk, although with equal accuracy it can be said that the policy of affirmative action was also divisive. My point here, however, is not to defend Helms and his ad (or to criticize them) but to point out that many Southerners (and others) and not just pickup-driving Confederate flag wavers believe that racial preferences are unfair. Thinking that does not make them (us) racist, and the Democrats might well have won that Senate election in North Carolina, as well as other races before and since, if they had not been forced to wear the albatross of affirmative action around their necks.

If the Democrats had stuck to the non-discrimination princple pushed by LBJ ironically, the very principle that drove many whites out of the party back then they would be much better off with whites in the South today, and, according to nearly all surveys, they wouldnt alienate as many black voters (as opposed to black leaders) as they fear.

Sometimes, sticking to a temporarily unpopular principle is the best policy.

Returning to the Confederat flag, another columnist today wisely called it the tarbaby of American politics, and Dean, she said, has spent much of the past week trying to get himself unstuck from it. Whatever one thinks of that flag, it seems clear that in the last week or so it has caused more consternation in Yankee ranks than at any time since Picketts charge.

Say What? (6)

  1. cut on the bias November 10, 2003 at 10:42 pm | | Reply

    Republicans as racist former Dems

    This is an interesting article by historian Jefferson Cowie in The American Prospect. I don’t disagree with everything he says,…

  2. Laura November 11, 2003 at 6:55 pm | | Reply

    Dean’s mistake was that he forgot he’s not running against Republicans yet. He’s running against Democrats, and he set his opponents up for a perfect game of “more Democrat than thou”. One can realize what he *meant* and agree that it was OK, and still understand that it was a stupid, stupid thing for him to say.

  3. Cobb November 11, 2003 at 9:59 pm | | Reply

    I can’t wait for the day that the first gansta rapper appropriates the Confederate Battle Flag. It will set America on its ear.

  4. Dodd November 12, 2003 at 9:04 pm | | Reply

    And let’s not forget that the “code word” better known as “Willie Horton” was introduced to the American public by a Democrat primary challenger. They always seem to leave that part out….

  5. Rob Lyman November 13, 2003 at 10:20 am | | Reply

    I’ll never understand why Horton is supposed to be a code word for racism.

    He was let out of prison by a stupid liberal program.

    He raped a woman while he was out.

    How, exactly, does this have anything to do with racism?

  6. John Rosenberg November 13, 2003 at 3:51 pm | | Reply

    Rob – That’s easy. It reveals racism the same way a belief that all people should be treated equally reveals racism….

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