The Economic Nationalist

[This week’s special election in Massachusetts is a significant event about which Howard J. Harrison regrettably finds little original to say. With the following remarks, the pseudonymous Dr.D fills the gap.]

Well, Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts seems to have struck a possibly mortal blow to the ambitions of the Democrats. The are recoiling as though they have been seriously wounded, although I really do not see why. They still have 59 votes in the Senate rather than 60, so if they believe what they have been telling us, why do they not plow ahead and pass all of their foolishness?

It appears that the answer lies in the instinct for self preservation. Even more than bringing about their communist utopia, they want to keep themselves in their sine cures. Brown’s win seems to have shaken them into realizing that they might have to get JOBS, jobs for goodness sakes. Now we all know that simply means that they would become lobbyists, but in the coming days, the way the mood is turning, lobbyists may not be viewed with the greatest favor either. That could mean having to get real jobs and work for Pete’s sake. Perish the thought! Thus the IPP (Incumbent Protection Plan) of both parties swings into high gear now, with a dive towards the center. Everybody becomes a moderate, even Uncle Harry Reid, that nice old gentlement who always smiles at everyone (you do remember him, don’t you?). And sweet old Aunt Pelosi, who would not stuff anything down the throat of a fly, why she is up for re-election too, I do believe! Wonder of wonders, what that one ballot in Massachusetts did!

So here we stand, on the verge of election again. Our badly abused yet still magnificent Constitution authorizes and condones that solemn popular act November 4 which—we have every reason to believe—will order the 43rd peaceful change of power in U.S. history.

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No, no, no, Ross! Ross Douthat writes,

If anything, I think the way the McCain campaign has finished up—and the way the media has covered it—works to [Louisiana Governor Bobby] Jindal’s advantage in 2012: Conservatives are going to be extremely eager to prove that they only hate Obama because he’s a radical, not because they’re racist, and what better way to demonstrate that than to nominate a dark-skinned conservative with a funny-sounding name? Indeed, much of the current affection for Jindal among movement conservatives—and especially in talk-radio land—can be traced to precisely such a yearning for a conservative Obama: A multicultural prince who channels Ronald Reagan, and whose nomination would at least reduce the taint of racism that clings to the American Right.

Does Ross not see? The American Right could not conceivably have done more than it has done to cleanse itself of the taint of racism, whereas Democrats like John Murtha and Joe Biden remind us recently again of which party alas is the actually racist one. The problem is not in the imaginary, nonexistent, illusory Republican taint. The problem is in that U.S. minorities often do not want antiracism and indeed are insulted by it. The bigger problem is that U.S. whites are sick and tired of being so persistently labeled as morally defective racists by their own, white, Republican leaders.

American blacks in particular continue to show bafflement at incessantly disrespectful Republican attempts to convert them into honorary whites. They actually like being black. Why can we not understand this? Why won’t we listen to them?

The Democrats get it. We do not.

Bobby Jindal is a fine fellow and he may very well become president of the United States one day, but he is not going to solve Republicans’ problems with the minority vote. The spectacular rise of Clarence Thomas has in seventeen years shifted hardly a single black vote to the Republican column. Michael Steele has failed to win the black vote in Maryland. Vernon Robinson has failed likewise in North Carolina, as has Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania. Messrs. Thomas, Steele, Robinson and Swann are good men and valued Republican compatriots, but they very clearly do not speak for their fellow American blacks. What is it with us on the American Right that we cannot seem to learn the lesson in this?

HJH