The losing Buckley argument was one that would continue to be a touchstone of the Republican credo on race until today: that in America, race doesn’t matter; anyone can succeed. It is the essence of the “color blind” assertion that is perversely racist but reassuring to white people. It has the benefits of sounding antiracist—we are all people, or, as it were, “all lives matter”—but is in practice deeply racist because it ignores the reality of the impact of race in every element of American society.
