Conservative White America Needs New Strategy

[DEATH ROW JOE]

Conservative White America, you need a new Grand Strategy

It has become increasingly apparent that "[conservative] white racial panic" is the main social force causing gridlock in American politics today. No reasonable person denies this. But when I think about Conservative White America, I am increasingly struck by the sense that this is an entire civilization in crisis. It is under threat not just - as conservatives would claim - from increasing numbers of Hispanic and Asian voters. "Demographic drowning" doesn't begin to describe its problems. Like Medieval Europe before it, Conservative White America is stuck using a social model that just is not working anymore.

1. First, Conservative White America has failing families. Divorce rates are highest in the "Bible Belt" states where Conservative White America is strongest. While professional whites (who are often liberals) have reversed the trend toward higher divorce, working-class whites are essentially abandoning marriage. While conservatives would claim that this trend is due to the spread of liberal, secular values, the reverse is true; Bible Belters get married more often and earlier than their Northeastern cousins. They just get divorced a lot. Those conservative values are shoving white people, especially working-class white people, into unhappy marriages that cannot last in the modern world.

2. Next, Conservative White America has failing health. Of course, this is true of all of the United States, and American blacks and Hispanics fare worse than American whites on most health measures. But white Europeans significantly defeat their American cousins on most health outcomes, while Americans pay much more and enjoy much more uncertain access to care. This is due mainly to the success of conservatives in blocking the implementation of universal health care (a case of all America having problems due to CWA policy triumphs). Some small part of it may also have to do with the effect of suburban sprawl and lightly regulated corporate food (loaded with sugar and/or fat) on obesity rates. Additionally, suburban and rural drug use may be rising, even as urban drug use has fallen steadily. And white teens are more likely than black or Hispanic teens to abuse drugs. These trends do not bode well for the health of Red America.

3. Add to that failing economic mobility. Much is made of the economic dynamism of Red states like Texas (well, mainly Texas). But white Americans experience the least economic mobility in the South, the most conservative region. And upward mobility for whites seems to be lowest in regions with heavy sprawl.

4. Conservative White America, like the rest of America, also has failing economic performance. Sure, rich people - who have done pretty well over the past 13 years of stagnating incomes - tend to be conservative. But the vast majority of conservative white voters are not rich, and have seen their incomes fall along with the rest.

5. And to some degree, Conservative White America also has failing social lives. Studies show that suburban residents are less satisfied with their neighborhoods than urban residents, with loneliness and social isolation probably to blame. Other research has shown that urban design has a big influence on social connection. It's just really hard to meet people in the spread-out, isolated non-cities into which conservatives would have us move - and into which much of white America has moved over the past sixty years. Gone are the days of small-town America where everyone knew their neighbors. In the modern suburbs, you are stuck in a box with nobody and nothing.

6. Now finally we get to Conservative White America's failing electoral clout. The poor performance of the GOP cannot, as some hopeful conservatives have claimed, be ascribed to "missing white voters". Whites for whom race defines politics - i.e. most of the current Republican base - have shut themselves out of future political coalitions. They could have followed the example of liberal whites, who allied with minorities, including poorer minorities (blacks, Hispanics) and richer minorities (Asians), and thus will have a big say in shaping America's future policies. Meanwhile, stuck in permanent racial panic mode, all Conservative White America can do is pull their veto levers - the filibuster, etc. - to gum up the machinery of American politics and slow the inevitable.

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The five big pieces of Conservative White America's Grand Strategy that I think need reevaluation are:

1. "White flight" to suburbs and exurbs

2. Rigid and inflexible "family values"

3. Hostility toward immigrants and minorities

4. Excessive distrust of the government

5. Distrust of education, science, and intellectualism