aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

If you are a racist, go ahead and vote for the Republicans

How is it I can so agree with Mudcat Saunders:

Although we are not at the “top of the mountain” that Dr. King talked about, we are moving. I know few Southern white people who don’t have a great black friend and visa versus. There is little, if any, tolerance for racist groups anymore. In the South, where most of us have a huge affection for the Almighty, we’re beginning to see racial wedges as what they are…dividing God’s children. Believe it or not, the overwhelming majority of actual voters (and I didn’t say all) deplore racism. To many of us in the South, the racially-benign portions of our heritage are still sacred, but that’s not to say that we believe the right side didn’t win the war. There are also many Southerners, like myself, who embrace their culture but not at the expense of dividing God’s children. A great example is the flag out on Columbia’s Gervais Street in front of the Capitol. That flag has dragged our heritage into further controversy. We need no further tarnishing of our culture.

On race, I say it’s time to hit the Republicans straight on. When they use race-baiting to divide God’s children, let’s call them on it. It’s now been 27 years since Lee Atwater introduced one of the most effective great lies in political history-the “Welfare Queen”. Yet we have not even hit that one in the mouth. I say let’s shout out with the fury of hell, “If you are a racist, go ahead and vote for the Republicans.” That kind of strong message will hit home to more than just a few good Southerners.

[Emphasis mine.]

And yet I so vehemently object to Tom Schaller‘s Whistling Past Dixie page 18 proposal:

To unify a Republican Party composed of both Wall Street bankers and heartland preachers - the profits-plus-pulpits coalition - the GOP has created the perfect foil: a ubiquitous and nefarious “liberal elite” that is somehow blamed for orchestrating America’s cultural and spiritual demise. The Democrats need their own “them,” and the social conservatives who are the bedrock of southern politics provide the most obvious and burdensome stone to hang around the Republicans’ necks.

As simply as I can put it, the former is telling it like it is. Outing racists. The latter is a strategic use of racism as a means to a political end. A political end that, in its full 300 page majesty (supplemented by Southern bashing blog posts, articles and television appearances), proposes writing off the South and choosing instead to win over the Mountain red states while relying on the dependable East and West.

Just as some Democrats are smitten with the idea of a “soft partition” of Iraq, there has been a solid core of Democrats smitten with Schaller’s suggestion for what looks to me like a soft partition of these United States.

To address Schaller’s analogy more directly, the GOP didn’t abandon the home regions of the demonized liberal elites. Rather, a good number of the Republicans’ brightest lights came from and grew to prominence in those regions. They’ve also had more than their fair share of Republican governors, mayors and local pols. Last I checked, two of the top three leading Republican presidential candidates were from the Northeast.

Even if aping the Republicans is the best we can do, that all sounds more Mudcat than Schaller to me.

RELATED: It won’t surprise you to read that I am no fan of the Bush Dog attacks on our own.