My Secret Plan to Win the War Against Racism in the Southern United States

Krugman's distillation of the devil's bargain between Southern whites and the Republican party does not pay proper attention to the perception of the economic benefits of racism -- both in Mississippi and New Jersey. This came out, because Krugman wanted to point out that Dean's "I want the votes of guys with Confederate Flags on their trucks" comment (the Reagan democrats) are natural Democrats, but vote Republican against their own economic interesets, because they think Republican's are with them.

In relatively affluent and better educated New Jersey, racism is percieved as diminishing the economic potential of a significant sub-population. In doing so, it creates lower income for the sub-population, lower economic activity, and all boats sink with the tide. Witness the decline in median family incomes over the past 2 years of $400/yr -- a short-term cost which negates the tax benefit of voting Republican (assuming you blame, as I do, this economic downturn on the party in power), making the far-greater and long-term economic costs too great a negative to overcome.

Down home in blue-collar Mississippi, racism is perceived by working-class whites as diminishing the labor pool. The simple math is, drop the labor pool by 10% (the average population fraction of African-Americans), my wages increase by 10%. So, the perception is to working-class people, it's all gravy as long as We Stick Together.

The Democrat's problem in addressing the South's devil's bargain -- which elected Nixon 35 years ago on the Southern Strategy, which has held Republicans in good stead in the South for 3 decades since -- is convincing working-class people, as opposed to white-collar people -- to take the long view in suppressing racism. That is, that it is to the working-class' own long-term economic benefit to let all people maximize their labor potential through education and salaried jobs, and that this outweighs their short-term benefit.

How can the Democrats overcome the Republican's Southern Strategy?

The way you do that is you offer, from the Federal level, the means for the working-class and poor -- whose ranks include the African-Americans whose joblessness benefits the working-class whites in the short-term -- to change their dominating economic interest from the short term (that is, wages for labor) to the long-term (salary, for valuable educated skills). Doctors and Lawyers don't drive trucks with Confederate flags on them, the argument goes, because the value of their labor is not subject to short-term fluctuations, and averages out to be very high over a life-time, if (and here's the anti-racism part) there is sufficient economic activity over the long-term that their services can be paid for. More rich people, the better off they are.

So, for the Democrats to win the South, they should offer huge huge huge Federal government programs to educate working-class people. Call it the National Education Plan. It will remove the unemployed from the rolls by putting them in colleges, where they will graduate to higher-paying (and long-term interested) jobs. It also completely undercuts the working-class' short-term benefit from racism, and moves these voters into the long-term column.

Fly in the ointment? You betcha. What makes me think that you can take working-class people, who are typically working-class due to a lack of education, send 'em to college and presto! Lawyers! Here it is: I'm going to assume that the lack of education is due to a lack of educational opportunity, not a lack of smarts. And, maybe after the non high-school graduate has spent 10 years in the work-force, if they see the opportunity to go to school for 6 more years, paid for by the Federal Government, and come out at age 34 with a much higher paying job, they've had enough hard knocks to know a good deal when they see it.

But, even if that's wrong, just offering the program will divorce the Stars+Bars Chevy-driver from weighing the short-term benefit against the long-term benefit, and letting the short-term benefit win. It will equally benefit the victims of societal racism.