Another interesting link and a comment I posted with some information some might find to be helpful. Some other worthy commentators also contributed to this thread.
My comment follows:
Conservatives think because they have Thomas Sowell, Bobby Jindal and Nicki Haley that they somehow can escape the charge of racism.
Rather it is these poor dupes (and I deliberately use that word especially when it comes to Sowell) that are pushed to the forefront in order to try and demonstrate that the Republican agenda and the Conservative movement is not racist.
Just because Condoleeza Rice and Marco Rubio have either forgotten the past or live in a fantasy doesn’t mean we have to. It amazes me how quickly people forget. The Civil Rights era was not that long ago! And everyone seems to have forgotten that white conservatives (including many Christians) led the charge against MLK, the Civil Rights bills of the Great Society, not to mention the later enforcement of Brown v. Board of Education with the mandated busing etc…
As late as 1967 (Loving v. Virginia) we still had anti-miscegenation statutes. Though Falwell and others tried to erase their past records, they led the charge on this stuff.
I heard a conservative say that Romney’s big mistake was putting Ryan on the ticket instead of Rubio. I thought race wasn’t supposed to matter? Why are they so desperate to prove their policies aren’t? Rubio had other problems. Being a Cuban his heritage tilts Republican but he was caught some time ago lying about his family’s story. He painted them as post-’59 Castro refugees. It turns out his folks came to the United States prior to Castro’s ascension. It kind of ruined his whole narrative.
The electoral map is very interesting. Civil War pt. 2 is on the distant horizon. It will be different this time.
Robert Kaplan’s ‘An Empire Wilderness: Travels into America’s Future’ is an interesting read that touches on some of the regional/sociological divisions. In no way do I endorse his views in all his books but he’s always interesting.
And ‘Albion’s Seed’ by DH Fischer is a fascinating read on the roots of our Anglo-culture and how the trends and divides still play out today. It’s a long book but I found it to be a page turner at times. The sequel is also excellent. Reading Fischer you begin to grasp the cultural differences that led to the Civil War.