(no subject)
10/10/13 13:11![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsDemocratic Underground, 2002 -- In the eyes of many modern conservatives, the battle between Republicans and Democrats is a battle between the Godly and the Satanic. To call this mindset a rejection of civility is to seriously underestimate the danger it poses. It's a rejection not merely of civility, but of the assumptions about tolerance and equal access that drive our political process….
Modern right-wing rhetoric becomes much less irrational if it's seen as the last gasp of the right's pretense of commitment to political freedom. Rather than self-destructing or imploding, it's quite possible that many conservatives are on the verge of moving from the covert to the overt rejection of this ideal. (emphasis added)
The first opinion piece aside from discussion forum OPs that I ever posted to the Internet was an essay carried by the then-brand-new website, Democratic Underground back in 2002. My piece was about American liberals and moderates hopefully opining (and let me emphasize -- this was eleven years ago.) that the right was “imploding.” As I observed back then, “This often takes place after some spectacularly insane statement from the right, like a Bush administration spokesman claiming that toxic sludge is good for the environment or a right-wing pundit suggesting that we invade France… Many liberals mistakenly believe that the right wing has an emotional investment in the logic of its own claims and, as a result, is due any day now to simply die of embarrassment.”
And that, I think, has been the core of the problem – a naïve refusal by many in politics and the media to focus on the serious agenda underlying all that ridiculous right-wing rhetoric. For three decades these extremists have been dismissed as irrelevant by moderate liberals and tolerated as “useful” by moderate conservatives. Now they have amassed enough influence to set into motion their dream of what amounts to a political monopoly. Voter suppression and gerrymandering are there to short-circuit the power of demographically liberal voters, and the very ability of a presidential administration to implement a law it has passed has come under attack. Merely enacting important legislation with which the right disagrees is presented as an outrageous act, even an impeachable offense.
And yes, the fact that our president is an African American does give a boost to this attack on political diversity. One of the oldest tricks in the racist book is portraying acts considered normal when done by a white man as criminal when done by a black man. The Republican Party, always willing to exploit racism, is happy to use that assumption as leverage.
I don’t know where this will end. Salon has a piece up saying the Republicans are just likely to get even more right wing. How much further can the GOP go to the right without openly declaring themselves the party of racism and religious dominionism and embracing violence as a tactic?
*
Modern right-wing rhetoric becomes much less irrational if it's seen as the last gasp of the right's pretense of commitment to political freedom. Rather than self-destructing or imploding, it's quite possible that many conservatives are on the verge of moving from the covert to the overt rejection of this ideal. (emphasis added)
The first opinion piece aside from discussion forum OPs that I ever posted to the Internet was an essay carried by the then-brand-new website, Democratic Underground back in 2002. My piece was about American liberals and moderates hopefully opining (and let me emphasize -- this was eleven years ago.) that the right was “imploding.” As I observed back then, “This often takes place after some spectacularly insane statement from the right, like a Bush administration spokesman claiming that toxic sludge is good for the environment or a right-wing pundit suggesting that we invade France… Many liberals mistakenly believe that the right wing has an emotional investment in the logic of its own claims and, as a result, is due any day now to simply die of embarrassment.”
And that, I think, has been the core of the problem – a naïve refusal by many in politics and the media to focus on the serious agenda underlying all that ridiculous right-wing rhetoric. For three decades these extremists have been dismissed as irrelevant by moderate liberals and tolerated as “useful” by moderate conservatives. Now they have amassed enough influence to set into motion their dream of what amounts to a political monopoly. Voter suppression and gerrymandering are there to short-circuit the power of demographically liberal voters, and the very ability of a presidential administration to implement a law it has passed has come under attack. Merely enacting important legislation with which the right disagrees is presented as an outrageous act, even an impeachable offense.
And yes, the fact that our president is an African American does give a boost to this attack on political diversity. One of the oldest tricks in the racist book is portraying acts considered normal when done by a white man as criminal when done by a black man. The Republican Party, always willing to exploit racism, is happy to use that assumption as leverage.
I don’t know where this will end. Salon has a piece up saying the Republicans are just likely to get even more right wing. How much further can the GOP go to the right without openly declaring themselves the party of racism and religious dominionism and embracing violence as a tactic?
*
(no subject)
Date: 11/10/13 20:39 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 01:06 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 12:43 (UTC)Invariably, though, it's the race-obsessed left that reads into every action and statement as opposed to those who the message is allegedly crafted for. That should tell you something.
(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 15:05 (UTC)Not this kind. The idea behind a political dog-whistle is to provide the whistler with a veneer of deniability. It's amazing how many people will blandly deny reality if they think they have the remotest chance of getting away with it.
As your posts here illustrate.
(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 15:11 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 15:17 (UTC)Jeff, your posts here are meaningless. Why do you bother?
(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 15:43 (UTC)What did you hear?
(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 15:57 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/10/13 00:23 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 19:21 (UTC)"Race-obsessed . . . left." Wow. The right holds pictures of the president as an African tribesman complete with a bone nose piercing, and the "left" is "race-obsessed." Just . . . wow.
Paft nailed it with the veneer of deniability. Yes, people could question Reagan about why he chose such a speech at such a location; but it doesn't really matter. Everyone steeped in the histories of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement knows exactly what he's really talking about. Trent Lott showed him the way to shed the legacy of Lincoln the GOP had been up until then, allowing him to do very well in the South, even against a southern incumbent (who was a bit too religious to ride the race card to a victory they regarded as victorious).
Still. "Race-obsessed . . . left." Wow.
(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 20:32 (UTC)This is my fault. When I'm saying "race-obsessed left," my intention is to talk about the portion of the left that's obsessed with race, not that the entire left is. Sloppy phrasing on my part.
Paft nailed it with the veneer of deniability. Yes, people could question Reagan about why he chose such a speech at such a location; but it doesn't really matter. Everyone steeped in the histories of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement knows exactly what he's really talking about.
The problem is that you're basing that assumption on those biases about the right, about race, and about beliefs surrounding what "state's rights" meant. The problem is that history of the speech itself has morphed it into something else entirely. If the statement "state's rights" was about race, for instance, why insert it in a section about economics?
Doesn't really sound like a ringing endorsement of slavery or being anti-civil rights, but thus is the problem with the race-obsessed portion of the left hearing dog whistles all the time.
There is a legitimate criticism of his usage of the term where he did, as it can sound poor in any context given the proximity to Philadelphia, Mississippi. Given Reagan's record, given the situation, given the context, though, it's a pretty significant leap to assume racist or discriminatory intent.
(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 22:17 (UTC)I think part of the problem is those that are race obsessed (I like that term) feel like they are being called racist; and as much as they love to throw the term around, really hate to think someone may think they might be.
That may be why it seems (at least to me) that more white people hear the "dog whistles" than anyone else.
But yeah, "sloppy phrasing" is not good, especially if you are a conservative. Your misspeaking will be remembered long after your correction is ignored ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 15/10/13 17:27 (UTC)George and Trent never did get to drink those mint juleps.
(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 23:21 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/10/13 00:38 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 13/10/13 17:54 (UTC)Fair enough. Just as you can, though, note that a portion of the left is obsessed with racial equality, I think you could also accept that a portion of the population also carries baggage about the role of races in society. The events of the Civil Rights movement in the South demonstrate that there were indeed people who wanted the Jim Crow laws of the Reconstruction maintained at even dire costs.
At one time, politicians representing these views were Democrats (broadly speaking; of course there are bound to be exceptions, like Jimmy Carter). That doesn't mean they were liberal; not at all. They were simply not Republicans like Lincoln. Zell Miller comes to mind. Remember his "liberal" speech to the GOP convention?
Trent Lott supposedly convinced Reagan's election team that they could reverse that trend—Southern social conservatives voting the Dem Party line—if Reagan could signal loudly and clearly that he was not of Lincoln's party. That speech was that signal, at least for people paying attention.
And I question the excerpt's relevance to "economics." Declaring a belief "in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level" in Philadelphia fucking Mississippi is an endorsement of people taking a stand against (for example) rabble rousing commies trying to get local blacks the vote by, well, killing three young men and dumping their car. Further noting that we as a country "have distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the Constitution to that federal establishment" is a further nod to the local sentiment that the feds (through the FBI) were overstepping their authority by meddling in the local initiative for Philadelphia to "solve its problems." That's not an economic observation, not at all, given (as you correctly point out) the context.
(no subject)
Date: 13/10/13 18:00 (UTC)The overlap, I suspect, is quite large there. The ideal of "racial equality" typically involves creating some type of inequality, based on that baggage they carry.
Trent Lott supposedly convinced Reagan's election team that they could reverse that trend—Southern social conservatives voting the Dem Party line—if Reagan could signal loudly and clearly that he was not of Lincoln's party. That speech was that signal, at least for people paying attention.
That's the story that comes about. Reagan was actually doing a lot of African-American outreach that week, so it would be tremendously stupid to actively play that card at that time in that place given what his campaign plan was. Sure, the Romney campaign showed us that even a professional campaign can be immensely stupid, but one random data point in Reagan's long career is not really enough to justify the sort of outrage he gets to this day about that speech.
That's not an economic observation, not at all, given (as you correctly point out) the context.
I disagree. I'll offer a larger section of the speech:
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/13 03:37 (UTC)If snark was intended, well played.
To the Philly speech, what better way to mask the ultimate goal of attracting the southern conservative vote than to first perform "a lot of African-American outreach"?
I would still disagree about the economics of the speech. Yes, it dealt with welfare, which is a government program, so technically that is an economic issue. The excerpt you provided, though, confirms that this was a dog whistle loud enough to be heard by distant packs. Consider:
That is a tired stereotype, exactly from the same mold as the claim that scientists only pretend to accept AGW as a reality so they can accept "lucrative" research grants. (I'm not saying there aren't members in bureaucracies out there that might embrace that cyclical theory of dependency, only that it seems to be a trope on the right.) Let's further note that to many southern social conservatives, the typical (if not archetypical) welfare recipient is black. Continuing:
Again, while mildly economic, the impetus driving the Civil War itself was right there in that statement.
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/13 11:17 (UTC)This is veering into tinfoil territory now, where you're asserting that, to gain the support of Southern racists (the intention of two words in the middle of a speech in a section about economics), Reagan spent the day on African-American voter outreach.
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/13 18:31 (UTC)Close your eyes as tightly as you wish, but the wink and the nod can be detected by just about anyone else (at least anyone without a political ax to hone on this very issue).
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/13 18:36 (UTC)To reach the conclusion I have, you have to look at Reagan's body of work, at (again) the context of the speech, of the fact that it never came up before or again, that there would be very limited benefit to this in 1980, that he wouldn't have to court those voters in that way anyway given Carter's positive record on race (a record that racists would reject outright and almost certainly simply go for the other guy), and so on. There is no discernible benefit to your claim for Reagan, and no historical evidence or data to suggest it, either.
Close your eyes as tightly as you wish, but the wink and the nod can be detected by just about anyone else (at least anyone without a political ax to hone on this very issue).
And thus you personify the type of left-winger I was talking about. If you see race in everything, you're going to start seeing it in places it doesn't belong. Don't be this person (http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/09/showbiz/lorde-royals-racism-spat/index.html).
(no subject)
Date: 14/10/13 19:11 (UTC)I need only three observations:
Actually, I take that back. I need only these three observations:
Trust me; anyone in the South would hear the "hidden" message in that speech loudly and clearly, good buddy.
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Date: 14/10/13 19:20 (UTC)Exactly. The speech was designed to gain votes, and it worked, breaking in one fell swoop the traditional tie the GOP had to Lincoln, and in so doing breaking the over century-long hold the Democratic Party held over the deep South. The few votes it lost the campaign paled in comparison. (I also agree with that portion of the story that covers Reagan's Lockean conservatism; it was one of the reasons I voted for him.)
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Date: 12/10/13 16:49 (UTC)Personally it just seems to be the new "buzz" phrase, even granting that there are folks out there that really do use thinly veiled phrases. I will have to give the left credit they come right out and call republicans terrorists:
http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/26/obama-senior-adviser-compares-republicans-to-terrorists/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/30/republicans-aren-t-hostage-takers-they-re-political-terrorists.html
(no subject)
Date: 12/10/13 19:30 (UTC)I don't see hostage taking and terrorism as separable. The first is merely a tactic employed by terrorists. After all, if terrorism is the act of instilling terror, being taken hostage is the ultimate terrifying circumstance.
Then again, I don't see any difference between "shock and awe" as a tactic and terrorism. What is shock when combined with awe? Terror. Tubers, spuds, potatoes.