Yup, that was me, and I stand by that. “That’s what happens when you spend thirty years telling people that all their problems come about because of Muslims or Mexicans or the gays or the absence of Christianity; you keep hammering it into people and eventually they start believing it.” I picked thirty years because that takes us back to roughly when Reagan started talking about “states’ rights” as dogwhistle code words for racist policies. (That dates back to Goldwater in the 60s, of course.) This article is, I think, a good summary of the concept. Since then, there’s been a consistent undercurrent encouraging “true” Americans to fear the Other – people from outside the country, who aren’t “proper” Americans. Look at the “birther” stuff, and calls to close the border. I’m the first to acknowledge that “what Fox News says” should not be necessarily equated with “what Republicans think”. But, equally, I do think that there is a widening gulf between “what the Republican Party says” and “what republicans – small-c conservatives – actually want”. Most of the people I talk to who proudly identify themselves as Republicans are not nutters; they are in general fiscally conservative, socially liberal, believers in small government. I believe that such people are the majority of Republican voters, but they’re not “the Republican base”, which is increasingly frothing at the mouth anti-Muslim cupboard-full-of-guns throw-blood-at-abortion-doctors Tea Party headcases. I would very much like to see a party arise to represent that majority of small-c conservatives; I would even more like to see the existing Republican party actually change back into one which represents such people. It is now much harder to refute the argument that “Republicans are racist”, because the presumptive Republican candidate for President certainly is, and he’s going to be the party leader. If Republicans aren’t for Trump, then how did he win? And I think that’s because the nasty underbelly of the party has taken over. (We can analogise this to software development pretty trivially, too; the nasty loud voices on Reddit get the press and they’re not representative of most of the community, for any project.) If someone – me, for example – says “well, the Republican establishment has said a bunch of terrible things and pushed a bunch of terrible policies, and are about to nominate for president an explicitly awful candidate, so I think I’m justified in claiming that ‘Republicans’ support those terrible things and those terrible policies”, then I’m absolutely fine with a response being, hey, not all Republicans feel like that. (And I welcome the extra information that I didn’t know!) But I think maybe it might also raise the nagging question in the responder’s head: if I don’t believe what the Republican establishment says… am I really a Republican? If they’re betraying what actual Republicans think… then who isn’t betraying it, and why isn’t that person running?
Thank you for the reply, @sil.
People keep saying that states rights was something invented by southern politicians to perpetuate slavery and racism. Though states rights has been an issue for the Republican party since Lincoln. He spoke extensively about it in his first inaugural address, among others. The southern slave states at the time relied heavily on federal power to maintain their ability to own slaves.
About the code words for “racist” policies, this is a long topic for debate. People and politicians have many reasons for opposing food stamps or welfare. The “why” isn’t racism, it’s that many people and politicians believe that food stamps and welfare actually create more poverty and dependency.
I would agree here, but I don’t think it’s exclusive to the Republican party.
The Trump phenomenon is perhaps the most bizarre thing I’ve seen in American politics. I’m not going to argue on his behalf except that I don’t think he’s racist like the media has been touting. I’ve seen, read, heard many of the things that people cite him as being racist for, though I have yet to find anything that is empirical proof. I hesitate to say that because people will think “If he doesn’t see what Trump is doing as racist, he must obviously be a racist himself!!”, though nothing could be further from the truth.
There have been a few that have run at least on the presidential side, though unfortunately they’ve all lost.