Conservatism, bigotry and the worship of power

by: Mike Lux

Tue Sep 14, 2010 at 12:00

I am certainly not a person who believes that being a conservative automatically makes you a racist, but the protests of conservatives about the "race card" also have to be seen as cynical given the history of political tactics on this issue.  The use of racism as a tool for conservatives goes way back, and it has not been limited to low brow politicians in the South.  The intellectual godfather of American conservatism, Russell Kirk, in his cornerstone book The Conservative Mind, granted that his hero Edmund Burke "was not ashamed to acknowledge the allegiance of humble men whose sureties are prejudice and prescription".  This acknowledgement of Burke's reliance on bigotry is critically important to note, because Burke's great cause in the late 1700s was the defense of monarchy against those in America and elsewhere who were rebelling against it.  Conservatives who have appealed to bigotry have generally done so in alliance with the defense of tradition and the powerful.  

A couple of generations after Burke was defending French and English kings against Tom Paine's rabble and welcoming the allegiance of the bigoted, another giant of the conservative movement revered by Kirk and modern conservatives, John C. Calhoun, arose.  Before Calhoun, the states' rights debate had been used by a variety of politicians on a range of issues, but Calhoun forged the link between the states' rights doctrine and the politics of race and slavery.  Like Burke, he argued that equality was a myth, that tradition was a virtue above all other things, and that the powerful - in his world, wealthy slave owners like himself - in society should remain powerful.

Throughout American history, conservatives have used issues of race to argue against change and for the existing order.  Stephen Douglas wielded racial language like a cudgel against Lincoln in the Lincoln-Douglas debates.  Conservatives argued against the 14th Amendment by attacking the idea of establishing citizenship for both the freed slaves and Chinese immigrants working on the railroads out west.  Segregationists used racist rhetoric to keep Jim Crow in place for almost 90 years.

So in the modern era, when the back of Jim Crow was finally broken and operatives were looking for tools to win over working class whites in defense of polices that would benefit mostly the wealthy, they knew where to turn.  They saw an opportunity, and they went for it: William Buckley strongly defended Southern segregationists in a column; Barry Goldwater had voted for other civil rights bills, but saw an opportunity and started pounding the table about states' rights; Ronald Reagan started his general election campaign by giving a speech extolling states' rights, in a small Mississippi town famous for being the place where three civil rights movement youth were killed.  Republican ad makers put up a picture of the scariest black criminal they could find (Willie Horton) to talk about crime policy.  Jan Brewer talked about (non-existent) beheadings in the dessert by Mexican drug cartels.  Fox News suggestively links Muslims and terrorists as if they are the same thing.  

It is in no way racist to have a thoughtful debate about immigration policy, crime, affirmative action, and terrorism.  But the language and tactics and symbolism being used by conservatives on these issues strays way too often into that territory occupied by the racists of the past like Calhoun and Wallace and Jessie Helms.  Today, big business conglomerates like Koch Industries fund the Tea Party movement, whose leaders seem very reluctant to denounce the people coming to their rallies with racist signs.  The conservative movement, big business special interests, and the Republican Party made a deal with the devil many years ago to welcome, as Burke put it, "the allegiance of humble men who sureties are prejudice and prescription".  That deal with the devil makes the complaints of conservatives about being perceived as bigots sound pretty hollow.  You reap what you sow, friends, and to complain about it now doesn't wash.