Paul Krugman: GOP Is 'The Party of Whiners and Racial Backlash'

Has Paul Krugman become print's version of Keith Olbermann?

After you read his column published by the New York Times Friday in which he called Republicans "a party of whiners" that forty years ago "decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash," there may be little doubt.

Readers are advised to strap themselves in tightly, for Krugman appears to have woken up New Year's day with a vicious hangover, and the target of his disaffection was anyone with an "R" next to his or her name (emphasis added):

As the new Democratic majority prepares to take power, Republicans have become, as Phil Gramm might put it, a party of whiners. [...]

Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as the party’s champion, to the Bush administration’s pervasive incompetence, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision.

Hmmm. It seems Krugman, always one to intentionally omit inconvenient details when they don't fit his agenda, is forgetting what Ronald Wilson Reagan did in 1980.

Was his ascendancy and revival of the Republican Party based in racial backlash? Are the concepts of a strong defense, less regulation, and lower taxes only held dear by white people? Were the Reagan Democrats all racists?

As readers find out, in Krugman's view the answer to all three questions is "Yes":

In 1981 Lee Atwater, the famed Republican political consultant, explained the evolution of the G.O.P.’s “Southern strategy,” which originally focused on opposition to the Voting Rights Act but eventually took a more coded form: “You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.” In other words, government is the problem because it takes your money and gives it to Those People.

Oh, and the racial element isn’t all that abstract, even now: Chip Saltsman, currently a candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, sent committee members a CD including a song titled “Barack the Magic Negro” — and according to some reports, the controversy over his action has actually helped his chances.

How disgraceful, but not surprising. After all, liberal media members like Krugman aided and abetted Obama's use of the race card against the Clintons and eventually McCain-Palin. If you thought his kind were about to depart from this strategy now that their candidate has won, you were guilty of wishful thinking.

In the next four years -- hopefully, that's all -- everything emanating from Krugman and his ilk will be racially and/or class-based. They got their man in the White House by doing so, and well try to fortify their positions with this same disgusting, divisive scheme.

No wonder the Times is having such financial problems.