”You start out in 1954 by saying, 'N—-r, n—-r, n—-r,'” Atwater explained. “By 1968 you can't say 'n—-r' — 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 'N—-r, n—-r.”'
Treating intergenerational laziness of inner-city men as established truth, and bemoaning the ways social spending programs supposedly nurture that “culture,” blends seamlessly into Atwater's framework.
There are ways to promote conservative social policies that aren't remotely racialized — they just don't ignite the passions of resentful white people in a politically meaningful way. If I'm wrong, though, conservatives better hope the party doesn't nominate Ryan or any like-minded thinkers in 2016.
A quick point of trivia: I first learned about Atwater's comments years ago, in
this New York Times column by Bob Herbert questioning why anybody was surprised to hear GOP education secretary--talk radio host Bill Bennett say, “I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.”