SUBURBIA GAINING POWER

In the race for governor of Louisiana, David Dukes, the ex-Klan wizard and ex-neo-Nazi showed great strength in the suburbs. The 1992 presidential election will be the first in which a majority of the voters comes from the suburbs and therein lies the heavy burden of the Democratic Party.

Suburbanites are disconnected Americans. They most certainly do not identify with the old cities they have fled. The suburbs are a self-contained, self-fulfilled way of life. Suburbanites have, within close reach, their jobs, friends, schools and parks. To them the decaying inner city is alien turf to be entered for professional sports and little else.

The decline of the Democratic Party and the decline of the cities have gone hand in hand. In 1960, John Kennedy squeaked out his razor-thin victory by running up massive majorities in the urban cores. By 1968, millions of whites had fled the cities and many had fled the Democratic Party as well. Hubert Humphrey couldn't find Kennedy's massive inner-city majorities and lost another close election.

At the same time, the politics of race began to intensify. Of course, white America recognized that blacks had been horribly wronged by centuries of slavery and segregation. White America was repulsed by the fire hoses, police dogs and billy clubs inflicted on blacks.

But when the remedies of busing expanded to include young white American families who did not consider themselves to be Klansmen or modern-day slave owners, resentment festered. White flight intensified. The question was asked: why should the sins of the past be rectified solely at the expense of the present generation?

In the 1970s and 1980s, race and economics became intertwined and, as a result, more and more suburban white males viewed themselves as unwanted within a Democratic Party, perceived as favoring blacks at their expense. Whether it was called "affirmative action," "preferences," "goals" or "quotas," access to jobs and promotions became both racial and an economic issue. Ask any young white man rejected for a job or a promotion at a metropolitan police force, fire department or school system if he thinks he is being treated fairly. He might respond, "What did I do? Jobs are scarce. Promotion means a better life for my wife and kids. Why me?"

When it came to protecting voting rights or access to public places, whites could support the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. When it affected the quality of their lives schools and jobs then many of today's suburban whites felt aggrieved. At the same time, civil rights activity shifted from the Congress to the courts and regulatory agencies. Suburban whites felt all the more abandoned and removed from the governmental decision-making process. To them "government was no longer the solution, it was the problem," as Ronald Reagan put it.

In today's suburbia, only an economic crisis sufficient to energize the spirit of old-fashioned Bryanesque populism can sever the race-economic linkage. If things were to get really bad, then estranged brothers in common despair might become political brothers in common cause but then and only then.