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We open with some thoughts on the just concluded Democratic convention, and then segue into our guest, Avik Roy. His interview with Vox has been discussed extensively on Ricochet, and we give him the full court Ricochet Podcast press. Is the GOP on life support as Avik suggests and can be saved? Or, is everything just fine, and the party should stay the course? We delve into all of that with Roy in a very provocative (but civil!) conversation. Also, some thoughts on auto-promotion and the new version of Ricochet. If you’re reading this and you’re not a member — what are you waiting for? Join NOW. We need you!
Music from this week’s podcast:
You Can’t Always Get What You Want by The Rolling Stones
The brand new opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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All signs point to EJHill.
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Two Things:
Oh bless you. Someone like you is going to make someone like me fabulously wealthy after we torch your world down around your ears as is our right under any and all state and federal equal opportunity laws.
Could you expand upon this? What are the specific laws that you are going to repeal?
To be honest it looks like Peter is about to smack Rob in this podcast picture, not very civil.
I think you were reading more into the podcast than they said.
I put the spurious accusations of racism in the same category as a hood-wearing klansmen ranting into a microphone about the various real and percieved deficiencies of various other ethnic groups.
It is, in every moral and ethical dimension, the perfect analogue. Me, I prefer point and laugh at the dumb bigot approach. Other people my age having watched the way the game is played may decide that it could be fun to engage in a little perfectly just lawfare. Nobody is going repeal any laws, that the beautiful things about the 14th amendment and race neutral protections.
I have had this problem too, for a long time. What’s the deal? Isn’t there a fix?
What is the conceivable upside of this approach @kylez? Why are you separating minorities from the many white people who also vote for Democrats because they want government aid? And do you not allow there are minority voters who support Democrats for numerous other reasons?
To the podcast. I would agree with Avik Roy that too much of the Republican party has written off minority voters, so they don’t even try to win minority votes anymore. I think he takes much of it too far however.
I am sympathetic to the idea that investing large amounts of money and effort into programs with a low expected return is probably unwise. Is this writing off due to malice or prudential use of scarce resources?
There are as many disaffected voters just on the right as there are black people in america.
I am also sympathetic to the idea that this will have unfortunate trade offs.
I’ve said it elsewhere, and I’ll say it here: Roy is becoming the new David Brock. In a couple of years, he’ll be hawking books about why he had to leave the racist right for the tolerant left.
And I’m tired… tired of hearing about “writing off cities and minorities”. We did no such thing. Indeed, we wasted millions of dollars and precious time trying to pitch to people of both groups that despise us, and are dedicated to a world where conservatism is a shameful crime of the past, like Nazism. I wish we had written them off, simply so those precious resources could have gone to wooing people who could be swayed.
Can you elaborate on how the money and time was wasted @douglas? What was done exactly? Was the pitch made only to the members of both groups (people who live in cities and minorities) who despise conservatives, or was the pitch made more broadly to all members of those groups? Or are you saying that all people in those groups despise conservatives across the board, in lockstep?
Let’s go back to, oh, say the Jack Kemp era, the late 80’s. HW makes him HUD secretary with the explicit purpose of expanding the GOP into urban minority centers. He was, for all intents and purposes, the Secretary of Minority Outreach. A former pro-athlete, who got rousing attaboys from his former black teammates, he goes out into cities, bringing the administration’s message: we care about all Americans, and want to help you make your lives better.
His message falls flat. Thud. Help us? OK, then build us stuff. Buy us stuff. Send us checks. Where’s the free, erm, excuse me, public housing? Where’s the increased welfare benefits? Where’s the free tuition? BTW, it’s racist that my kid’s grades are being held against him. Not his fault. 400 years. Etc etc.
Self reliance? Pfft. We know what THAT means. It’s just a racist dog whistle.
Contd…
Ned, the critical reason for providing some commonsense rationales for racial disparities is to avoid the lazy default response: racism.
On an entire range of issues: crime rates, police confrontations, school test scores, rates of welfare dependency, the autoresponse is racism.
With the organizer in chief in the Oval Office, this penchant to racialize and sexualize every issue has been unremitting.
Trying to fix blame on Goldwater’s opposition to the unconstitutionality of a few sections of the Civil Rights Act is rather laughable.
By 1964, Republicans were probably already receiving less than 15% of the vote from black Americans under the age of 30. This was before the roll-out of the whole panoply of Great Society giveaways.
A party which (or which once) emphasized lower taxes, lower spending, strict welfare reform, law and order and opposition to racial hiring and promotion quotas is not likely to win a high percentage of the vote from African Americans, at least not until the out-of-wedlock birth rate falls well below 80%.
Would be interesting to ask Avik how a dark-skinned people from a miserably poor country with a refined system of oppression, Indian Americans, have managed to achieve almost unsurpassed success in the United States with no racial grievance industry, no political caterwauling and no calls for racial preferences and set asides?
So now let’s jump ahead a few years, to the Gingrich era. Gingrich is a Southerner. He grew up with and is surrounded by black people, all his life in fact. When he becomes Speaker, he makes a point of speaking to black families, and his message is blunt and up-front: Democrats have been using you, taking you for granted, and taking you for a ride. The Republican Party is with you, and wants to show you a better way. We’re about opportunity for all, growing the economy for all, and self reliance so you can rebuild your families, businesses, and neighborhoods.
Reply: Oh, we know what “self-reliance” means. It’s a racist dog whistle. And if you really wanted to help us, where’s our stuff? That’s how we know you care.
Forward to Dubya. All over again. “Compassionate Conservatism”, etc. “When people are hurting government has to move”, and all that blech. Once again, making the same pitch, with a new angle: the “opportunity society”. We want to help you help yourselves so you can….
Minorities: stop right there. We’ve heard it before. No stuff, no love.
Contd…
The event that really boiled all this down and clarified for me what a waste of time “outreach” was happened during the Dubya admin. A GOP politician went to an NAACP meeting, made his sincere pitch to them, telling him that he was genuinely concerned about their families and tried to win them over with conservative ideas. They gave soft, polite applause, and then shooed him out of the room so the next speaker could come to bat. Afterwards, he asked an NAACP official what he thought, and the man said “It’s not your sincerity, it’s your ideas. We just don’t like them”.
Inner cities, and black and Hispanic minorities in general overall, are wedded to notions of big government being good. For Hispanics, it’s because they come from big government cultures, and even if they want to make money and opportunity, are terrified at the idea of small, limited government. To them, it’s like a ship without a captain. For blacks, they view “limited government” as “No one stops Jim Crowe”. To their thinking, big government saved them. Why wouldn’t they want it? They think government is the source of all good Earthly things.To them, you’re trying to sell poison in a health food shop.
Conclusion…
All told , how much money and time have we spent trying to woo peoples whose ideas of what the country should be are the polar opposite of ours? Its like going before that NAACP audience: it doesn’t matter that their very lives are proof that Democratic policies are hurting them. It doesn’t matter that, in every single case, where you find a ghetto, you find Democratic Party rule. Logic doesn’t work. Argument doesn’t work. Example doesn’t work. No matter what you tell them, no matter what you spend on ads, commercials, outreach, in dollars or sweat (which is ultimately the same thing), your message will fall flat, simply because they live in a culture that is 180 from yours, and sees your ideas not as a possible solution, but as a threat. As Sister Souljah once put it, Conservatives in office mean that slavery is back in effect. Evidence, shmevidence. You know politicians value you when they give you stuff (Obamaphone!).
As for whites in cities, they’re American Europeans, i.e., they hate their own nationality, history, people, and culture, and like the Frankfurt School from Germany, think the only redemption is to destroy those things and remake them. I’m a believer in the “Cold Civil War” theory: we’re at 1861 again between right whites and left whites in this country. We just haven’t started shooting yet.
Waste of time and money pitching these folks? Yep.
Good point. It’s a sloppy turn of phrase I’m using. I mean, Kodak isn’t Kodak now, not even close.
I would, actually. Because I want to hear smart people — and the people here are smart — make persuasive arguments to the undecideds. And because if we’re all civil it can be a lot of fun to mix it up.
If we’re all civil.
Having worked in the hospitality industry for a major hotel corporation, I can tell you that Peter’s comment about “Motel 6” almost proved Avik’s position in itself. The Indian community plays a major role in hotel franchising, and limited service hotels like that are the entry point into space…but it’s by no means their ceiling. Peter played into a stereotype unnecessarily and probably unknowingly. Rob’s observations were spot on. Peter’s response… Not so much.
I think the guest stole many bases. Among them, the “Over the last 50 years has you life gotten better for people like you?”
This question covers many dimensions, but Avik Roy inexplicably ascribes the discontent with the ascent of minorities. While technology has advanced, and certainly there have been many wonderful things that my grandparents only read about in sci-fi books, we have also seen an unravelling of many aspects of our social fabric.
Consider just one dimension – family. Marriage as an institution is gasping, but people benefit economically and psychologically when married. Children are better off with a mom and a dad, an unassailable fact in the aggregate.
This is but one such change in the last 50 years, among a myriad, which candidly contribute to my own disquiet as I worry about what the future holds. I am not worried about the color of my neighbor’s skin.
Wouldn’t it be easier to avoid the response of racism by not separating those who vote for Democrats because they want government aid (kylez’s formulation) by race… much less ascribing that motivation to minorities as a whole?
In 1964, the out-of-wedlock birth rate among African Americans was about 25%, dramatically lower than the 80% threshold you offered – and yet you claim Republicans were probably already receiving less than 15% of the vote from blacks under 30. Why do you suppose that is… especially when you also noted this was “before the roll-out of the whole panoply of Great Society giveaways”?
In percentage terms, the non-marital birth rate has increased more since 1964 for whites (four-fold vs. three-fold for blacks). Should Republicans expect to lose their votes as well?
So what do you expect the outcome to be, considering that you divide whites by ideology and lump everyone else into a group that will support the Left?
^What he said. @douglas, you paint a pretty bleak picture. What’s left to do but carve America’s tombstone?
It shall read: RIP The United States of America – killed by people who apparently were impossible to convince.
Maybe the problem truly is unsolvable. But I’d rather proceed from the assumption that there is something we can do than simply resign myself to failure. If at first you don’t succeed….
Dire in the long run, unless something fundamental changes in birth rates, with an added complication not too far down the road: as whites become a minority, and black and Hispanics grow, it’s inevitable that the political ties in the Democratic Party will start to fray as both groups begin to assert their growing power. Blacks already see Hispanics as a threat to their status, and Hispanics can do the math; they’re the growing sector of the population, and, as Mark Steyn puts it, the future belongs to those that show up. Pretty soon, they’ll be feeling their oats, and we’re going to see quite open conflict between the two groups, as whites are seen as less and less of a threat.
In short, while America has often been compared to Rome, the more apt comparison may be Austria-Hungary: a collection of squabbling, competing nationalities that don’t really want to be together all that much.
If it is inevitable that the political ties in the Democratic Party will start to fray as black and Hispanic power grows, might one (or both) of those groups move to a conservative political ideology… or is that solely the province of whites? Or perhaps whites – in their new minority status – will by then have assumed the role of race-based entrenched Leftists?
As for me, I’ll be hewing a little closer to Dr. King’s dream.
Ned Vaughn: In 1964, the out-of-wedlock birth rate among African Americans was about 25%, dramatically lower than the 80% threshold you offered – and yet you claim Republicans were probably already receiving less than 15% of the vote from blacks under 30. Why do you suppose that is… especially when you also noted this was “before the roll-out of the whole panoply of Great Society giveaways”?
Quake: I suppose if the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act and Great Society programs had appeared out of some historical time warp you’d be making something approaching a valid argument here, but since they were all the result of a tremendous generational liberal tide which built upon a period of understandable African American activism, why would you expect blacks in 1964 arguing for federal intervention in every school district in the country and massive new income support programs to vote for Goldwater in 1964 or even Nixon in 1968?
Ned Vaughn: In percentage terms, the non-marital birth rate has increased more since 1964 for whites (four-fold vs. three-fold for blacks). Should Republicans expect to lose their votes as well?
Quake: Of course they will if the Republicans remain a fiscally conservative party (a dubious outlook). Do you imagine that a party advocating for smaller income support budgets, restrained entitlement spending, private medical care and balanced budgets (I am feeling somewhat nostalgic) is going to have much appeal to white single-parent families. Honestly, isn’t Trump already positioning the party to capture white Democratic and independent voters in Fishtown with promises of ringfencing entitlements and workers compensation and disability programs? Ned, I also think you are politely playing the percentages, as an increase, as regrettable as it is, of white illegitimacy from 7% to 28% does not imply the massive social decline than an increase from 25% to nearly 80% entails, especially when compounded by greater poverty and bitterly low levels of family capital formation.
This quote is from the comments section of last week’s podcast:
This was a great podcast. And I don’t know if it’s because James Lileks is reacting to this comment or not, but he elevated his involvement in the discussions and didn’t mostly just moderate the show as he has in the past.
In addition, @jameslileks in at least one instance didn’t segue into a commercial, but actually stated he was going to do a spot. Refreshing.
Whether James was actually listening to the posters or not, it appears he did, and that’s refreshing.
I just finished the podcast, and I have a lot to digest, but this one is a keeper. One of the best the team has ever done.
Bravo!
All text matters.
We’re mostly civil, mostly.
Yes, on the latter, but on the former it is not that I’m separating minorities from whites, but the Democrat politicians often do. They bring race into it, and charge Republicans with desiring to hurt their precious minorities.