Krugman on Race and the GOP

Paul Krugman looks at race, Katrina, and the GOP today. Here’s a couple selections from the column:

By three to one, African-Americans believe that federal aid took so long to arrive in New Orleans in part because the city was poor and black. By an equally large margin, whites disagree. . .

But in a larger sense, the administration’s lethally inept response to Hurricane Katrina had a lot to do with race. For race is the biggest reason the United States, uniquely among advanced countries, is ruled by a political movement that is hostile to the idea of helping citizens in need.

Race, after all, was central to the emergence of a Republican majority: essentially, the South switched sides after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Today, states that had slavery in 1860 are much more likely to vote Republican than states that didn’t.

Krugman ties this into modern Republican politics:

Under George W. Bush - who, like Mr. Reagan, isn’t personally racist but relies on the support of racists - the anti-government right has reached a new pinnacle of power. And the incompetent response to Katrina was the direct result of his political philosophy. When an administration doesn’t believe in an agency’s mission, the agency quickly loses its ability to perform that mission.