Almost a week after David Brooks' apoplectic and nonsensical attempt to absolve Reagan of racism for his 1980 visit to the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the rightwing polemicisphere continues to try to rewrite history.
It is very important to understand why they are so obsessively focused on denying the plain reality of Reagan's 1980 campaign.
To that end, in this diary, I address three essential questions:
- Was Reagan's visit to Philadelphia and the Neshoba County Fair a powerful racist appeal?
- Did the Reagan Administration have a negative impact on racial equality?
- So what? Why is it important that Reagan appealed to racism to win the 1980 election, and why don't Republicans want to talk about it?
I. Was Reagan's visit to Philadelphia and the Neshoba County Fair a powerful racist appeal?
As you probably know by now, last week, David Brooks fired the first salvo in a desperate right-wing attempt to revise yet another unfortunate chapter in our nation's history: Ronald Reagan's direct appeal to southern white racists during the 1980 presidential campaign.
You also probably know the basic story: in 1980, immediately after the GOP convention, Ronald Reagan visited the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where sixteen years earlier, three civil rights activists were murdered.
Merely visiting Philadelphia sent a powerful signal, but while there, Reagan made sure his message of solidarity with southern white racists was completely clear. Reagan discussed welfare reform, referring to welfare recipients as "them" and taxpayers as "the rest of us." Next, he turned to federal involvement in education -- in other words, desegregation -- and proudly declared his support for states' rights, which was then a rallying cry for whites who opposed federal civil rights legislation.
It's really rather simple, and there's nothing controversial about it: Reagan's visit was a racist appeal.
Somehow, however, Brooks and his legion of apparently retarded followers are making the case that Reagan's visit was entirely innocent.
Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert have done a very good job of setting the record straight, but unfortunately Brooks and his merry band of revisionist idiots have had some success in taking Reagan's speech out of context.
To that end, I've posted the relevant portion of the speech online, at YouTube. Have a listen. Unless you are terminally dense, you'll understand that Reagan was making a racist appeal.
Now, clearly, Reagan's speech was no hellfire and brimstone appeal to racism. Rather, he made his meaning clear through a clever deployment of symbolism and code words. The challenge Reagan faced was that he needed to win the support of southern white racists without losing support from whites in other parts of the country.
Most whites aren't racist, or at least don't think of themselves as racist. If Reagan had adopted the language of the Ku Klux Klan (which had endorsed him a few days earlier), he would have lost more votes than he gained. (This explains Brooks hyper-aggressive defense.)
Reagan had a tightrope to walk, and he did so with precision.
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II. Did the Reagan Administration have a negative impact on racial equality?
Herbert and Krugman have detailed a lengthy list of details demonstrating Reagan's racism, and I won't bother repeating them here.
What I will focus on is the impact of Reagan's brand of racism on the gap between white and black Americans. Indeed, Republican racism has been devastating in one of the places it hurts most: the wallet.
As you can see from the charts below, Reagan's failure to invest in urban areas, opposition to affirmative action, and weak enforcement of both civil rights and anti-discrimination legislation led directly to worse economic outcomes for black Americans.
Each of these charts use median household income in 2006 dollars, using figures from the last year of each presidential administration. From the charts, you can see how under Republican rule, the gap between black Americans and white non-Hispanic Americans grows, and how under President Clinton, the gap narrowed. (Source: Census Bureau 1 2)
The next few charts make the problem clear: under Republican presidents, the gap between white non-Hispanic Americans and black Americans grows larger (as measured by the ratio of black median household income to white non-Hispanic median household income).
As you can see from this chart, in Clinton's term, a rising tide did indeed lift all boats, at least as far as race goes.
Moreover, when Bush took office, he promptly reversed much of the gains in racial equality under the Clinton presidency.
In Clinton's term, a rising tide did indeed lift all boats, at least as far as race goes. As you can see, when Bush took office, he promptly reversed much of the gains in racial equality under the Clinton presidency.
Here you can see that the problem is particularly clear amongst lower income blacks. These charts use figures for the upper-limit of the 20th and 40th percentiles.
These charts make an essential point: they show in real terms what impact Republican racism has on racial inequality. It's devastating -- and in the long run, that's bad for everybody.
As they say in school yards, sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.
Well, Reagan's rhetoric itself may not have been hurtful -- but it is a fitting symbol for the actual harm the Reagan Revolutionaries have caused black Americans.
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III. So what? Why is it important that Reagan appealed to racism to win the 1980 election, and why don't Republicans want to talk about it?
The answer is simple: politics, and the emerging Democratic majority.
Given the statistics that I've shown you, it should be no surprise that about 90% of black Americans who vote, vote for Democrats. Indeed, other minority groups, including Asians who are much better off financially than blacks, tend to vote Democratic because of the legacy of Republican racism.
One of the much heralded trends in America is its increasing racial and ethnic diversity -- and this trend poses a direct threat to the Republican Party, which counts on support from white non-Hispanics to win elections.
Currently, minorities are disproportionately less likely to vote than white non-Hispanics. Here's a chart showing what might happen if minorities voted in proportion to their population:
Karl Rove developed a dual strategy to deal with this emerging threat to the GOP's electoral prospects: on the one hand, they work hard to expand their appeal to minority groups, particularly Hispanics. Of course, not all Republicans follow suit, severely undercutting the efficacy of this strategy.
I think the zealous revisionism of Reagan from Brooks et al is part of this strategy. Brooks and other smart Republicans realize that the party needs to shed its racist image to survive in the 21st century.
Unfortunately, they seem to think shedding the image of Republican racism is merely an issue of spin. They see fit to actively encourage the suppression of minority voting rights, and they see nothing wrong with a growing gap between black and white.
On issues of race and ethnicity, the Republican Party of today is not that different from the Ronald Reagan of 1980.
This is the essential reality they hope to cover up -- and they are dismayed that the truth is being told.
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IV. Summary
In 1980, Reagan kicked off his general election campaign with an obvious appeal to southern white racists.
The policies of his administration, and subsequent Republican administrations, widened the gap between white non-Hispanic Americans and black Americans, while the policies of the Clinton administration narrowed the gap.
The legacy of Republican racism has severely hurt their electoral prospects with minorities, and given the growing population of minorities in America, their electoral future is at risk if they don't change their racist image. They see this primarily as a spin problem, rather than a substantive one. Until they address the substance behind their image problem, their efforts to change image will continue to be unsuccesful, and they will pay an increasingly large penalty in the ballot box for it.