4 ms·

But Atwater wasn't talking about himself or Bush, was he? This is just your typical moral preening, where he gets to say how much better he is than some other

by tsotha 11y ago

But Atwater wasn't talking about himself or Bush, was he? This is just your typical moral preening, where he gets to say how much better he is than some other (unnamed) guy, which is something you see from Democrats on a regular basis. This is what he says later in the same interview: "But Reagan did not have to do a southern strategy for two reasons. Number one, race was not a dominant issue. And number two, the mainstream issues in this campaign had been, quote, southern issues since way back in the sixties. So Reagan goes out and campaigns on the issues of economics and of national defense. The whole campaign was devoid of any kind of racism, any kind of reference. And I'll tell you another thing you all need to think about, that even surprised me, is the lack of interest, really, the lack of knowledge right now in the South among white voters about the Voting Rights Act." The problem Democrats have when discussing crime is they don't realize people on the other side don't see life through a racial prism, so to us Willie Horton was about crime and not about race.

x0x0 11y ago
Oh, Atwater may well have claimed he didn't do the same thing. That's contra basically all available evidence, even as supplied in the quote -- you move on to economics. What did Reagan move on to -- economics. viz your (implied) claim the Willie Horton ad wasn't racist, well, people on the other side don't see life through a racial prism because they're either racist themselves or sufficiently privileged they can ignore it. See the confederate flag debates. In reality, there's abundant evidence everywhere you look. For one of many examples, see the weird way black people randomly just somehow up and die in police custody. Or Nate Silver: “If you’re a white person your chance of being murdered every year is 2.5 out of 10,000," he told Halper. "If you’re a black person it’s 19.4, so almost eight times higher." [1 for quote, 2 for data] [1] http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nate-silver-black-americans-murder-rate http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nate-silver-black-amer... [2] http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/black-americans-are-killed-at-12-times-the-rate-of-people-in-other-developed-countries/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/black-americans-are-kille...
- tsotha 11y ago
  >That's contra basically all available evidence, even as supplied in the quote -- you move on to economics. Not the way I read it at all. He's just preening. >viz your (implied) claim the Willie Horton ad wasn't racist, well, people on the other side don't see life through a racial prism because they're either racist themselves or sufficiently privileged they can ignore it. Ah, yes, the old infinitely malleable "sufficiently privileged". Let me provide another possibility: People on the other side don't see things through a racial prism because they treat other people as individuals, and it's just not natural for us to treat people as part of a different, larger organism. I'm not sure why you threw in the Nate Silver quote, or why you didn't bother to go to the data instead of relying on someone to tldr it for you. https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/... The fact is black guys get murdered by other black guys. What does this have to do with the discussion? If the makers of the Willie Horton ads were really playing the race angle they would have found someone who murdered a black guy.
deciplex 11y ago
Here is the quote with more context: > Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps? > Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger." He's talking about the 1980 campaign run by the Republicans here, and it absolutely about appealing to racist voters, and getting them to vote for you, without appearing racist yourself. But part of it is pledges to support policies that will disproportionately affect blacks rather than whites, and how to code the rhetoric in such a way that the message will get across without being obvious enough to create a scandal. That's what he means when he says "the whole campaign was devoid of any kind of racism, any kind of reference" - the emphasis there is on reference. You might think you don't see life through a racial prism, but the Republican party of the eighties most definitely did, and they exploited it.
- tsotha 11y ago
  I read the entire exchange. The other quote is far more definitive. >You might think you don't see life through a racial prism, but the Republican party of the eighties most definitely did, and they exploited it. No they didn't. For Republicans Willie Horton was a story about a guy who killed someone on a weekend furlough. Only for Democrats was it about a black guy who killed someone on a weekend furlough.
  - deciplex 11y ago
    > No they didn't. For Republicans Willie Horton was a story about a guy who killed someone on a weekend furlough. Only for Democrats was it about a black guy who killed someone on a weekend furlough. You act as though it could have only been a racial issue if the Republicans had explicitly made it so, which is not how it works, and that by calling them out on it, Democrats made it into a racial issue, which is laughably disingenuous. Considering the obsession that Lee Atwater had with racial politics, and in light of the fact that he was a big part of how the Republicans ran campaigns in the 80s (not to mention that you still see echoes of those strategies even today), I guess you are certainly, totally, and kind of embarrassingly wrong, actually.

by tsotha 11y ago

x0x0 11y ago

Oh, Atwater may well have claimed he didn't do the same thing. That's contra basically all available evidence, even as supplied in the quote -- you move on to economics. What did Reagan move on to -- economics. viz your (implied) claim the Willie Horton ad wasn't racist, well, people on the other side don't see life through a racial prism because they're either racist themselves or sufficiently privileged they can ignore it. See the confederate flag debates. In reality, there's abundant evidence everywhere you look. For one of many examples, see the weird way black people randomly just somehow up and die in police custody. Or Nate Silver: “If you’re a white person your chance of being murdered every year is 2.5 out of 10,000," he told Halper. "If you’re a black person it’s 19.4, so almost eight times higher." [1 for quote, 2 for data] [1] http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nate-silver-black-americans-murder-rate http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nate-silver-black-amer... [2] http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/black-americans-are-killed-at-12-times-the-rate-of-people-in-other-developed-countries/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/black-americans-are-kille...

tsotha 11y ago
>That's contra basically all available evidence, even as supplied in the quote -- you move on to economics. Not the way I read it at all. He's just preening. >viz your (implied) claim the Willie Horton ad wasn't racist, well, people on the other side don't see life through a racial prism because they're either racist themselves or sufficiently privileged they can ignore it. Ah, yes, the old infinitely malleable "sufficiently privileged". Let me provide another possibility: People on the other side don't see things through a racial prism because they treat other people as individuals, and it's just not natural for us to treat people as part of a different, larger organism. I'm not sure why you threw in the Nate Silver quote, or why you didn't bother to go to the data instead of relying on someone to tldr it for you. https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/... The fact is black guys get murdered by other black guys. What does this have to do with the discussion? If the makers of the Willie Horton ads were really playing the race angle they would have found someone who murdered a black guy.

deciplex 11y ago

Here is the quote with more context: > Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps? > Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger." He's talking about the 1980 campaign run by the Republicans here, and it absolutely about appealing to racist voters, and getting them to vote for you, without appearing racist yourself. But part of it is pledges to support policies that will disproportionately affect blacks rather than whites, and how to code the rhetoric in such a way that the message will get across without being obvious enough to create a scandal. That's what he means when he says "the whole campaign was devoid of any kind of racism, any kind of reference" - the emphasis there is on reference. You might think you don't see life through a racial prism, but the Republican party of the eighties most definitely did, and they exploited it.

tsotha 11y ago
I read the entire exchange. The other quote is far more definitive. >You might think you don't see life through a racial prism, but the Republican party of the eighties most definitely did, and they exploited it. No they didn't. For Republicans Willie Horton was a story about a guy who killed someone on a weekend furlough. Only for Democrats was it about a black guy who killed someone on a weekend furlough.
- deciplex 11y ago
  > No they didn't. For Republicans Willie Horton was a story about a guy who killed someone on a weekend furlough. Only for Democrats was it about a black guy who killed someone on a weekend furlough. You act as though it could have only been a racial issue if the Republicans had explicitly made it so, which is not how it works, and that by calling them out on it, Democrats made it into a racial issue, which is laughably disingenuous. Considering the obsession that Lee Atwater had with racial politics, and in light of the fact that he was a big part of how the Republicans ran campaigns in the 80s (not to mention that you still see echoes of those strategies even today), I guess you are certainly, totally, and kind of embarrassingly wrong, actually.