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Read other letters about this article
For perhaps the first time, too.
This is brilliant. I have rarely read a more accurate, if mordant and disturbing analysis of the legacy of Jesse Helms and the Dixiecrats, who did, indeed, manage to shape the politics on both sides of the aisle. There is little left to be said, and I would only take minor exception to one part of Lind's article: he says
There was a snooty, WASP-y, plutocratic Northeastern conservatism, which was pro-business, internationalist, mildly philanthropic and in favor of birth control for European immigrants and third-world nations. And there was Robert Taft's Midwestern conservatism, which was anti-labor, fiscally conservative, protectionist and isolationist, and is represented today by Patrick Buchanan.
Just kindly disregard the "was"s in that paragraph. There still are these factors, they are still at large, but they are far more difficult to recognize in the mists of time than a Jesse Helms was. They're still there, masquerading as good, "salt of the earth" liberals. Lind acknowleges as much by pointing out my favorite neighorhood bully, Pat Buchannan, as their representative. Buchannan may have mellowed outwardly over the years, but he is, deep inside, still the punk who loves to push the little guys around, who still feeds on the resentment he himself breeds, a more refined and therefore elusive version of Helms.
They're still out there, Helms is definitely not dead -- just buried -- and there is still plenty of work to be done. It is no longer acceptable to simply flog the south as the last safe target of dismissal, denigration and faux liberal bigotry. The whole joint stinks, and now that the Jesse Helmses of the world are thinning out, it is more clear the curse of the pre-1960s south has been handed off to people we'd never recognize as the enemy because they don't dress or talk the part.
The one little set of "was"s aside, Michael Lind, this piece is perhaps your magnum opus, at least here, on Salon. Thank you sir.
