Joe Klein in talking about Nikki Haley argues that the second Republican to jump in to the 2024 Republican nomination touches on something that Democrats are missing….
Culture as apposed to the Economy….
Klein says that Democrats, mostly Progressives are overreaching on racism….
Klein, a white male, of course , rants about the fact that Haley, whose parents are from India, has joined Republicans in pushing back against Black’s repeating this countries history and the fact that some Blacks blame whites in public for the continued race based policies….
Klein seems to say that the advances in America in dealing with race should enough to NOT keep talking about voter suppression, lack of Black’s in high business positions, disproportionate Black’s in poverty , victums of crime, etc. ..
Yes , it’s guilt trip….
Yes, Democrats have been smart enough to NOT JUST talk about these on going issues ALL the time….
But?
Just because some Republicans of color want to ‘forget’ them because they are getting over does NOT mean these problems are NOT important and should go completely silent….
Of course the ‘Economy’ IS important…
EVERYBODY feels it and right now things ain’t rosy and THAT IS probably the principal reason Joe Biden poll numbers suck..
To think that the economy should play second fiddle to the Republicans trying to duck back to the 1950’s on the issues of race, abortion, sexuality and even governance is just assine….
Donald Trump LOST the 2020 election by SEVEN MILLION Votes….
The Republican Midterm for 2022 was a disaster….
Them running on ‘Culture’ ?
Joe Klien should be ashamed of himself ….
Deep in the Democratic Party’s DNA is the notion that the economy matters more to voters than cultural issues. Sometimes it does. It certainly did after the crash of 2008. Inflation helped defeat Jimmy Carter in 1980. And then there was 1992, when James Carville wrote his immortal words on the blackboard in Bill Clinton’s Little Rock headquarters: It’s the economy, stupid!
It wasn’t, really. We were emerging from a minor recession, but Clinton’s economic policies weren’t what won the election—indeed, he changed them almost immediately after winning office, from stimulus to budget-balancing, palliating the bond market and lowering interest rates (a brilliant choice as it happened). Clinton won the presidency because he convinced voters that, unlike the past 20 years of Democrats, he was tough on crime (including a rather disgusting execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a black man of limited intelligence) and that he wanted to reform welfare (which badly needed it). He also presented himself as a McDonald’s supersizer and regular guy with a Southern accent, who could talk the birds from the trees. He was fortunate in his opponent, George H. W. Bush—a thoroughly decent man and a very good President but an indifferent campaigner who had broken an essential promise (Read my lips: no new taxes) and had been seriously weakened by Pat Buchanan’s rebel campaign, which portrayed him as something of an effete wimp. (The death of Bush’s campaign monster Lee Atwater, who had made culture a centerpiece of the 1988 campaign—remember the black murderer, Willie Horton?—debilitated his ability to ding Clinton.)
It was culture that mattered in 1992: Bubba beat the elite. It will be culture that matters in 2024. And if you don’t believe me, check out the reception that Nikki Haley has received since announcing she’s running for president. It’s been all about race and gender….
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The “America is not a racist nation” trope needs to be unpacked before we head into 2024. It is crucial to the whole Critical Race Theory debate, which—sorry Dems—is a real issue. Those who believe that America is “racist” are arguing that the fundamental structure of American society is stacked against blacks. It is immutable. Nothing ever changes. All whites are guilty of it, especially those who claim not to be. Blacks are oppressed, forever and always.
This is arrant, destructive nonsense. Racism certainly exists here in abundance. The right-wing campaign against “wokeism” is all too often a beard for flat-out anti-black and anti-gay bigotry. Structural racism was the law of the land until the 1960s, especially in the segregationist South and the redlined housing market of the North. But those who believe racism has defined America are living in bizarro world—which is to say, too often, leftist academia. Democracy has defined America, with all its flaws and glories. Diversity—e pluribus unum—has defined America. The past 50 years, in particular, have seen unprecedented human rights progress—the growth of a substantial black middle and professional class (as well as historic progress for women, the gay community and Latinos). Those who do not acknowledge this progress—I’m looking at you, Ta-Nehisi Coates—are playing a cynical racialist game….
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The reaction to Nikki Haley’s candidacy is an omen. In the absence of a war or an economic cataclysm, race will be—as it almost always has been—the central (if often underlying) issue in American politics. It is not a phony issue. It is a difficult one, easily demagogued by the racist right and racialist left. But it’s what will matter in 2024 and even James Carville thinks so: “It used to be that [Republicans] were kind of free traders and anti-Russia and pro-military and for entitlement reform,” he told The Washington Post today. “Well, that’s all out the window. The only thing they have that unifies them is cultural resentment.”…