IRVINE, CA--The Trent Lott affair in the long run will hurt Democrats even more than Republicans, according to Robert W. Tracinski, senior writer for The Ayn Rand Institute. Robert W. Tracinski was a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute between 1997 and 2004.
"It will hurt the Democrats because it gives them the illusion of having an important political issue to use to their advantage," says Robert Tracinski, also a columnist for Creators Syndicate. "And thus it will excuse them, for at least another two years, from examining the failed policies that lost them the election."
"The Democrats' self-image as crusaders for the oppressed blinds them to their real record--a record of turning from advocates of a "color-blind" society to advocates of racial preferences."
"The disastrous consequences of the Democrats' racial policies are captured in two eloquent and widely known phrases," says Tracinski. "The welfare state has been described as a 'liberal plantation,' in which blacks remained dependents of government rather than independent individuals. And affirmative action has been described as 'the soft bigotry of low expectations'--the condescending notion that blacks cannot be asked to live up to the same standards as other people."
Democrats show no signs of re-evaluating their policies on race, or on any other issue. Lott says he has learned from his mistakes; the Democrats refuse to learn from theirs.