The people who run the G.O.P. are concerned, above all, with making America safe for the rich. Their ultimate goal, as Grover Norquist once put it, is to get America back to the way it was “up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over,” getting rid of “the income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that.”
But right-wing economic ideology has never been a vote-winner. Instead, the party’s electoral strategy has depended largely on exploiting racial fear and animosity....
In fact, I suspect that the underlying importance of race to the Republican base is the reason Rudy Giuliani remains the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination, despite his serial adultery and his past record as a social liberal. Never mind moral values: what really matters to the base is that Mr. Giuliani comes across as an authoritarian, willing in particular to crack down on you-know-who.
[TS] Seeking Willie Horton
By PAUL KRUGMAN
So now Mitt Romney is trying to Willie Hortonize Rudy Giuliani. And thereby hangs a tale — the tale, in fact, of American politics past and future, and the ultimate reason Karl Rove’s vision of a permanent Republican majority was a foolish fantasy.
Willie Horton, for those who don’t remember the 1988 election, was a convict from Massachusetts who committed armed robbery and rape after being released from prison on a weekend furlough program. He was made famous by an attack ad, featuring a menacing mugshot, that played into racial fears. Many believe that the ad played an important role in George H.W. Bush’s victory over Michael Dukakis.
Now some Republicans are trying to make similar use of the recent murder of three college students in Newark, a crime in which two of the suspects are Hispanic illegal immigrants. Tom Tancredo flew into Newark to accuse the city’s leaders of inviting the crime by failing to enforce immigration laws, while Newt Gingrich declared that the “war here at home” against illegal immigrants is “even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
And Mr. Romney, who pretends to be whatever he thinks the G.O.P. base wants him to be, is running a radio ad denouncing New York as a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants, an implicit attack on Mr. Giuliani.
Strangely, nobody seems to be trying to make a national political issue out of other horrifying crimes, like the Connecticut home invasion in which two paroled convicts, both white, are accused of killing a mother and her two daughters. Oh, and by the way: over all, Hispanic immigrants appear to commit relatively few crimes — in fact, their incarceration rate is actually lower than that of native-born non-Hispanic whites.
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Paul Krugman rocks, and he's right
this is going to be the Willie Horton commercial of 2008. Bet.on.it.
"Willie Horton, for those
"Willie Horton, for those who don’t remember the 1988 election, was a convict from Massachusetts who committed armed robbery and rape after being released from prison on a weekend furlough program"
For those who don't remember the 1988 primaries, the politician who originally used Willie Horton against Governor Dukakis to good effect was Al Gore.
Dropping such contexts and sacrificing intellectual integrity in order to make a partisan point seem more persuasive is vintage Krugman.
For those who don't remember
How does that change the point being made?
Same ole trash....
Look, I don't live in Newark and don't care for Booker. But neither of those are the issue. Since when was Newark responsible for militarizing America's borders? And, specifically, when did Black folk become responsible for policing America's immigrants? Same ole trash, same ole trashy folks- blame the victim, point the finger at the downtrodden as the reason for your failings towards them, and, lastly, hit 'em when they are down. AmeriKKKa, what a sick history, present, and future. Whew. Disgusting.
For those who don't remember
For those who don't remember the 1988 primaries, the politician who originally used Willie Horton against Governor Dukakis to good effect was Al Gore.
Gore's tactic did not wash at all with Democratic primary voters but when Lee Atwater resurrected it for the presidential campaign special care was taken to show not only that Dukakis was soft on crime but that he would let black criminals run rampant in the street. That being said, I still haven't heard a satisfactory explanation from the Dukakis Camp as to why someone like Willie Horton, who was already in prison for killing a store clerk, would have been placed in a weekend furlough program. Somebody on Governor Dukakis' staff in Massachusetts was alseep at the wheel.
"How does that change the
"How does that change the point being made? "
"Gore's tactic did not wash at all with Democratic primary voters but when Lee Atwater resurrected it for the presidential campaign special care was taken to show not only that Dukakis was soft on crime but that he would let black criminals run rampant in the street"
The difference is one of production values and nerve, not intent.
Krugman is pushing a " look, the other side is evil, we are good" meme with the evil in question being racism ( of course, there are no Democrats who harbor racist views....). I'm pretty sure that while Krugman the NYT columnist peddles this drivel, Professor Krugman the economist would not accept equivalent illogical reasoning in a paper from one of his grad students.
Both sides push these absolutist arguments with different definitions of what constitutes "evil" but it all still amounts to unrefined crap. Human nature reliably crosses all sectarian divisions and time periods.
I am the last to let liberal
I am the last to let liberal racists off the hook. The deal, though, is that racists have sort of coagulated into the Republican Party. As a demonstration, consider how hard you'll have to search to find one more Democratic Willie Horton moment and how easy it will be to find another Republican one.
The judgement of the collective is correct. The Al Gore counter-example doesn't change that.
The difference is one of
The difference is one of production values and nerve, not intent.
I don't want to defend Al Gore and his handlers but there is no way that they, as Democrats, could have gotten away either in the short or long term with making a racist appeal against Dukakis, no matter how subtle and covert, to Democratic voters given the Democrats' dependency on the African American vote.
I think the difference is that the Gore campaign wanted more to paint Dukakis as being soft on crime as opposed to the Republicans who wanted to instill fear among white voters by showing that Dukakis was easy on black criminals.
"I am the last to let
"I am the last to let liberal racists off the hook"
I'll give you that one. True enough.
"The deal, though, is that racists have sort of coagulated into the Republican Party. As a demonstration, consider how hard you'll have to search to find one more Democratic Willie Horton moment and how easy it will be to find another Republican one."
Well, Krugman went for the Horton ad in 1988 rather than something more contemporary. I simply broadened the record.
Off the top of my head, I can think of Senator Byrd, a few years ago, weirdly blurting out a variation of the N-word during a national TV interview ( given his age, Byrd might be "uncoagulated" and he was basically given a pass). I could find other examples but that's not the point, which is that ridiculously one-sided partisan assertions about the other side are not uncommon in Krugman's repetoire and not that the GOP is free of racists. It ain't -it 's just that loudly pronounced Democratic piety about their own hands being clean requires a lack of scrutiny.
"I think the difference is that the Gore campaign wanted more to paint Dukakis as being soft on crime as opposed to the Republicans who wanted to instill fear among white voters by showing that Dukakis was easy on black criminals"
Anything is possible. Letting murderers out on a weekend pass is an outrageous stupidity on the merits but that interpretation requires some benefit of the doubt being dispensed, yes ?
I could find other examples
Not Krugman's job...not to mention that he is factually correct. If I'm going to be "fair and balanced" I would mention Democratic racism once for every ten or so Republican examples.