Any fact that makes Americans less likely to vote for a Democrat is now called a racist smear. The mythos of Republican dirty campaigning is entirely liberal projection. The real secret of modern political campaigns isn’t Republicans’ sneaky appeals to racial resentment, it’s liberals’ Miss Grundy lecturing about racism intended to rile up black voters and intimidate white suburbanites who are terrified of appearing racist. Liberals love telling blacks they are woebegone wretches horribly oppressed by whites. They love that. But since even the Democrats aren’t subjugating blacks anymore, no one is. So the Democrats make up stories of racist incidents committed by Republicans. The caption accompanying a Newsweek story about racism is a good example of the miasma of lies, myths and irrelevant associations that sustain the Republicans-are-racist thesis: “After Nixon’s narrow loss to JFK, Goldwater stormed the GOP; by ’68, Nixon was back with his ‘Southern Strategy’—one that helped elect Lott to the House in 1972;…As the party became more apparently mainstream under Reagan and Bush, Lott rose through Congress, singing different songs to different audiences; PHOTO: Hardball: Bush at the controversial Bob Jones University in 2000; the McCain family, which was smeared in the GOP South Carolina primary that year; Lott at the Thurmond birthday party.”1 Where to begin?
