Digby has a (as usual) excellent post today in response to David Frum’s observation that Republicans would be ahead even among the youth of this country if we only count white people. Frum makes no attempt to hide the fact that his underlying assumption is that white folks are the only legitimate Americans:
the legacy that will damage [George Bush’s] party is the legacy of immigration non-enforcement. This has imported a large new community of people who are both economically struggling (and thus open to Democratic arguments) but who lack deep attachment to the American nation (and who are thus immune to the most potent of Republican appeals). It is these voters who will sway elections in future. And thanks to this president’s immigration policies, there are going to be a lot more of them than there might otherwise have been.
Digby does a good job at demolishing these arguments, which practically refute themselves in any event. More interesting, she goes on to argue that it is racism like Frum’s that has inhibited the development in this country of social programs resembling those in Western Europe.
Sociologist Nathan Glazer of Harvard, who has long been interested in America’s underdeveloped welfare state, answers a related question — “Why Americans don’t care about income inequality” which may give us some clues. Citing a comprehensive study by economists Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser of Harvard and Bruce Sacerdote of Dartmouth called, “Why Doesn’t the United States have a European-Style Welfare State?” (Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2/2001) he shows that the reluctance of Americans to embrace an egalitarian economic philosophy goes back to the beginning of the republic. But what is interesting is that both he and the economists offer some pretty conclusive evidence that the main reason for American “exceptionalism” in this case is, quite simply, racism.
Beyond the points she makes, I think another part of the dynamic is one explained brilliantly by Bob Dylan in one of his early songs: “Only a Pawn in Their Game“. Politicians and ruling elites in this country have used race as a handy tool to divide people who actually have common interests:
A South politician preaches to the poor white man,
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.
The demagoguery has become a bit more refined since then, though lately it has reverted to language almost as crude. The basic tactic hasn’t changed though. In fact, it can be convincingly argued that the modern Republican party’s achieved its recent (past 36 years) successes more to exploitation of racism than to appeals to religious bigotry or to its alliance with corporate interests. It is far easier to get a person in this country to feel resentment toward someone worse off than them (particularly if that person has a different skin color) than it is to get them exorcised about the fact that a hedge fund manager making hundreds of million dollars a year pays less taxes than they do.
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