re: #182 Summer Seale

Welcome back!

I see what you’re saying, I think, but there is evidence for a different evaluation.

When I read this, my inclination was to give Cohen the benefit of the doubt. He wasn’t describing his feelings as much as he was trying to offer a portrait of the socially conservative voters who dominate the Republican Party. But, thinking about it, that’s a bit too generous. For starters, it begins with an assertion of Cohen’s opinion: “Today’s GOP is not racist.” That frames the rest of the paragraph as coming from his perspective, a perspective which holds that “People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex” when considering an interracial couple.

It’s an odd way to start a sentence. If social conservatives opposed interracial marriage, then—by definition—they’d be racists! As it stands, they don’t. According to a Gallup survey released this summer, 87 percent of Americans “approve” of marriage between blacks and whites, including 84 percent of the latter.

As soon as you consider the reality of public opinion, Cohen’s paragraph looks a lot less like description and a lot more like projection.

Emphasis added.