I can understand why you want to believe that and hold onto that myth so tightly. It is very easy to see why Nixon's Southern Policy and the attraction of racists to the GOP is such an inconvenient truth for you and others.
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The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party
- Thread starter Revmitchell
- Start date
I can understand why you want to believe that and hold onto that myth so tightly. It is very easy to see why Nixon's Southern Policy and the attraction of racists to the GOP is such an inconvenient truth for you and others.
The so called southern strategy has nothing to do with race but everything to do with economics. The race baiters like to twist it. They have a right to their own opinions but not to their own facts.
It's easy to believe because it's historically accurate. Lyndon Johnson was a racist that saw blacks as a way to to keep democrats in power. so he enslaved them to the democrat party by any means necessary. His means happen to be money and now we have enclaves of democrat voting ghettos all over the country. They have to keep that money coming and democrats have to keep them in the ghetto.
Ever since then, democrats have been promising blacks the moon for their votes and delivering nothing. A few blacks are wising up, but not the democrat ghetto voters. Millions of them.
Johnson's racist strategy is still working.
CTB, I'm not saying racism isn't alive and well in California. It is. Though out here it was focused more on Asians (Chinese and Japanese) and Hispanics. We didn't have a sizable Africa-American population until WW2.
Racism is alive and well in every nation on the planet. Whites are racists, blacks are racists. Asians are racists, Hispanics are racists. There is no race that is more or less racist than another. There is no country or state that is more or less racist than another.
The new myth is much bolder than this. It insists that these events should decisively shape our understanding of conservatism and the modern Republican Party. Dan Carter writes that today's conservatism must be traced directly back to the "politics of rage" that George Wallace blended from "racial fear, anticommunism, cultural nostalgia, and traditional right-wing economics." Another scholar, Joseph Aistrup, claims that Reagan's 1980 Southern coalition was "the reincarnation of the Wallace movement of 1968." For the Black brothers, the GOP had once been the "party of Abraham Lincoln," but it became the "party of Barry Goldwater," opposed to civil rights and black interests. It is only a short step to the Democrats' insinuation that the GOP is the latest exploiter of the tragic, race-based thread of U.S. history. In short, the GOP did not merely seek votes expediently; it made a pact with America's devil.
The mythmakers typically draw on two types of evidence. First, they argue that the GOP deliberately crafted its core messages to accommodate Southern racists. Second, they find proof in the electoral pudding: the GOP captured the core of the Southern white backlash vote. But neither type of evidence is very persuasive. It is not at all clear that the GOP's policy positions are sugar-coated racist appeals. And election results show that the GOP became the South's dominant party in the least racist phase of the region's history, and got—and stays—that way as the party of the upwardly mobile, more socially conservative, openly patriotic middle-class, not of white solidarity.
Let's start with policies. Like many others, Carter and the Black brothers argue that the GOP appealed to Southern racism not explicitly but through "coded" racial appeals. Carter is representative of many when he says that Wallace's racialism can be seen, varying in style but not substance, in "Goldwater's vote against the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, in Richard Nixon's subtle manipulation of the busing issue, in Ronald Reagan's genial demolition of affirmative action, in George Bush's use of the Willie Horton ads, and in Newt Gingrich's demonization of welfare mothers."
The problem here is that Wallace's segregationism was obviously racist, but these other positions are not obviously racist. This creates an analytic challenge that these authors do not meet. If an illegitimate viewpoint (racism) is hidden inside another viewpoint, that second view—to be a useful hiding place—must be one that can be held for entirely legitimate (non-racist) reasons. Conservative intellectuals might not always linger long enough on the fact that opposition to busing and affirmative action can be disguised racism. On the other hand, these are also positions that principled non-racists can hold. To be persuasive, claims of coding must establish how to tell which is which. Racial coding is often said to occur when voters are highly prone to understanding a non-racist message as a proxy for something else that is racist. This may have happened in 1964, when Goldwater, who neither supported segregation nor called for it, employed the term "states' rights," which to many whites in the Deep South implied the continuation of Jim Crow.
The problem comes when we try to extend this forward. Black and Black try to do this by showing that Nixon and Reagan crafted positions on busing, affirmative action, and welfare reform in a political climate in which many white voters doubted the virtues of preferential hiring, valued individual responsibility, and opposed busing as intrusive. To be condemned as racist "code," the GOP's positions would have to come across as proxies for these views -and in turn these views would have to be racist. The problem is that these views are not self-evidently racist. Many scholars simply treat them as if they were. Adding insult to injury, usually they don't even pause to identify when views like opposition to affirmative action would not be racist.
The Myth of the Racist Republicans
The mythmakers typically draw on two types of evidence. First, they argue that the GOP deliberately crafted its core messages to accommodate Southern racists. Second, they find proof in the electoral pudding: the GOP captured the core of the Southern white backlash vote. But neither type of evidence is very persuasive. It is not at all clear that the GOP's policy positions are sugar-coated racist appeals. And election results show that the GOP became the South's dominant party in the least racist phase of the region's history, and got—and stays—that way as the party of the upwardly mobile, more socially conservative, openly patriotic middle-class, not of white solidarity.
Let's start with policies. Like many others, Carter and the Black brothers argue that the GOP appealed to Southern racism not explicitly but through "coded" racial appeals. Carter is representative of many when he says that Wallace's racialism can be seen, varying in style but not substance, in "Goldwater's vote against the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, in Richard Nixon's subtle manipulation of the busing issue, in Ronald Reagan's genial demolition of affirmative action, in George Bush's use of the Willie Horton ads, and in Newt Gingrich's demonization of welfare mothers."
The problem here is that Wallace's segregationism was obviously racist, but these other positions are not obviously racist. This creates an analytic challenge that these authors do not meet. If an illegitimate viewpoint (racism) is hidden inside another viewpoint, that second view—to be a useful hiding place—must be one that can be held for entirely legitimate (non-racist) reasons. Conservative intellectuals might not always linger long enough on the fact that opposition to busing and affirmative action can be disguised racism. On the other hand, these are also positions that principled non-racists can hold. To be persuasive, claims of coding must establish how to tell which is which. Racial coding is often said to occur when voters are highly prone to understanding a non-racist message as a proxy for something else that is racist. This may have happened in 1964, when Goldwater, who neither supported segregation nor called for it, employed the term "states' rights," which to many whites in the Deep South implied the continuation of Jim Crow.
The problem comes when we try to extend this forward. Black and Black try to do this by showing that Nixon and Reagan crafted positions on busing, affirmative action, and welfare reform in a political climate in which many white voters doubted the virtues of preferential hiring, valued individual responsibility, and opposed busing as intrusive. To be condemned as racist "code," the GOP's positions would have to come across as proxies for these views -and in turn these views would have to be racist. The problem is that these views are not self-evidently racist. Many scholars simply treat them as if they were. Adding insult to injury, usually they don't even pause to identify when views like opposition to affirmative action would not be racist.
The Myth of the Racist Republicans
I understand. The Chinese and Japanese were very much discriminated against. Several years ago I read a book, "The Chinese in America: a Narrative History" by Iris Chang. It is an excellent, but disturbing book. I did not know that the first Separate But Equal law was passed in California to keep Chinese out of school and hospitals. Also, it was illegal for a Chinese to testify in court for any reason, prosecution or defense. Southern states heard about the separate but equal law, thought it a good idea and passed their own versions.
Much of this kind of history has been sweep under the table ... and for we white folk that is rather understandable.
Reading can be dangerous as it may force us to give up long-held and long-loved beliefs.
Here are several quotes from Iris Chang's writings ... not necessarily from the book I referenced:
When the Chinese first came to San Francisco, they were actually welcomed by the mayor and they had special ceremonies for them-again this is when their colony was very small, only a few Chinese.
It was clear that the special interest groups in California really wanted the Chinese to be shut out of the country, because that was where the racial tension was the greatest.
It's a wonderful thing to see a segment of our population that is open and eager to learn more about Chinese culture. It has filtered into the mainstream. You see credit-card ads on TV with white couples and Chinese babies.
The Democrat party is still racist because of its practices of enslaving minorities to government programs like predatory lenders but worse. They target minorities to slaughter their unborn children in a wholesale fashion. It has never given up its racist endeavors.
And that is no excuse racism. Your, I and all who claim Christ should work to reduce the racism in our country. Agree?
You're not interested in reducing racism, but in using what you perceive as racism as a bludgeon and exploiting it for political advantage.
That's what democrats do and this thread is a good example of how you do it.
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KKK today as a whole are a bunch of goof balls who are too drunk and stoned to be very dangerous. The Aryans are some dangerous people. Some factions of the Klan are Aryan. They are dangerous, but your run of the mill Klansman is a joke.
Never said they weren't a joke.