Who’s wrong on race?

December 26, 2007

In one of the more transparently ridiculous campaign ads of the 2006 cycle, the National Black Republican Association ran radio ads in Baltimore insisting that Democrats were responsible for Jim Crow laws, the KKK, and releasing vicious dogs and fire hoses on civil-rights activists. The ad told its African-American audience, “Republicans freed us from slavery and put our right to vote in the Constitution.”

The ad was almost comically inane, and was quickly rejected by voters. Regrettably, Bruce Bartlett, a conservative pundit and frequent Bush critic, has decided to devote an entire book to the same idea.

In a WSJ op-ed earlier this week, Bartlett pointed to “the 200-year record of prominent Democrats” who were “openly and explicitly for slavery before the Civil War, supported lynching and ‘Jim Crow’ laws after the war, and regularly defended segregation and white supremacy throughout most of the 20th century.” The piece included dozens of ugly quotes on race from “prominent Democrats,” drawn from Bartlett’s new book, “Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past.”

According to promotional materials, “Wrong on Race” will “set the record straight” on the Democrats’ “hidden past,” which includes being the “party of the Ku Klux Klan” and the “disenfranchisement of black voters.”

Ironically, Bartlett’s criticism of the Bush White House’s economic policies elevated his stature as a credible political commentator. The premise of his upcoming book seems intent on throwing that standing away with an argument that is both cheap and silly.

One need not have a doctorate in American history to know that the nation’s two major political parties have shifted significantly for the better part of nearly two centuries. The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to two competing constituencies — southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled, ultimately siding with a progressive, inclusive agenda. Racists left the party, and joined the GOP.

With that in mind, it’s not that Bartlett’s quote collection is wrong; it’s that it badly misses the point.

On race, Democrats changed and became the party of civil rights. Republicans, meanwhile, changed and became the home of racists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party.

Bartlett insists that the Democratic Party’s history must not be “swept under the rug as old news,” adding that if Dems believe Reagan’s racist appeals in 1980 still matter today, Democrats’ history has to matter, too.

As Yglesias noted, this also misses the point.

I don’t think the history should be swept under the rug at all. What I think is that the history reflects well on present members of the Democratic Party. The political views of the Southern Democrats were unconscionably evil, and the corrupt bargain national Democratic Party figures struck with them was a terrible thing. But in a series of intense political battles, the Democratic Party eventually broke decisively with that heritage, prompting breakaway segregationist campaigns in 1948 and 1968 and eventually leading the bulk of the white supremacist constituency to drift to the Republican Party.

The significance of the history of race in America — and of the centrality of the Democrats’ corrupt bargain with white supremacy to American political history — really shouldn’t be minimized. But what it shows is that the Democratic Party’s decision to embrace the civil rights movement and the Republican Party’s decision to embrace opposition to civil rights has been integral to the Republican Party’s political successes toward the end of the 20th century.

Quite right. My friend publius adds:

I’m not accusing [Bartlett] of racism. It’s far more banal than that. He just thinks he’s found a rhetorically clever way to bash the hated Democrats. His sin here is not racism, but indifference. The problem is not so much the dishonestly itself, but that this particular dishonesty shows a callous indifference to [historical reality]. Bartlett pretends to care, but isn’t really acknowledging the problem. Otherwise, he wouldn’t strain logic to (1) score points for the party with the wretched racial record and (2) wound the party who’s actually been trying to make these things better.

Bartlett’s central point seems to be that the Dems’ past has to matter. I’m very much inclined to agree — because that party broke from that past to become champions of civil rights. What matters equally is the Republicans’ present — the party not only welcomed the racists who left the Democrats, they became the party of the “Southern Strategy,” opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, Katrina, boycotting minority debates, and opposing legislative remedies to problems that affect the African-American community most.

So, who’s wrong on race?

It doesn’t just ‘miss the point.’ Bartlett, not surprisingly to anyone who’s followed his career as fascist flack, is fundamentally (albeit predictably) intellectually dishonest, to put it as politely as possible.
Why are you being so nice to him? He’s a fascist dick.

  • the scary thing is that republican voters in red states, actually will believe this drivel and distortion. Isn’t this called lying by omission? another Republican strategy. In a way it is good news as well… It just shows how badly they feel about themselves, that they have to smear the opposition.

    Have they talked about anything substantive, other than ‘beat the democrats’ lately?

  • We should be proud of our parties during the ’60s on the topic of race.

    The Democrats repudiated their decades-old coalition with Southern Democrats. They did this on purpose, fully aware of impending political fallout, when Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting and Civil Rights Acts. As predicted, they took some hits.

    In contrast, the Republicans willingly picked up our discarded and disgraced bigotry, fashioning it into Tricky Dick’s “Southern Strategy”. Ironically, considering their relatively recent experience being discriminated against, what little bigotry remained in the Democratic Party was in Northern cities with a high percentage of upwardly mobile former immigrant workers (e.g., Boston’s Irish), which would become the Reagan Republicans. There’s good sociological logic behind that, but it’s still nothing to boast about.

    Even under the old coalition, FDR and Truman did more for working people, including black people, than any Republican since Lincoln ever would or could. For the last half-century there’s no comparison, only contrast. LBJ was both morally and politically correct. I wish the interviewers would ask all of today’s GOP wannabes about their civil rights records, but that wouldn’t suit their corporate masters.

  • As far as facilitating Jim Crow is concerned, that was entirely the responsibility of the Republican Party, who abandoned any pretense of being in favor of the former slaves with the Great Compromise of 1876, which let Garfield – the first Republican to not win a majority of the popular vote – become President with his agreement to cease the occupation of the South and the Federal enforcement of civil rights. It was also 9 Republicans on the Supreme Court who decided Plessy v. Ferguson and put the imprimatur of law on “separate but (un)equal”. And it was Barry Goldwater who led the opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, with such ignorant Southern scum as James Eastland and Russell Long for his “bipartisan” support.

    Oh, and according to Ron Paul, who was repeatedly questioned on this point yesterday by Tim Russert (hoping to get him to see sense, but Paul resolutely steamed ahead making his views “crystal clear, here”) this is the way history really is:

    The Civil War was solely the responsibility of Abraham Lincoln and his ego that couldn’t stand “competing views.” And slavery was “on the way out anyway,” so all Lincoln had to do was either wait for the generosity and economic intelligence of the slave owners to see them free their slaves who no longer made economic sense, or he could have simply purchased the slaves from their owners and set them free “without all the bad feelings that came from the war,” and at much less cost. Buying the slaves and freeing them would have been Paul’s “market based” advice had he been there. Actually he said “that’s what I’m advising here” as if it was still in contention, proving once again that he’s an idiot. Surprise, surprise, he’s Southern.

    And people wonder why I think Southerners who live in denial of the fact that the Civil War was entirely the fault of the traitors in the South, are fools (at best). No wonder they became Republicans, given the true history of the party. My abolitionist great-great-great-grandfather, one of the founders of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, has been spinning in his grave for 40 years, watching The Enemy take over his party – I know for a fact he was heartbroken over the Compromise of 1876.

  • This guy should read a few more history books and that will set his facts straight: very basic history or political science courses that virtually every poli sci student in America takes would tell him that a) modern Democrats are more the heirs of urban populist political parties from the early-20th century that no longer exist, and that fought for things like protections for workers and women’s suffrage, and b) by the time of the Civil Rights movement in the ’60s- if you do a region-by-region comparison- Republicans in congress voted at higher rates against civil rights legislation than were Democrats (that is, Republicans in the north were more likely to vote against civil rights that were Democrats from the north, and Republicans from the south were more likely to vote against civil rights than Democrats from the south). So, at least since the ’60s, the Republicans have been the party against black people.

  • LBJ signing the civil rights act in 1964 did not lose the south for The Democratic Party. If you look at the Presidential Election of 1976, the Democratic Party nominee carried all of the old south. In addition, even as late as 1978, the vast majority of Congressmen and Senators from the old south were Democrats. It was probably due more to the stupid Democratic Party policies of the 1970’s that ruined it in the south for the Democrats. Things such as an deolicing, forced busing, racial gerrymandering, and minority set asides ruined the Democratic Party’s connection with southern whites.

    Remember, in 1979, the Carter Administration was in front of the Supreme Court arguing that having separate and unequal admission programs for university admission was just not legal but good public policy.

  • Pure sophistry, and Bartlett knows it. That’s not what matters to these guys, and we have to understand that. Their objective is to win, and they don’t play by any rules. Just debating his ridiculous argument is a win for his side. His argument is made with a few, quick, emotionally charged thrusts of the dagger. The rebuttal is tedious and full of boring facts and history, that make people’s eyes roll. Score again for these guys.

    I’m afraid you have to fight sophistry with sophistry. Generally accepted rules of debate don’t work.

    These guys are always on the offense, too. Ever notice that? The Democrats are always playing defense. They never get the ball because they don’t know they have to play dirty to get hold of it.

    So, while the Democrats are trying to figure out how to answer this charge, the Republicans are on to their next smear.

  • Remember, in 1979, the Carter Administration was in front of the Supreme Court arguing that having separate and unequal admission programs for university admission was just not legal but good public policy.

    And the Carter Administration was (and is) right to make this argument.

  • Edo,

    The Supreme court rejected the argument and has rejected it ever since. The law prohibits discrimination, period. Yet, it is the Democratic party who keeps trying to find a way to make it legal with such extra-constitutional arguments as compelling interest. It was wrong to discriminate against blacks in 1954, then it is wrong to discriminate against whites in 1979 (or 2004 or 2007).

    If the government can violate one’s civil rights when it creates a “good” reason, then do we really have any civil rights.

    Even 25 years after the Bakke decision, the Democrats in Michigan had to be hauled in front of the Supreme Court again to be reminded that they cannot discriminate on the basis of race just because they mean well.

  • Superdestroyer said: “Things such as an deolicing, forced busing, racial gerrymandering, and minority set asides ruined the Democratic Party’s connection with southern whites.”

    Well if we lost southern whites because of these things, good riddance. I hope superdestroyer was one of the people we lost to the Repugs; his opinions are what keep Repugs thriving and living in the past. For the party of religion, the Repugs sure HATE a lot of things that are today called contemporary and right.

  • ocdemocrat ,

    There is very few around these days who would claim that forced busing for the social engineering purpose of desegregation was successful, contemporary, right, or beneficial. In the end, it was a horrible failure that destroyed communities, schools, neighborhoods with no real benefits. The same can be said for most 8A set aside contracts. Just look at the recent controversy of minority contracting at the Department of Homeland Security.

  • Tom – (Re #13), Man, you are harsh. To the point, straight talking, but harsh.

    It could be that Superdestroyer has a penchant for the MSM and/or Fox, as many of his observations are “Talking Points” lifted straight from the corporate-owned media. Facts and observations be damned, we have the “Conventional Wisdom” of the media, like Republicans are pro-military and Democrats are sniveling surrende-monkeys, right?

    Let’s address a few of these, shall we? I don’t know of any “destroyed communities, schools, neighborhoods” that came about because of forced busing. Some schools were closed (and since re-opened here in my city), and there were problems, but what other solutione were there? Leave things as they were? And to blame the program for any malfeasance buring the Bush Crime Family’s reign (homeland security was mentioned) completly ignores that Republicans hate government and want us to think that it can’t work. Superdestroyer had swallowed that propaganda and regurgitates it back in his comments.

    There’s one type of discrimination that the Supreme Court can’t outlaw, wealth. And we got Commander Codpiece from that! There’s a wealth of cultural facts out there that need to be addressed, and we have processes to work on them.

  • Superdestroyer,

    When I was growing up in “people’s Poland”, there was a system, in the admissions to the university (which was free, but did’t have enough room for everyone who wanted to study), whereby one could get “points for origin”; children of peasants and working class, first generation getting past highschool, etc got a couple of extra points added to their entrance exam scores. Due to that policy, despite getting a B+ total, I lost a place to someone who got a C but came from a village (no library, for example) and a home without electricity (no radio or TV, both of which had lots of educational programs) or running water. On top of which, she spent 3 hrs daily commuting (by bus) to her highschool. IOW, my opportunities — a daughter of white-collar parents with some education, living in the country’s capital – and hers didn’t begin to compare, hence the extra points.

    I was very resentful at first (even though I did get in that year, from the waiting list), until I saw how the system worked. About a third of those who got in “on points” dropped out fairly quickly, so, yes, it was a waste of space. But the remaining two thirds usually caught up with the rest of us within 12-18 months; by the end of the second year, you couldn’t tell who got in on merit and who got in “on points”. They just worked much harder than we did; they were more determined than those of us who thought we were “owed” a place at the U; for them, it was a terrific chance and most of them grabbed it. But, without that “leg up” they’d have never made it to the U, no matter how hard they strove. The policy may have *seemed* to be unfair to people like me, who did better on entrance exams and still didn’t get in but, in fact, it was making things more fair across the board, making up for the earlier inequality.

    And I have a feeling that the racial policies in the US are similar to those policies in my old country; they’re irritating if you end up on the losing end of them and may seem like discrimination but are, in fact only a way of making a more level ground for all.

  • Buzzmon,

    Considering that the last three Presidential candidates for the Democratic party sent their daughters to Sidwell Friends School, National Catherdal, and Andover, the Democrats seem to know all about wealth and its benefits. Of course, those candidates supported policies to limited the education opportunities of middle class and blue collar whites while expanding the education opprotunities for upper middle class blacks (look at the review of who is admitted to the Ivy Leagues under AA and you find virtually no poor blacks. Over 50% of the AA admits are either immigrants or the children of immigrants). Libra needs to review the history of AA and busing in the U.S. to learn that it is never the children of the wealthy who bear the burden but it is the wealthy minorities who reap the benefits. I suggest looking up the history of Jennifer Gratz to see who it really works.

    Of course, the U.S. Constitituion forbids discrimination without due process. The Democratic Party cannot be bothered to amend the constitituion to premit group guilt and group punish. It just settles for violating people’s civil rights on the basis of race instead and ignoring court orders to stop (See the States of California and Michigan).

    It seems like the last thing the Democratic Party and its elected leaders ever support is actually improving academic performance for students. That can be done without busing, without social engineering, and without a huge number of educational specialist. But since the teachers unions does not desire the improving of academic performance in public schools, the Democratic Party has to do want its masters tell it to do.

  • Superdestroyer: “It seems like the last thing the Democratic Party and its elected leaders ever support is actually improving academic performance for students”

    Yeah, that No Child Left Behind is some success, isn’t it? It’s a combination of Laura when she was a teacher( or was it librarian; it’s been so long since she contributed to society to remember) and King George reading My Pet Goat without too many mistakes!

    Super: You are obviously on the wrong board. This is a “reality” based forum; not a forum based on innuendo, lies, and hatred( which you have not shown regarding hatred) that is better off at Malkin or Red State, where they take pride in their contemporary racism against any non-white Christians!

  • Cheap trick! The rethuglians think bring up old history will cause a few black people to vote for the neo-conmen. The black vote is the most solid voting block in this country. There are few black fools (blackwell, armstrong and company) who vote for the party of the “Southern Strategy,” opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, Katrina, boycotting minority debates, and opposing legislative remedies to problems that affect the African-American community. Look around yourself and see no black senators or congress persons in the rethuglian klan meetings.

  • Superdestroyer…

    You blame democrats in general for doing (or not doing) certain things; at the same time you use rare instances of abusing the system to make your point. If we were to do that, every Republican should be ashamed of ever having voted for the Bush administration.

    The examples of malfeasance aren’t just rare, they are common practice, when Republicans are in power. All hiding behind the one exception they are able to dig up, where something didn’t (or potentially wouldn’t) work.

    As libra pointed out about how the system worked in Poland, I was born and raised in a country where we used a similar system. Just like ‘libra’, I didn’t like it either, but it did work and leveled the playing field. It made sure that everybody worked to their potential, unlike what I’ve been witnessing here in America, where there’s actually a race to the bottom: “teach to the lowest common denominator”, “You can be anything you want to be-drivel” etc… This system of course works very well for the upper classes in the Republican party. –> the dumber the masses, the easier it is to tell/sell them what they want.

    Watching Fox News, listening to Rush Limbaugh, reading Ann Coulter and her ilk, is what keeps the Republican masses dumbed down and right where they want you. No need for independent thought or critical thinking, it’s all presented in short talking points and ‘bumper sticker’ sound bites. They sound cool, but wouldn’t even stand up to the least bit of scrutiny, when you’re inclined to do so.

    PS: Double checking a Fox News talking point with Rush Limbaugh’s talking point is NOT considered critical thinking, … that’s just drinking the same Kool Aid from a different glass.

    Having said all that, as a progressive, I can admit that there are some kernels of truth in what you said. Example: The other day on OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) they had a segment where black people were interviewed on what their thoughts were about their community in Portland. One elderly lady was lamenting that her neighborhood community wasn’t what it used to be. Too many new businesses coming into her neighborhood, real estate prices being so high that she couldn’t afford living there any longer, the younger crowd moving away from the area, and yes she eluded that some of it had to do with the busing of school children so many years ago. As a Republican it could easily be taken out of context to prove your point; however, there are MANY communities throughout the United States where real estate prices have gone up, where people have to move because they can’t afford living in the hip neighborhood any longer, the younger crowd wanting to move where the action is, etc….That has nothing to do with race or immigration, or any talking point from the Republicans. To a certain degree, that is what happens when unrestrained Republican policies are allowed to run their course, without government controls, rules and regulations.

    The more Republican policies disenfranchise minorities, the better it is to fit them nicely in the their respective stereotypes. It’s one of those convenient self fulfilling prophecies that Republicans love coming back to.

  • Cleaver**comment #5*** I agree with the first part of your comment but think differently on the civil war “theory”. Lincoln went to war to protect the “Republic”. All the talk about northern tariffs on the south to destroy “their” economy is bogus because they were trading goods produced by slave labor lowering production costs to nothing. Northern states could not compete with the south because of slave labor and weren’t willing to adopt slavery. Southern states didn’t like tariffs and were willing to succeed from the union to keep from paying them. The southern states began to succeed first and opened fire on a federal fort and war was declared in response to that attack and succession.
    The war was started by the South. Lincoln never began trying to abolish slavery. His platform was to prevent the spread of slavery to our western states. He never said a word about abolition in the south. He did want to protect the republic from being divided by these succeeding states (started with just one state but others threatened to follow suit) These points are easily checked and Paul is completely wrong about the start of the civil war and Lincoln. Don’t support his misinformation just because Russertt was too stupid to know better than to challenge him on it.

    Slavery built the south and made it economically a dream to continue. The war didn’t begin because of slavery nor was Lincoln the one who began it or advocated abolition previous to the beginning of the war.
    Why is it Paul supporters can never admit when Paul is mistaken…call him Cheney if it helps to just fact check his words if it helps. Paul is excellent 50% of the time…civil war history is not in that 50%.

  • Not to pick nits, but it’s “secede,” not “succeed”; “secession” not “succession.”

  • andy phx said:
    “Well, with that endorsment the GOP might actually lose their base to the Democratic party.”

    Heh! My thought exactly!
    I can just imagine some Krazy Klan Klown hearing about it and thinking:
    “Well, shitfire! That Demoncrat Party might be worth mah vote after all!”.

  • Crissa,

    The leadership of the Democratic party knows what it takes to produce a great school. They send their children to such academically oriented private schools for the schooling. Of course those schools do not have teachers unions, do not tolerate disruptive students, and hold their students to very high academic standards. The way to reform education is to view every proposal and ask” Does it make the public schools more like Sidwell Friends or less like Sidwell Friends?” The answer will tell you if the proposal should be adopted.

    Bruno,

    You should review how AA works in the U.S. The same black students who were admitted to magnet high schools under AA are admitted to elite universities under separate and unequal admission critera and are then admitted to graduate and professional schools under similar unequal admission criteria. The question that no one wants to answer is how many times should an individual minority be given a helping hand?

    Also, if you look at the University of Texas 10% program, it has failed to produce more black or Hispanic engineers, physicians, or scientist. The programs admits under qualified blacks and minorities who then major in minority studies or other such majors.

  • I moved here from England 20 years ago. I am always astounded by white American males who complain about “affirmative action” and “set asides”. It is quite obvious from my time in the corporate world that the greatest beneficiaries of both are white males. Time and time again I have seen white males promoted way above their ability just because of the assumption that they were competent. Meanwhile I have seen gifted minorities and females passed over. One only needs to look at the composition of the boardrooms in America to know which group is unfairly advantaged. Look at the US Senate and House. Or how about the Whitehouse, every single president in US history has been a white male; all but one a WASP. Yeah we have “set asides” alright. The scale is heavily tilted in the direction of white males. Affirmative action only attempted to lean on the scale slightly to right the balance just a little.

  • Wow. What an intellectually lazy and dishonest argument. Today’s Repukeliscum are the party of Goebbels for sure. That’s the essense of this book. Tell a lie so monstrously large and obvious that people say, “Gee that is such a lie! No one would tell such a lie without some truth!! It must have some truth!!!”

    The Repukeliscum, the party of fascism, lies and malfeasance, is on the attack again. Americans, hold on to the truth, since it is being stolen as we speak.

  • “When I was growing up in “people’s Poland”, there was a system, in the admissions to the university (which was free, but did’t have enough room for everyone who wanted to study), whereby one could get “points for origin”; children of peasants and working class, first generation getting past highschool, etc got a couple of extra points added to their entrance exam scores. Due to that policy, despite getting a B+ total, I lost a place to someone who got a C but came from a village (no library, for example) and a home without electricity (no radio or TV, both of which had lots of educational programs) or running water. On top of which, she spent 3 hrs daily commuting (by bus) to her highschool. IOW, my opportunities — a daughter of white-collar parents with some education, living in the country’s capital – and hers didn’t begin to compare, hence the extra points.”

    That is PATENTLY RIDICULOUS on its face. You KNOW for CERTAIN that this other woman STOLE your rightful place?? No, of course not. You know NOTHING of the sort.

    In the former Peoples’ paradises, there were many problems, and no one can doubt that there were injustices, as well as human rights violations. You do your cause NO HELP at all by coming up with this ridiculous idea that one person’s loss is DIRECTLY caused by the gain of a single other individual.

  • POed Lib,

    You seemed to have skipped over the fact that Congress has ruled several times that unequal admission standards are a violation of civil rights. Even the University of Michigan was found to have violated the civil rights of Jennifer Gratz and others because they were using different admission criteria for whites and blacks.

    I support that you would support a constitution amendment allowing the government to discriminate if it felt it had a good reason? Or do you believe that the Supreme Court was incorrect when it determined in Brown V. Board of Education that separate if inherently unconstitutional?

  • The arrow on my bullshit detector went from zero to one-hundred in a matter of graphs. Uh, they were called Dixiecrats, a group of Dem segregationists. You know, like Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, the band members of Lynyrd Skynyrd. When they couldn’t get their way anymore, they switched to the GOP. Dem history swept under the rug like old news? Come on over to my house and have some sweet tea. We’ll walk on over to the Civil Rights Center in downtown Birmingham. And then on down to the University for a tour of Foster Auditorium for a little taste of Alabama circa George Wallace … sweet home my ass. Bartlett, you’re just wrong. And not very poignant. What caustic rhetoric.

  • The Republicans know their base isn’t able to understand (much less parse and drawn conclusions from) facts that they find unpleasant or inconvenient. The average conservative Republican lives in a fantasy world of make-believe facts and upside down logic. They believe whatever appeals to them.

  • This doesn’t surprise me. To some degree, Bartlett is correct about the Democratic Party. However, it was also the social base of the party—white, lower to middle class Southerners—that reinforced Jim Crow racism. If one wants to see this in action read Kazin’s bio on Wm. Jennnings Bryan, “A Godly Hero.”

    One of Bryan’s greatest flaws was his inability to challenge the racism of his supporters who believed in white supremacy. Anyone who knows their American social and politial history knows that the racist social base of the Democratic Party voted with their feet and left that party to join the GOP in the 1960s when the Dems embraced the cause of civil rights. As as matter of fact, today’s GOP evangelicals are the descendants of that very social base. This was also evident in Nixon and others embracing some of George Wallace’s populist but racist tactics in the 1960s and on.

    There’s never a lie or tactic so sleazy that you won’t find the Republican Party behind. It now has the moral compass of the Nazi Party without its final solution.

  • Good ole populist conservatism (an oxymoron if I ever seen one, heh). If ya can’t get yer mob motivated by marketing, then go to plan B – revise history.

  • It’s a trap, you idiots.

    You waste time arguing/refuting a point that’s clearly nonsensical, making yourselves look foolish in the process. Then your opponents come up with some other blatantly nonsensical accusation to get you all riled up.

    Evidence suggests that you will never learn, and will remain complicit in the undoing of your own public image.

    Idiots.

  • So…we respond in kind? Or should we ignore the big lies because they’re too taxing to refute?

    I appreciate the measured and considered advice that we’re a bunch of “idiots” but perhaps you could grace us all with some special non-idiotic direction in this matter.

  • The problem is that it’s true that the Democrats in control in the South all the way through the middle 1960s. The first Civil Rights Act was introduced into Congress in 1885 (or around that date…I can’t remember exactly) by Republicans, and went down to defeat at the hands of the Democratic opposition. The Democrats then went on to defeat 15 more versions of the CRA from the late 1800s until 1964. Even in 1964 only 20% of Democrats supported the CRA. There is no question that prior to 1964 and the candidacy of Barry Goldwater, the Republicans were the party of racial equality, whilst the Democrats were the party of oppression.

    Now, some Democrats argue that the racist faction of the Democratic Party left after 1964 to create the Dixiecrat Party, and when the Dixiecrats dissolved those racists joined the Republicans in the late 1970s and into the 1980s (these Dixiecrats include such infamous racists as Sen. Byrd, a Ku Klux Klan member, and Sen. Gore, Sr.). Unfortunately for the Democrats who claim this (apparently without ever checking on what actually happened to former Dixiecrats), all but two of the breakaway Democrats actually rejoined the Democratic Party, and either served out the rest of their careers as Democrats, or still are serving as Democrats (as is the case of Sen. Byrd).

    It should also be pointed out that, in 1960, while the Democratic Party’s Demi-god JFK refused to speak to integrated audiences, Nixon did. Nixon was also one of the earliest members of the NAACP. Even Barry Goldwater, who was as close to a racist as the Republicans came, was the founded of the Arizona chapter of the NAACP. Even Dr. King was a registered Republican until 1960, when he refused to register with either party, fearing political isolation.

    I could go on..but there is no question that people who would claim that the idea that Democrats are the traditional party of race-based oppression (and I’d argue that they still are) is “comically inane”, are themselves depressingly unaware of the recent history of political racism in this country.

  • To superdestroyer and others like him or her.

    The history I worry about is not the past history, but present history. And unfortunately that history does not look favorable on the Republican Party. This administrative has showed itself to be incapable of governing. And as to education, that takes money to work. But unfortunately the Republican Party believes that schools as such should be run as factories and that has proven to be wrong very wrong. Children are not and I do mean not machines. Children required the kind personal instruction that is lacking in today’s schools. That kind of instruction requires more teachers and not less. But the dummying down works in favorite of the Republican Party. So The Party is more willing to revise history in order to gain an unfair advantage over their opponents. So most of the base of the Republican Party are for most blind and as the Jesus has said “If the blind should led the blind then both shall fall by the wayside”.

  • Once again we see history as the double-edged sword that it is. One side skews it show their own world view and the other side skews it back. I also have my own skewed view. While the infant Republican Party fought against slavery(aka Lincoln) and the Democratic Party fought for States Rights(aka property rights,slaves were considered property). I see just a bit different light from the same candle. That being that the northern industrialists just couldn’t stand the thought they didn’t have access to all of that cheap southern labor.
    As evidence of that lust for cheap labor I point to the use of the blacks in busting labor strikes in the late 1800’s by Carnegie, Swift, etc etc.
    Another point being that of President Theo. Roosevelt and his integration of the New York public schools while governor and his receiving a black man in the white house while President(the first President to do so). Which, cost him the votes of white southerners, presumably republicans. Of course it was those progressive ideas that then and now keep his name from the lips of the republican party.
    The real gist of this is that the racism that has infected this nation for over two centuries is still with us. But now all we try to do is parse it out and shift blame. We even go so far as to say, “Look at all the great things we’ve done! Now lets go back to the way it used to be”. Or even worse: we just move to a new target(Messicans)and leave the rest behind.
    footsore

  • Senatory Strom Thurmond switched parties in support of Goldwater.
    Jesse Helms switched in 1970, winning an N.C. Senate seat in 72.
    Phil Gramm of Texax switched in the 80’s.

    Yes, several other southern senators remained democrats …OK.

    But still … the Southern Strategy ala Nixon’s strategist Phillips … Come on …Phillips words to the NYT in 1970 are just scary:

    “From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don’t need any more than that… but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.”

    And it worked. Hence the present Republican Party.

  • It strikes me that the central problem is that Bartlett’s argument (which is clearly sophistry) can fail spectacularly at all levels and still succeed. It doesn’t even need to convince anyone, but if it keeps some tiny percentage of the Black vote at home just because of the bad taste it’s left, it’ll have done its job.

  • …the Republican Party, who abandoned any pretense of being in favor of the former slaves with the Great Compromise of 1876, which let Garfield … become President with his agreement to cease the occupation of the South and the Federal enforcement of civil rights.

    Um, no, dear, that would have been Rutherford B. Hayes. Garfield was elected in 1880 (with a narrow majority of the popular vote) and had been in office only a few months when he was assassinated. Garfield was one of the people who negotiated the Compromise of 1877, though, so your criticism is not entirely misplaced. I’m not sure whether Hayes himself was directly involved in the negotiations, though Garfield and the other Republicans involved were certainly negotiating on his behalf.

    It was actually Grant who began the pullout of federal troops from the South, in advance of Hayes’s inauguration, but done, of course, as a result of that Compromise. Interestingly, some of the Republicans that didn’t leave with the troops switched sides and became Democrats. Some of those Dixiecrats who switched back a century later were perhaps just being true to their political heritage.

    the first Republican to not win a majority of the popular vote

    Actually Lincoln did not win a majority of the popular vote in 1860, either, though unlike Hayes in 1876, he did at least have a plurality. (Strictly speaking, Frémont would have been the first Republican not win a majority of the popular vote in a presidential election, but I’m assuming that you meant “the first Republican president not to win a majority of the popular vote.”)

    Ya know, fella, most Southerners are not such despicable people. You could go a lot further toward winning over the more moderate ones if you didn’t go around referring to them as “The Enemy.” (Capitalized, no less!) Not all abolitionists were sweetness and light, either. John Brown, for example, murdered a lot of innocent people. Some today might call him a terrorist. But he was an abolitionist hero. Why don’t we leave yesterday’s political battles for yesterday and concentrate on the very considerable ones in front of us today?

    –An Ignorant Southerner

  • Well, it looks like rewriting history is harder than it looks.

    ‘Republican’ remains the party of control by a white elite, regardless of how many times “Lincoln” is invoked.

  • “Racists left the party, and joined the GOP”

    all two of them. there are a couple dozen others who never left the democrat party until their retirements, but they don’t count.

    then they all rejoined the democrat party to elect carter.

    then they all left again. until ’88 when david duke ran for president as a dem. after that they left for good.

    until recently when a mostly democrat school board elected to overturn a simple in school suspension in jena and expel a group of black students for a schoolyard fight and a democrat prosecutor charged them with attempted homocide.

    then they, er, … you get the picture.

    RWEPUBLICANS R TEH RACITS!!!!

  • we also love those northern progressives and their immigration embargos and eugenicist “solutions” to the catholic and black “problems”.

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