The term—“Herrenvolk Democracy” or rule by the “Master Race”—was coined to apply to South Africa under Apartheid. However, it has also been applied quite accurately to the American South prior to the Civil War where, in theory at least, all white men were political equal and all blacks a subordinate race.
Ideally, most Americans would like to think that we have moved—or are moving—toward a color-blind politics. The 2016 presidential race shows that this is not yet true on either side of the party divide. Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984 won landslide victories with 68 percent of the vote of white men.
Because of changing demographics, best estimates are that, in 2016, Donald Trump—to win a close victory—would need over 70 percent of the vote of white men. This means—as a practical political matter—Trump, if he’s nominated, is going to have to run a race-conscious and, probably, race-baiting campaign to win.
On the Democratic side of the ledger, we have a reverse logic. Yesterday, Bernie Sanders said in a debate with Hillary Clinton that “white people don’t know what it’s like to live in poverty and ghettoes.” Has he ever visited Appalachia or heard about the experience of European Jews before his ancestors became “Polish immigrants” to the U.S.? Statistically, African Americans have over twice the poverty rate—and the unemployment rate. Yet to state this disparity the way that Sanders’ did, borders on racial patronization of nonwhites by stereotyping whites.
Considering voting in Democratic presidential primaries this year, one can understand Sanders’ dilemma. Hillary Clinton has got 70 to 80 percent of the African American vote winning decisively Southern Democratic primaries, while Sanders continues to win “whitebread” states like New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Nebraska, and Kansas. Exceptions or partial exceptions are Iowa where he apparently lost by a fraction and Massachusetts where he lost by a few points.
African Americans are voting for a white Protestant woman—who’s doing about as well as among them as Barack Obama did against her in 2008—over a Jewish white man. There is no discernible evidence of anti-Semitism here. It would be different if Louis Farrakhan denounced Sanders as a “Jewish pawn,” the way he perversely endorses Donald Trump as a white racist—just as Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X earlier embraced the KKK because they wanted America to racially polarize all the way!
Yet race still matters very much in Democratic party politics. If you doubt it, do a thought exercise. Imagine Hillary Clinton this year running against a politically-established African American man (or woman) with roughly Bernie Sanders’ ideology. What percentage of the African American vote do you think he would get? Probably 70 or 80 percent.
I consider “Herrenvolk Democracy”—to the extent that it has prevailed in this country—a stain on American history. The diversifying of America—which will make it so hard for a Trump to win on an implicit Herrenvolk platform this November—is to the good. However, it is still tempting to wish for the day when racial blocs will drastically diminish in significance in U.S. politics.
