Those Bleeding Heart Republicans

In the ongoing discussion of our fearless leader’s decision in the University of Minnesota case over on Atrios’ and Hesiod’s blogs, I find it disconcerting that many feel the Democrats are making a strategic mistake by defending affirmative action because it upsets certain white people who feel it is unfair. Hesiod says in Atrios’ comments section:

The Republicans are all home ejaculating over this debate. Why? Because middle class, suburban white women are seeing the Democrats argue in favor of a system THEY perceive as being inimical to the interests of their sons and daughters

He is certainly not alone in this assessment and I know that he does not say this out of any racial animosity himself. But, setting aside whether the debate should be fought on principle, I strongly disagree with this strategic analysis. I do not believe that these middle class suburban white women are offended that black students get a leg up in college admissions, nor do I think they perceive preferences as being detrimental to the interests of their children. They are, in fact, the group most likely to be offended by the GOP’s thinly veiled racist appeals when they are made aware of them. It’s why Olympia Snowe came out yesterday and said that Bush’s decision was “disappointing.” The issue cuts to the Democrats’ benefit, not the Republicans.

Bush did this to shore up his base who are very unhappy about Lott’s ouster. That the administration had to handle it so carefully is a testament to how much the issue ties them in knots.

Democrats have to recognize that the “compassionate conservative” agenda is Bush’s Achilles heel. Republicans don’t really believe in compassion as a governing principle. They think compassion enables dependency. Their operating principle is self-sufficiency. But, the GOP cannot win national elections with religious conservatives, CEO’s and white male gun owners alone. They’d like to say to hell with all this caring and sharing bullshit but they can’t because those swinging suburban women expect the government to do things to affirmatively better the lives of citizens who need help and that includes racial minorities. The Republicans don’t expect to win non-white votes, but they have to win a few of those whites who are sympathetic to the cause and it’s not easy with the confederates expecting Bush to honor the unspoken promise that if they stay quiet, he’ll deliver.

They have a problem and, in my opinion, from a strategic as well as a principled standpoint the Democrats should dig at that scab every time they try to cover it over. It is an internal inconsistency that makes them vulnerable.

And substantively, this whole issue is a crock. The country is veritably overwhelmed with unfair practices, from absurd drug laws to rich people buying their way out of trouble to corporations draining pension funds to red-lining to off shore tax dodges and the list goes on and on and on. We Democrats spend our lives decrying the inequality of opportunity that pervades the entire system – a progressive’s raison d’etre is to try to level the playing field. So, how absurd it is that this particular “unfairness” is such a rallying cry for Republicans, seeing as they normally consider such concerns to be examples of weak individuals who aren’t tough enough to “suck it up” “get on with it” “work harder and stop whining.”

So, why then are we supposed to believe that their interest in this somewhat arcane and academic debate about scoring systems and weighted averages and a few thousand kids around the country who have to go to their second choice school is a brave act of principle? Since when is that kind of issue even on the GOP radar screen?

In that context, it becomes very clear that the affirmative action debate has been willfully constructed entirely for the benefit of the Republican Party’s race based politics. It is a useful surrogate issue for those simpleminded bigots who just have to gripe about blacks and Mexicans and for the phony meritocrats who knowingly wink and nod at them while smugly toasting each other for their “color blind” principles at NY cocktail parties.

It is beyond comprehension that in a country with a 300 year history of slavery, apartheid and discrimination against racial minorities (that clearly persists to this day) the single most important equal rights issue presently on the table is the case of a relative handful of white people who maintain that they were unfairly denied access to the college of their choice because racial minorities were granted a small advantage roughly equal to that of a football lineman or an alumni’s idiot offspring. This is the country’s burning civil rights issue that must be taken all the way to the Supreme Court, again and again and again?

Sure it is. When Republicans respond with as much outrage and passion to something like this and like this then maybe I’ll believe that they are acting out of conviction. Until then, I have to assume that the fact that the only time they get worked up about discrimination is when they perceive it to be toward white people means that they are doing what they have been doing since 1968 — pandering to losers who are so primitive that they believe their problems would all be solved if it weren’t for those uppity blacks, lazy Mexicans and ugly women stealing away all their opportunities in life.