How to Get a Grip on American Racism

As I write this the US is reeling from widespread racial unrest following the police killing of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis. Protests and riots have also been fueled by other incidents, such as the apparent murder of another unarmed black man in Georgia by a white father and son supposedly trying to make a “citizens arrest.”

In the background, the pandemic has been killing black Americans at over twice the rate of the rest of the country. In the foreground, our President has done his usual best to deepen hatred and appeal to the worst instincts of his followers.

After a seemingly intractable history of racial discrimination and division, it is hard to know what to do. So many programs, so many appeals to our better angels, so many times we have hoped we have turned the corner. Why does this disease of racial prejudice keep resurfacing, keep taking new forms, keep resisting all efforts to eradicate it?

I think there is a fairly simple answer, but one that offers a difficult path. One of our two major political parties has made exploiting racial prejudice central to its electoral strategy. It cannot take and hold power without it. As long as this is true, Republican politicians and supporters will continue to make sure to activate racist images, stories, and prejudices that are always close to the surface for many Americans.

Not long ago it was Democrats who carried the racist albatross around their necks. For 100 years Democratic success at the polls rested on the “solid South”. Democratic politicians in the South held power in Washington well beyond their numbers, exploiting the de facto one-party regime in the South to stay in office longer than Senators from other regions, achieving seniority and control over key committees. The electoral college gave rural Southern states disproportionate say in Presidential elections. In return for their support, Democrats had to acquiesce in the South’s oppression of black Americans.

This slowly changed. More numerous northern, urban Democrats began to revolt. African Americans forced the issue by publicly challenging segregation. Finally in the 1960s a southern Democrat, Lyndon Johnson, in perhaps the greatest act of political courage of our time, forced through legal and political changes that broke the back of Democratic white power. Johnson knew the risks, saying prophetically “I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come.”

He was right. Republicans were unable to resist the political opening. Nixons infamous “southern strategy” rested on winning over disaffected white voters, former Democrats, with thinly veiled racist appeals. Today the South is solidly Republican, the white working class leans Republican, and the party of Lincoln is led by the most blatantly racist President in our modern history.

This success has come at a huge cost. Racism is a drug that today’s Republican Party is now addicted to. At critical junctures, when it had to choose between widening its appeal to minorities or keeping a tight hold on its white base, it has opted for the latter. This is because at the heart of the modern conservative agenda is a devil’s bargain: how to gain votes for unpopular economic policies that favor the rich and increase inequality. Racism and nativism are critical to offset this agenda and distract voters.

Political parties exist to win elections. Republicans cannot win with their current policy mix—and know they cannot win—without mobilizing their white, rural/suburban base. Race is the easiest, surest way to do this. Whether the issue is “law and order,” or “welfare queens,” or “Obama is a secret Muslim,” a way must be found to stir up fear of African-Americans and their liberal supporters, who are portrayed as “race traitors.” It doesn’t matter anymore whether the Republican strategists who do this are racists themselves; what matters is their willingness to appeal to race to win elections. Hence there is a permanent Republican interest in keeping racial tensions at or near the boiling point.

We have a history that makes it incredibly easy to exploit white fear and dislike of blacks. It is hard to imagine a democratic system in which such a divide would not be seized upon by one side or the other. Winning elections often depends on pushing buttons and identifying and exploiting social cleavages. This is the greatest cleavage in our society, the easiest button to push.

Today’s Republican Party is like Amy Cooper, the woman in Central Park who responded to an African-American man asking her to curb her dog by threatening to call the police and tell them she was being threatened by a black man. Cooper didn’t go around all day using the N word and cursing black people. In fact she saw herself as a liberal. But faced with a situation where she wanted to “win,” she adopted, almost instinctively, what seemed to her the winning strategy.

How do we prevent our two party system from perpetually dragging us down? It’s certainly possible to have a better leader than Donald Trump, but even the mild-mannered George Bush Sr endorsed the blatantly racist Willy Horton ads. For Bush it was a matter of showing he had the “toughness” to win. That being tough took this form was almost beside the point.

The only thing that will end this cycle is for appeals to racism to stop working. Republicans must taste defeat at the polls, deep and long lasting defeat. It must be clear that the racist strategy loses more votes than it gains, and in key constituencies. We may be close to that point now. What it depends on is several things. First, African-Americans (and Hispanics, who are also targets) must turn out and vote in large numbers. The Republican Party is counting on its attempts at voter suppression working. This strategy must backfire.

Second, a significant number of white voters must defect from the Republican Party, and the defection must clearly be a response to appeals to race. Suburban Republicans are highly susceptible to coded racial appeals, but they are uncomfortable with naked racism. They don’t like Trumps crudeness and they don’t want to be lumped together with white supremacists.

The Trump takeover of the Republican Party may turn out to be a boon. It has brought into the open what was once partially hidden. This has changed the minds of some. Max Boot, for instance, the neo-conservative foreign policy analyst and enthusiastic Iraq War supporter, is one who has had his eyes opened: “I am now convinced that coded racial appeals—those dog whistles—had at least as much, if not more, to do with the electoral success of the modern Republican Party than all of the domestic and foreign policy proposals crafted by well-­intentioned analysts like me. This is what liberals have been saying for decades while accusing the Republican Party of racism. I never believed them. Now I do.”

It would certainly help to have a strong voice from inside the Party. Lyndon Johnson succeeded in large part because he was the ultimate insider, a hugely powerful and experienced Southern politician who could manipulate the system. No one could accuse him of not being a real Democrat. (It also helped that in 1964 he won a landslide victory, was extremely popular, and controlled both houses of Congress). Unfortunately this political courage seems so far to be missing among today’s Republican officials. They are prisoners of their devil’s bargain. Change will have to be imposed from without.

Don’t misunderstand. Even a radical makeover of today’s Republican Party won’t end racism in America. It will still be there and will still erupt in ugly and menacing ways. But without the political incentive to spread the virus and keep it potent, I believe it would at last be possible to make headway through education, progressive social and economic programs, and the slow but relentless change of generations.