Racism has always been the not-so-secret engine of American politics. Generations of politicians have been able to mobilize white voters by appealing to their fears and prejudices. As open racism became less acceptable, these politicians have become adept at dual messages: explicit enough to galvanize the open racists, smooth and subtle enough to appeal to those with unacknowledged prejudices. A majority of white voters don’t want to think of themselves as being unfair bigots but they are still susceptible to racist messaging. Ronald Reagan’s pitchman Atwater pointed out, you can’t get away with screaming racial epithets anymore, so you have to work with symbols – as Reagan did by invoking the old Dixiecrat theme of states rights in Philadelphia Missisissippi where civil rights workers were murdered. But this “subtle” strategy only works if the media cooperates. So when Representative Paul Ryan used the thinnest of euphemisms to pitch a theory that poverty is caused by lazy, genetically and culturally inferior black people who don’t understand work, progressive author Ta-Nehisi Coates leapt the pages of the oh so liberal Atlantic magazine to engage in a classic defense.
A number of liberals reacted harshly to Ryan. I’m not sure why. What Ryan said here is not very far from what Bill Cosby, Michael Nutter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama said before him.
What Coates wrote is not very far from what right wing pundit Rich Lowry wrote.
For this offense, Ryan was awarded an honorary white hood by the liberal commentariat. But the broad sentiments are indistinguishable from those of Obama in the statements quoted above—all emphasizing a breakdown of work and the consequences of fatherlessness and social isolation—except Obama’s comments were more explicitly racial.
When Barack Obama says such things, which are undeniably correct, he is a brave truth-teller; when Paul Ryan says them, he is making an odious play for racist votes.
It should go without saying that all three of these people are lying: Ryan is lying about the cause of poverty and about his intent, and Lowry and Coates are lying about President Obama’s message. Coates, the smartest and best educated of the three (low bar though it is), really should have known better. But here is what makes me mad: Paul Ryan had a moment where the ugliness of his politics was exposed and under attack. Progressive media, you’d think, would use the opportunity to ask why Ryan won’t let the Jobs Bill come to the floor of the House, or why he refuses to allow the government hire people for much needed infrastructure programs, or why he felt he could cite Charles Murray – an open racist who has also said some very disagreeable things about poor white people. One could even seize the moment to propose more radical options for combating poverty, an expanded modernized WPA, public financing to overcome redlines, co-ops, self-help, revolution – something, anything! Here’s Paul Krugman, showing how it can be done. But Coates, in keeping with the tradition of our pathetic “progressive” media is not interested in any of that – he has to use the opportunity to attack President Obama. I guess that’s his job: to help Republicans win the next election, one way or another.
The Obama speech Lowry cites ends with a profoundly moral sentiment that I doubt Lowry can even begin to understand but that is at total odds with Paul Ryan’s shallow Ayn Rand selfishness. Paul Ryan thinks the SS security death benefits that paid for his college and the job in the family business that got him through a time between government jobs are both due to his hard work and virtues. Paul Ryan could not be more different from Barack Obama.
But now, my life revolves around my two little girls. And what I think about is what kind of world I’m leaving them. Are they living in a county where there’s a huge gap between a few who are wealthy and a whole bunch of people who are struggling every day? Are they living in a county that is still divided by race? A country where, because they’re girls, they don’t have as much opportunity as boys do? Are they living in a country where we are hated around the world because we don’t cooperate effectively with other nations? Are they living a world that is in grave danger because of what we’ve done to its climate?
And what I’ve realized is that life doesn’t count for much unless you’re willing to do your small part to leave our children – all of our children – a better world. Even if it’s difficult. Even if the work seems great. Even if we don’t get very far in our lifetime.
krebscycle 
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