At the bottom of the inaccurately-named
Bigotry of the Left diary (where the debate is still raging to the tune of 700+ posts), I got into an exchange with someone who
accused me of not understanding the southerner's distrust of the federal government. My answer got so long that I decided to make it into a separate diary.
The so-called "Southern distrust of the federal government" started before the United States was even officially formed. Influential colonial landowners/slaveowners craved the power of fiefdoms and were never happy with the idea of centralized government, preferring to place a governor or other local figure at the top of their authority pyramid; someone who could be counted on to defer to local culture and customs when appropriate and would essentially hold on to political power only through the benevolence of influential local individuals.
Even after the U.S. Constitution was ratified, distance from Pennsylvania/New York/Washington, and the time it used to take for information to travel those distances, led naturally to the idea that the most important decisions about day-to-day governance should be made by men who were closest at hand, and with whom communication was more immediate. Decisions made at a distance that powerful people didn't like were simply ignored, with little consequence for quite a long time.
No matter what any revisionist history may say, the primary force driving secessionism was slavery. Various other reasons were given for secession, but deep down it was really an attempt at cutting abolitionism off at the pass. Some of the "declarations of causes" for secession mention slavery right up front. Others attempt to hide behind smokescreens of "property" rights and pre-Constitutional sovereignty.
Important sidebar: this is why liberal/ACLU appeals in 2005 to "protecting the Constitution" so often fall on deaf ears--the Constitution is just not the same sacred document to them. Many with a sense of history will point with much greater pride to individual state constitutions, most of which predate the Constitution of the United States, which is why SCt interference with those state constitutions rankles them so. Part of the "founding documents" talk that is fashionable now masks a thinly veiled belief that these original state constitutions were better, not only in their codifications of slavery but in other areas of particular relevance today: for example, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia (and, to be fair, some northern states) had provisions restricting political office to Protestants only, and had no problem whatsoever with establishment of religion at the state/colony level. So some of these guys have been feeling annoyed with the First Amendment since before it was written. Keep this in mind as we frame our anti-theocratic battles in '06 and '08.
The Emancipation Proclamation really ticked people off. Since the EP was intended only to free the slaves in the confederacy, it was (correctly?) perceived as an example of the kind of unevenhanded federal government control the South feared most. It was bad enough to lose the war, but Reconstruction is remembered in some quarters with more bitterness than the war itself. And this was not as long ago as people seem to think: Many people alive today heard pass-through anger about Reconstruction directly from their parents and grandparents, and have preserved that anger by passing it down to their children and grandchildren. (I say the same thing to conservatives who expect that blacks should get over slavery... it is still within the memory of directly transmitted oral history.)
Jim Crow laws and other "states' rights" issues were an attempt to recapture local sovereignty, and as they were struck down by federal judicial and legislative action it was just about the last straw. By the time we got to the Civil Rights Act of 64 and the Voting Rights Act of 65 and Loving v Virginia in 67 some people had been seething about federal government control for more than a hundred years. This more than anything else spurred the flight from the Democratic Party: Southern hatred of Northern control was shifted from hatred of the Republicans who had stuffed reconstruction down their throats (and, were I a different person, I would use a more overtly sexual metaphor to capture the sense of submission and humiliation) to hatred of the Democrats/liberals who were once again forcing them to relinquish all their dearly cherished local controls over black people.
Forty years later the Republicans have the power the Democrats had in 1965: control of the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, yet, oddly enough, Southern "distrust of the federal government" has not translated into distrust of the Republican Party. This IMO is one of the most brilliant PR accomplishments in the history of politics. Somehow all the ire about "federal interference" is still being lain at the feet of Ted Kennedy even though we have not been the majority party in Congress for a decade and the GOP has had the presidency for all but 12 years since 1968.
Republicans have gotten a lot of mileage out of calling themselves "the party that keeps the government off your back." There are two key economic interpretations of this. First, opposition to federal taxes: as was pointed out on the other thread, people in the libertarian-trending areas of the country will endure onerous local taxes without complaint, but a single nickel to the federal government, even when the state gets back almost a dime in essential services, is deeply resented. The other key economic interpretation is preserving the modern equivalent of pre-colonial fiefdoms: Rs help avoid the enactment of employment laws with respect to wages and unions that would interfere with the ability of powerful local businessmen to exercise unfettered economic control over communities and regions.
But the main attraction of the Republican promise to "keep the government off your back" is its dedication to thwarting any centralized political challenge to straight white Christian male supremacy. They prefer the subordination and control of the sexuality of women and girls, so abortion, birth control and sex education are equally suspect. They are opposed to any equalizing of the playing field for blacks (or other races/nationalities) because their daddy and granddaddy worked hard to make sure the playing field was unequally tilted in their favor, and holding on to those advantages honors the loving sacrifice of their forefathers. They want their "inferiors" to avoid exposure to Enlightenment ideals that might make them realize they deserve more than their benefactors have deigned to bestow on them, so they promote private academy schooling and homeschooling where influential local individuals can pick and choose which "facts" support their self-interest. They cling to twisted scriptural theology that once justified slavery and control of wives as property (and are being used now to justify hatred of gays), so they preach a selective gospel sanitized of all of Christ's concern for transforming the world through the power of love.
Stop me when you get the picture.
All this adds up to the fact that the Democrats "brand association" with the inclusive justice movement is an essential part of the reason the conservative South hates us. We do not value the cultural, political and religious systems of hierarchy that served their forefathers so well, and if we were in control of the federal government we would slowly but surely force upon them a legal equality with people their granddaddy would never have accepted as equals.
Every few days someone here (or someone in Congress) suggests we abandon gay rights, or women's rights, or affirmative action, as if letting go of one small piece of the puzzle would satisfy them enough to make them stop hating us. But compromise on any one of these issues would win us no more than a handful of votes so long as GOPropaganda still frames our remaining issues in terms of unacceptable government interference. And if we abandon all these issues, if we give up our brand identification as the party of inclusive justice, we will turn our backs on the very ideals that made many of us Democrats in the first place. At the bottom of this slippery slope of compromise is cooperation with Republicans in the destruction of the Democratic Party and ushering in the equivalent of GOP one-party rule. Lieberman and other Vichy Dems, take note.
If we have learned anything from Karl Rove (and we should learn from him while we still can) it is that you attack the opponent at the place where he believes he is invincible. I propose a two-pronged attack right in the heart of this stronghold of Republican brand image. It may resonate not only in the South and West but in other parts of the country where faux-libertarian values have been swallowed whole by "hate and bait" radio audiences only because they have never heard any alternative.
The Terri Schiavo fiasco, helpfully engineered by the Republicans themselves, was the first salvo in rebranding the Republicans as the party that wants to impose government controls on your personal and family life. This may not work for abortion, but it may be the best frame for other privacy issues, including gay marriage, which is surprisingly accepted in some very conservative areas under the "I don't care what they do in private, just don't involve me in it" umbrella. We need to emphasize that individual churches and conservative denominations will never be forced to perform gay marriages, and that religious entities right now don't have any say over who can get married by a justice of the peace. People who think the privacy issue is a non-starter are wrong. Privacy and personal autonomy are HUGE wedge issues for us and we have failed so far to frame the most resonant privacy arguments. "Rs aren't the party that wants to get the government off your back, they are always on your back, in your marriage bed, in your hospital bed, in your living room, in your church, in your computer files, under your clothing and on your ID cards--butting in every aspect of your life. That's why Dems are the party of privacy, because your personal business is your personal business."
Second: it is way past time to rebrand Republicans as the party that wants to define your relationship with God. I don't understand why we haven't grasped this one with both hands. The factionalism within the theocratic sympathizers of the conservative coalition is already beginning to strain at the seams with the O'Connor resignation. Even the Republicans are beginning to realize that there is no way to please the very specific religious demands of each one of these factions. We have to frame our freedom of religion argument in this way--acknowledging that while Christians have much to unite around, there are still significant doctrinal differences out there. The list of Baptist sub-denominations alone would make your head spin. It is not the government's business to try to reconcile the theological disagreements between Baptists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Swedenborgians, and people who lead moral and responsible lives without formal religious affiliation. If we settle on the right frame for this one, we win big big big. "Rs aren't the party that wants to get the government off your back, they are always on your back, assuming the mind of God in trying to impose a single religious perspective on the entire country. That's why Dems favor the separation of church and state, so that different worship preferences can co-exist in public, while members of individual denominations can still adopt whatever behaviors they find appropriate and avoid whatever behaviors they find unacceptable.
From The Art of War: "If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant." I think on some level we have only been pretending to be weak. Our strength is beginning to break through; all our natural advantages are beginning to percolate to the top; polls are moving our way. This is our hour. Honestly, it doesn't matter if straight white conservative males hate us, in or out of the South. They aren't the majority anymore, and they know that demographics are on our side. They are frantically trying to get their autocracy written into law now before the rest of us wake up and realize We Have The Power.
So let them hate us if they want. If they hate us, we must be doing something right in terms of thwarting their dream of autocracy, theocracy and oligarchy. If we stop caring about whether white male Christian conservatives (and the people they control) hate us, that will free up more energy to help us find ways to tap into the vast mission field of moderate/purple men and women, inclusive justice advocates, idealistic young people and formerly apathetic non-voters, who most definitely don't hate us. North, South, East and West, these groups combined constitute the True Blue Majority. All we have to do is give these people, many of whom already agree with us on the issues, some easy to grasp emotional hooks to let them feel better about voting Democratic. Then together we will get the propaganda-fueled, corruption-ridden, justice-averse, figurehead-electing, koolaid-drinking smug and smirking Republican-controlled government off our backs!