Dog-Whistling Dixie?

The accusation of GOP race-baiting seems like an election year constant. But it has changed in two crucial ways that have severely eroded its power.

After a while, every presidential election sounds a little like the ones that came before. Long-shot politicians launch vanity campaigns. Leading contenders pander to their interest groups. Balloons are dropped at the conventions. And the Republicans are accused of racism.
That last one seems especially familiar. In pretty much every election since Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon ran in the 1960s, critics have charged that Republicans are trying to win votes by appealing to bigots. This accusation of race-baiting seems like a constant. But in fact, it has changed in two crucial ways that have severely eroded its power.
First, the accusation now almost exclusively concerns words. It is difficult to remember that, once upon a time, the charge was that conservatives courted bigoted voters by promising and then implementing concrete policies that shaped the lives of tens of millions of people. Goldwater voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Nixon was accused of easing pressures to integrate Southern schools, limiting busing in Northern schools, nominating neo-segregationists to the Supreme Court, trying to block renewal of the Voting Rights Act, and unleashing “law and order” policies that would go on to incarcerate millions. Ronald Reagan was charged with opposing affirmative action and trying once again to block renewal of the Voting Rights Act. Conservatives in general were said to champion tax and spending cuts as signals to white voters that their money would not be steered to disproportionately minority beneficiaries of social programs.
Those policies deserved attention. They had potentially sweeping effects. Easing pressures on Southern officials might have perpetuated segregated schools for many years. Undermining voting rights could have silenced voters who had only recently, finally, been permitted a voice in the democratic process. Ending affirmative action might have blocked African-American ascension into the middle class.
Of course, conservatives disputed these charges. In some cases, Republicans were not doing what critics charged. It’s not clear, for example, whether Nixon eased back substantially on desegregation. In other cases, policy changes probably would not have had the effects critics feared. Voting rights were likely not in much danger from proposed reforms.

Read more: http://www.american.com/archive/2012/september/dog-whistling-dixie