Elizabeth Anderson is John Dewey Distinguished Professor of Philosophy in addition to Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. She...
Elizabeth Anderson is John Dewey Distinguished Professor of Philosophy in addition to Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the writer most late of The Imperative of Integration. This contribution extends a query posed inwards a recent transportation on the conservative state of war on poor people (link). Thanks for contributing, Liz!
American Conservative Politics in addition to the Long Shadow of Slavery
Elizabeth Anderson
An “outright Marxist!” That’s what Rafael Cruz, Senator Ted Cruz’s father, declared of President Obama on the drive trail inwards Apr 2013. His accusation is mutual on the right. Google “Obama Marxist” in addition to yous volition teach almost 4.95 1 chiliad m results. “Obama communist” yields xl million. It’s a foreign accuse against a human being who vigorously supported the bail-out of Wall Street banks every bit a Senator, in addition to expanded it to other major firms every bit President. Yet the accuse is cypher new. Conservatives stimulate got long defendant anyone to their left of communism or fellow-traveling. Rick Perlstein traces this exercise back to the 1950s.
In fact, it goes dorsum a century before. George Fitzhugh, writer of the famous proslavery tract Cannibals All! wrote a letter to William Lloyd Garrison inwards 1856 declaring that “every theoretical abolitionist at the North is a Socialist or Communist.” J. H. Thornwell, 1 of the most distinguished ministers of the antebellum South, delivered a sermon inwards 1850 on “The Rights in addition to Duties of Masters,” inwards which he characterized the conflict over slavery every bit 1 inwards which slaveholders, Christians, in addition to the “friends of monastic tell in addition to regulated freedom” stood together against “abolitionists, atheists, socialists, communists, scarlet republicans, [and] jacobins” who were united on the other side.
This fact almost the origins of 1 human face of conservative rhetoric opens a window to the larger construction of American conservative thought. Consider Romney’s notorious 47% speech:
There are 47 percentage of the people who volition vote for the president . . . who are theme upon authorities . . . who believe the authorities has a responsibleness to attention for them, who believe that they are entitled to wellness care, to food, to housing . . . . These are people who pay no income taxation . . . . I'll never convince them they should stimulate got personal responsibleness in addition to attention for their lives.
This was spoken yesteryear a presidential candidate who supported the Wall Street bailouts, who did non complain almost massive state subsidies to wealthy farmers or the crude oil in addition to coal industries, in addition to who paid 14.1% of his income inwards federal taxes—less than the 15.3% effective payroll taxation for Social Security in addition to Medicare that falls on wage workers, over in addition to inwards a higher house the income tax. Counting state in addition to local taxes, which are highly regressive, nosotros stimulate got practiced argue to believe that the 47% he resents pay substantially higher total taxation rates than the transcend 1%.
Romney, however, knew his audience. Tax breaks in addition to subsidies for better-off whites are non what most conservatives oppose. Their substance objection is “free stuff” thought to disproportionately produce goodness blacks, Latinos, immigrants, in addition to other traditionally subordinated groups. As Lee Atwater explained, the Republican party’s “Southern Strategy” for winning white voters is all almost opposing policies that disproportionately aid blacks in addition to promoting policies that disproportionately wound them:
You starting fourth dimension out inwards 1954 yesteryear saying, "N-ger, n-ger, n-ger." By 1968 yous can't say "n-ger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So yous say materials similar forced busing, states' rights in addition to all that stuff. You're getting so abstract straightaway [that] you're talking almost cutting taxes, in addition to all these things you're talking almost are totally economical things in addition to a byproduct of them is [that] blacks teach wound worse than whites.
While conservatives, fifty-fifty those belonging to or sympathetic to the Tea Party, back upward Social Security in addition to Medicare, they condemn programs such every bit means-tested welfare, which are perceived every bit disproportionately benefiting blacks in addition to Latinos, whom they meet every bit undeserving. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 key driver of world consider on domestic policy inwards the the United States of America is racial resentment: inwards particular, the thought that blacks are every bit good lazy to stimulate got responsibleness for their lives simply desire to alive off the hard-earned wealth of whites, either through law-breaking or earth dole.
My electrical flow enquiry on abolitionism in addition to the create produce for complimentary task finds that this thought has been a deep theme of American conservative consider since earlier the Civil War. Although inwards the antebellum era, racists typically supposed that blacks were incapable of taking attention of themselves, spell today they are thought to last willfully refusing to produce so, the complaints almost dark demeanour are remarkably similar. In reply to an emancipation petition submitted to the Virginia legislature, hundreds of citizens submitted proslavery petitionsin 1795. Echoing other petitions, this 1 from the complimentary whites of Lunenberg County worried that emancipation would bring
Want, Poverty, Distress in addition to ruin to the complimentary Citizen; the Horrors of all the rapes, Robberies, Murders, in addition to Outrages, which an innumerable Host of unprincipled, unpropertied, vindictive in addition to remorseless Banditte are capable of perpetrating; Neglect, famine in addition to Death to the abandoned dark Infant, in addition to superannuated Parent; inevitable Bankruptcy to the revenue; Desperation in addition to revolt to the disappointed, oppressed Citizen; in addition to certain in addition to concluding ruin to this in 1 lawsuit happy, free, in addition to flourishing Country . . . .
Thomas Dew, inwards his 1832 article “Abolition of Negro Slavery,” predicted that abolition would Pb blacks to idleness, drunkenness, destitution, in addition to thence to crime. William Harper predicted inwards Cotton is King, an 1860 compendium of proslavery thought, that emancipation would trim down blacks to paupers in addition to Pb them “from piffling to greater crimes, until all life in addition to belongings would last rendered insecure,” in addition to that if they got the vote, they “would last used yesteryear unprincipled politicians” to advance unsafe schemes.
White conservatives saw their fears confirmed during Reconstruction. This cartoon reveals their consider of the Freedman’s Bureau, described every bit “an agency to maintain the Negro inwards idleness at the expense of the white man:
Then it was the Freedman’s Bureau. Today it is nutrient stamps, Medicaid, in addition to Obamacare.
Not exclusively the content, simply the vogue in addition to emotional register of conservative politics stimulate got been constant. The hysteria, apocalyptic sensibility, in addition to intransigence of Tea Party conservatives on total display inwards the recent authorities shutdown crisis (complete alongside a confederate flag) mirrors that of the South inwards the run-up to the Civil War through the Reconstruction Era. American conservatism continues to operate nether the long shadow of slavery in addition to its legacy.
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