The only thing I have to add (besides another thank you) is to address this:
That supposition was based solely on a previous post of yours (or was it LonesomePolecat’s?) that (evidently) led me astray.
I agree. But what will happen when the Religious Right realises it’s being taken for a ride by the GOP?
It’s only a matter of time, unless you believe the GOP will seriously consider the marriage amendment, or overturning Roe v. Wade. Not to mention failing to fund the promised faith-based initiatives.
However it works out, we’re going to end up with a whole bunch of angry people. Add an economic downturn to the mix and maybe you’ll understand why I’m worried. Is there a way out of this mess?
But there weren’t white riots in the South in the 1960’s in response to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 getting passed, even as the nation’s economy went ka-plooie with the oil crises of the '70’s.
What will happen is pretty simple, because it’s what has always happened: eventually, forward-thinking Republicans and Democrats will get together and pass legislation and the matter will be considered moot and done with. Then someone will create a major third party as a last gasp to prove that those who oppose it still have some power; they’ll fail, and their supporters will filter out to both parties on other issues. See: segregation and Wallace’s candidacy in 1968; NAFTA and Perot’s candidacy in 1992 and 1996.
Probably attitudes toward the judiciary changed about the time that the stark unfairness of Jim Crow laws, voter “literacy tests” (in which a white man might be asked to read from a first grade primer while a black man–if he had the temerity to show up–would be asked to interpret a philosophical treatise (to the satisfaction of the examiner)), and deliberate violence by “law abiding” citizens and even the police were replaced by court decisions that imposed (perceived) “burdensome” obligations on businesses and governments. It probably furthered the change in view that such decisions were handed down in the same time period that other decisions guaranteeing more rights to the accused and even to the convicted as well as decisions such as Row v Wade flew in the face of years of tradition, but were not offset by the pictures of police dogs, fire hoses, and lynchings.
None of these attitudes arose in a vacuum.
(Even the “all deliberate speed” phrase was siezed upon by both Republicans and Dixiecrats as indicating that the changes should probably be implemented over the course of a generation or two, so there was always a (perhaps small) group within the party who were willing to endorse the “noble concepts” while having no desire to implement actual policy.)
I hope you’re right.
But “because it’s what has always happened” is a complacent assumption, and complacent assumptions are what I worry about the most. That’s why I’m interested in trying to gauge the national “mood” or mindset. The US is a large, diverse nation, and even “experts” have been wrong, or surprised, in the past (Didn’t Condi Rice not envision the breakup of the USSR?). As it stands, I’d rather err on the side of “alarmist”. Even if it means inviting contempt from some of my peers.
Yes, it is, John. Trust me, I’ve lived in the North and I’ve lived in the South. The South is more racist. Nothing like what it used to be, of course, but still pretty racists.
:dubious: And that is also true, despite the presence of black faces in Bush’s Cabinet.
So you feel that with your time spent living in the North and South that you are qualified in labeling the entire regions? Exactly how many different locales have resided in south of the Mason Dixon line?
I’ve lived several different places in Florida, which is generally acknowledged as being more “Northern” than the rest of Dixie (having beem much more heavily colonized by Yankee immigrants in the decades following WWII) – and even here, there’s plenty of racism. For instance, in 1994 Betty Castor resigned as Commissioner of Education to become the president of the University of South Florida, and Governor Bob Graham appointed an African-American (forget his name) to replace her. The office being an elective one, he had to run in 1996 to keep his job – and he didn’t dare use his picture in his campaign ads! He knew his only chance was most voters not knowing who he was, other than being the incumbent and a Democrat. He lost anyway; had he won, he would have been the first elected black member of the state Cabinet. (A barrier that still hasn’t been broken.) I’ve also traveled a lot throughout the South, and you run into subtle reminders everywhere you go. I also have family roots here. And believe me, a lot of white people, even in Florida, will say things about blacks that would be completely unacceptable up North. Yes, the South is more racist than the rest of the country, even today.
Well I try not to post in GD much, as I understand I am a troll, but here’s my opinion on a couple things here…
The trend in America today is indeed disturbing. I don’t just mean that in a Bush=Hitler way. I mean I am troubled daily by insane things people around me say and do. Even people I care about, and would under other circumstances call intelligent. So I am hard pressed to blame it all on Bush. That was my let-down last November. Instead of “oh my god our leader is so dumb/greedy/", it is now "oh my god more than half the people in this country are so dumb/greedy/”
Ever since 9/11 people have been much more inclined to use emotion rather than reason to reach important decisions. They like to ignore facts in favor of comforting beliefs. People are more hostile toward anyone “not like me”. I see general intelligence seriously on the decline lately. None of this is new of course, I just see the trend growing quickly. I feel that things would still be rather hysterical even if Bush had lost. I think it is something wrong with people all over the country, though I would still point a finger more strongly at the Red States. I can see it getting much worse before better, even to the point where I think it would take some major catastrophic event to change the tide. What that could be I have no idea, most major events that come to mind would probably just make things MORE hysterical. But something drastic would need to happen to snap people out of it. I don’t see a reasonable discussion like this making a difference. Most of the people in this country don’t have enough brain power to wrap their head around the bigger picture.
Hysteria … I like that word for this more than the F word that has people so defensive here. I’m not going to try to enter the “define Facism” debate. Suffice to say that something is definitely going sour, and needs to be stopped. I think the early comments in this thread about how that word shuts down the debate are very true.
And to the latest side-topics …
Count one more opinion for “the south is racist”. More than anywhere else I have been by far (lived in FL, NC, VA, NJ, CA … and traveled well more than that).
As for the repubs gaining favor there, the trend isn’t necessarily “Racism”, but “Bigotry and Ignorance”. It isn’t just a simple matter of hating blacks, it’s hating Them, whoever They may be right now (or whoever the Bible says to hate). It became gays, liberals, & intellectuals (I love that one). So while it may not be that “Repubs are becoming the racist party, and that’s how they gained in the south,” but they are surely the “We love stupid people” party, and the South will eat that up. (Not saying repubs are stupid … I’m saying they are smart enough to use the masses of stupid people most effectively.) And there are plenty of stats to back up calling the South generally stupid. Mainly education stats, or religiosity stats.
But how can you infer that from just some sparse travel outside of one state? And since you admitted that Florida is by far the most “northern” of the southern states, who’s to say that what you saw there isn’t more telling of that region? I’m not suggesting that to be the case, just trying to defend the region from an often made accusation that I simply haven’t witnessed. In fact, I’ve lived here my whole life and the the only blatantly racist people I know is an older Jewish couple from California, though I will do my best to avoid labeling all west coasters as Jewish racists.
Okay. It’s a case of anecdote v. anecdote. Big country, lots of diverse people. Everyone has his/her own experience. Not objective. Not hard science. So how else do we measure it? Do you have any data from a more objective, broad-based source? If we don’t have objective data, or a scientific way to gauge it, how do we debate it?
I don’t think that we really can debate it, which is why I don’t make any similar accusations about the north whenever this sort of discussion comes up. If my experiences here are any indication of what most of the south is like, and the south IS in fact more racist than the north, then racism isn’t nearly the issue in America that many make it out to be.
I like AgentCooper’s post. I think that the Bush movement has been very successful at marginalizing the libertarian wing of the Republican party and closing ranks behind it. The impetus for drastically expanding the role of government started out as compassionate conservatism and quickly adopted terrorism. Using sound bites and “framing”, they have provided easy answers to the scared masses.
Anyone who has seen the last few budgets and spending bills and cannot see a rise of statism is deluding himself. I’ll reserve judgement on the current one until it goes through Congress and the president signs it into law even after his sweeping cuts are erased. Even nondiscretionary, nondefense spending has gone through the roof. States’ rights are fought against, under the guise of going after liberal “activist judges.” The federal government and the Republican party has seeped into religion and morality across the country. This is not the 1900s or the 1950s or even 1994. This is a whole new animal that has really only arisen since 9/11.
This is what the OP means. I think fascism and I think militarized statism. I think the Republican Party of the Oughts, I think ramped up statism with a few wars. There’s a long way to go, but the superficial resemblance is certainly there. With only three years behind it, the resemblace is still quite superficial, it is still very minimal. But many of us do see disturbing trends.
BTW, I’m a Democrat and lived in Texas nearly my whole life. I do think that the rural South is still quite racist, but it is only because it is rural and change there happens slowly. The Republicans who appeal to the South are doing it not with active racism, but in a passive fashion. Any overt racist would quickly attract national attention and become demonized (see Trent Lott for a demonstration of how sensitive this issue really is, even with Southern politicians). Rather, a game of avoiding and not addressing hot button issues, speaking to the right groups, and subtle winks and nods dominates. A quick example is a listing of politicians who have addressed the Council of Conservative Citizens, which may or may not be a front group for a racist agenda. Or speaking at Bob Jones University. These things are not overtly racist, but they do send certain messages.
(As an aside, you can read any liberal blog and see them bemoan the Democrat’s lack of “framing” and loudly cry for the Democrats to get meaner and more Republican-like in their campaigning and governance. This, IMHO is disgusting and exactly the wrong way to go. The opposition should be addressing root causes of why people want easy answers and appear to have cognitive dissonance. It won’t win elections but it will make the country better.)
You just don’t WANNA debate it because you know that all the logic and rational proof there is, however unusable for a conclusive debate, tends to indicate that the South is still a hotbed of racism. Which, as a lifelong Southerner, I will say it is.
Read the quote I cited. Corrado is saying that prior to the Civil Rights Act, racists in the South voted for Dems despite the fact that their positions on most issues was very different from conservative Southerner’s views generally – their sole reason for supporting the Dem party was racism, which they did to their loss on many other issues.
When the racists switched wholesale to the Repubs – those one-issue voters indeed – it was because the Dems finally stopped being the racists’ stalwarts – which the Repubs became, which is why they now cry “Activist Judge” whenever anyone tries to enforce affirmative action, and are so VERY interested in keeping black people from voting. Mind you, the self-interest that leads the Republicans to act as racists may not stem from any inner impulse toward racism, but it’s a difference that makes no difference, really. If you act consistently as a racist, you ARE a racist, no matter what you may think deep in your heart of hearts.
I did go back and read the quoted text. Logically, if no longer supporting racist policies caused Southerners to change parties, it does not say they did so because the other party was/is racist. In fact, John Corrado’s quote explicitly says Southerners became aligned with the party that represented their other interests.
That’s not to say, as he acknowledges, that there weren’t Republicans who were “overtly or covertly” racist (then or now). It’s just that you claimed “conclusive proof” of support of racism in the post that I don’t see. Purely from a logic standpoint, I believe it’s a case of affirming the consequent.
No. That is emphatically not what I am saying.
What I am saying is that, following Reconstruction, there was little to no chance of anyone being elected as a Republican in the South, much for the same reason that someone wouldn’t have gotten elected as a Nazi in 1946 Poland or a Tory in 1792 America. Yes, racism was part of that as Republicans were seen as fighting for equal rights for African-Americans, but just as much had to do with feeling like they had been occupied by a Republican government that wanted to rape the land and the treasury for their own benefit.
As a result, even Southerners whose ideology was lock-step with that of Republicans would have run and been elected as Democrats. And many of the “Democrats” elected to Congress and the Senate from the South voted with the Republicans on more issues than the Democrats. Southerners did not vote for Democrats “to their loss”- they voted for Democrats who best represented their views (either by being progressives akin to Huey Long, or being arch-conservatives who voted with the Republicans like John Tower and Martin Dies) and those representatives worked to secure their own power independent of party labels. Read Tip O’Neill’s Man of the House to see what power some arch conservative Southern Congressmen were able to hold over their committees regarding Democratic-sponsored legislation that they didn’t like.
If anything, it was the Democratic Party that suffered “to their loss on many issues,” as much of the progressive legislation that Democrats wanted to accomplish in the twentieth century had to be tempered and scaled back in order to avoid the defection of Southern Democrats from the party.
Oh, I’m seeing some hysteria all right. And some need to blame “others” for the problems of America. And some demonization. And some dismissal of dissenting views. So I’m with you there.
Declare, then, John Corrado – do you think the Republican Party truckles to the racists who now vote for it or not? Do you think racists are an important part of the crowd under their “big tent” or not?
I don’t think so. You’re not going to find either party pursuing overtly racist policies, and neither party is going to have a “Salute to the Klan” at their national conventions. Some of the general philosophy of the Republican party (less federal social spending, less government oversight) might have the side effect of appealing to racists. (Non racist me might want to end school lunch programs because I don’t think it’s the federal government’s job to feed poor kids, while racist you might be against them because poor blacks get helped most by them. If the program was cancelled, the racist might be happy, but that’s not the motivation of the non-racist for wanting it cancelled).