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GOP Still Mired in Old Values
Two years ago this month I posted a chart that clearly demonstrated that the Democratic Party has evolved on matters of fundamental civil rights while Republicans have not. I have updated that disappointing graphic:
Published in General
One sees what one is.
I read this Comment as, “And I have nothing more to say.”
All sophomoric ribbing aside, nice article. Gets right to the point.
N.B.: Those people who are obsessed with spelling will probably gripe about the chart, but I am no longer one of them. I don’t mention spelling errors any more. I don’t even notice them! whether they be in Column 2 Rows 13 through 17, or any other place. I can’t stand people who get all exercised about trivial errors like spelling.
Another post this morning had a noun/verb number disagreement (“I don’t know what criteria was used…”). Me? I didn’t even see it, much less feel that I had the obligation to point it out to others.
I hope my colleagues find the new, non-judgemental Camper to be an improvement.
Old, Obviously you have not “grown” appropriately in your political point of view as you have grown older. Tsk,tsk. Equal under the law? – but, but, but , but how would we take into account a person’s victim status and our need to assign blame on the White Nationalist Patriarchy for that victimhood? Such a denial of victimhood would deny millions their special status and benefits, and even worse just think of all the bureaucrats who now spend almost all of their waking hours ( on the clock) defending and even better expanding that victimhood that might then be thrown out of a job! Such a calamity!
You’re not fooling anyone, even that robin watching in through the window.
Nah, I prefer the cranky one.
Let’s try it and see what happens.
Don’t encourage him.
(What a great day is in store. Not even 10:00, and already a Chortle.)
As you probably know, I give equal weight to the recommendations of each of the two main groupings of Ricocheteers–Susan, and everyone else.
So I’m on the fence about whether to go back to my old unapologetic codgerliness, or continue with the new thinly disguised version.
Let your Baucans fly, Mark. No need for disguises.
Gee, Mark, I have no idea what you’re talking about here. The chart looks good to me.
I think I have corrected the spelling errors but I am never sure anymore. I have not yet reached Bidenesque levels of obliviousness but I can see it coming….
As for victimhood, I have told my children exactly what my father told me sometime during my teen angst period: “Your parents are not perfect. Neither were mine. Get over it.”
How come there is no white victim class? The white population in the rural US, especially the South, have had a higher percentage of war casualties in every American war than any other segment of the population, have never known a time of political , economic or cultural dominance, are not the descendants of rich slave owners or robber barons and do not dictate fashion tastes. They were hit hardest in every recession and during the Great Depression. Unlike the children of doctors and lawyers, their kids were more likely to be bussed to achieve numeric integration. Unlike the well-heeled kids of the likes of Clair and Heathcliff Huxtable, they will receive no special treatment if they apply to elite colleges. And there are no campus language commissars or crusading news editors obsessed with the need to erase “poor white trash”, “hillbilly”, “cracker” or “redneck” from the national lexicon.
“White privilege” is more about successful white people blaming the less successful white people for tarnishing their preferred self-image of enlightenment and sophistication.
Now there’s an astute observation! I guess we regular whites don’t have time to be victims because we’re too busy making a living and loving our friends and families!
And mine in response!
I hope someone preserves this as a QOTD. Beautiful.
Hm? Spelling errors?
Cereally, though, I am quite surprised at this progression as I observe it in myself. Not so much failure to notice my obvious typos, but when I simply cannot remember how to spell a slightly tricky word that I’ve always known. (Arithmetic is a repeat offender.)
The disguise failed anyway. Be you.
@markcamp I am one of the few who know(should it be knows?) the difference among(between maybe?) your and you’re. Men and women? What about the other 55 genders?
Really, really, really clever.
I know I keep bringing it up, but I find it so entertaining: The law department f0 my former employer (where I was a lawyer) had a bunch of black female Ivy League educated lawyers on staff (most of whom were offspring of lawyers or professors). One of the outside counsel I used was a white man raised in the Appalatian Mountains of western North Carolina. He attended seminary before going to law school. He called himself a “redneck.” His presence in a room brought more diversity of ideas to the discussion than all of the rest of the staff put together.
I was a champion speller in school. Now, I could not spell my way out of a wet paper bag. Lucky for me there are no more paper bags.
I think the chart is somewhat simplistic.
During the civil rights era, there were not a lot of republicans going to Mississippi to help with voter registration drives. I suspect that some amount of opposition to segregation by republicans in national office was motivated by a desire to oppose democrats. And I also suspect that a level of cohesion of the democratic party drew some support from northern democrats for southern democrats.
As a conservative, I think that trying to claim broad support for the civil rights movement for the republican party is a hard case to make.
Nor plastic.
A higher percentage of Republicans in Congress voted for the Civil Rights Act than was true of Democrats, and it would not have passed without them.
In terms of party philosophy and policy, the Ds were a good century behind the Rs on civil rights and were brought kicking and screaming to racial enlightenment only after the election of John Kennedy.
The point of many charts is to make the complicated simple. It seems to me a chart starts the conversation and in this case a very small part of the conversation. Good points made about motives and other factors. In this case, the chart refutes the tsunami of claims of racism and white supremacism. I’m thinking white supremacist is another and more acceptable of calling someone a cracker.
The point of many charts is to make the complicated simple. It seems to me a chart starts the conversation and in this case a very small part of the conversation. Good points made about motives and other factors. In this case, the chart refutes the tsunami of claims of racism and white supremacism. I’m thinking white supremacist is another way and more acceptable way of calling someone a cracker.
As a matter of party platforms, governing philosophy and legislation it is accurate. Woodrow Wilson resegregated federal employee hiring after Republican Presidents had opened up opportunity. Democrats chose not to rock the boat on segregation (even JFK bailed because he did not want to risk a legislative loss) until LBJ came over to the integration side. Even then, the opposition was largely Democratic.
A higher percentage of congressional Republicans voted to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Bill than Democrats.
Conservatives like Goldwater and Bork questioned the constitutional validity of federal civil rights involvement but, unlike a large segment of Democrats, expressly condemned racial discrimination. Republicans debated means, never ends. Democrats debated ends. Even by 1968, Democrats did not have fully integrated delegations to their national convention.
As for northern Democrats, while prominent white Massachusetts liberals (Endicott Peabody comes to mind) were lecturing the South, the most intense political resistance to forced integration was probably in South Boston. (see, e.g., Louisa Day Hicks).
Majority Democratic support for racial equality lasted about a millisecond as they immediately turned the issue into forms of patronage (affirmative action, quotas) and built an entire grievance industry.
The notion that a principled reluctance to expand federal power is evidence of a lack of support for civil rights or latent racism is partisan doggerel.
That is true (Strom Thurmond was opposed). But I do not recall strong support. Only Senators from southern states opposed the bill in 1965. It was very much regional. Sen. Dirkson was not going to support it until he saw the images from Selma.
So yes, republicans can cite a % of votes, but real support to push it through and to enforce it are different. Just saying this is not something that the party can truly stand on.
Republicans were ambivalent about the Act, because they viewed the Act itself as a mix of good and bad law, which it has certainly turned out to be.
They were adamantly opposed to segregation, Jim Crow, and the atrocities of the Democratic terrorist wing, which started as a brutal campaign against Republicans in the South of both colors after the Civil War, and evolved into a specifically anti-black one.
But they weren’t activists: they didn’t believe in protest marches, never did. Not in their own towns, much less in far-away places.
Northerners (Republicans) were horrified by the actions of the Southerners (Democrats) but believed that it was incumbent on the Southerners to reform themselves without forcing America to throw its system of government on the trash heap.
There’s more to it than that but I’ll stop there.
The original insight of the Southern Strategy was that civil rights enforcement was in the GOP’s political interest, since voters would instinctively blame the Democrats. Then, as now, the Democratic Party was dominated by upper middle class snobs who insisted on integration for others and continued segregation for themselves. This is how Richard Nixon could desegregate schools and institute federal affirmative action and not suffer politically for it; everyone blamed the liberal elitists.
Similarly for decades the GOP loved racial gerrymandering as it naturally led to fewer Democrats in congress.