1/This tweet reminded me of something I've been wanting to write a thread about for a while: How racism has divided and weakened social conservatism in America.
2/We all know the story of how racism has divided and weakened class politics in America.
By convincing many working class whites that Black and Hispanic people were sponging off of them, plutocrats managed to keep the American working class from uniting, etc. etc.
By convincing many working class whites that Black and Hispanic people were sponging off of them, plutocrats managed to keep the American working class from uniting, etc. etc.
3/What we talk about much much less is how racism has also weakened social conservatism in America by dividing black, Hispanic, and Asian social conservatives from white social conservatives.
4/There are tons of Black Americans with socially conservative values. Christianity is still very strong among Black Americans. There's widespread disapproval toward sex culture, widespread values of hard work and self-reliance, etc.
thehill.com/opinion/civil-…
thehill.com/opinion/civil-…
5/The same is true of Hispanic and Asian Americans. Widespread traditional values of family, work, self-reliance, and conservative traditional morality.
Yet Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians reliably vote Democratic, and the reason is completely obvious.
Yet Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians reliably vote Democratic, and the reason is completely obvious.
6/Black, Hispanic, and Asian social conservatives feel excluded and threatened by the white racial idpol of the GOP. Faced with a choice between voting their values and voting against a force that wants to deny them full American-ness, they sensibly choose the latter.
7/This is why Reagan's thesis -- that "Latinos are Republicans, they just don't know it yet" -- has not come to pass.
brainyquote.com/quotes/ronald_…
brainyquote.com/quotes/ronald_…
8/And this is why Asian Americans have drifted away from the GOP and toward the Dems since the early 1990s. 
9/But the ramifications go far beyond party politics.
Traditionalist and conservative culture in America is being weakened by the racial divide that separates white social conservatives from nonwhite ones. That has made it easier for liberal culture to take over.
Traditionalist and conservative culture in America is being weakened by the racial divide that separates white social conservatives from nonwhite ones. That has made it easier for liberal culture to take over.
10/Now, I'm not a social conservative! The alternate history where white conservatives unite with their black and Hispanic counterparts to block abortion and gay rights in the 90s and 00s is not exactly one that I'm pining for! I'm glad abortion rights and gay rights won!
11/But it's worth pointing out how much racism -- or more specifically, the refusal of a large chunk of conservative whites to see their nonwhite countrymen as their full and equal countrymen -- has hamstrung the social conservative cause in this country.
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