Decoding David BrooksPsst! His latest column is an attack on Times colleague Paul Krugman.
Posted Friday, Nov. 9, 2007, at 7:29 PM ET
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StumbleUponCannon writes that Reagan was no racist, which, as Krugman points out in his Nov. 19 column, is neither here nor there. (You don't have to be a racist to pander to racist voters.) Cannon also argues that the Philadelphia speech hurt Reagan more than it helped him because it cost him votes from moderates in Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania "without bolstering his standing among conservative Southern whites." If true, that merely demonstrates that Reagan's pander to white racists backfired, not that Reagan never pandered in the first place.
In his Nov. 19 column, Krugman recycles some of the points he made about Reagan and race last week on his blog. He also restates one of the more provocative points in his book, The Conscience of A Liberal: The defection of white males from the Democratic party in recent decades was not a national phenomenon, but rather a southern one. Krugman cites a study by Larry Bartels, a political scientist at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, showing that in 1952 and 2004, the proportion of non-southern white men lacking college degrees who voted Democratic was virtually unchanged (40 percent and 39 percent, respectively). To be fully persuaded on this point, I'd need to see how non-southern white men voted during the years in between.
Unrelated-but-interesting point: Bartels' study would seem to refute Thomas Frank's thesis in What's The Matter With Kansas that the white working class is economically populist but conservative on "values" issues. In fact, writes Bartels, the opposite is true: It is more tolerant on issues like abortion and gay marriage than the Republicans are, but less tolerant on issues like raising taxes on the rich than Democrats are. That might explain why the economic populism favored by Democratic political consultant Bob Shrum failed in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.]
E-mail Timothy Noah at .
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Remarks from the Fray:
As a native Southerner, I knew perfectly well that "states rights" was a code word for segregation. (This was the era when "forced busing" was still a hot issue.) Jimmy Carter, also a Southerner, knew it as well, and he fairly enough (in his eyes) accused Reagan of racism. He also had a more substantive reason: Reagan's opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
But Reagan came from California, and may not have understood what loaded words he was speaking. Possibly, he only thought of it as a stock phrase like "gun control" or "socialized medicine" . . . but we don't really know what was going on in his mind, and it is no slur to say he was appealing to Southern racists, because that was what he was doing.
I do object to treating former presidents like saints and calling any reference to their human failings a slander: This also applies to Carter, who started it all by accusing Reagan of racism. Why blame Krugman?
--Faustling
(To reply, click here.)
The fact is that Reagan did open his 1980 campaign in "Philadelphia, Miss., which is where three civil rights workers had been murdered 16 years earlier." Brooks objectively mentions "16 years" to make an event very much alive in American consciousness today sound like old news in 1980.
Whether Brooks suffers white blindness to race relations or just believes that his audience does, I don't know. "States' rights" is well-known code for segregation and Reagan brought it up in reference to schools!
Visiting Vernon Jordan in the hospital and speaking to the Urban league did not negate what Reagan did in Philadelphia, however much a white conservative wants to believe that it did. (Brooks' "Some of Reagan's best friends were black" absolution). Question: Did Reagan tout States' rights to the Urban League?
Brooks would like to distort the reality of the immense success of the Republican Southern Strategy by claiming that "The truth is more complicated."
Yes- Reagan's total electoral strategy was more complicated than one speech, but this in no way lessens the impact of Krugman's point: Reagan made a calculated appeal to Southern, white racist voters.
--ThirdChimp
(To reply, click here.)
Of course Brooks' column a slam on Krugman and his new book.
The oddest part to me was Brooks' claim that no one knew who made the decision to announce the candidacy there, it was happened. The campaign was "famously disorganized". And that when a pollster urged Reagan to not go through with it, Reagan would not back out because he was determined to honor the commitment that had been made.
So Reagan's handlers were incompetent, the venue was an accident, and Reagan's choice to stick with that location was an example of his stellar integrity. Brooks is naive, or perhaps disingenuous, or both.
--ptzop
(To reply, click here.)
(11/12)