It seems safe to assume that, in the eyes of Mr. Trump’s overwhelmingly white male fans, America was greater a half-century ago. Indeed, it was pretty great — for them.
It’s not just that factory jobs were more plentiful or that women and minorities were largely kept from positions of power. Large national programs that radically changed the country kept America great specifically for white men. New Deal-era systems like Social Security and unemployment insurance; rules that demarcated minimum wages and maximum work hours and protected unionization; and the G.I. Bill at the end of World War II substantially transformed the country and created a booming middle class. But they all purposefully left out most women and minorities.
When the Wrong Are Right
I like how the left-wing gadfly Fredrik deBoer framed this issue: “What do you owe to people who are guilty of being wrong?” It’s a question for liberals all across the Western world to ponder, given the widening gulf between their increasingly cosmopolitan parties and an increasingly right-leaning native working class.
The politics of white backlash have powered Republican politics for generations.
Historian Kevin M. Kruse, in his book White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism, has documented how, even before suburbanization began in earnest, resistance to desegregation “thoroughly reshaped southern conservatism.” He writes: “Traditional conservative elements, such as hostility to the federal government and faith in free enterprise, underwent fundamental transformations. At the same time, segregationist resistance inspired the creation of new conservative causes, such as tuition vouchers, the tax revolt, and the privatization of public services”—causes that came to be associated with the Sunbelt conservatism of Reagan and Goldwater.
.. White backlash has historically been defined as resistance to civil rights legislation, or any proactive attempt to advance black equality. It is more than that. White backlash was a critical ingredient to the appeal of “law-and-order” politics of Nixon. It accounted for the receptivity of white voters to Reaganite tales of black indolence and “welfare queens.” White backlash is not necessarily, or is not always, the product of personal bigotry. It can be, rather, a species of emotional vertigo.
.. Bill Clinton—whose centrist political profile was shaped in part by the legatees of the old Democrats for Nixon campaign—benefitted mightily from white backlash. Hillary Clinton, in 2008, handily won primary contests in states like West Virginia almost entirely as a result of white backlash. Former Sen. Jim Webb ran this year as the candidate of white backlash—and his dismal showing is proof of how little purchase such a campaign has today among the modern Democratic party.
Paul Ryan Signals His Surrender
he framed the challenge of unifying the GOP not in terms of an accommodation between Trump and himself but between Trump and the legends of Republicanism past: Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. Trump, he said, must be “Lincoln and Reaganesque.” And since the GOP can’t abandon its patron saints, it is Trump who must alter his views.
.. Last week, when Ryan referred to the GOP as the party “of Jack Kemp,” he was saying Trump must adhere to the party’s tradition of anti-racism.
.. Ryan was signaling that Trump must end his demonization of vulnerable minority groups. He must stop calling undocumented Mexican immigrants criminals. He must stop encouraging his supporters to assault African American protesters. He must stop calling for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.
.. But in today’s press conference, Ryan’s anti-racism language was strikingly absent.
.. He didn’t talk about treating all Americans equally and with respect. Especially given Ryan’s reference to the issue of abortion, which he mentioned twice, the Speaker could be signaling that if Trump offers robust assurances that he will appoint conservatives to the bench, that will constitute unity enough. Kemp-style inclusion be damned.
.. He’s an ambitious Republican politician who saw what happened to Marco Rubio, another up-and-coming darling of the GOP elite who incurred the wrath of the nationalist right. And so, in his press conference today, by abandoning the rhetorical framework he outlined last week, Ryan began the process of surrender.