The New Republic

I see a connection with the House GOP's refusal to hold a vote on Hurricane Sandy relief, and with Republican Representative Peter King's reaction to that inaction. Moreover, I think there is an opportunity for Obama to split the Republican opposition on the debt ceiling, etc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bvcmPbvLqlY “They’re in New York all the time filling their pockets with money from New Yorkers. I’m saying right now, anyone from New York and New Jersey who contributes one penny to Congressional Republicans is out of their mind. Because what they did last night was put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyians. It was an absolute disgrace… And why Republicans have this bias against New York, this bias against New Jersey, this bias against the Northeast. They’re wondering why they’re becoming a minority party? Why they’re going to be a party of the permanent minority? What they did last night was so immoral, so disgraceful, so irresponsible. They’re supposed to be the party of family values? Yet families are starving, are suffering… I’ve had it. As far as I am concerned I’m on my own. They’re going to go a long way to get my vote on anything.“ --Peter King

- NateG

January 2, 2013 at 11:46am

I don't blame Peter King. The hypocrisy is astounding. How do we fix this? The Red States can't continue producing early 19th century politics when the rest of the world is evolving and trying to progress. This is all cruel, absurd and counter-productive. I miss the Soviet Union. At least, people were then somewhat more focused on "the enemy" in Russia rather than "the enemy" in the Blue States. Combine that with the 47% speech, warfare against the old, sick and poor people, including workers who can't catch a break, plus obscene profit-taking in certain corporate sectors, oy. No wonder people, including me, are having trouble feeling optimistic.

- Sophia

January 2, 2013 at 12:54pm

It's pretty obvious, malahat -- as Jean-Paul Sartre said, if it walks like a duck and squawks like a duck, then the likelihood that it's going to enter the Kentucky Derby is small to non-existent.

- ironyroad

January 2, 2013 at 1:03pm

Florida has evolved a great deal, malahat, due to immigration from overseas and from the North. Ergo parts of Florida (not the north, note) are much more sophisticated and cosmopolitan than the rest of the Red States, in general. I think Judis is right. How else do you explain the Southern Strategy?

- Sophia

January 2, 2013 at 1:38pm

Very interesting and surprising (in a good way) that the entire PA Congressional delegation voted in favor of this deal. This had nothing to do with Sandy relief, as there is no further lingering effect of the Hurricane in PA and, to the extent that Federal money would help people, it would do so primarily in the Democratic-leaning Philly area. I would like to see some reportage on why the entire PA delegation voted the way it did, as we do have our share of garden-variety fools and buffoons on the Republican side (principally, Rep. Mike Kelly).

- wildboy

January 2, 2013 at 1:45pm

Very good catch. Yes, this entire "starve the beast" strategy is a follow-on to the Civil-War. Having failed through military might to destroy the Federal Government's power over them, the Civil-War states now try through "starve the beast" and pseudo-libertarian propaganda to reduce the Federal Government's ability to mandate that they take care of all of their people. That being so, it's not surprising that good policies -- like raising taxes in a time of historically low taxation and historically high deficits -- are anathema to them. Doing that lowers the deficit without killing mandates like Social Security and Medicare, which is really what they are against. That they are shooting themselves (and America) in the foot by doing so -- well, they already did that through military action in the Civil-War, trying to do it through fiscal means is simply more of the same.

- AllanL5

January 2, 2013 at 1:59pm

Malahat, I'm having trouble spotting the error you are alleging. I assume your argument stems from the phrase, "This back of the envelope tally suggests that, to a surprising extent, the Civil War divisions endure...". That does not strike me as Judis necessarily having asserting a causitive relationship between civil war grudges (or whatever) and this recent vote. A careful reading shows only that he was calling attention to an interesting PARALLEL between the Civil War divisions and the current ones. Speculation as to causation appears to have been left to the reader.

- Fishpeddler

January 2, 2013 at 2:24pm

Also, malahat, you use Virginia, again, a much more urbanized and sophisticated state, which doesn't = Alabama. Finally I'm not sure why you are picking this bone? It's pretty obvious the Red States are reacting to the very idea of the Union, still. Some are refusing to implement Obamacare. Others are directly or indirectly trying undermine us, as stated in comments above. It's past time to act like this is 1860. That was an abomination to begin with. The whole basis of the Southern economy (in particular) on slavery was an abomination. We still suffer from it. Enough already. Taking it out on Sandy victims? Please.

- Sophia

January 2, 2013 at 2:29pm

malahat Not so much an argument as an observation. And a pretty solid one. Across a range of issues, you can expect Confederate and Northern interests to be reflected in political preferences. California, Montana, Virginia and Florida are all exceptions (in different senses) that put the rule to the test (in different ways - Virginia through DC; Florida and the Cuban diaspora, etc.) without compromising it. Of course, the interests are not exact across time, nor are outcomes, but patterns are undeniable. And whether correlated or caused, the patterns are there and you won't lose money betting on them. For example, an visitor from another planet would suggest that voter id laws and voter fraud allegations would be generally concentrated in the Confederate states; what do you know, they are. And so on. The issue of race is complicated. Among Southern whites, Obama has done no worse, and in some cases even better, than white male Democrats running for President. It's sound, therefore, to conclude that it's not the race of the candidate that is conclusive of voting patterns. But we know that the Southern Strategy worked in 1968, and in 1980 and 1988 Lee Atwater deployed it to devastating effect. Democrats are identified with the 1960s Civil Rights movement and that is the core of the white male hostility to them in the Confederate states. There is more. Since Reagan and his Welfare Queens, economic mobility has become essentially a racial issue. That is, Republicans successfully persuaded Confederate voters that economic mobility (what Democrats are generally concerned about) is really all about Blacks movin' on up, and so every time Democrats talk about economics and social safety nets, Confederate voters think - to put it as crudely as possible - "OJ does Nicole". In this sense, specifically in relation to Confederate voting patterns (on which Sullivan has written a few longer articles), the correlation/causation distinction is somewhat murky.

- icarus-r

January 2, 2013 at 4:09pm

And incidentally, there's at least as much basis for thinking also that the teabagger wing of the House GOP really wanted to stick it to Gov. Christie for joining with the president in the last week of the campaign, just because he had a teensy-weensy hurricane devastating his state's coastal areas that he needed to take care of.

- ironyroad

January 2, 2013 at 4:55pm

malahat: I did not say race was not the issue. To the contrary, it remains the central issue - just not the race of the candidate. The reason that welfare and foot stamps are still evocative not just in the South but also with the white working class is that they believe that whites are being taxed so that blacks can drive welfare-bought Cadillacs and wine and dine on caviar and Champagne on food stamps. The Southern Strategy works against a WWII hero, a Southern Baptist and a Northeastern Irish Patrician not because race does not matter, but because the Democratic Party is the party of racial equality, that is all.

- icarus-r

January 2, 2013 at 5:14pm

good try malahat. adding, Tennessee was not part of the Confederacy, and bothh Senators Alexander and Corker not only voted Aye, but are two of the most rational members of the US Senate. Guess I should go to the Sandy thread, but, as I watched C-Span last night, with the incredibly anger over Boehner's broken promise to vote on Sandy aid, I figure that Boehner realized it was not a good moment to vote to borrow another $60Bil one day after the debt ceiling was technically breached. America is doomed to forever fight the Civil War, the Vietnam War, and apparently the 2nd Iraq War, without ever really understanding why these fights never end.

- K2K

January 2, 2013 at 5:22pm

Malahat - I'd just like to add that the unique gestalt of Obama's education, race, personal background and value system isn't acknowledged enough in anyone's case here, including your rebuttal. All of these factors (and the unique human being that constitutes them - Jeez, no wonder Ralph Ellison seemed "to angry to live" according to James Baldwin) cannot be disappeared in to one term (race) in terms of how Obama is perceived, especially in certain components of the south.

- WandreyCer

January 2, 2013 at 7:05pm

Malhalat, you said Judis did not make a logical argument, is there an issue with my calling your response a "rebuttal"? If so, what exactly is the issue? I just found your argument that against Judis's to be incomplete, that's all. You're perfectly within your rights to make say that, as am I in disagreeing. As far as your second point - you're right, I was too polite. Acknowledging factors other than Obama's race *at all* will do, which you didn't as far as I could see.

- WandreyCer

January 2, 2013 at 7:37pm

My apologies for the typos, I am on a bus in New York City, being jostled quite a bit. Steady now.

- WandreyCer

January 2, 2013 at 7:40pm

Somehow a malevolent incompetent like Herman Cain made this same demographic swoon. Herman Cain has nothing in common with Obama, I find this much more salient and interesting than anything else discussed. I just think its time to leave the constructs of "race" and "Southern strategy" to the past, there is more to the story now and it should be analyzed in its entirety to be effective. They feel one dimensional and old fashioned - incomplete. My students feel like they are reading dinosaur era journalism sometimes when I send them here, especially on racial issues. We can do better, consider me an advocate for it. Thanks for responding.

- WandreyCer

January 2, 2013 at 7:57pm

Just want to question the assumption that the old South is less urbanized, sophisticated, cosmopolitan, evolved (some of the adjectives used here) than the northern or eastern states, unless of course they have the benefit of northern migration. Plenty of racism, ignorance, and parochialism (some of it urban) to go around, and not much nuanced understanding of the good & the bad of southern conservatism. Ignorant southerners are not too dumb to know when they're being condescended to by people who are sure that they know better. Agree that "here is more to the story now and it should be analyzed in its entirety to be effective. They feel one dimensional and old fashioned - incomplete."

- s.trabka@frontier.com-old

January 2, 2013 at 9:08pm

sasan: It is objectively the case that the voting patterns of the Confederacy are similar to those of rural Ohio and Indiana (to take two 'Northern' states that are also not quite blue). It is also objectively the case that Nixon's Southern Strategy was not about, say, Illinois - and neither was Atwater's. There is no condescension in any of these observations. What is remarkable is that voting patterns on certain issues remain unchanged; more to the point, they are predictable. About as predictable as West Hollywood or Manhattan. This is not to deny there is no parochialism or racism in the North or the Northeast - I went to high school in Boston, and I can tell you that I got hit with bigoted comments there quite a lot more than flyover rural areas in which I lived as a child. But that there is a reason why the Democratic Party makes no serious headway in the Confederate states, and it can be traced to the identification of the Democrats with racial equality - and, evidently, this means more to Confederate (white, male) voters than to the same demographics in the North.

- icarus-r

January 2, 2013 at 11:03pm

Malahat: race of the candidate no; race as a driving issue in Southern votes, yes - that is all :).

- icarus-r

January 2, 2013 at 11:04pm

I think that race affects Southern politics in a number of ways, some of which are more related to current racial attitudes, and others of which are related to the legacy of past racial attitudes. Current racial attitudes determine how some white Southerners vote. That is, they won’t vote for a black candidate regardless of his positions or party. The legacy of past racial attitudes determine how other white Southerners vote. That is, because of the legacy of slavery, the Civil War, segregation and the Civil Rights Movement, many Southerners feel that the Federal Government is a largely an instrument by which outsiders impose their will on Southern states. Thus, they vote for whichever candidate promises to limit the power of the Federal Government the most. In other words, for part of the “Southern psyche” there has been a what I would call a “psychological transference” from hatred of black people to hatred of the Federal Government. While this hatred of the Federal Government was initially the result of the Federal Government preventing Southerners from imposing white supremacy, it currently has a “life of its own”, independent (or at least semi-independent) of current racial attitudes. This is how I explain the fact that Allen West and Herman Cain could appeal to (at least some) Republican voters in the South.

- NateG

January 3, 2013 at 9:30am

Nate: agree. I also think there is something to the argument that Southerners are particularly susceptible to anti-federal arguments for two other reasons: the Scottish-Irish heritage, and low-church protestantism. I was re-watching Simon Schama's History of Britain last night, the episode on Cromwell. Huckabee sounds like a cross between anti-Stuart Scottish presbyterian and John Pym. They want to establish a Republic of God here on earth, and have no compunctions in overhauling tradition, overturning institutions, and causing destruction and mayhem to get there. Cromwell, were he alive, would be a Republican - called something like "Santorum".

- icarus-r

January 3, 2013 at 10:23am

The Republican party is still fighting the Civil War, on the secessionist side. Period. If you look at the Republican electoral map, it is almost entirely the secessionist states and states claimed by the Confederacy, a handful of de-populated libertarian Plains states, a couple of religious extremist states, with Indiana as the last outpost of what used to be known as "Mid-west Republicanism." Florida is an anomaly in the picture solely because of immigrants, both Latin and Northern. The Republican party is the party of the Confederacy.

- roidubouloi

January 3, 2013 at 11:31pm