- Mar 11, 2015
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There ARE whites who aren't scared to look in the mirror.
America’s real law-and-order problem is racism
A conversation with Senator Chris Murphy about the origins of American violence, Trump's willful killing, plutocrats, GOP confessions, and the emotion Biden stirs that's more important than passion
Anand Giridharadas
There is, of course, a long history of “law and order” concern in American politics. As Geoffrey Nunberg once explained, Richard Nixon’s embrace of the phrase for his 1968 campaign reflected a new reality in American politics: in the wake of the civil rights movement, racist appeals needed to be concealed:
In the minds of many of the suburban white voters who, in our peculiar system, have a disproportionate influence over election outcomes, peace is the default condition of white America, and violence is something that bubbles up from Black and brown communities that must be kept in check.
And so it was striking to me, in interviewing Senator Chris Murphy some days ago, that he rightly turned the law-and-order issue on its head. America, he notes in his new book, is the most violent country in the advanced world, and long has been. And he makes no bones about why: white people’s racism.
America’s real law-and-order problem is racism
A conversation with Senator Chris Murphy about the origins of American violence, Trump's willful killing, plutocrats, GOP confessions, and the emotion Biden stirs that's more important than passion
Anand Giridharadas
There is, of course, a long history of “law and order” concern in American politics. As Geoffrey Nunberg once explained, Richard Nixon’s embrace of the phrase for his 1968 campaign reflected a new reality in American politics: in the wake of the civil rights movement, racist appeals needed to be concealed:
The phrase lasted for a few decades, picked up by Democrats as well as Republicans, before eventually fading from usage — until Donald Trump revived it in 2016. Ruminating on Trump’s re-appropriation of the phrase, Nunberg wrote:This was a new maneuver in modern American political rhetoric. Even in the South, most Americans had repudiated explicit racism. Now, crude appeals to bias had to be replaced by phrases that obliquely brought racial images to mind. People often describe these phrases as racial dog whistles, which send a signal that's only audible to one part of the audience.
When pollsters ask voters about “law and order,” or when leaders promise to secure it, here is what many white Americans seem to have in mind: pure, placid, milk-colored communities living in perfect harmony, until darker-skinned people violently intrude.Trump's single-handed effort to revive the slogan "law and order" is the key to creating the perception of a new crisis of crime and violence; it weaves together assaults by those he calls radical Islamic terrorists, inner-city thugs and illegals. The racial overtones of the phrase are even harder to deny now than they were in the Nixon years.
In the minds of many of the suburban white voters who, in our peculiar system, have a disproportionate influence over election outcomes, peace is the default condition of white America, and violence is something that bubbles up from Black and brown communities that must be kept in check.
And so it was striking to me, in interviewing Senator Chris Murphy some days ago, that he rightly turned the law-and-order issue on its head. America, he notes in his new book, is the most violent country in the advanced world, and long has been. And he makes no bones about why: white people’s racism.
Chris Murphy on America's enduring gun problem
A conversation with the Connecticut senator about the origins of American violence
the.ink