“Many on the Left seemed genuinely shocked that their charges of racism, sexism, and xenophobia did not seem to dent Trump’s popularity with conservatives. Only belatedly did some of them realize that this may have been, at least in part, the price they paid for crying wolf for decades.”
While I have no doubt that there are many conserva…
“Many on the Left seemed genuinely shocked that their charges of racism, sexism, and xenophobia did not seem to dent Trump’s popularity with conservatives. Only belatedly did some of them realize that this may have been, at least in part, the price they paid for crying wolf for decades.”
While I have no doubt that there are many conservatives who are not racist, sexist or xenophobic, Charlie is ignoring the use of racism by GOP presidential candidates at least as far back as Goldwater.
1964 GOP convention:
“Indeed, the “Party of Lincoln” was ripping apart before our eyes. Arizona senator Barry Goldwater … had tapped into a mother lode of voter anxiety about Communism, crime and especially civil rights….
Although ample evidence exists to show that Goldwater personally was not racist, he had allied himself with those who were….His campaign, however, set in motion an electoral realignment ….” (MS Magazine)
“By the next presidential election, in 1968, Richard Nixon smoothly adopted the southern strategy – he dropped the crude racism and replaced it with winks and whistles. The Republicans morphed into the white people’s party.” (History News Network)
Then came Ronald Reagan:
“When he went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1980, the town where the civil rights workers had been murdered, and declared that “I believe in states’ rights,” he didn’t mean to signal support for white racists….
When he went on about the welfare queen driving her Cadillac, and kept repeating the story years after it had been debunked…it was all just an innocent mistake.
When, in 1976, he talked about working people angry about the “strapping young buck” using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks at the grocery store…the appearance that Reagan was playing to Southern prejudice was just an innocent mistake….
When Reagan declared in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act had been “humiliating to the South”…when Reagan intervened on the side of Bob Jones University, which was on the verge of losing its tax-exempt status because of its ban on interracial dating…when Reagan fired three members of the Civil Rights Commission…it was all an innocent mistake.“ (Paul Krugman)
Followed by George H.W. Bush:
“Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager, heard the story and thought that Bush … should raise the (Willie) Horton case so often that voters would think of Horton as Dukakis’ virtual running mate, Atwater later said.
Bush delivered. On the campaign trail, he frequently brought up Horton and the specter of uncontrolled violent crime. He made references that Atwater had intentionally crafted to sow fear of black Americans while not sounding overtly racist to white voters.” (NBC News)
And finally Jeb Bush’s voter suppression in Florida in 2000:
“Thousands of black electors in Florida were disenfranchised in last November's election by an electoral system tainted by "injustice, ineptitude and inefficiency" a leaked report by the US civil rights commission says.
It accuses Governor Jeb Bush, the president's brother, and his secretary of state, Katherine Harris, of "gross dereliction" of duty, saying they "chose to ignore mounting evidence" of the problems.
The eight-strong commission … found that black voters were "10 times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected", and pointed to the use of a flawed list of felons and ex-felons to purge the voting rolls.
‘It is not a question of a recount or even an accurate count, but more pointedly the issue is those whose exclusion from the right to vote amounted to a 'No Count'," the report says’.”(The Guardian)
I am a fan of Charlie and of the Bulwark. It is hard to overstate the good they have done for the country (and for my sanity) these last few years. But for Charlie to characterize Democrats/liberals’ charges of racism as “crying wolf” is grossly inaccurate. At a minimum, the GOP has a decades long history of using racism as a political weapon.
“Many on the Left seemed genuinely shocked that their charges of racism, sexism, and xenophobia did not seem to dent Trump’s popularity with conservatives. Only belatedly did some of them realize that this may have been, at least in part, the price they paid for crying wolf for decades.”
While I have no doubt that there are many conservatives who are not racist, sexist or xenophobic, Charlie is ignoring the use of racism by GOP presidential candidates at least as far back as Goldwater.
1964 GOP convention:
“Indeed, the “Party of Lincoln” was ripping apart before our eyes. Arizona senator Barry Goldwater … had tapped into a mother lode of voter anxiety about Communism, crime and especially civil rights….
Although ample evidence exists to show that Goldwater personally was not racist, he had allied himself with those who were….His campaign, however, set in motion an electoral realignment ….” (MS Magazine)
“By the next presidential election, in 1968, Richard Nixon smoothly adopted the southern strategy – he dropped the crude racism and replaced it with winks and whistles. The Republicans morphed into the white people’s party.” (History News Network)
Then came Ronald Reagan:
“When he went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1980, the town where the civil rights workers had been murdered, and declared that “I believe in states’ rights,” he didn’t mean to signal support for white racists….
When he went on about the welfare queen driving her Cadillac, and kept repeating the story years after it had been debunked…it was all just an innocent mistake.
When, in 1976, he talked about working people angry about the “strapping young buck” using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks at the grocery store…the appearance that Reagan was playing to Southern prejudice was just an innocent mistake….
When Reagan declared in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act had been “humiliating to the South”…when Reagan intervened on the side of Bob Jones University, which was on the verge of losing its tax-exempt status because of its ban on interracial dating…when Reagan fired three members of the Civil Rights Commission…it was all an innocent mistake.“ (Paul Krugman)
Followed by George H.W. Bush:
“Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager, heard the story and thought that Bush … should raise the (Willie) Horton case so often that voters would think of Horton as Dukakis’ virtual running mate, Atwater later said.
Bush delivered. On the campaign trail, he frequently brought up Horton and the specter of uncontrolled violent crime. He made references that Atwater had intentionally crafted to sow fear of black Americans while not sounding overtly racist to white voters.” (NBC News)
And finally Jeb Bush’s voter suppression in Florida in 2000:
“Thousands of black electors in Florida were disenfranchised in last November's election by an electoral system tainted by "injustice, ineptitude and inefficiency" a leaked report by the US civil rights commission says.
It accuses Governor Jeb Bush, the president's brother, and his secretary of state, Katherine Harris, of "gross dereliction" of duty, saying they "chose to ignore mounting evidence" of the problems.
The eight-strong commission … found that black voters were "10 times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected", and pointed to the use of a flawed list of felons and ex-felons to purge the voting rolls.
‘It is not a question of a recount or even an accurate count, but more pointedly the issue is those whose exclusion from the right to vote amounted to a 'No Count'," the report says’.”(The Guardian)
I am a fan of Charlie and of the Bulwark. It is hard to overstate the good they have done for the country (and for my sanity) these last few years. But for Charlie to characterize Democrats/liberals’ charges of racism as “crying wolf” is grossly inaccurate. At a minimum, the GOP has a decades long history of using racism as a political weapon.
Well said!