What About Jindal? (II)
Posted on October 28th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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Add to this the blunt fact that the GOP probably can’t afford to lose racist white voters, especially in the South (you think a Jindal - Obama race wouldn’t invite a conservative, white, third-party candidacy?), and I think Jindal’s chance of being the nominee in 2012 is, despite his obvious talents, pretty close to nil. The GOP isn’t going to be looking for its own Obama; it’s going to be looking for an anti-Obama. ~Chris Orr
As I argued some time ago, never underestimate the Republican desire to get on the high horse of anti-racism and egalitarianism, to say nothing of the even greater desire to demonstrate that they are in no way racist. This is the “defensive crouch” for Republicans, which has led them time and again in the last twenty years to nominate the “inclusive” moderates who engage in various minority outreach efforts to no avail. The Palin pander to women failed magnificently, but the failure of most of the other panders over the years has not discredited these attempts inside the GOP. The inevitable next step will be to nominate a non-white candidate.
This is partly opportunistic, but it is also partly very serious. The small cottage industry out there cataloguing the “real racism” of liberals represents a genuine conviction in the modern GOP that they are the only true defenders of color-blind equality. The Republican obsession with Jeremiah Wright cannot be understood apart from this “fight the real racists!” mentality. The enthusiastic reception of Palin and the sudden willingness to label any criticism of her as sexism and elitism reflects a similar impulse to out-egalitarian the egalitarians. This is opportunistic insofar as it is aimed at confusing conventional definitions and throwing the opponent off guard (”we’re the real feminists, so there!”), but it is quite serious in that it reflects a widely-held Republican belief that their agenda and their party represent ”empowerment” for women and minorities.
Observers on the left don’t believe this for a minute, so they find it hard to believe that Jindal would be embraced by the rank-and-file, but this is actually an important part of the GOP’s understanding of itself. This is particularly true among Republican elites, and as we have seen over the last eight years the rank-and-file will mostly go along with whatever their elites tell them is the new party line. Besides, supporting Jindal won’t be much of a stretch for most people. Ideological heterodoxy has not been a problem for him, his positions have been consistent and very much to the liking of conservatives, and any trouble he will have on account of his religion will be much more manageable than the resistance that Romney had among evangelicals and Huckabee had among non-evangelicals. If some have pulled back from Huckabee and Palin because of the role of identity politics in their candidacies, they will celebrate Jindal as the supposed negation of identity politics (even though his Catholicism and social conservatism are essential to his appeal). In Jindal you have someone conservatives of almost all stripes find to be genuinely attractive and exciting, which cannot be said about any of the ‘08 also-rans and many of the other possible ‘12 candidates, and also someone who will provide Republicans considerable cover from accusations of racism as they mount another campaign against Obama. I hadn’t been thinking of it along these lines until I read Orr’s post, but I now see why Jindal should be considered a strong, perhaps leading, contender for the nomination if he chooses to run.
Filed under: politics
I would sincerely hope so, Daniel, but do you think Appalachia views itself in this way? Do you think the people in some of those videos of the Palin/McCain rallies really view themselves that way? Someone who says “I ain’t votin’ for no nigger” is not someone that I believe would view themselves in this way, if they are intellectually honest with themselves.
‘The Republican obsession with Jeremiah Wright cannot be understood apart from this “fight the real racists!” mentality. ‘
Absolutely. One of my Savage-listener friends told me he won’t vote for Obama because Obama’s a racist. The Wright scandal was his proof. This from a guy who will argue that the KKK is not a racist organization. I’m waiting for him to ask me to read Liberal Fascism. I know it’s coming soon.
“Do you think the people in some of those videos of the Palin/McCain rallies really view themselves that way?”
I think a lot of them would insist on it. There might be some who simply wouldn’t vote if Jindal became the nominee, in absolute numbers there are not many of these people. If a non-white Republican is on board with full-throated Americanism and hits all the right notes on social issues, taxes, etc., he is treated like a king, and there are then no policy-based reasons that mainstream conservatives can give for not supporting him.
As a comparison just consider the once-upon-a-time Condi Rice *presidential* boomlet and Condi Rice’s generally high favorable ratings among Republicans. Just as Powell did, she fails some litmus tests, and she is personally the antithesis of everything that people find so endearing about Palin, but she continued to be regarded very highly. It is only as she has gradually shifted back to a more realistic foreign policy that she has started losing admirers. The response to Jindal would be similarly favorable, and he has the elective experience, family and social conservative bona fides that she lacks.
What’s more, Jindal is quite wonkish, and apparently handled Hurricane Gustav pretty well. He also has that Southern accent, and I don’t mean Dravidian.
@GOM -
Right - if Jindal came from a background of non-IndoEuropean speakers that would be a problem.
But yeah, to actually succeed at something and stay clean (which AFAIK he has) in Louisiana politics is a very impressive accomplishment.
A 2012 primary race I’d like to see but won’t is Jindal vs. Crist.
I live in LA, many of the same things were said here before he ran for Gov. and when he ran for Congress before that. I’m pretty sure he represented the district that encompassed David Duke’s home and major supporters, the Bucktown area of Jefferson Parish. I don’t think the racial issue is going to dog Jindal like it has Obama. The Far Left won’t be able to use that attack, and the “ignorant” members of the Right will be able to proudly say that Jindal is “their” minority, hard working, business owning Indian Americans. Not a “damn n***** that’ll just raise taxes and put more of his ‘brotha’s’ on welfare”
I have hope for Crist as a moderate conservative who can attract voters from the center, but I think his “love life” could be a problem.
And don’t crown Jindal just yet either, he’s having some minor ethics problems down here with a trip to speak in CA paid for by some lobbyists, and he waffled on the issue of a pay raise for legislators, finally vetoing it even though he promised the legislators he wouldn’t, and that was after promising TO veto any pay raises while campaigning. He was against it before he was for it, but then decided he was against it again, after much uproar from the populace.
Did anyone ask Appalachia how they felt about Condi Rice? I will say this about Palin, she gives those people a voice. She doesn’t sound too far off from them, and she’s white.
I agree that for that brief period of time where Rice was a rock star, it was remarkable. I wonder if the base would have felt that way now if he asked Condi to join him on the ticket. Condi on the ticket would have been just as strong a ticket of substance, and he would have had Obama beaten on the experience argument - or just beaten period.
Whereas with Sarah “I can see Russia from my house” Palin, he made a joke of himself, and made the thinking portion of this nation extremely nervous.
Daniel:
… but it is quite serious in that reflects a widely-held Republican belief that their agenda and their party represent ”empowerment” for women and minorities.
Exactly right.
What the Republicans of whom we speak fail to understand is that American blacks are insulted by antiracism, and rightly so. The same goes for other minorities in varying degrees, but the black case is instructive. Where have we ever seen a genuine groundswell of sentiment among our African-American countrymen for a truly color-blind society? Why do we insist on supposing that blacks secretly wish that they could be white?
Because that is exactly what we Republicans are offering black Americans today: a chance to be honorary whites.
They’re not buying it. Why do we continue to peddle it? It makes no sense. Black Americans deserve more respect than this, which is something the genuinely racist Democratic party has long understood.
Howard
I think Daniel Larison misses a crucial point. Yes, a lot of conservatives spout the language of colorblindness and how the liberals are the “real racists”. But my experience is that very few of the people who say that are, in fact, colorblind. In other words, many of the same people who go on and on about liberals being the “real racists” also support racial profiling by the police, feel that the worst thing to happen in Katrina was looting by blacks, and blame the economic downturn on government pressure to lend too much money to minorities. And a bunch of other things.
In other words, these are often people who are quite conscious of race when it comes to blaming things on minorities, but scream racism ONLY when those on the left advocate race-conscious policies.
Now that doesn’t mean that they won’t vote for Jindal. Heck, plenty of racists and race-conscious voters are voting for Obama. (I think Adam Serwer or Ta-hanisi Coates said that a lot of white voters can’t afford the luxury of racism.) But in terms of this “real racism” stuff, there are not that many people who take a principled, across the board “race never matters” approach, and those that do are not likely to be the ones who scream that the real racists are liberals.