re: #121 Blind Frog Belly White

The Pearlstein article in the NYT is okay, but it misses a lot, suggesting the writer is still blind to a lot of the seamier side of Conservatism.

For example, he talks about the ‘sunny optimism’ of Ronald Reagan, but not the barely hidden racism. He talks about how America is a center-right country, but later in discussing a disconnect between the support for Republicans but not Republican policies doesn’t put together that a country that doesn’t support center-right POLICIES is by definition NOT a center-right country. And he really misses out on the depth of racism in both society and especially on the Right.

He wants so badly for Americans to hate statism that he misses the extent to which racial animus drove the working class whites to the GOP - people who supported all the New Deal programs when they were primarily for white people stopped supporting them when they were painted as primarily helping Those People.

It’s like a GOOD therapy session, but lacking an actual breakthrough.

One sign of this fundamental disconnect is that the author regards WF Buckley et al. as being civilized people instead of the crypto-fascists that they were.