Wednesday Afternoon Thread: Sacred Trust

The party of civil rights
By Steve Benen – Wed May 23, 2012 1:34 PM EDT.

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Kevin Williamson covers some well-traveled ground this week, making the case that, despite popular political “myth,” it’s the Republican Party that’s the “party of civil rights

That Republicans have let Democrats get away with this mountebankery is a symptom of their political fecklessness, and in letting them get away with it the GOP has allowed itself to be cut off rhetorically from a pantheon of Republican political heroes, from Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to Susan B. Anthony, who represent an expression of conservative ideals as true and relevant today as it was in the 19th century.

Perhaps even worse, the Democrats have been allowed to rhetorically bury their Bull Connors, their longstanding affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, and their pitiless opposition to practically every major piece of civil-rights legislation for a century.

The right brings this up from time to time, sometimes as a defensive reaction when Republicans are feeling vulnerable on civil rights, but usually as a way of trying to convince African-American voters to ignore the last several decades and break from the Democratic coalition.

But the historical record doesn’t do the GOP any favors.

The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to two broad, competing constituencies — southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled with this conflict for years, before ultimately siding with an inclusive, liberal agenda.

As the party shifted, the Democratic mainstream embraced its new role. Republicans, meanwhile, also changed. In the wake of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party welcomed the white supremacists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Indeed, in 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater boasted of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and made it part of his platform. It was right around this time when figures like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond made the transition — leaving the progressive, diverse, tolerant Democratic Party for the GOP.

In the years that followed, Democrats embraced their role as the party of inclusion and civil rights. Republicans, meanwhile, became the party of the “Southern Strategy,” opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, and politicians like Helms and Thurmond.

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Williamson’s piece emphasizes Democratic votes from mid-19th century. His observations aren’t wrong — Democrats were, in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War — on the wrong side.

The problem, however, is with the relevance of Williamson’s observation. Which matters more in contemporary politics: that white supremacists were Democrats in the latter half of the 19th century or that white supremacists made a new home in the Republican Party in the latter half of the 20th century?

Democrats have no reason to sweep this history under the rug: they eventually got it right, and dispatched the racists and segregationists to the GOP, which welcomed them and their racial attitudes. Indeed, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee conceded just two years ago that his party deliberately used racial division for electoral gain for the last four decades. (This includes, by the way, Ronald Reagan.)

By Williamson’s reasoning, voters should care less about the last four decades, and more about the Democratic Party’s divisions four generations ago. I’m afraid that’s backwards.

If history ended in the 1960s, Williamson may have a slightly more legitimate point. But given what we’ve seen over the last half-century, the more salient point is that Dems have been part of the solution on race, and the GOP has been part of the problem.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/23/11832448-the-party-of-civil-rights?lite

anyone here been on a cruise to Alaska? did you like it?

miranda – — – - -NOPE – - -STILL NOT POST-RACIAL – —

—–1st black police chief in Jasper, Texas confronts racial tensions post-James Byrd – - -

– —-A FIRST!! — -experience – –RACIAL TENSION! —

— -Jasper, Texas is known for troubled history when it comes to race. In 1999, the town’s first black highway patrolman, Rodney Pearson, was on the scene when a black man James Byrd Jr., was dragged to death by three white supremacists. A little more than a decade later Pearson was elected as Jasper’s first black police chief. The racism he witnessed more than 10 years earlier in Jasper, Texas is still very much alive today. AOL has the rest of the story.

“East Texas is really a part of the country that the civil rights movement missed,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, referring to racial tensions there. . .
THERE IS MORE.

Any POU FAM testimonies? – –:>) THANK U. :>)

Thanks for the Deval Patrick interview clip. I usually prefer having splinters pushed under my finger nails to watching CNN so I miss a lot of stuff.

Oh Lord, just saw on our news that Romney had a great week and is ahead in polls. That was just on the CBC. What world are they in. OH and the Republican they had on credit that with The President going after the catholic church

miranda – - – - -YEAH! WE GON —-GLOAT – - CHEER!! -annnd “BUBBLE – -in “E” – - -4 “EPIC FAILIN’” – - – - –HAH!! – - -

– - -Seventeenth Group Drops ALEC – –

– - – -Scantron today became the seventeenth group to drop ALEC. The test-grading and online tutoring company told the Center for Media and Democracy that they cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council — a conservative group known for crafting legislation including voter supression laws and the “Stand Your Ground” law that protected George Zimmerman. Other groups that have dropped ALEC include: The National Association of Charter School Authorizers, Kaplan, Procter & Gamble, Yum! Brands, five Pennsylvania legislators, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Reed Elsevier, American Traffic Solutions, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft, Intuit, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wendy’s, Mars, Inc., Arizona Public Service, and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

4 SURE – –IMMA B ***weepy* – - -NOW!! :>) – -

Romney: “I know how to read a balance sheet.”
Bashir: “So does Bernie Madoff, but that doesn’t qualify him to be president”

miranda —-Gotta post THIS!. – —teh WILLARD seems 2 B STUCK on – -low –EVEN numbers – - –

—- – –Romney Promises 6% Unemployment
First term would bring a vast improvement, he assures ‘Time’ – –

– —Talk about an ambitious campaign promise: Mitt Romney today assures the American people that should he be elected, the unemployment rate would fall to 6% during his first term. “I can tell you that over a period of four years, by virtue of the policies that we’d put in place, we’d get the unemployment rate down to 6%, and perhaps a little lower,” he tells Time in an interview picked up by CNN and the Washington Post.

The Congressional Budget Office expects the unemployment level, currently at 8.1%, to remain above 8% through next year. But based on the current rate of growth, it is predicted to hit 7% by the end of 2015 and 5.5% by the end of 2017, meaning Romney may actually see his dream come true—regardless of whether he’s elected. – –LOL – -
THERE IS MORE.

— --FIRST – – -Romney targets- 4 percent- unemployment- -5-4-12 – - –

— -SECONDLY – –Mitt Romney today assures the American people that should he be elected, the unemployment rate would fall to - 6% -during his first term.

— -THIRDLY:- – –He LIED annnd said that MR. PRESIDENT PROMISED 2 get the U.R. —down to – –8% – - THAT has BEEN – –FACT-CHECKED!! – - -Mr. PRESIDENT NEVA SAID THAT.

BUT – –that – –PHOOL couldn’t recognize that –8.1% – – is as CLOSE 2 — 8% as it can get.!! Sooo he CONTINUED 2 criticise – –MR. PRESIDENT!! – -SAAAAA-LAP! – –

– - — 4 ALL the EVEN NUMBERS that he is FIXATED ON – —HE IS – - -VERY – –ODD! – - – - — -Jus’ sayin’. . . . . :>)