Black and Blue - By Paul Krugman

By PAUL KRUGMAN
The New York Times
July 24, 2006
Source

According to the White House transcript, here's how it went last week, when
President Bush addressed the N.A.A.C.P. for the first time:

THE PRESIDENT: "I understand that many African-Americans distrust my
political party."

AUDIENCE: "Yes! (Applause.)"

But Mr. Bush didn't talk about why African-Americans don't trust his party,
and black districts are always blue on election maps. So let me fill in the
blanks.

First, G.O.P. policies consistently help those who are already doing
extremely well, not those lagging behind - a group that includes the vast
majority of African-Americans. And both the relative and absolute economic
status of blacks, after improving substantially during the Clinton years,
have worsened since 2000.

The G.O.P. obsession with helping the haves and have-mores, and lack of
concern for everyone else, was evident even in Mr. Bush's speech to the
N.A.A.C.P. Mr. Bush never mentioned wages, which have been falling behind
inflation for most workers. And he certainly didn't mention the minimum
wage, which disproportionately affects African-American workers, and which
he has allowed to fall to its lowest real level since 1955.

Mr. Bush also never used the word "poverty," a condition that afflicts
almost one in four blacks.

But he found time to call for repeal of the estate tax, even though
African-Americans are more than a thousand times as likely to live below the
poverty line as they are to be rich enough to leave a taxable estate.

Economic issues alone, then, partially explain African-American disdain for
the G.O.P.

But even more important is the way Republicans win elections.

The problem with policies that favor the economic elite is that by
themselves they're not a winning electoral strategy, because there aren't
enough elite voters. So how did the Republicans rise to their current
position of political dominance? It's hard to deny that barely concealed
appeals to racism, which drove a wedge between blacks and relatively poor
whites who share the same economic interests, played a crucial role.

Don't forget that in 1980, the sainted Ronald Reagan began his presidential
campaign with a speech on states' rights in Philadelphia, Miss., where three
civil rights workers were murdered in 1964.

These days the racist appeals have been toned down; Trent Lott was demoted,
though not drummed out of the party, when he declared that if Strom Thurmond's
segregationist presidential campaign had succeeded "we wouldn't have had all
these problems." Meanwhile, the G.O.P. has found other ways to obscure its
economic elitism. The Bush administration has proved utterly incompetent in
fighting terrorists, but it has skillfully exploited the terrorist threat
for domestic political gain. And there are also the "values" issues:
abortion, stem cells, gay marriage.

But the nasty racial roots of the G.O.P.'s triumph live on in public policy
and election strategy.

A revelatory article in yesterday's Boston Globe described how the Bush
administration has politicized the Justice Department's civil rights
division, "filling the permanent ranks with lawyers who have strong
conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights."

Not surprisingly, there has been a shift in priorities: "The division is
bringing fewer voting rights and employment cases involving systematic
discrimination against African-Americans, and more alleging reverse
discrimination against whites and religious discrimination against
Christians."

Above all, there's the continuing effort of the G.O.P. to suppress black
voting.

The Supreme Court probably wouldn't have been able to put Mr. Bush in the
White House in 2000 if the administration of his brother, the governor of
Florida, hadn't misidentified large numbers of African-Americans as felons
ineligible to vote. In 2004, Ohio's Republican secretary of state tried to
impose a ludicrous rule on the paper weight of voter registration
applications; last year, Georgia Republicans tried to impose an onerous
"voter ID" rule. In each case, the obvious intent was to disenfranchise
blacks.

And if the Republicans hold on to the House this fall, it will probably only
be because of a redistricting plan in Texas that a panel of Justice
Department lawyers unanimously concluded violated the Voting Rights Act -
only to be overruled by their politically appointed superiors.

So yes, African-Americans distrust Mr. Bush's party - with good reason.