Will The Republicans ever figure out why they lost?

[adaher]

That article makes an assertion without evidence. Barbour’s argument is admittedly too rosy. The GOP was always the party of the 10th amendment, so naturally many southerners found that to be a good fallback position after Jim Crow was off the table. The GOP also won on “law and order” issues over the next couple of decades, which a lot of African-Americans saw as a strategy directed at them.

However, Democratic attempts to act as if the racism just switched parties is an attempt to whitewash their own past and portray those who stayed on(almost all of them) as “redeemed” whether they changed their views or not.

What actually happened is that with Jim Crow no longer an issue, voters in the South were more naturally drawn to the Republicans, being more conservative by nature.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

That article makes an assertion without evidence. Barbour’s argument is admittedly too rosy. The GOP was always the party of the 10th amendment, so naturally many southerners found that to be a good fallback position after Jim Crow was off the table. The GOP also won on “law and order” issues over the next couple of decades, which a lot of African-Americans saw as a strategy directed at them.

However, Democratic attempts to act as if the racism just switched parties is an attempt to whitewash their own past and portray those who stayed on(almost all of them) as “redeemed” whether they changed their views or not.

What actually happened is that with Jim Crow no longer an issue, voters in the South were more naturally drawn to the Republicans, being more conservative by nature.

Once again, you’re only exuding ignorance, in the last election I had to endure the racism coming from the Republicans, what happened was that a close relative Tea Partier sent me the propaganda that political right wing groups were using in social media. As pointed before, telling us that it is raining when they are peeing on us is really insulting, go find another message board where your apologia will fly.

[BrainGlutton]

@Oldeb

Part of the GOP schizophrenia on the Federalist/Anti-Federalist issue is that the Libertarians are anti-federalist (weak Federal government) . . .

Wait, are they? Wouldn’t they be all for federal action to, e.g., legalize drugs nationwide and force that on all states? Or to kill off local anti-obscenity ordinances and blue laws? Historically, American states and localities can be every bit as anti-libertarian as the feds, and worse.

[BrainGlutton]

@septimus

ElvisL1ves beat me to it …

… but I’ll say it anyway:

In a proper democracy, government is of all the people. That, as one Republican just admitted, the GOP sees government as serving only its own voters is one reason many of us despise that Party so much.

Well, a party is never all of the people or it wouldn’t be a party.

[BrainGlutton]

@adaher

The first part is right, the second part is not. As I pointed out, most of the racists stayed.

Then why do you have to look so hard to find them?

Internal factions

While the Democrats have a substantial liberal wing among the public at large, the party’s inability to coordinate itself properly results in a political platform that consists of rolling over to Republican schemes and failing to provide effective leadership. The sectarian violence appears below.

Progressive Democrats

European-styled social democrats. In the House they are organized in the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), the largest in the House of Representatives. Some are descendants of the New Left:
Sherrod Brown
Howard Dean
Keith Ellison
Russ Feingold (the only Senator to vote against the original manifestation of the PATRIOT Act)
Barney Frank
Dennis Kucinich
Barbara Lee
Jim McDermott
Cynthia McKinney
Bernie Sanders (self-described socialist; not a Democrat, but caucuses with them)
Pete Stark (the first openly atheist member of Congress[4])

Traditional liberals

Constitute half of the voter base, and take pain to avoid infighting between the separate Democratic coalitions. Centre-left, and don’t share many differences with the progressives anyway:
Joe Biden
Barbara Boxer
Kirsten Gillibrand
The Kennedys
John Kerry
Nancy Pelosi
Jay Rockefeller
Elizabeth Warren
Anthony Weiner

New Democrats

The Third Way moderates. They’ve increased their clout since the Dems’ neoliberal exploits from the 90s and onward, and are represented by the New Democrat Coalition (an affiliate of the Democratic Leadership Council):
The Clintons
John Edwards
Dianne Feinstein
Al Gore
Joe Lieberman (independent since 2006)
Some random black guy[5]
Harry Reid
Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Blue Dogs

Here’s where the shit starts to break out. Those in the Blue Dog Coalition are often accused of being DINOs, siding with conservative thought whenever they wish, most commonly on social issues and deficit hawkery. Officially they are a coalition in the House but a few ideologically aligned Senators are listed as well. They’re typically elected in Jesusland, and are considered flaming lefties there:
Joe Donnelly
Mary Landrieu
Gabrielle Giffords
Joe Manchin
Ben Nelson
Collin Peterson
Heath Shuler

Dixiecrat leftovers and boll weevils

To the right of the Blue Dogs. Not a significant feature in the party anymore, although occasionally one will turn up here and there as a failed Senate candidate, or a centrist Democrat will go haywire and swing far to the right.[6]
Virgil Goode (left the Democrats in 2000, was the Constitution Party presidential nominee in 2012)
Zell Miller

Random populists

These often vote with the progressive and traditional liberal wings of the party, but have their conservative quirky bits. Not easily categorized elsewhere:
Jon Tester
Jim Webb

The libertarians

Yes, they exist too, probably upset about Dubya’s stance on civil liberties and the Republicans’ constant juggling between pro-business interests and the Religious Right:
Mike Gravel
There is also an erstwhile “Democratic Freedom Caucus” influenced by Georgism whose actual influence in the party is negligible.

Only the Blue Dogs and the Dixiecrats could fairly even be suspected of racism, and they’re relics of the past.

[BrainGlutton]

@GIGObuster

Once again, you’re only exuding ignorance, in the last election I had to endure the racism coming from the Republicans, what happened was that a close relative Tea Partier sent me the propaganda that political right wing groups were using in social media.

What was in the propaganda?

[elucidator]

@adaher

…However, Democratic attempts to act as if the racism just switched parties is an attempt to whitewash their own past and portray those who stayed on(almost all of them) as “redeemed” whether they changed their views or not…

That is interesting wording, there, adaher, you have a gift for this sort of thing. “The racism just switched parties…” So, it was all over here, and then it moved all over there? No, no, that’s nonsense. Racism infected both parties, right to the bone. Until we changed. When the people lead, the leaders follow.

Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive, and a racist right to his core. Read some of his thoughts on the manifest destiny of the “Teutonic” races for world domination, and you wonder if it was translated from German. The unions weren’t in favor of racial equality early on, but they came around. Hell, the only political party willing to commit to racial equality was the Communists!

The radicals hack their way through the bush, the progressive build the cabins, the liberal come along when the hot showers are installed. And so it goes.

Civil rights was a progressive cause, slowing progress was a conservative cause. Whether the conservative was a Democrat or a Republican is of no consequence, its like concerning ourselves over the color of their bow ties. Twist it any way you like, but a conservative resists change and a progressive demands it. Whether or not the Democrats exaggerated their progressiveness after the fact hardly matters.

Which leads us to…

…What actually happened is that with Jim Crow no longer an issue, voters in the South were more naturally drawn to the Republicans, being more conservative by nature.

By “nature”? Surely a poor choice of words. But set that aside. There was no “Southern strategy”, the Republicans didn’t pander to the baser instincts? They were simply the innocent beneficiaries? Well, OK, what efforts did the Republicans make to disabuse the Southern Democrat of his delusion that the Republican Party was his proper home? Did they bar the door?

Or did they find themselves, once again, ardent supporters of the Sacred Tenth, firm in their certainty that individual states must find the own separate ways? No, no, of course we don’t approve of racism, but, gosh darn it, we sure won’t force change on you because the Constitution says we can’t. We will tut-tut quite publicly, but that is the extent of the threat from us. The Democrats, however…

Reminds me of Dick Gregory when he was doing the advance work for Chris Rock. Talking about well-meaning advice to go slow, don’t push too hard.

“Take your foot off my grandmother’s neck! NOW, goddamit, not one toe at a time!”

And may the Goddess hold him close to Her bountiful bosom all the days of his life, amen.

[adaher]

@elucidator

That is interesting wording, there, adaher, you have a gift for this sort of thing. “The racism just switched parties…” So, it was all over here, and then it moved all over there? No, no, that’s nonsense. Racism infected both parties, right to the bone. Until we changed. When the people lead, the leaders follow.

That is the argument that is made though, that after the Civil Rights Act, the Dixiecrats switched parties. Except that very few did, and aside from Thurmond, none were Senators or governors. Nearly all of them stayed Democrats, and only a few truly became “redeemed”, and that wasn’t until years or decades after Thurmond changed his views. But see, Thurmond could never be redeemed no matter how pro-civil rights he became, because he was a Republican.

By “nature”? Surely a poor choice of words. But set that aside. There was no “Southern strategy”, the Republicans didn’t pander to the baser instincts? They were simply the innocent beneficiaries? Well, OK, what efforts did the Republicans make to disabuse the Southern Democrat of his delusion that the Republican Party was his proper home? Did they bar the door?

That’s where you go wrong. The Southern Strategy was not an attempt to appeal to baser instincts at all. It was simply recognizing that with Jim Crow no longer a national political issue because both parties were against it, that the Republicans could win the South by appealing to southerners on the 10th amendment, law and order, and anti-busing. That’s not racism, that’s high-minded issues, far superior to the simple Democratic railing against the “black” Republican Party.

Far from being racist, the 10th amendment, law and order, and anti-busing are issues where the public was behind the GOP nationally and still is behind the GOP nationally today. Busing especially is one of those weird ideas that progressives have that pretty much no one agrees with today, so it’s pretty rich for Democrats to claim that the Republicans’ seizing on the busing issue was an example of appealing to baser instincts.

Or did they find themselves, once again, ardent supporters of the Sacred Tenth, firm in their certainty that individual states must find the own separate ways? No, no, of course we don’t approve of racism, but, gosh darn it, we sure won’t force change on you because the Constitution says we can’t. We will tut-tut quite publicly, but that is the extent of the threat from us. The Democrats, however…

The GOP’s record on the 10th amendment is very consistent. The Democrats, on the other hand, have just taken whatever position was convenient.

The Democrats after the Civil Rights Act became a party in flux, and rather than falling back on constitutional principles, they started directly pandering to whatever groups they thought they could win. The GOP, by contrast, remained essentially the same party post-Civil Rights Act as they were pre-Civil Rights Act. They were ALWAYS the 10th amendment, law and order, anti-busing party, it’s just that after the Civil Rights Act the Democrats changed on those issues because they were pursuing a different coalition. Pure politics, not an ounce of moral high-mindedness about it.

[Oldeb]

@BrainGlutton

Wait, are they? Wouldn’t they be all for federal action to, e.g., legalize drugs nationwide and force that on all states? Or to kill off local anti-obscenity ordinances and blue laws? Historically, American states and localities can be every bit as anti-libertarian as the feds, and worse.

Yeah, but it’s better at the state and county level for some reason. Easier to move to a different state or whatever. Most Libertarian plans fall apart if you start assuming people are selfish bastards. It takes a lot of optimism to be Libertarian. The biggest difference in federalist/anti-federalist is at what level of government you want the enforcement to take place.

For drug laws, the Libertarians don’t want anything added on the Federal level. They want a removal of drug laws on a Federal level. States would then set their own policies. It’s like that for most things. They want the Federal government to not pass laws which are then handled on a smaller scale. That’s an anti-federalist point of view. I admit to not holding a high opinion of them, but Libertarians are mostly consistent and not hypocritical about their views. I do give them credit for that at least.

Contrast to the Tea Party which really is federalist except when things don’t go their way and suddenly they’re anti-federalist. They would be ecstatic to see their policies enacted on a Federal level. National anti-abortion laws, a marriage amendment, or even a state religion like the bill that was introduced in North Carolina. When they can’t get their policies on a Federal level or something happens in the Federal government they don’t like, then all of a sudden they’re all about States’ Rights and nullification and crap. This is the stereotypical “It’s okay if a Republican does it” and the people who talked about how you should respect the office of the President even if you disagree when Bush was in office but cheer when someone yells, “You lie!” during Obama’s State of the Union Address. They’re strongly federalist, but only when their people are the Federal government. They keep the Libertarians around for the veneer of legitimacy in claiming, “we always supported States’ Rights and freedom and puppies for everyone.”

[GIGObuster]

@BrainGlutton

What was in the propaganda?

It contained the first examples I found of the term “white genocide” most of the posts were ready and set for Facebook and email, and they played on that term and had “supporting” graphics that showed how liberals and Obama and the Democrats were planning to do that.

I traced most of what they “reported” to racist sites and other very insulting posts to outfits like the Family Research Council, that also was pointed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.

One of my “favorites” was “the cavalry is coming sheriff Joe!” post to support Arpaio as it was very likely that the pressure from the federal government to his methods was going to be lifted because Romney was expected to win.

A lot also referred to Obama and the democrats being anti-white, yet another racist theme:

Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white

“Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-white” is an “argument” often used by white nationalists, white separatists, white supremacists and their ilk. Individuals who make this claim allege that the real bigots are actually the people who claim to be anti-racists, as they have a secret anti-white agenda.

People that make this argument often cite anti-white comments made by certain alleged anti-racists; amongst their favourite targets (in an example of nutpicking) are the former Harvard professor Noel Ignatiev and his colleagues at Race Traitor. This obscure journal (whose correspondents denied the existence of white anti-racists, a denial with which the white anti-racist Ignatiev fully agreed[1]) called for the concept of a white race to be abolished and printed statements which, when taken out of context, appear to be calling for the literal extermination of white people (“The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race”).

The argument falls to pieces when one considers the existence of individuals and groups who identify themselves as anti-racist and yet do, unlike cranks such as Ignatiev, oppose anti-white racism. The Southern Poverty Law Center, for example, has a whole section on its site dedicated to documenting black racists.[2] If it is true that “anti-racist is a codeword for anti-white,” then the SPLC must not be an anti-racist organisation.

IMHO those items are part of the right wing information bubble, and I do remember that it was odd that the relative got that kind of propaganda and information when he was deeply involved on political rallies and outreach with the Republicans in Florida, but then the news showed how several Republicans still got caught with racist images so I have to conclude that there is still plenty of clean up to do with the rank and file of the Republicans, and Hispanics like me are not amused at the spectacle of apologists that only show how “interested” they are in removing those racist members that currently reside in their party. It is particularly insulting when they claim that they are not there.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

The Democrats after the Civil Rights Act became a party in flux, and rather than falling back on constitutional principles, they started directly pandering to whatever groups they thought they could win. The GOP, by contrast, remained essentially the same party post-Civil Rights Act as they were pre-Civil Rights Act. They were ALWAYS the 10th amendment, law and order, anti-busing party, it’s just that after the Civil Rights Act the Democrats changed on those issues because they were pursuing a different coalition. Pure politics, not an ounce of moral high-mindedness about it.

It is pure nonsense to assume that it is the same today.

[iiandyiiii]

@adaher

That’s where you go wrong. The Southern Strategy was not an attempt to appeal to baser instincts at all.

This is laughably false. Many Republicans (such as Lee Atwater) have openly admitted that the Southern Strategy was a cloaked effort to appeal to southern white racists while not alienating whites who disapproved of open racism.

You can pretend that it was 10th amendment and stuff, but that was just the window dressing. Says Mr. Atwater:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

[adaher]

Problem is, the Republicans had those positions before the Civil Rights Act. In order to demonstrate that they became the racist party, you have to demonstrate that something changed.

And when Atwater says, “you start out saying”, what he meant was Democrats. Republicans never ran on that basis. Democrats ran explicitly on race. Republicans never did. Their “crime” was figuring out how to make their existing platform more appealing to southerners without changing their principles. The Democratic platform, on the other hand, was completely useless, so they had to change it, not based on changed principles, but based on pleasing new constituencies that they needed to win elections.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

Problem is, the Republicans had those positions before the Civil Rights Act. In order to demonstrate that they became the racist party, you have to demonstrate that something changed.

I already did, but keep on pretending it did not take place. Anyhow, it is not that all are racist, it is that it is already insulting to act like if there is no need to do something about the ones that are still calling the Republican party their home.

[adaher]

You did not, you just reprinted the usual revisionist assertions that are assumed without evidence.

And there are no racists in the Republican Party that do not have a counterpart at the same level in the Democratic Party.

[Little_Nemo]

@adaher

You did not, you just reprinted the usual revisionist assertions that are assumed without evidence.

And there are no racists in the Republican Party that do not have a counterpart at the same level in the Democratic Party.

But again, this isn’t the point here. It doesn’t matter if the Democratic party is as racist as the Republican party. The electoral reality is that most black voters perceive the Democrats as more supportive to their interests than the Republicans.

So what’s the plan for changing that?

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

You did not, you just reprinted the usual revisionist assertions that are assumed without evidence.

What I reported coming from what my relative I did experience.

@adaher

And there are no racists in the Republican Party that do not have a counterpart at the same level in the Democratic Party.

Bulllshit.

[adaher]

The current plan is to convince African-Americans that free markets and low taxes will enable them to get ahead. And under Bill Clinton, it worked like a charm. Problem is, Bill Clinton is a Democrat, so even when African-Americans benefitted from conservative economic policies the GOP didn’t get the credit for it.

But at least we’ve established that the system works, so we just need a Republican to implement it competently.

However, if African-Americans simply won’t buy into free market economics and federalism, then that’s too bad. Republicans don’t need them to win, so it’s not worth changing the platform over.

[GIGObuster]

Really silly when the white base is diminishing. But your last line is telling us that Kanye West was on the right track and the mask is falling, Republicans “do not care about black people”.

[Little_Nemo]

@adaher

However, if African-Americans simply won’t buy into free market economics and federalism, then that’s too bad. Republicans don’t need them to win, so it’s not worth changing the platform over.

Okay, who do Republicans need to win and what changes should they be making to win them over?