Should-Read: One does wonder how deep the rot went: the self-evident truth of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal was presumably a self-evident lie. And I do not see how anyone looking at the KKK and lynching frolics of the Jim Crow south good regard at least the majority of its whites as in any way "advanced". Those—like Steve Teles and Henry Farrell who argue that for pro-segregation whites like James Buchanan it was not the case that "'individual liberty' had a coded meaning" of white supremacy take note of what was at the core: Matthew Yglesias: "The highbrow intellectual leaders of the modern conservative movement explicitly conceptualized it as a white nationalist undertaking. Trump is true to this legacy and his intra-movement critics are the innovators...
[In] the National Review in 1957, in which William F. Buckley and L. Brent Bozell argued over how the principles of conservatism should be applied to racial issues. Buckley argued forthrightly that white Southerners were "the advanced race," and thus should suppress black voting rights if necessary. In Buckley's words, "The needs of civilization supercede" those of universal suffrage. Here, Buckley sounds like Herbert Spencer. Democracy is great, but it is for those who are equipped to exercise the responsibility. Bozell objected to this cavalier attitude toward democracy, insisting that conservatives had to back the Constitution, including its Fifteenth Amendment provisions. Bozell still agreed with the South's position on Jim Crow policies, but he argued that they should pursue them within the constitutional framework, which included the right to vote...
