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Notes -
It was on free market principles, not hatefully standing against regulation of hateful exclusion, that Goldwater voted against it. Every time you fill out a form for employment or credit which asks your ethnic heritage, it’s because of a vast bureaucracy of statistics and lawyers enabled by the CRA working in the background for statistical fairness, and more lawyers ready to pounce on and destroy anyone who doesn’t agree.
Of course he handed the Democratic Party a huge PR win by standing on principle, and we’re now about halfway through LBJ’s predicted century of control of the Black vote.
I am really trying to focus on analytical arguments, rather than normative ones. I did not claim that Goldwater was racist, but rather was trying to explain why African Americans might be disinclined to vote for the Republican nominee in 1964. And, it is certainly not surprising that African Americans, and many others, myself included, might hear a candidate say, "free market principles are more important to me than ending Jim Crow," and conclude, "Gee, this candidate might be a wonderful person without a racist bone in his body, but nevertheless his priorities are misplaced; therefore, I will not vote for him."
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