CSotD: The Morning After
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Amid a storm of finger-pointing, Democratic complaining and Republican rejoicing over Tuesday’s results, Ann Telnaes boils it all down.
There’s something not only refreshing but constructive in simply admitting they blew it, and, if her simple style doesn’t provide a lot of details, Charlie Sykes’ explanation in Politico offers not only an explanation of what happened but of why, with a hint of how the Democrats might recover, if they’re willing to put in the work.
It is an absolute must-read.
I’m becoming more and more fond of The Bulwark, the Never-Trumper site that Sykes calls home, because their loyalty is not to the Democratic Party but to the restoration of sanity in our politics.
Which is to say they also criticize Biden, but for actual reasons, not simply because he isn’t a Republican.
It makes their stances refreshingly thoughtful, in contrast to those, both conservative and progressive, who drag Biden because they feel it is the role of the commentator to reflexively attack power.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Case in point: Britt attacks Virginians, claiming that Youngkin’s victory is due to overt, toxic, potentially violent racism.
It must be conceded that, in the wake of the Charlottesville demonstrations and in light of the current trial based on those incidents, there’s plenty of overt racism and hate to be criticized.
Still, at least for those of us who lived through the days of Lester Maddox, George Wallace, Ross Barnett and others, as well as the attacks on the Freedom Riders and the murders of Medgar Evers and several Civil Rights workers, the chanting dorks of Charlottesville are pretty small potatoes, and there’s little evidence to suggest that their extremism represents the majority of voters in Virginia.
Ohman’s take is more thoughtful and seems closer to the core. It’s not that the average (white) Virginian is a vicious racist, but, rather, that they have a desire to go back to the comfortable myths they grew up with.
Steve Kelley (Creators) strikes at the heart of objections to Critical Race Theory and allied progressive messaging.
It’s fruitless to keep telling people that CRT is not taught in schools, though that’s technically the truth. The point is not what you call it, but, rather, the accompanying implication of deliberate intent on the part of average (white) Americans to oppress and degrade people of color.
There has been intent, of course: Jim Crow laws didn’t pass themselves, and there are any number of toxic customs — like black people stepping aside for white people on sidewalks, or being referred to by their first names when white people are called Mr. — that had to be directly addressed and reformed.
But suggesting conscious intent for all racism is not only counterproductive but inaccurate.
A large number of working-class white people don’t feel that they had any role in establishing this racist culture, and it’s understandable that people who struggle to pay their bills and provide for their families resent being told how privileged they are.
Again, you can argue all night over the precise meaning of “privilege,” but, as with denying CRT, you’ll be missing the point and simply alienating those who could conceivably become your allies if they didn’t feel they were being confronted, insulted and accused.
It is a much deeper infection.
Someone posted a few pages from what was reportedly the standard Virginia history text for seventh graders in the 1950s:
This is an astonishingly, patently dishonest collection of absolute falsehoods, no doubt about it.
However, the white supremacist liars who wrote, approved and assigned these horrific, self-serving fabrications 64 years ago are most likely dead by now.
What should be of concern is that, when those pages appeared on Facebook and elsewhere, several Virginians popped up to confirm that “Virginia History, Government, Geography“ was, indeed, their seventh-grade textbook, and some say tattered copies of the out-of-print book are still in use in some schools.
Yes, you may certainly hate any school administrators and teachers who still teach from this pack of racist lies.
And, hey, Virginia has just voted to confirm that parents have a right to raise hell at school board meetings, so go for it.
But, if your goal is to assemble a majority for the next elections, you need to recognize that a lot of people were taught to believe this, and that, as nonsensical and horrific as it may seem to outsiders, the myth of well-treated slaves — “too valuable to be mistreated” — is well embedded in Southern life.
As a result of this gentle indoctrination, there are many people, for instance, who thought replacing the word “darkies” would rehabilitate “My Old Kentucky Home.”
They are part of the problem, not part of the solution, but, if the goal is to find a solution, I suspect it involves less shouting and name-calling, and a lot of clipboards, shoe leather and friendly conversation.
Which doesn’t mean surrender. It is morally incumbent, for instance, to confront the overt racism and lies of Tucker Carlson, which includes confronting those who buy advertising time on Fox News at all, not simply in his time period.
But that’s only part of the solution.
It would take far more refined strategy to persuade the mainstream networks that celebrating the Scarlett O’Hara fantasies of Derby Day is also harmful, that all the fancy hats and mint juleps are simply props in an upscale minstrel show.
And yet there’s little point in sewing up the wounds if you don’t treat the underlying infection.
The challenge is not to confront but to persuade.
And the midterms are only one year away.
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