Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I think Ayres is right that the grubby and sweaty populist GOP is xenophobic. But that only explains part of the effort at voter suppression. A lot of the moderate GOP would welcome minorities. They resent the classes who can't be measured by metrics and are protected, most of whom here are white - the public sector union folk, the bureaucrats who attempt to regulate them (I say attempt because muni and state regulators here are often crooked, or hopelessly incompetent and more irritating than scary, or both).
|
It’s a nice story that we can tell ourselves—that only unwashed redneck masses exhibit that sort of overt hostility for minorities. That the more refined affluent GOP holds its nose and accepts the racism but really just wants lower taxes. My uncle was an executive headhunter Greenwich country club guy. At my father’s funeral earlier this year, he was sitting at the back of the church before the funeral (the day before the churches stopped allowing gatherings) and he called me over and asked me where my family was. I said they were in the front left pew, right in front of his granddaughter Sarah. He said quietly, “I’ve never met Sarah.” The reason he has never met his college-age granddaughter is that he disowned his daughter after she married a black man. He feels exactly the way that blurb says, and is vocal about it. He presumably resented the fact that, at the time of the wedding, his son-in-law was leeching off the state as an AUSA. As far as I can tell, he has suffered few-to-zero ramifications professionally or personally on account of his overt racism. Some of his country club pals may have the good taste to only whisper about their disdain of minorities, but it’s still there. I know you think accusations of racism these days are largely overblown, and I disagree, and I’m not going to argue with you about it.
Oh, and when I say he suffered few ramifications, I of course mean apart from the fact that he had never met his beautiful, mature-beyond-her-years, completely delightful granddaughter who was sitting down in the front of the church at his brother’s funeral. And still hasn’t. What a sad fucking man.
