Krugman v Brooks and Reagan's 'Mistaken' Legacy of Racism
By Bill W. Sunday Nov 11, 2007 11:00am 
UPDATE: BookTV now hosting video of Krugman
Steve Benen caught on to a subtle feud being played out between NYT's Paul Krugman and David Brooks in their respective op-eds recently. Krugman's column a few weeks back pointed to Ronald Reagan's notable embrace of a Southern Strategy during a 1980 Philadelphia Miss. speech to capitalize on racism to secure the votes of those white voters who had become disenchanted by the Democratic Party following Lyndon Johnson's endorsement of Civil Rights legislation in the 60's. In an apparent response, on Fri Brooks offered up a version of what's becoming an all too common lately, a myopic defense of Reagan's infamous "states' rights" speech, taking Krugman to task without ever actually mentioning him by name.
Krugman fired back a snarky retort a day later, likewise not mentioning his fellow columnist by name. Benen writes, "As Krugman explained on his blog, Reagan's defenders would have us believe that his "states' rights" speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, was just an "innocent mistake," which Reagan managed to make over and over again." Krugman went on to list a litany of other Reagan "mistakes" such as his oft told tale "about the welfare queen driving her Cadillac, and kept repeating the story years after it had been debunked," or that time when he "declared in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act had been "humiliating to the South." ...
Krugman wasn't done yet.
There was also that time Reagan mistakenly "intervened on the side of Bob Jones University's ban on interracial dating," or when he accidentally "fired three members of the Civil Rights Commission" only to have them later reinstated by the courts, and when he "opposed making Martin Luther King Day a national holiday." That "Poor Reagan," Krugman wittily opines, "He just kept on making those innocent mistakes, again and again and again."
Like Benen, I don't know that Brooks will be able to come up with a response to that, but should he try, I'd like to point to a few other "mistakes" that Krugman didn't mention, like Reagan's embrace of the white racist leaders of then-apartheid South Africa and his defense of Sen. Jesse Helms' attacks on Dr Martin Luther King, and his drastic cuts important social programs that provided needed assistance to minorities. How ever did anyone so mistake-prone ever manage to fall upward all the way to the White House for two terms and still manage to be held in such high regard by so many (white) people?
No, Reagan didn't invent the Southern Strategy for the GOP to capitalize on America's bigotry for their electoral gains, but his administration just about perfected and ingrained it into the core of his party. And make no "mistake" about it, no matter what Tony Snow says otherwise, racism is still alive and well and being used as an electoral crutch by the Republican Party to this very day. The only difference I can tell is today's boogieman is starting to look less like the Civil Rights Act and more like a border fence, or rather the lack thereof.
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Proud to be from the only blue state on that map...
Ah, our Mr. Brooks at it again with his "noble" lies.
Eventually that 'crutch' is going to break and when it does the Repubs are going to be hurting bad (more so than now) until they re-align
Pipe-smoker (see picture): that's a kind euphemism for what I'd call Raygun.
States Rights are a big deal, especially here in the South. Reagan played on it just like most politicians running for office will plug anything else they can in order to get in office.
John Wayne and Ronny Raygun were homosexual lovers.
There was also that time that time when Reagan accidentally had Col Oliver North involved with smuggling cocaine into the U.S. which led to a crack epidemic at the very same time he had so erroneously declared a war on drugs, building prisons and increasing the sentences that has resulted in the disenfranchizement of generations of mostly black would-be voters to this very day.
The republics are delighted to help Obama take out Clinton. If they succeed, they will immediately deploy such racism against him it will make Reagan look like a piker, and Obama will be left to wonder where all his good republic friends went.
CSPAN2 covered Krugman at the Book Fair in Miami this weekend. On sunday, he gave a speech about the "innocent mistakes" that Reagan kept making, and it was pretty enlightening. I'm sure CSPAN2 has the entire speech which includes a lot of good questions about the weak dollar and the impending possible recession. Interesting hour.
It's odd to look at that map and remember that I voted for Reagan, John Kerry and Tip O'Neill all of the same ballot. Mondale was not a reasonable alternative.
BTW, that was the day Kerry one the seat.
er won the seat
Palooka @ 5:
That reminds me of Ron Paul. He's quite a state's rights fan.
I thought the Southern Strategy was, "The South Shall Rise Again," now being used by the Viagra company.
Dr. Matt @ 6:
You know because you played doctor with them?
Harry Dent developed Nixon's Southern Strategy for the '68 Presidential election by playing on the recently enforced, in South Carolina at least, desegration of public schools.
Having grown up and attended public schools in SC during the period, racial integration was a pervasive fear. Despite Brown v Board of Education having been decided in 1954, and various Civil Rights legislations having been passed in 64 or so, my school didn't get its first black students until 1966 or 67. I was in 6th grade at the time. And then, it was only a handful of blacks that chose to go to white schools.
Immediately after this integration, and after Nixon so pointedly going after the white vote by using the states' rights platform, private "Christian" academies began sprouting up all over the south. Of course, no blacks were admitted, unless they were star athletes, and then only one or two were brought in.
Remember who came from this era: Lee Atwater, Whit Ayres, and a slew of other GOP stars.
Reagan didn't make a "mistake" with his States' Rights statements, it was planned all the way, and already ingrained in southern GOP strategy.
One blue state that year? Yeah right.
Diebold probably stole that one too.
xxx @ 9:
I checked the archives. Couldn't find it. C-Span chose to archive Cal Thomas, though. Sometimes I wonder about their politics. They are very conservative IMHO.
That wrinkled up old frog faced bastard was packaged and marketed as everyone's favorite uncle. I'll pay some respect his intelligence (he's a fucking MENSA member compared the present moron occupying the White House), but the fact is that the man has always been shaped by his lack of inquisitiveness into facts that conflicted with his own sense of reality (such as cows being the main source of air pollution).
Reagan was a racist. Period. Google his life, his quotes and you'll have the facts to support my opinion. He paid lip service typical of "closet racists" to equal rights. The fact is that he was, is and always will be a typical privileged white guy, with the corresponding limited view of the world.
The right wing always like to point to his championing against the accusations made against the Hollywood elite during the whole "red scare" of the McCarthy era. The fact is he was not championing the rights of individuals, he was protecting his FRIENDS and the industry that made him famous. If he was in government at that time, rest assured he would have been screaming "COMMIE" at everyone and anyone brought before the Senate Sub Committee.
It's always funny to me when repubs talk about Reagan, they seem to wish for days long since past. Just keep this in mind. RONALD REAGAN WOULD NOT MAKE THE TOP TEN LIST OF SECOND RATE PRESIDENTS, and don't you forget it!
Jo @ 17:
It doesn't look like they have the vid streaming (yet?)
http://www.booktv.org/
http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=8887&SectionName=&PlayMedia=No
Slate has a good article on the "feud".
http://www.slate.com/id/2177252/fr/flyout
Call a racist pig what they are, a racist pig. We use pretty language to cover repulsive racists because maybe they'll change.Not. Their buzz is locking up brown skin people, cheating brown skin people and bombing brown skin people without any apologies.
Albatross @ 1:
Me too. We were right.
I don't know, but I think that Reagan's refusal to discuss AIDS caused suffering for so many people. Mistake? I don't think so.
Ronnie was a mistake before he was conceived until his celebrated death, maybe we could name a public restroom after him, preferably one that is used by Larry "SuperTuber" Craig republicans. The fantasy that he was some great president has been shoved down our throats since that dreadful jerks passing, no surprise coming from drones that say we're "winning" in Iraq!
The wingnut hero Ronnie was just plain fucked-up!! Maybe Dumbya can take over as the hero of the regressive fools, they can have 911 parties at Little George's phony cattle ranch, a circle jerk for knuckle draggers!
Can y'all believe they were considering Ray Gun for the part of Rick in Casablanca?
Methinks he'd be better as the Nazi commander the uber-smooth Conrad Veidt played.
Historical coincidence, Casablanca translates as white house.
Is it just me, or is that picture some sort of creepy photo shop job?
Originally, Reagan flirted with communism and tried to join the Communist Party USA but by many accounts was dissuaded to do so because many thought him "too stupid" and a "flake." Google it.
ysbaddaden @ 27:
Conrad Veidt! Be still my heart. And, no, I don't care what his sexual proclivities were.
When mentioning Reagan's "acting" career, the line that best epitomizes him is, "Wher's the rest of me?".
I know several people who think the sun shines out of Reagan's ass. Ronald Reggae is a fucking god as far as they are concerned. One dude I know went to see Reagan's coffin when it was in the Rotunda and you would have thought it was a religious pilgrimage from listening to him speak in awe. I expected this idiot to tell me his baldness had been cured or something.
It's fucking creepy the effect this jack-off has on repubs.
Erinn @ 29:
Yeah, just like the creepy doctored photo of Lee Harvey Oswald.
A creepy photo for a creepy chump.
Who knows who's agenda Regan was even fulfilling. His short term memory was probably already impacted by his looming full blown alzheimer's. He would have been easily manipulated. An almost perfect Manchurian candidate, eh?
Fanon @ 28:
Not a photshop job. Reagan was well known as a "hunk" in his Hollywood days. The devil is in the details.
Sachem @ 10:
Why wasn't Mondale a reasonable alternative? That was my first election, and I had no problem voting for the former VP. I was also in one of four counties in California to vote against my state's former governor. Oh how things have changed!
Jo @ 34:
Yes, but that photo still doesn't look right. It doesn't look like his head belongs there
Fanon @ 36:
The photo is real. It was a well publicized snap of him during his Hollywood days, but that is what I always thought of Ronny Raygun, that his head didn't belong there.
History will judge Reagan the best president of the last century, and Lincoln the century before. Both Republicans.
Krugman has never been able to come to terms with this fact. Why is that?
dennis @ 16:
All it means is that Reagan got at least "50% +1" in 49 out of 50 states. It doesn't mean EVERYONE in those states voted for him. (I sure as hell didn't!)
After one of the massacres of demonstrators in apartheid South Africa, Reagan thought it was an adequate response to claim 'but some of the cops were black too'.
Republicans will always be republicans.
xxx @ 9:
Thanks to the good folks who brought us warrantless wiretapping, Comcast hs moved C-SPAN2 to a digital network and we have to pay a premium fee to access. I am going to look for a repeat on the internets.
Krugman's blog is/was a great read. I look forward to the book-tv replay.
ysbaddaden @ 13:
The Southern strategy is to gain independence from a national government that generally doesn't give two craps about Southern issues.
Oh my, this is dreadful, watching a couple of pekingese yapping at each other in public.
dennis @ 38:
That's the dumbest thing people say. The fact is that after Johnson embraced the civil rights act all the Dixiecrats became Republicans. The parties switched. The democrats today are the party of Lincoln and Lincoln tried to warn us about Bush.
"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," Bush joked.
-- CNN.com, December 18, 2000 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0012/18/nd.01.html
"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it, " [Bush] said.
-- Business Week, July 30, 2001 http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2001/nf20010730_347.htm
dennis @ 38:
I think FDR might have a thing or two to say about that.
Maybe someone has pointed it out already, but the race card gets played whenever a candidate says he's strong on law and order as well as strongly against illegal aliens. And the same goes for anyone who says we have to kill all the islamofascists.
It's about kicking "colored ass." It is what excites the Republican base. And I believe that's why Rudy G will be the Republican nominee.
dennis @ 38:
Reich-wing obsession with ronny raygun certainly is in line with their homosexual tendencies/base.
Reich-wingers also claim that history will judge herr dubyah as one of the best presidents ever.....enough said.
dennis @ 38:
Bush 41 and his psychopathic son have run up 50% of this 230+ year old county's debt. Throw in Reagan, and that percentage increases to 70%. No doubt, you'll tell us how he single-handedly defeated communism, despite the fact The USSR was on the brink of collapse. He just accelerated their demise by a few years by forcing them to spend themselves into debt, kind of what were doing now.
Lincoln saw there only being two real threats to our country, and both were internal not some foreign enemy. He saw them as being mob rule (lynchings etc) which was the threat of the many who would not honor the constitution and law that comes from it, and the fact that our political system could never satisfy the needs of "an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon" (ie: a Bush/Cheney) which was the threat of the individual who would not honor the constitution and law that comes from it.
Lincoln believed that people should start a secular civil religion in which people are taught through schools to worship the Constitution and the rule of law to combat those threats.
Palooka @ 42:
What are the "Southern issues" being ignored?
dennis @ 38:
Krugman has never been able to come to terms with this fact. Why is that?
Good one, dennis. Monday mornings, even holiday Mondays, really call for a good joke to get the day started. Ronnie as great as Lincoln? Still laughing as I type.
It sounds as though you might have special insight into the delusional behaviour of the True Believers, though.
Yep, Ray Gun doubled the 200 year old deficit he promised to cut in just eight.
Homelessness increased to a soaring level.
The economy was supported by borrowed money.
Nothing ever trickled down, partially because that's when outsourcing, and "right-sizing" (being fired for no reason) started becoming the norm.
Racism increased as did the hegemony of a fringe branch of Xianity.
We went to war in Grenada over an airstrip built by a British touring company that Ray Gun insisted was by the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union was still around when Ray Gun left office, but because of Mikail Gorbachev's Glasnost and Perestroika, the seeds were sewn for the ultimate collapse during boosh I's term.
Repeating the same debunked story over and over...
Hmm that rings a bell, doesn't it Rudy??
As for all the trolls here today- Reagan was a meat puppet, probably already addled by Alzheimers. The country was run by Meese/Baker cabal with Ronald the Elder as TV bobblehead.
Ronald Reagan: The Accidental Racist.
Not.
I was in the Air Force the last two years of Carter, and the first two years of Ray Gun. Carter was a wet blanket, however under Ray Gun we had a problem with spare parts. For every ten jets approximately 7 were waiting for parts, and probably 4 never seemed to get them.
We had a flood of experienced NCO's with stripes down to their elbows, and officers with all kinds of jewelry on their epaulets resigining in droves. One, because they were humiliated that they now had to get food stamps to support their families, and two the longer you stayed the less benefits you had. Ray Gun was unilaterally breaking our "contracts" by extracting benefits we signed up under. Fortunately some of them like VA home loans came back under Clinton.
I'm sure the JCS and the Pentagon adored Ray Gun but the more boots on the ground military loathed him.
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dennis are you pwi (posting while intoxicated) again?
reagan > FDR? Get serious.
Reagan's base were Michael Douglas in "falling down" angry white guys who blamed everyone else for their failures
ysbaddaden @ 55:
Was he? Or is this furthering a neocon narrative on him?
Similar to "Mondale not being a reasonable alternative." Really?
MN USA @ 24:
Me three... Damned straight we were right. I sure hope Ronnie "Ketchup is a vegetable" Reagan is roasting in hell, where he belongs....
Now that i've actually searched for the Krugman speech, I'm not sure if it went up recently, but here is the linky.
xxx @ 61:
Damn, they must have just added the video to that. The little 'watch it now' button wasn't there when I posted the same link above.
Thanks. :)
One thing is obvious, reich-wingers hold their own at MUCH lower standards than the Democratic Party. Just imagine the [fake] outrage from the reich-wingers if that while on the watch of a Democratic President that the dollar hit an all-time low, oil prices hit an all-time high, a housing boom turned into a housing bust overnight, an endless war with no real objective that has cost >$500 billion, 30K wounded, and 4000 dead, threatening to start another war after 2 already failed, and single handily destroyed the upstanding reputation of the US.
jwf @ 50:
Education, mainly.
Plus, let's not forget the universal fuck up that was the Gulf Coast.
Being a classical conservative, and a southerner, if States had more control and more power we wouldn't have had to rely on Bush and FEMA for help.
Dr. Matt @ 63:
IOKIYAR
DAVID BROOKS IS A FUCKING PREPPY DICK!
NOT SURE WHO'S WORSE, HIM OR TUCKER
CARLSON!!!
Palooka @ 64:
You have control over your education, though. Granted, if you want Federal funds you have to comply with the NCLB standards which are a burden, not to mention an ineffective bunch of crap. Otherwise, education is a state issue with predominately state funding. Correct me if I am wrong.
Reagan was popular with the "daddy issue" Republicans, of which there are many. Little children in adult bodies who can't get over the fact that "Leave it to Beaver" was just a TV show.
Sally @ 8:
Sadly, I think you are right. There is still a good deal of closet racism in this country. Most are Republicans but a good number of independents and even a few Dems are too. They will not admit to it openly but when they get in that ballot box they will not vote for a black man. Obama will be criticized by the right wingers for incredibly stupid reasons, like his lapel pin choice, and he will just look bewildered when it sticks and drags him down. It's because the closet racists just want an excuse to not vote for him and put him down to their friends. Any old excuse will do, even a really stupid one.
There are also a good number of closet misogynists in this country too who, deep down, don't like to see a woman in a position of power. A similar dynamic will play out for them if Hillary Clinton is the Dem nominee. The difference is, Clinton will not look bewildered when she is attacked, she will fight back. Hard.
My prediction:
Dem nominee Edwards = moderate Dem win
Dem nominee Clinton, Biden, or Dodd = close Dem win
Dem nominee Obama or Richardson = close Repub win
Dem nominee Kucinich = big Repub win
And lest we forget, according to Ronnie, catsup is a vegetable and nutritious.
At least 20,000 Americans died of AIDS on Reagan's watch. All I'll remember of this despicable man is that he allowed dozens of my friends to die without blinking. There should be a line in the Republican party platform that states "complete disregard for human lives" especially gay ones.
Frank Cocozzelli @ 2:
What lies?
Me too I am for state right as long as it is within the constitution.
Sometime a minority of people in some southern states have problems with the constitution. Fine with that. Leave the United State then for some less free (and as a result poorer) countries because the constitution is the foundation of the United State.
Tom Sawyer @ 72:
Forget that one, there are lots of lies
Don't forget how Reagan used racial tensions and the Fair Housing Act to garner support from whites in Orange County Calif in the 60's.
Fostering animosity towards the diverse Los Angeles, Reagan warned Orange County whites that "the jungle was waiting to take over" in the aftermath of the Watts Riots.
And in response to the Fair Housing Act, whose opponents referred to as the "Forced Housing Act" Reagan quipped, "if an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house he has a right to do so."
Wow, Thom Hartmann played a 1946 stump speech that Reagan gave in support of Harry Truman, and he was hitting all the high points of economic populism. Hartmann's story is that it was only after Ronnie married Nancy Davis that her rich daddy converted Ronnie to the Republican party.
heh, watching the video of Krugman from CSpan's Book TV they mention that Paul Krugman actually served in Reagan's administration
Krugman, Paul R. (10/82-10/83)
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/ceastaff.html
MN USA @ 24:
Me too. We were right.
Me three.
The Reich Wing Myth Machine made Reagan out to be something he wasn't, a great president. He was a race baiter, gave us AIDSgate, Iran-Contra, trickledown voodoo economics, a near nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union and was the biggest tax cut for the rich and deficit spending president in US history before Chimp came along and broke Reagan's budget busting record. Reagan was a bastard, a talentless "B" actor and a "C" president at best.
Dr. Matt @ 47:
What Bill Maher calls "their campy fixation". It really is disturbing...
dennis @ 38:
Because it's not true.
Both Roosevelts, Truman, Eisenhower, Clinton, Johnson(with his Vietnam baggage) and Wilson(another racist) will all fare better. And if not fer his hubris, ya could include Nixon on this list too.
Down the line, Reagan will be seen for what he was- capable of governance yet only electable because he knew how to play the fear card. Reagan 's "greatness" is based upon the fact that he was President when the economy began to turn around after a decade long downward spiral (it's the Federal Reserve that ya can thank fer that one) and the then imminent demise of the Soviet Union(which ya credit to every President from Truman through GHW Bush fer because over a 45 year span they never allowed the State Department to backtrack from Cold War doctrine). The others I listed built, Reagan destroyed. His legacy- 8 years of judiciary appointments- will be a bitter one.
Me too.
We always go BLUE when it matters.
The occasional Gov & Sen. not withstanding.
Did anyone even mention Bitburg?
Szin @ 59:
With his talk of turning down thermastats and putting on sweaters he was right, but sounded like one's spinster aunt. The fact that he ran with his teeth baring grin, then became dour and humorless looking didn't help.
He also didn't help himself by refusing to be a showboat. He succeeded in freeing the American Hostages by freezing Iranian bank accounts. But they waited until after the election to release them so as not to help his reelection attempts.