Today on Uncommon Knowledge, Shelby Steele on what the Republican Party must do—or rather, on what it must not. The author of A Bound Man:
Whites in general used to be stigmatized as racists. By going with Obama, liberals now feel that they’ve escaped that stigma. That means the stigmatization of whites is now focused on the Republican Party and on conservatism as a point of view. [Liberals say] this is where racism is now located, and we can isolate it in those red states in the South and Southwest.
It is going to be a difficult, difficult struggle for the Republican Party. My fear is that Republicans will end up betraying what is good about them—the values of fairness and merit—to get back in the game. That’s how societies decline. [They] trade away those values.
More here.