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The Ends Justify the Memes
Sometimes I’m kind of amazed by what the Democrats can get away with. Like this little meme here to the right. I’ve seen it a few times on my Facebook feed in a few different forms. They all follow the same theme: Executive orders like the one Obama just signed are awesome, because look, Eisenhower used them to desegregate schools. Check and mate, Republicans.
Of course, these memes depend entirely on one’s ignorance of history, willful or otherwise.
School desegregation had little to do with executive orders save in one, specific instance. Desegregation was initiated at the federal level by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. I know this because back when I argued against judicial activism, my progressive friends used this as their Ends-Justifying-Means Hammer. In fact, anyone could know this because a Google search on the history of desegregation will generally highlight this as the big moment. In 1955, a second case — Brown v. Board of Education II — declared that federal district courts had jurisdiction over lawsuits to enforce the desegregation decision, and mandated desegregation proceed “with all deliberate speed.” The Civil Rights Act was signed into law on September 9, 1957. Eisenhower gets a small mention.
Eisenhower did indeed issue an executive order, but its purpose and purview was far more limited than the meme would suggest. As desegregation proceeded, a few recalcitrant Southern states tried to assert themselves. A federal court ordered the Little Rock school board to comply with desegregation. Defying both US courts and US law, Governor Faubus of Arkansas placed the National Guard around Central High School to prevent integration. Eisenhower met with the governor, instructing him to obey the law, and Faubus agreed to allow the so-called Little Rock Nine to attend under the protection of the National Guard.
Instead, Governor Faubus removed the Guard entirely. When the nine black students attempted to go to school, riots ensued. Faubus didn’t lift a finger to stop them. Finally, the mayor of Little Rock asked the federal government for assistance. Only at this point did Eisenhower step in, on September 23, 1957, with Executive Order 10730. It sent in troops to maintain order, protect the students, and defuse the situation. It had a narrow remit, designed to redress a very specific and immediate emergency. I mean, what sort of president would sit around while people in a major American city rioted – oh, wait …
Note the dates as well. Eisenhower’s executive order was issued after the Civil Rights Act (which had been passed 73-27 in the Senate and 289-126 in the house) and well after Brown. Contrary to the suggestion of the meme, desegregation had the support of all three branches of the government. The president is sworn to take care that the laws be faithfully executed: Eisenhower discharged that oath.
The history of desegregation is extremely well-studied, as well-documented as any event in history could be, and known to anyone with even a passing familiarity with American history. Again, go ahead and do a search on this. I can wait. Seriously, I won’t know if you’ve paused in my post. A plethora of websites treat the history of desegregation. Book after book has been written about it. This is not exactly one of those deeply obscure periods subject to vigorous debate among historians. It’s so easy to do a search on desegregation and Eisenhower’s role in it that it shouldn’t take anyone more than 30 seconds.
At this point, Obama’s supporters are just making things up out of thin air to justify anything the President does. It’s as if they aren’t even trying any more.
And here’s the thing: 
They know they don’t have to. A handful of my friends have already posted this as if it’s a great argument. They know they don’t have to try. Their self-selecting Facebook echo-chamber will believe anything they say.
It may be a long day for me on Facebook.
Published in General, History
The More You Know. Great post, and (again) perfect headline.
I never touch politics on Facebook. It’s mostly tribal signals, and the more politically active (right or left) friends tend not to be… nuanced. I don’t like getting tied to opinions I would never argue.
I treat ricochet as a political sandbox, insulated from the rest of my social network. (Though a quick google search of my names puts my Ricochet profile on page 2(!) of results. I may have to turn to a pen name again.)
[shrugs] Oh, heck if I know. It’s the nature of social media that it’s ephemeral and limited to short bites of text. It’s absolutely unsuited for discussions or analysis. It’s perfectly suited for memes, which flourish there.
So my solution is to ignore left-wingers on social media. And if I want civilized discussion, I go to Ricochet…
I should do a piece on the importance of memetic warfare. Memes are a lot more important than us analytic types give them credit for. There’s an art and science to memes. We should take them more seriously and devote more creative energies to their creation and propagation.
The only way to fix bad memes is with better memes. Think of memes as your gateway to the LIV. The meme is the indivisible unit of information; it’s the lowest common denominator of rhetoric and propaganda.
Or you could think about it this way. People persuaded by the Eisenhower EO meme aren’t going to be persuaded in the opposite by a longer version of it.
Someone please do this. I’d love to post it far and wide. Something like “I’m FDR, and I acted when Congress wouldn’t and imprisoned thousands of people for nothing more than the color of their skin.”
It’s not the number of executive orders, it’s what they do that matters.
Maybe have to stick to broader ethnicities. FDR’s EOs locked up thousands of Americans of Italian and German heritage, too, for the same reasons he locked up all those Americans of Japanese heritage: he hated the ethnicities.
The only worse racist of the era was Woodrow Wilson.
Eric Hines
Mad Dogs & Englishmen had a podcast on Brown v. Board of Education and its results.
http://ricochet.com/podcasts/brown-vs-board/
Time for me to re-listen to it.
They made two points I found interesting (from what I can remember):
As Dr. Strangelove would say, we have a meme gap
I’ve become vehemently opposed to Facebook, period. My life has improved greatly since I stopped using it. (I check now and again because otherwise I’d never remember anyone’s birthday. But that’s the only thing it’s good for.)
If it weren’t for family I’m otherwise not in regular contact with, I’d solely be on Twitter.
Your emailer has a calendar function; you can load important days as reminders in that.
No need for Facebook at all.
Eric Hines
For family, sure. But friends wouldn’t tell me when their birthdays are.