> Chuck Munson:
>
>
>>I haven't read Frank's article, but this looks like a
>>good assessment of contemporary American
>>conservatism to me. Contemporary American
>>conservatism is motivated and driven by fluffy
>>cultural issues, not bedrock fiscal issues.
>
>
> As I tried to make clear in my blog entry, this is where I differ with Frank. It's not driven by "fluffy cultural issues," but by something much more profound and much more evil: racism. This is the way it's always been in the US, and it's still like that. When -- as Frank discusses -- the right-wing pundits talk about the difference between red states and blue states (I wish our side was the red states -- *sigh*), they're talking about the difference between places where white people live and places where black and brown people live. A great number of issues break down to white supremacy, the great faultline of the US political economy: guns ("WE need guns to protect ourselves from black people"), taxes ("BIG GOVERNMENT is taking OUR money and giving it to black people"), crime (too obvious to require comment), and so on.
I don't buy your argument. Racism cuts across party lines. Out here in Johnson County, KS--which was built by white people who wanted to avoid African-American-dominated Kansas City, Mo.--there are lots of Democrats living next door to Republicans.
Racism may drive Republican politics on some level, but it's not the dominant motivation for people to be conservatives. Conservative pundits use racism, xenophobia and other stuff to whip their followers into a frenzy, but not all conservatives are down with everything the conservative pundits say.
Not eveyr conservative is a Dittohead.
Chuck0