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

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Whistle past Schaller!

The more I read about Whistling Past Dixie the angrier I get. And, again, it is not that I disagree with the diagnosis. I disagree with the prescription:

Schaller speaks ill of the South. The very heart of his argument is a taboo notion: that the South votes Republican because the Republicans have perfected their appeal to Southern racism, and that Democrats simply can’t (and shouldn’t) compete.

But, among scholars, this is hardly news. Schaller builds this conclusion on one of the most impressive papers in recent political science, “Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: Race and Partisan Realignment in the Contemporary South,” by Nicholas Valentino and David Sears.

Swell. They prove racism. I stand by my belief that the race problem we’ve got in this country is a national one and that it’s easier to point fingers at the South than it is to honestly address the national problem of our public schools and prison population and urban poverty and all the rest.

What’s more, if Republicans have succeeded by openly baiting a region of the country not really American (the latte-swilling Northeast), Schaller says, “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’ neck.” Democrats should cite “Southern obstructionism as a continuing impediment to the investments and progress the country must make in the coming century.”

The Democratic party played a shameful role in shaping that Southern racism, and how does the Schaller crowd propose to make amends for that historical fact? Well, of course, they don’t. Schaller proposes to use that racism tactically, a tactic that reeks of elitist paternalism and an inflated sense of superiority.

How would his “win in the rest of the country then the South will come around” approach have played out in the Civil Rights era? The Democrats should be on the ground here, not “playing to white voters’ inclinations to see blacks as lazy” but working to buttress and support those who don’t.

I read today of Howard Dean speaking in Texas. The headline was Dems need more gay leaders. But the part of the story that had resonance for me was this:

Flush from big Democratic gains in last week’s elections, Dean emphasized that the “new Democratic Party” reaches out to all citizens, even those less likely to vote for them.

The downfall of the “old Democratic Party,” he said, had been its acceptance to represent half the nation.

Here Schaller considers the money Dean spent in MY DISTRICT a waste. I beg to differ.

Netroots activists balk about DC political consultants acting as beltway operators when what we need, they say, is a means to hear, understand and address the concerns of those of us who live outside the beltway. I hear Schaller sounding like the former, Dean the latter. I’m with Dean.