The New Southwest
I don’t know if Shelby Steele was always a crank or Barack Obama just made him a crank, but man oh man is he a crank:
Whites in general used to be stigmatized as racists. By going with Obama, liberals now feel that they’ve escaped that stigma. That means the stigmatization of whites is now focused on the Republican Party and on conservatism as a point of view. [Liberals say] this is where racism is now located, and we can isolate it in those red states in the South and Southwest.
Here’s a brief reminder of where the Southwest is located, versus where the non-South cluster of red states is:
Meanwhile, nobody is saying that all Republicans are racists. It is, however, true that there was a broad national swing against the Republican Party and that the exceptions to that swing are either explicable by home state effects or else concentrated in a region of the United States (not the Southwest) that has an unusually fraught history of racism.
64 Responses to “The New Southwest”
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November 22nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
shelby steele built his reputation by being a moderate crank, but with his shtick in jeopardy, he’s amping up the crank-ness.
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:52 am
Here’s a tip: when the post url starts with “corner.nationalreview”, the author in question is definitely a crank.
November 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 am
Didn’t he recently right a book about how Obama couldn’t win?
How wrong does a pundit have to be on a topic before folks just start ignoring him?
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:00 am
How wrong does a pundit have to be on a topic before folks just start ignoring him?
There is no level of wrongness that will produce this result. See Bill Kristol, Tom Friedman, etc.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:05 am
From the outside looking in, unless you regularly attend Christmas or Thanksgiving dinners with relatives in the south or the SW, you really can’t appreciate the extent of the crankiness.
To take one example, the ’southern strategy’ that began with Nixon. Many whites in these parts were and are convinced that it ran in the opposite direction: that Dems and LBJ passed the Voting and Civil Rights Acts simply to lock up the black vote for the foreseeable future. Really.
There’s just no column for social justice on their balance sheet. They can’t see how sewing up 8-10% of the population isn’t going to win you anything. They had no choice but to be resentful, you see.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 am
Matt, your maps, like your spelling, are hilariously awesome. And I mean that as a compliment.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:30 am
wait till matt discovers mr. ward connerly, the
shelby steele to the power n, with n>>1, who
singlehandedly destroyed the republican brand
in california. that will bring out the real
mis-spelling satirist in Matt.
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:39 am
Get a brain! Mormans
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:57 am
Your maps are awesome. You should do more.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:05 am
Basically, McCain’s wins were in either states of the old Confederacy or states which are basically rural with small populations.
The future is the Democrats to lose. . . Govern wisely and honestly and the Republican party’s demographics will guarantee it’s demise. . . Kind of like Rupp’s all white Kentucky basketball teams – not only non competitive but also lacking in style and fun.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:14 am
Matt, I’m sure you know that Arizona has had some racial controversy in the past.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:21 am
Thanks for sticking up for us — the Southwest is pretty cool.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:26 am
really, mean old liberals are calling republican, red states “racists”?
Just because the republican party has run for years on “willie horton”, and “gay fascism”? Really? Just becasue the republican party’s demigod, Ronald Reagan himself, ran against “welfare queens”? Really? Just because they rally behind Sarah Palin who goes to parts of the country with no african americans and calls them the “real americans”, and republicans not only support her, but rally around her despite her obvious incompetence? Really? Just becasue when Colin Powell, who used to be the most popular republican of color, endorses Obama, he is accuse do doing so on a racial basis only?
That vast liberal media, and those powerful powerful liberals (who have held the presidency for what, 8 of the last 28 years) have once again made victims of that poor downtrodden group of white christians and is now stooping ot calling them racists, even though they haven’t started a revolution after the rest of the socialists here elected the “muslim terrorist”.
No you don’t have to be a racist to have voted for McCain/Palin, but you really do have to live in a fantasy world where your actions can’t ever be wrong or hurt anyone else, and anyone’s complaints about your behavior can only be viewed as unfair or partisan based. Basically, after the last 8 years, to have voted for McCain you have to be either a racist or a DOPE (after the last few months, even rich wouldn’t be an excuse), so I think the map should be amended to suggest such.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:29 am
Didn’t he recently right a book about how Obama couldn’t win?
No,not quite–he wronged a book about how Obama couldn’t win.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:33 am
Just those two paragraphs of Steele excerpted in that NRO post are chock full o’ crazy: laissez-faire characterized as “fairness and merit”, the suggestion that the Republicans have won a single election since the days of Eisenhower on said “fairness and merit”, and not on a raft of culture-war resentments, the historically-retarded notion that expansion of the social safety net, in the context of a mixed economy, has ever led to an irreversible national decline.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:51 am
Love the map, but what’s the orange indicate? Narrow wins?
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Ahh! California is not the Southwest. We are the West Coast.
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I’m assuming he regards Texas and Oklahoma as “Southwest”.
November 22nd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Hooray for MSPaint maps!
November 22nd, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I must be one of those white Republican racists you are speaking about, although there seem to be a few brown and black ones as well. The race that disgust me the most is the Liberal white race. The only race that can cry unity and attack a group of people at the same time and not see the irony. Let it be forbidden to have not chosen Obama. It may be that all republicans are not racists but the the inverse must be true all liberals are not not racists. Get outside yourselves and deal with the reality that not everyone is going to think like you nor do they have too and that does not make them some kind of devil. Now that I added something for you to flame about: run around in a circle until you burn it out of your system, I at least I will get that satisfaction as I know my words could never get you to think outside stereotyping.
November 22nd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
“Fraught” originated as the past participle of “freight.” A wagon that was loaded down with hay was “fraught” with hay. Nowadays we use “freighted” for the literal meaning and “fraught” is only metaphorical. But things still have to be fraught with something that can metaphorically be loaded onto something else – a speech fraught with emotion, or a voyage fraught with danger. You could even say that the South’s history is fraught with racism. But you can’t quite say that the South has a fraught history of racism.
November 22nd, 2008 at 1:39 pm
“Meanwhile, nobody is saying that all Republicans are racists.”
Delong insinuates something pretty close to this:
Here The whites in the heartland of today’s Republican Party just do not vote–and do not think–like the rest of us do
and here
He doesn’t include the Southwest, which was Steele’s mistake, but DeLong pretty much has been making the accusation all month that a majority of southern whites are a bunch of irredeemable racists, which is why they didn’t vote for Obama. (and/or that anyone who didn’t vote for Obama is either stupid or evil or both)
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
and you yourself come close to saying it here
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Consistent Republicans aren’t necessarily racists. But for people who voted Kerry in 2004, and then voted McCain in 2008, I don’t see much other explanation. Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi are the only places where there was a swing away from the Democrats (though it was offset by black turnout in the latter two states). These are people who voted for John Kerry, the effete flip-flopping Massachusetts liberal, but can’t stand Obama for some reason. Did the last four years really convince even more Southern whites to like the Republicans? What did the Republicans do to get even semi-liberal white Southerners on board, when in the rest of the country they were losing voters in droves? it’s not like the economy down there was booming or Bush’s approval ratings skyrocketing.
Would the Democrats have lost these Southern white votes if they had nominated Hillary Clinton? I doubt it. Even if Hillary had run on the exact same platform, and made the same stupid remarks about “bitter” small town voters.
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
To be frank most of the southern rural whites I’ve had the displeasure of knowing have, in fact, been racist.
November 22nd, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Matt, as an avid lurker I wanted to chime in — from here in the heart of the Morman SW: Salt Lake City — that I always truly and deeply love your maps. I can hardly help that your helpful McCain maps were studied by his campaign often and regularly.
Now, if only Palin could do the same with Matt-maps…
Jane
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Thing of it is, it was the democratic party that was the party of slavery, and it’s demos like Yglesias who have rationalized it’s regression back to that mindset.
Racism and prejudice, like slavery originated in the old world. The Spanish created the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and their Hispanic descendents in Latin America still perpetuate it.
The slaves the Spanish bought, were sold to them by Africans and Arabs, who still practice slavery to this day.
I’d save the gloating. Obama is appointing corrupt scum bags to his cabinet (HUD) (I am a democrat who voted for him) including one Manny Diaz a long time friend and corrupt business parter of Jeb Bush, who profited from insider dealings, getting state contracts for jobs he wasn’t capable of, ripping off the state and HUD, and has been fined for ethics violation. While the lot of you are jacking off on an ego trip, your utopian dream is being shown to be a fraud. You all deserve the label moonbat, you are the epitome of that designation.
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Matt, let’s get real. You have a long and proud history of accusing people you know almost nothing about of being racists, simply for not voting the way you do. There are any number of reasons someone might vote for Kerry over Bush, but not Obama over McCain. Maybe they liked McCain more than Bush. Maybe they saw Obama as more of a threat to their second amendment rights. But, to think that wouldn’t give you the same sense of self satisfaction as looking down your nose on an entire group of people.
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
re: Obama is appointing corrupt scum bags to his cabinet (HUD)
I think it’s in the Constitution somewhere that the HUD secretary must be either corrupt or totally incompetent, and in either case a mindless yes-man.
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Meanwhile, nobody is saying that all Republicans are racists.
Maybe not. But I’ve stated on more than one of these message boards that the racism of the Republican Party cannot be overstated. Admittedly, not much attention is paid to my sentiments. But I stand by my assessment. So, for that matter, does the Republican Party.
(There. I said it again.)
November 22nd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Meanwhile, nobody is saying that all Republicans are racists.
Aw hell, I’ll say it. All Republicans are racists.
Glad to be of service.
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I like the map, but it has an error. You have the Mormons as being only in Utah. There are actually more Mormons in Idaho than in Utah. It’s a common mistake, but now that you know, you shouldn’t make it again.
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Obviously not ALL republicans are racists. South Carolina Sen Lindsey Graham, Florida Sen Mel Martinez, and Pennsylvania Sen Arlen Specter come to mind.
However, it is true that the GOP has used racial demagoguery as an electoral strategy ever since Nixon plotted his “southern strategy”.
It’s also true that so called “conservatives” are leading the charge to deny EQUAL TREATMENT to an entire class of Americans simply because of their sexual orientation.
Republicans place ballot initiatives on state ballots seeking to capitalize on bigotry against gay people.
Never mind that homosexuality is seen throughout nature, as this Der Spiegal article makes clear – with pictures!
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,444486,00.html
In short, the GOP has become the party of BIGOTRY!
As a person of Mexican descent (born in EAST LA), I am acutely aware of the seething HATRED most republicans espouse. Just tune in HATE RADIO, I mean talk radio.
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:28 pm
how about instead of “liberals” Steele writes “lib-bros”?
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:18 pm
#18 has a point. Texas and Oklahoma are generally deemed to be part of the Southwest, not least by the people who live there. (I am a diasporic Texan.) California, on the other hand, is often not included. If it’s not, then a majority of the people in the Southwest live in the states (TX & OK) that MY excludes. Because McCain won large majorities in them, the Southwest is Red (to paraphrase the PRC national anthem) when taken as a whole.
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
You have the Mormons as being only in Utah.
Nah, the label is just to show that there are Mormons in Utah, not that there aren’t Mormons anywhere else. After all, he didn’t label every state in which McCain has three houses (the other one is California). Anyway, though there are a lot of Mormons in Idaho, aren’t there a lot more in Utah?
By the way, I have a comment in moderation hell saying that the MLK Day flap came about largely through the agency of Evan Mecham, a clown who seems to have been pretty much an accidental governor, and then there was a screwed-up initiative process. So nothing against Arizona. That comment also says that this is far from Steele’s crankiest idea.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Here in Shelby County (Memphis), Obama took over 40% of the White vote. It was an astonishing result, to tell the truth. Perhaps we are evolving a little faster ’cause our metro is half African-American.
But south of here — heck, in every direction that was under the Confederate flag — Obama got no more than 20% of the White vote.
The White racists were VERY vocal — their euphemism for the “n-word” was usually “socialist” or “Arab”, or “not an American citizen”.
The meaning was unmistakable. This is Nixon’s Southern Strategy. It is still with us, make no mistake.
A majority of Southern whites ARE racists. I’m as white as I can be, old Virginia family and all — and, the truth is simply the truth — I hear it every day from these crackers —
IT IS JUST THE DAMNED TRUTH — SOUTHERN WHITES ARE MOSTLY RACISTS. A majority, anyway.
There’s hope for the next generation, for the kids, but …
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:36 pm
OK, so southern Whites are racist, because 80% of them have voted against Obama. How about Blacks, 95% of which have voted against McCain?
Somebody has found difficult to explain Whites who voted for Kerry in 2004 but against Obama in 2008. How about Blacks who voted for Bush in 2004 but against McCain in 2008?
Ideology is still important. Obama is as lefty as American politican could be. I’m guessing there is a corelation between McGovern’s results in 1972 and Obama’s on 2008. What so difficult in understanding that southern people have voted against ideology of leftism, which is against their beliefs?
November 23rd, 2008 at 12:57 am
What about the upper mountain/plains states, what you circle as “Red States”? Are you saying they have a particularly fraught racial history?
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:38 am
Appalachia gets a bit of a bum rap; Republican gains among white voters there stand out because the region is mostly white. In an absolute sense, white West Virginians were more likely to vote for Obama than most white Southerners. But in the Deep South, a large black turnout concealed Republican gains among white voters There are definitely cultural politics involved, which include things like patriotism, the military, Islamophobia, as well as race. Don’t forget that this is the Bible Belt, too and there were rumors about Obama being the antichrist (which never showed up in the black churches, surprise, surprise). Its more complicated than “i won’t vote for the N*****” but it would be hard to smear a white candidate so successfully.
Where Obama picked up white votes was in Northern Virginia, the Research Triangle, Charlotte, Atlanta (I think), Asheville, other urbane places with lots of yankees. He did do better where he campaigned, too.
November 23rd, 2008 at 5:19 am
The democratic party hasn’t won a majority of the white vote since 1964. I’ll leave it to other people to decipher the significance of that.
I’m black so I’m a lot more likely to view American history through the lens of race relations but it’s hard to separate racism and the states Obama did worse than Kerry in. Obama gained in every demographic group compared to Kerry as a whole. but in certain regions he did worse in certain demographic groups (i.e. working class whites in the south). Obama’s real surge in white vote as compared to Kerry mostly came from young people.
November 23rd, 2008 at 5:22 am
BTW, did anyone notice in the NRO link how they cut off the title of Shelby Steele’s book?
This is what the link says “A Bound Man:”
the full title? A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win
Funny stuff.
November 23rd, 2008 at 7:21 am
Re: The Spanish created the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and their Hispanic descendents in Latin America still perpetuate it.
Last I checked slavery has not been practiced in Latin America since the 19th century.
November 23rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
JonF, really.. you don’t consider forcing young women into the sex trade, and selling them slavery? Hispanic governments in Latin America oppressing Afro Latinos and the few remaining indigenous peoples, even using vile racial stereotypes to demean them, refusing to honor promises to tax their middle classes and wealthy to improve opportunities, or to raise wages for the poorest, is not slavery to you, how enlightened of you..
So that explains your indifference to Americans being displaced in the workplace.
Many Hispanic illegals are racist, and I’ve heard them utter foul racist epithets, but then again gay elites, like Anderson “baby Vanderbilt” Cooper use the n-word as well, and I’m sure you find that absolutely acceptable. After all, the multi-billionaire gay movement aren’t really wealthy and powerful, they are “marginalized” because they can’t violate the first amendment rights of others.
Hispanic
November 23rd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Re: JonF, really.. you don’t consider forcing young women into the sex trade, and selling them slavery?
If prostition = slavery then I suppose we are all guilty of it worldwide. I’dd entertain that notion, but I see no reason to villify Hispanic people as somehow unique in that regard.
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