Joan Walsh in Salon, “What it really means to woo white voters“:
Paragraph 1: “I have a visceral reaction to conservatives arguing that Republicans should forget about trying to lure Latinos by passing immigration reform, and focus on turning out white voters instead. When Phyllis Schlafly or Pat Buchanan makes that pitch, it’s clear to me, it’s racist. They are urging their party to rely on the 50-year narrative of white grievance….”
Paragraph 2: “Yet not everyone reassuring the GOP that it can continue to rely on white voters is making a racist argument.”
Paragraph 3: “Still, it’s very hard for me to imagine a Republican effort to appeal specifically to white voters that doesn’t involve a strong element of racial grievance….”
Literal translation, for those of you who don’t speak liberal: Conservative arguments that appeal to whites (any whites: lower class, upper class, religious, etc.) are racist. Not all people who make these arguments think they’re making racist arguments. But they are.
It’s not racist, of course, for Democrats to appeal to Latinos or blacks by relying on a narrative of Latino or black grievance. In fact, it’s not even racist for Democrats to appeal to whites on the basis of their grievances. Isn’t the liberal mind a wondrous thing to behold?
Paragraph 4: “Having said that, I realize: I’ve argued that Democrats should do more to appeal to working-class whites. So what makes me think Democrats can reach more whites with an appeal that’s non-racial, while Republicans’ get-out-the-whites strategy can only rely on grievance and backlash?”
Good question. Let me know if you find the answer. I couldn’t find it, and I doubt you will either, in the remaining 14 paragraphs. Well, there is one gem there that adorns the crown of all liberal arguments: the belief that conservative support for colorblind equality is a racist appeal to racial grievance (see their argument in Schuette that state constitutional amendments eliminating racial preference violate the Fourteenth Amendment), and since liberals no longer believe in colorblind equality they are never guilty of that sin.
