The chairman of the Minnesota DFL recently clutched his pearls and fretted about losing the two white suburban districts flipped by Democrats in the 2018 midterms. He said “when the voters in Dean Phillips and Angie Craig’s districts see “fuck the white suburbs” graffitied in Minneapolis, they’re toast”. Others have been saying similar things, which may explain why even self proclaimed progressive mayors in deeply Democratic cities are siding with the police against the civil rights of their residents.
Rick Pearlstein is one of the best chroniclers of the end of mid century Liberalism and the rise of the Conservative Movement. In a recent Mother Jones article, he discusses why the riots might not help the Republicans this time-if they ever truly did.
Republicans that year (1968) underperformed expectations. When disorder is all around them, voters tend to blame the person in charge for the disorder—and, sometimes, punish those who exploit it for political gain.
It’s also not correct to argue that such disorder harms prospects for progressive change. Sometimes, in fact, it has spurred it. Political scientist David Skrentny credits the urban disorders of the 1960s with moving corporations to commit to affirmative action. Riots following the Rodney King beating are credited with spurring Congress to pass legislation granting federal oversight over police departments—a power that lasted until Jeff Sessions, as Trump’s attorney general, rolled it back. And the event that we now honor with Pride parades was not only a riot, but a particularly ugly one: the folks who set it off trapped cops raiding their bar, and then tried to burn it down. But no one would deny Stonewall led to progressive change.
Nixon and Reagan also knew how to blow their dogwhistles. Nominate Clement Haynsworth one day and pass the EEOC in the same year. Cozy up to Strom Thurmond, but eulogize Whitney Young. Speak in Philadelphia, MS about states rights while addressing the National Urban League about your commitment to civil rights. Win over Dixiecrats without losing the Rockefeller Republicans.
Trump just has a whistle. He looked like a tinpot dictator tear gassing protestors to loot a Bible from a nearby church. His 2018 caravan ads badly misfired, and pushed white suburbanites into the arms of Democrats.
Joe Biden is far from a credible avatar for BLM, I can’t defend his checkered record. What I can say is that yesterday he modeled white allyship by going to black neighborhoods, talking to young men, and sitting down and listening at a black church. Protestors have been peaceful, it’s the police and outside white agitators who have been violent. At least in Boston. Chicago, Atlanta, and Minneapolis saw black and brown people burn down their own communities, but the fire is a signal to white Americans to wake up and hear their cry and feel their pain. We know Donald Trump never will. So do most white suburbanite Americans.
I hope it works out this way.
I note that the piece you cite talks about 1968, when I think the more relevant comparison is 1972.
It was the 1972 campaign when Richard Nixon intentionally tasked Spiro Agnew to tour the country and inflame riots. Mr. Nixon correctly understood that his now-infamous “silent majority” would see media coverage of police battling protesters as evidence that America was under attack from “radical extremists”. He knew that such reports would win far more votes than they would lose. He instructed Mr. Agnew to do all he could to maximize the conflict in the streets — Mr. Agnew dutifully and effectively accomplished that goal.
There are still MANY MORE white voters than non-white. Black Americans will be the victims of the race war that the GOP is waging, much more so than white. It is black, not white, neighborhoods that will burn. It is black, not white, Americans who will be brutalized, killed, and imprisoned. It is black, not white, Americans who will suffer the consequences of GOP tyranny if its efforts to seize power are successful.
I invite you to read today’s column by Paul Krugman (emphasis mine):
America, as we know it, is under siege by the extreme right. The war against core American values is driven by cynical opportunists who understand the dynamics of civil unrest. The warriors in that siege have been armed by Vladimir Putin using hundreds of millions of dollars funneled into the NRA and the GOP by illegal operatives. William Barr is now doing all in his power to block and punish those in the DoJ who sought to expose and stop this illegal and treasonous campaign.
We are at war, whether we admit it or not. It is a class war, and (like our other internal wars) one side is being heavily funded by foreign interests.
I don’t know whether the riots hurt Donald Trump or not. I do know that the riots hurt America.
Absolutely. Pearlstein goes into greater detail about how Nixon actually rigged riots to occur, sort of like what a Trump is doing today. He just did so in a much less overt fashion which allowed him to keep more moderate voters and make McGovern look like he sided with the rioters.
I share all those concerns about “the second amendment people” either intimidating voters or somehow trying to restore a rump Trump presidency if he loses. , and by no means is this Hyperbole. It’s a real risk he doesn’t give it up willfully. The number of uniformed personnel who followed clearly self serving orders yesterday is great cause for concern.
What I don’t want is Democrats using The inevitable reaction of the white right to tell the black left to hit pause or take a mulligan on meaningful police reforms. Not now. They are sick and tired of being sick and tired and so am I. So by all means I recognize the threat, I also do not want the threat of right wing violence keeping black and brown voices and their white allies silent.
Why does the Minnesota DFL chair assume, or think anybody else would assume, that the people conveying those more extreme messages speak for the party?
He’s got that “don’t hurt me” mentality Bruno Gianelli wisely decries in the West Wing.