Today, Krugman--Yay! No pay wall!--gives the Conservative apologists for the Republican's racist Southern Strategy a good old-fashioned beating, and would leave them whimpering if they weren't all the idelogical equivalent of The Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail*:

The centrality of race — and, in particular, of the switch of Southern whites from overwhelming support of Democrats to overwhelming support of Republicans — is obvious from voting data.

For example, everyone knows that white men have turned away from the Democrats over God, guns, national security and so on. But what everyone knows isn’t true once you exclude the South from the picture. As the political scientist Larry Bartels points out, in the 1952 presidential election 40 percent of non-Southern white men voted Democratic; in 2004, that figure was virtually unchanged, at 39 percent.

Democrats decisively won the popular vote in last year’s House elections, but Southern whites voted Republican by almost two to one.

And the appeal to racism was no accident:

The G.O.P.’s own leaders admit that the great Southern white shift was the result of a deliberate political strategy. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.” So declared Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, speaking in 2005.

And Ronald Reagan was among the “some” who tried to benefit from racial polarization.

[Nice call out on "some", which in this instance means "all," since all took the benefit of what "some" did. Krugman is so attuned to the language these guys use.**]

On to the next straw man:

Reagan’s defenders protest furiously that he wasn’t personally bigoted. So what? We’re talking about his political strategy. His personal beliefs are irrelevant. ... Ronald Reagan was among the “some” who tried to benefit from racial polarization. ... Thus, Reagan repeatedly told the bogus story of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen — a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud. He never mentioned the woman’s race, but he didn’t have to. ... There are many other examples of Reagan’s tacit race-baiting in the historical record. My colleague Bob Herbert described some of these examples in a recent column. Here’s one he didn’t mention: During the 1976 campaign Reagan often talked about how upset workers must be to see an able-bodied man using food stamps at the grocery store. In the South — but not in the North — the food-stamp user became a “strapping young buck” buying T-bone steaks.

I love it.... Now, why is all this past history important? I wish this paragraph could be written in letters of fire:

Why does this history matter now? Because it tells why the vision of a permanent conservative majority, so widely accepted a few years ago, is wrong.

The point is that we have become a more diverse and less racist country over time. The “macaca” incident, in which Senator George Allen’s use of a racial insult led to his election defeat, epitomized the way in which America has changed for the better.

And because conservative ascendancy has depended so crucially on the racial backlash — a close look at voting data shows that religion and “values” issues have been far less important — I believe that the declining power of that backlash changes everything.

Can anti-immigrant rhetoric replace old-fashioned racial politics? No, because it mobilizes the same shrinking pool of whites — and alienates the growing number of Latino voters.

Funny, isn't it, how both the Village and the Democrat consultants are trying to push the immigration "issue" forward, exactly when the Republicans have been tagged with racism and immigration is a loser for Democrats.

Just because the Kool-Aid drinkers have worked themselves into a lather about it doesn't mean squat. So why can't the Democrats call the Village and the Republicans out on this?

NOTE * Yes, Virginia, the Conservatives are totally scripted, and this is the script they are using:

Arthur: Now stand aside, worthy adversary.
Black Knight: 'Tis but a scratch.
Arthur: A SCRATCH? Your arm's off!
Black Knight: No it isn't!
Arthur: Well what's that then? (pointing to the arm lying on the ground)
Black Knight: I've had worse.
Arthur: You LIAR!
Black Knight: Come on, you pansy!

Sigh. It gets tiring after awhile.

NOTE ** I love to watch a world-class intellect eviscerate Conservative talking points. These guys would all be non-tenured adjuncts at colleges nobody ever heard of if they weren't funded by billionaires and teabagging each other, wouldn't they?