Friday night I had a revelation as I read stories and insights here in the left blogosphere while also watching MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, CNN's Nancy Grace, and the "perspectival" battles between Fox News' on-the-ground reporters Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera and their top-tier studio pundits O'Reilly and Hannity. I've been away, so someone may have already posted something similar.
The revelation: the Katrina/Bush disaster threatens the GOP's decades-long "Southern strategy" and poses a very real opportunity for Democrats to reconnect with Southerners. The wrath shown by Mayor Nagin and the Times Picayune over the destruction of New Orleans may very well be just the tip of an iceberg of regional rage, akin to that felt over Sherman's burning of Atlanta, a defining event of the South.
This is not a opportunistic tactical "opening," but a profound and multi-dimensional opportunity with national and global implications. More below the fold:
Culturally and historically:
New Orleans, like Atlanta, is an iconic city for Americans, but especially for Southerners. Like other Americans, people from around the south--black and white--regularly visit the city for its food, music, and history. It's a cultural and historical touchstone. Though it's felt to be a special, unique, and even decadent place, New Orleans is also a place people believe to be authentically southern, a place where Southerners can get in touch with the real (mythic) South. It's also, btw, its sports capital: the Superdome, and before it the Sugar Bowl, have long functioned as the premier sports venue in the South, and sports are very important to contemporary Southern culture, black and white, especially college football (for decades, the winner of SEC went to the Sugar Bowl). That dome will never be super in the same way again.
Now this cultural and historic touchstone has been destroyed or badly damaged, and the flooding of New Orleans may become akin to the burning of Atlanta during the Civil War: a historic event that will forever mark the South. For Southerners, William Tecumseh Sherman is the man responsible for destroying Atlanta: George W. Bush could become the man remembered for destroying New Orleans. Katrina may have flooded and severely damaged New Orleans, but Bush's inept, even criminal, handling of the situation worsened the sitution and has shamed and humiliated the once-proud city--and for Southerners, shame and humiliation have a long memory. Though this won't resonate with non-Southerners, Bush may become the Sherman of New Orleans, the guy who drove New Dixie down.
Politically:
As some are already pointing out, the Katrina/Bush disaster could be the end (or at least a step toward the end) of the conservative movement as we know it, the erosion of its key ideological pillar: the belief in smaller and smaller government and greater and greater reliance on the private sector. As is painfully evident to almost everyone, disasters of this magnitude not only require organized, large-scale prevention and relief projects but actually grow larger and larger without them. We have a here a natural disaster multiplied by a social disaster, the latter easily avoidable with proper policies, resources, management, and leadership. Hence, "Katrina/Bush."
The goal of "drowning government in a bathtub" may have itself been drowned in the floodwaters of New Orleans. Hearing hurricane and flood victims, reporters and experts, and even Republican politicians express desperation and shock at the failure of the President and the federal government suggests that no amount of spin and whitewash will absolve them from responsibility---and beneath all this desperation and shock is the presupposition and belief that the government SHOULD BE actively involved in public affairs.
Socially:
As even the MSM has begun to report, the disaster in New Orleans reveals (or reveals yet again) the profound racial and economic inequities found in the U.S. Kanye West's off-script remarks Friday night were on target: this administration doesn't care about blacks. But it doesn't care about the poor, the underclass, and the lower working class, either. Some middle-roaders may fear that West's remarks will only heighten the racial tensions. I think otherwise. Watching Nancy Grace the other night, I was struck by the number of Southern white women expressing dismay and criticism about the plight of the people still in New Orleans, people who are overwhelming black and, black or white, overwhelmingly poor.
Many Americans may be indeed still be racists, but many more believe (or like to believe) that this country has put racism behind it: they are wrong, but racial equality is nonetheless a value they support. Many or most Americans may also believe "everyone is middle class," but the Katrina/Bush catastrophe reveals otherwise. People have seen that the folks trapped in New Orleans weren't "riding out the storm by partying in the French Quarter." The vast majority stayed in NO out of some necessity or lack: the need to care for a sick or elderly family member, the lack of a car, of public transportation, of money. In the wake of last week, class may have a chance to enter the national debate. FDR once united southern whites and blacks economically. Edwards' "two Americas" is perfectly pitched to do the same today if he and other Democrats make the case.
Economically:
The destruction of Katrina/Bush is already having economic effects both in the local and regional economies (ie, New Orleans and the South) and nationally. New Orleans seems to be almost totally incapacitated, as is the affected Gulf coast. Nationally, the spike in oil and gasoline prices caused by the loss of production and refinement facilities comes atop already record-high prices, and the longer-term effects will no doubt be significant, especially for energy, transportation, and manufacturing, but thus for the entire economy. Initial damage estimates from the storm alone are $100 billion.
On a more intimate level (and tying back in with the idea of two Americas), the sheer callousness of the GOP to announce--amidst death, destruction, and the suffering of so many poor people--that it will push to repeal the estate tax was simply breath-taking, and it's significant that one of the few high-level Democratic attacks last week, made by Sen. Reid, focused on this legislative agenda. The timing of the GOP announcement reveals the contorted face of "compassionate conservatism" and should become a lasting point of disgust and discussion for all Democrats, whether the GOP keeps to this schedule or not. While New Orleans desperately needed disaster relief, the GOP was desperately worried about tax relief for millionaires.
Whither the South?
There are many other dimensions that could be explored here--security, geopolitics, military, environment, health--but my main point, the content of my revelation, is that the devastating effect of Katrina/Bush on New Orleans offers a totally unforeseen opportunity to reverse--or at least begin reversing--the GOP's hold on the South. The opportunity rests not only on Dems, especially Southern Dems, rising with passion and compassion to connect points I've outlined to those made by others elsewhere, but, more importantly, it rests on a corresponding revaluation by Southerners as to which party best represents the interests of the public, the people, the folks who they live and work with. As many rural and even suburban people elsewhere have come to adopt Southern values, tastes, and values, such a revaluation could go national--something this country and the world truly need to avoid more disasters like Katrina/Bush.