Pull race cards from deck

With an unpopular president suffering from a debilitating bout of second-term blues, Democrats are apparently going all in on race.

Thus, the Democratic election strategy has come to consist of little more than a crude deductive exercise: Opposition to Barack Obama is due to racism; Republicans oppose Obama; Republicans must therefore be racist. And if Republican equals racist, then Republican positions-from belief in individual liberty through limited government to fiscal constraint through entitlement reform-must be motivated by racism too. Conservatism as a worldview is only disguised bigotry.

Although Republicans (and many non-Republicans) might feel they have plenty to criticize when it comes to Obama, Democrats see nothing but racism in such criticism. No actual proof is needed because “everyone” (or at least everyone who is liberal) “knows” it to be true.

It is often said that conservatives see liberals as misguided, whereas liberals see conservatives as evil. But it is unclear whether this liberal effort to delegitimize conservatism stems mostly from election-year desperation or is an accurate reflection of what liberals have long inwardly believed about the other side.

Whichever the case, the goal of the left’s racial assault is to drive conservative ideas out of the public sphere by smearing them with the racist label. Either unable or unwilling to contest conservative proposals with logic and facts, liberals are left to denounce conservatism itself as a form of “hate speech” motivated by racism, sexism, and “homophobia.” The end result is a leftist position that, by its very logic, denies the possibility of any principled resistance to the leftist project.

There is little that can be done to counter such charges because the charge alone taints and is incapable of refutation (as in “when did you stop beating your wife?”). Responding to accusations of racism becomes akin to proving you’re not a witch.

But the ultimate intent goes beyond simply smearing conservatives to encouraging people in any position of authority in society to embrace liberalism as a pre-emptive survival strategy. Adopt liberal/left positions, join liberal organizations, and give contributions to Democratic candidates and you acquire insulation from future purges. Express conservative ideas (or worse still, make even a minor financial contribution to a conservative cause, as former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich so naively did) and you place yourself at potential risk. Bottom line: Stay off the conservative side of the street, if you know what is good for you.

It isn’t, in the end, just the silencing of opposition that the left seeks by equating conservatism with racism (and through other “thought crime” accusations), but the enforcement of ideological conformity. There is only one way to see the world, or at least only one way you will be allowed to in public. In short, the goal is to leave no alternative for those interested in self-preservation but to become good little lockstep liberal Democrats. As genuine racism continues its steep decline in America life, the race card is played more often and becomes a more effective political weapon.

It is distressing to see how the election of Obama has actually accelerated this leftist totalitarianism on race (rather than moving us beyond it, as so many who voted for him hoped). It would, looking back, be difficult to deny that Republicans opposed the administration of Bill Clinton to just as great an extent as they have opposed Obama’s (to the point of actually impeaching him), or that liberals later returned the favor by demonizing George W. Bush.

But little of that had to do with racism. Or at least it didn’t if looked at properly. Rather, what it had to do with was what politics should have to do with, which is ideology, meaning profound differences in assumptions regarding human nature and the role of government in constructing the “good” society.

Alas, racism replaces ideology as an explanation for political differences for the kind of people who are incapable of seeing anything but the color of other people’s skin.

So let us propose a means of cutting the Gordian knot, of finding a way out of the gutter to which the use of the race card has dragged us, which is to declare that race doesn’t matter any more and that we should stop talking and caring about it (or least stop caring and talking about it as much as white liberals do).

Going further, and on the grounds that false accusations of racism have now become more damaging to race relations than actual racism, let us hereafter assume that all such accusations are decisive indicators of moral corruption.

In other words, let’s all stop and

take a deep breath before the well

is permanently poisoned and our once glorious democracy is permanently damaged. Above all, let us remember that racial categories (and thus racialist thinking) are simply stupid human social constructs that have no biological significance.

So let us be forever done with them, so that we can declare victory and go home to a land where all that matters is “the content of our character.” Meaning that the next time you hear someone prattle on about racism, make a contribution to healing the body politic by tuning them out.

And thereby stop playing this increasingly sordid, thoroughly ugly game.

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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.

Editorial, Pages 11 on 04/21/2014

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