Racism in My Experience — Part 11
National Politics on Race
From the Civil War to the Civil Rights Act, Southern Democratic politicians were the architects of Jim Crow and the defenders of the de jure segregated South; their mantra was “state’s rights”. Northern Democrats and many Republicans formed the coalition that passed much of the 1960s Civil Rights legislation. Over time, Republican leaders at the national and state levels found it politically advantageous to play the “race card”. At the national level, Arizona Senator and presidential candidate Goldwater ran a state’s rights campaign in 1964 which would have allowed local and state governments to preserve their Jim Crow laws; he was soundly defeated. Alabama’s Governor George Wallace ran an even more explicitly racist campaign for President in 1968 and won several Southern states under the banner of the American Independence Party; Richard Nixon, who ran a “law and order” campaign with many racist dog whistles, was relative to George Wallace the moderate. California Governor and presidential candidate Ronald Reagan took racist dog whistling to the next level in his campaigning for state’s rights at Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site of the murders of civil rights organizers, and among white voters in the North with racist references to welfare queens and forced busing; his victory coined the new demographic of Reagan Democrats, working class Northern white voters who eventually became staunch Republicans. He beat Carter, a moderate Southern Democrat soundly, and proceeded to seek to roll back many of the social safety net programs so essential to economic survival for the poorest of the poor. He assembled a new powerful conservative coalition of defense hawks, economic conservatives, cultural conservatives, law and order hardliners, white evangelical Christians and some outright racists that has endured through the election of President Donald Trump. It captured the South from the Democrats and firmly cemented Republican control in the South, the rural farm states and among a segment of white working class Northern voters – a historic realignment that destroyed the FDR coalition from the Great Depression and the Second World War.
President Reagan reached across the political aisle in enacting the Immigration Reform Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/its-25th-anniversary-ircas-legacy-lives It combined toughened border enforcement, increased employer sanctions, and a path to citizenship for those who had initially entered the country without the requisite papers (undocumented workers and their families). The backlash to his historic achievement has animated and fractured elements of his conservative coalition ever since. President Obama, President Bush and President Clinton sought to reassemble bi-partisan coalitions in support of further immigration reform and were stymied time and again. While the business elements of the conservative coalition may support immigration reforms because it helps to grow the economy, an increasingly nativist and racist segment of the coalition is adamantly opposed to any legalization for the undocumented and, as embodied under President Trump’s leadership, wants to curtail and shut down legal immigration as well.
His successor, President George Bush the first, negotiated trade agreements with Mexico and Canada that became NAFTA – the free trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada, which was approved by Congress under the leadership of President Bill Clinton. The backlash to that agreement animated the reactionary challenges of Pat Buchanan to free trade and eventually the success of Donald Trump. Union leaders and progressives found common ground with many disaffected conservatives in blaming free trade and globalization for the declines in American worker’s wages and standards of living and the loss of US manufacturing dominance on the global stage. The tendencies to blame foreigners and free trade for the US’ economic woes and loss of our post-war international dominance in manufacturing have reinforced the nativist and populist backlash to the US’ role in the world, and distracts from the urgent need to become more competitive rather than turning inward.
The racist dog whistles of Nixon and Reagan have become a full throated bull horn roar under President Trump – from defending the Confederate flag, the ultra rightists in Charlottesville and now Portland, the attacks on protesters asking for racial justice, the attacks on distinguished African American athletes and politicians, and the unbridled use of federal force under the umbrella of “law and order”.
We are entering an era where America’s current President is doing his very best to make racism and white supremacy respectable and energizing right wing extremist groups and militias in the process. He did not create this toxic stew, but he is doing whatever he can to give it sustenance and strength, assessing that it did and will again increase his election and now re-election prospects. He is encountering white backlash to his overt racism, particularly in the suburbs and most strongly among college educated women voters. It is up to the American people in the polling booths and in their mail in ballots to decide whether Donald Trump’s view of America is the one they wish to share and how they want their children and grand children to live.
Most Americans now agree that blacks and Latinos face systemic racism and discrimination. https://www.wsj.com/articles/majority-of-voters-say-u-s-society-is-racist-as-support-grows-for-black-lives-matter-115953 The as yet unanswered question is whether they want to do anything about it. The unfortunate answer is that from 1975 to 2015, there was declining white voter support for government intervention in issues like job discrimination and segregated schools. https://igpa.uillinois.edu/sites/igpa.uillinois.edu/files/racial_attitudes/Fig2B.gif At the same time, the public’s fundamental attitudes showed steadily increasing support for black integration in neighborhoods, in schools and in inter-racial marriages. https://igpa.uillinois.edu/sites/igpa.uillinois.edu/files/racial_attitudes/Fig2B.gif
In a very real sense Trump with his retrograde mindset is pedaling very hard against the winds of attitudinal change on the issues of race in the society. But in another very real sense he encapsulates the disinterest on the part of too many white voters in having government intervene to level the highly unequal playing field of economic and educational opportunity. The Reverend Al Sharpton in his eulogy for George Floyd summed it the best -- “just get your knee off our necks”. White, brown and black America find nearly complete agreement in denouncing the unjustified murders of Breonna Taylor or George Floyd. They may part company on improving public educational opportunities for minorities or reducing health care disparities when it comes to increasing their taxes to help pay for it. We don’t yet know how much if at all attitudes towards redressing inequities have actually shifted, and Trump is hard at work trying to further divide and inflame this nation using his crack Homeland Security and Justice Department troops during the lethal combination of a pandemic and the rise in demands for social justice.