Wednesday, December 19, 2012

The Puzzle of Identity Oriented Politics


After I finished reading a New York Times op-ed about South Carolina’s newly appointed U.S. senator, I was puzzled as to why this “prestigious” paper would publish the incoherent ravings of a political science professor.  This lunatic is upset that a Republican governor, who happens to be a woman whose parents are immigrants from India, would have the nerve to appoint a black conservative to fill out the term of a white conservative.  Why the audacity of that. 
According to Professor Adolph L. Reed Jr. the appointment of Tim Scott is just a ruse.  The esteemed professor believes this black man is being used much like a bug zapper to attract other blacks to the Republican Party.   It wasn’t because Mr. Scott’s ideals and beliefs mirror that of fellow conservatives in the Palmetto State.  That had nothing to do with it at all.  It was because of his race.  Such are the musings of an identity oriented academic.

 
Not only is Professor Reed an elite racist, he is also inconsistent.  Here is his take on the Tea Party:
Mr. Scott’s background is also striking: raised by a poor single mother, he defeated, with Tea Party backing, two white men in a 2010 Republican primary: a son of Thurmond and a son of former Gov. Carroll A. Campbell Jr. But his politics, like those of the archconservative Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, are utterly at odds with the preferences of most black Americans. Mr. Scott has been staunchly anti-tax, anti-union and anti-abortion.
Even if the Republicans managed to distance themselves from the thinly veiled racism of the TeaParty adherents who have moved the party rightward, they wouldn’t do much better among black voters than they do now. I suspect that appointments like Mr. Scott’s are directed less at blacks — whom they know they aren’t going to win in any significant numbers — than at whites who are inclined to vote Republican but don’t want to have to think of themselves, or be thought of by others, as racist.
Why would the Tea Party vote a black man into office if they’re a bunch of racist?  This is laughable.  What is even more laughable is the esteemed professor calling the Republicans cynics, when in fact it is he who’s the cynic:
For Mr. Scott, the true test will come in 2014, when he will presumably run for a full six-year term. As Mr. Obama has shown, the question is not whether whites are willing to vote for a black candidate, but whether black candidates can put together winning coalitions (no matter their racial makeup) and around what policies. I suspect black South Carolinians will not be drawn to Mr. Scott.
The trope of the black conservative has retained a man-bites-dog newsworthiness that is long past its shelf life. Clichés about fallen barriers are increasingly meaningless; symbols don’t make for coherent policies. Republicans will not gain significant black support unless they take policy positions that advance black interests. No number of Tim Scotts — or other cynical tokens — will change that.
I have a suggestion for Professor Reed.  Why don’t we elect people who advance the interest of all Americans, and not just subsets?  That concept is alien to liberals, especially the ones in academia.

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