Democrats and the Rise of the New Confederacy

By
Glenn W. Smith
– April 13, 2010Posted in: Politics

confederate flag 300x198 Democrats and the Rise of the New ConfederacyIt’s hard to ignore the irony. The wannabe Republican heirs of George W. Bush gather in New Orleans, the city Bush’s callousness and ineptitude all but destroyed, to advance a movement best called the New Confederacy.

At the Southern Republican Leadership Conference here, Texas Gov. Rick Perry invoked his love for the Tenth Amendment, the New Confederacy’s code term for “get the black man out of the White House.”

Touting his states’ rights bona fides, [Perry] said, “I believe in the 10th Amendment with all my heart. Basically what is says is that the federal government was created to be an agent of the states, not the other way around.

Sarah Palin was here. So was Newt Gingrich. Mentions of Hurricane Katrina were few and far between. “We are so over Katrina,” said a New Orleans GOP activist. But the full collapse of the moral levees that once held back a tide of hatred and prejudice was evident. The New Confederacy – despite Mitt Romney’s one-vote win and Palin’s third-place finish in the Southern Republican Leadership Conference – is now the GOP’s dominant political force.

Republicans’ coded racist appeals, beginning with Richard Nixon’s infamous “southern strategy,” weakened the Democratic Party in the South. In the wake of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, white voters fled the Democrats’ Big Tent for the Republicans’ Big Box, the wall-to-Walmart, magnolia-white land of confederate dreams.

I can’t decide now whether the Republicans have ineffectively cornered themselves in the South (and in a few simpatico states outside Dixie), or whether they are building a viable new movement, based in the former slave states, but with enough national appeal to reverse the outcome of the Civil War, to impose hierarchical, racist attitudes on the rest of the country.

For those who’d rather wish away the role of race in American elections, I think it’s telling that Democrats’ national victories since the ‘60s have been by two Southerners and one African-American. Talk of racial transcendentalism surrounded all three of them. How long can we keep theoretically transcending racism? I don’t know.

I do know this. Democrats, especially in the South, are often fairly paralyzed by their opponents’ racist appeals to voters. Faced with a violent storm of prejudice, they can be as inept as Bush was when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.

In my own Texas, Democrats tried to hang on to rural and suburban white voters by dodging and ducking the issue. Any talk of race might alienate more whites, they figured, so they were forever trying to change the subject to something more genteel and fit for polite company.

A part of this is Democrats’ vexing habit of trying to fit themselves to the current mood of voters rather than set out to change the mood of voters. Republican consultants are far more ideological than Democratic consultants. When they get their polls back, they look at where the voters are, but only so they know what they have to do to move them. Democrats’ more, uh, politically flexible consultants mistake the map for the territory. It is an odd thing that the party of change is, tactically, the party of conformity.

In any case, it seems almost trite to say we have a moral imperative to take on the racists. As Blue Texas noted at FireDogLake last week, a new study shows us that “there seem to be an awful lot of Teabaggers who have a serious issue with race.” Right now, false gentility and wishful thinking are fogging up or moral lenses. A New Confederacy is being built. Maybe it will collapse under the weight of its own moral depravity. We shouldn’t wait to see.

We don’t even have to look forward to see it. The strategy of ignoring or side-stepping the racist appeals of Republicans has failed Democrats for nearly half a century. Why they would continue to think it will work is, well, simply stupid.

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About Glenn W. Smith

Glenn W. Smith has spent the past 30 years in journalism and politics, where he’s made a name for himself as a writer, campaign manager, activist, think tank analyst and, as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says, a “legendary political consultant and all-around good guy.” “There’s no one like him,” says author George Lakoff. CNN commentator Paul Begala says, “He has unmatched experience, a graceful pen (or pixel nowadays) and deep insight into the best and worst of us.” Novelist Sarah Bird speaks of his “lucid and lyrical” prose. And, she says, he’s fun. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington says Glenn writes with “grace and abundant humor” and “uses his colorful experiences in Texas to enlighten us all.”

Smith led Ann Richards’ successful 1990 campaign for Governor of Texas. He worked for former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Earlier, Smith was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. He’s coordinated national campaigns for groups such as MoveOn.org. In 2004, he authored the highly acclaimed book, The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction. He also wrote Unfit Commander, a book that detailed George W. Bush’s mysterious disappearance from military service.

In 2004, Smith was featured in the film, Bush’s Brain, a documentary about Karl Rove. Smith provided commentary on Rove’s role as then-President Bush’s senior advisor. He has made numerous media appearances with Chris Mathews on Hardball, Joe Scarborough, Brit Hume, and many others. He writes a regularly for top national web sites, including FireDogLake and Huffington Post.

As a senior fellow at George Lakoff’s prestigious Rockridge Institute in Berkeley he studied, wrote and taught on the power of metaphor and narrative in political communications. He also lectured on religion and politics at the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley. As a sponsor and organizer, he has pulled together numerous national events with progressive religious leaders. He also organized a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King at Riverside Church in New York City as well as “Freedom and Faith” bus tours, which was a nationwide campaign for social justice and progressive values.

Smith’s play, Double Play, which explored American Western myths and legends, was held over to sold-out audiences. He’s even written and performed songs in the Americana tradition, such as his best-known song, “Helping Marty Robbins,” a tribute to his hometown, Houston.

Most recently, Smith is the creator of DogCanyon, a political and cultural web site covering state, national and global issues from a Texas perspective. DogCanyon is an exhilarating and unique site that gets the connections between politics and culture and explores both the personal side of politics and the ups, down, craziness and beauty of “life its ownself,” as humorist Dan Jenkins would say. DogCanyon offers heartfelt personal essays, hard-hitting political analysis, and, most importantly, laughs.

As Paul Begala said, Smith writes in “the finest, firmest, fearless tradition of Texas essayists like Molly Ivins.”