Yes! Yes! Yes!

Anglachel (my emphasis in bold italics):

But here is the irony – the moralistic and non-political use of racism as a shaming mechanism by party leaders in combination with the passionate rejection of “white trash” (the working class) by those same leaders has made the Republicans’ political strategy just that much more effective. We’re doing their work for them. Instead of policies, like universal health care, that materially improve the lives of people in their current socio-economic location, there are half-assed half-measures that tie provision of common social goods to obtaining stable, high-paying, white-collar career employment. Sure, if you are one of the “creative class” types who provides a service the people with the money consider important, you, too, can have the perks that make life comfortable. If you don’t choose to improve yourself (Organic food! More exercise! Fewer children! Higher education! Better dental hygiene!), then you don’t deserve a better life. If you don’t like the policies being proposed, well, you’re probably just a racist who doesn’t want benefits going to “those people.”

That’s a moralistic argument, not a political one. It offers an insult where there should be a promise of material goods. When people voice, however awkwardly, fears and resentment about being treated unfairly by social and political institutions, their discontent is dismissed as individual failings (clinging to guns and God) instead of organizing that discontent into a movement against the real sources of racism – entrenched economic elites who interests are anti-D/democratic.

The Southern Strategy has become the de facto operating principle of the Democratic Party. Divide the working class on racial lines and designate these groups as deserving and undeserving. Focus on individual failings rather than the deep structures of power. Make people pick tribes.

Go. Read.

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