Would you rather have Rick Scott in Florida overseeing the voting mechanism or Charlie Crist? Would you rather have Scott Walker in Wisconsin overseeing the voter mechanism, or would you rather have Mary Burke? ~Chris Christie, potential 2016 GOP presidential, on how control of the "voting mechanism" by a Republican governor can help a GOP candidate.
My immediate response was "what the hell"? I mean, I know he's a paid "MSNBC political analyst" and I am OK with that. Actually, my opinion of the dude rose after hearing him speak on MSNBC. But having him guest host? Instead of simply contributing? No, I'm not OK with that.
And this instinct proved correct when one of the first things Steele said was "the idea of the Southern Strategy is over. I announced that when I was chairman. We're not doing that anymore".
Baloney! Steele might have said "we" (the Republican Party) would not be doing that anymore, but I don't think the rest of his Party got the message. In fact this might be one of the reasons he got the boot as GOP chairman - and ended up on MSNBC. The GOP saw their opponents win with a Black candidate and they said, "hey we can do that". Or those who did the voting thought that (IMO).
Then they realized they could do much better by appealing to the racists that populate their base without a Black man leading the party. And so he had to go. That's my take, anyway. Mr. Steele himself points out the following...
...if [I] was such a terrible party chairman, how did Republicans manage to gain six governor's mansions, pick up six seats in the Senate - including the one in Massachusetts held for 48 years by the late Ted Kennedy - and sweep the 2010 House midterms by a stunning 63 seats, knocking the shell-shocked Democrats from power? (Michael Steele Blasts GOP Enemies by Lloyd Grove. The Daily Beast, 10/14/2011).
So he only lasted one two year term, after which they got another White guy in there ASAP. Reince Priebus, who is now in his second term as GOP chair.
In any case, this is complete BS from Steele that the GOP "isn't doing that anymore". They doubled down on it with Barack Obama. First they obstructed Obama at every turn, deliberately sabotaging the economy to look Obama look bad. Obama may have been elected to a second term, but that is because voter turnout is always higher when the nation is electing a president. The GOP strategy paid off during the midterms, when turnout is low... and when those who do turn out to vote are generally richer, Whiter and older.
Part two of the Republican strategy was to use their governorship gains to control who votes... and disenfranchise as much as possible - a strategy otherwise known as cheating. According to investigative journalist Greg Palast, this massive election fraud campaign took the form of a disenfranchisement scheme know as "the Interstate Crosscheck program".
Election officials in 27 states, most of them Republicans, have launched... a massive purge of voters from the rolls. Millions, especially black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters... have been removed [from the voter rolls]... by matching names from roughly 110 million voter records from participating states (Jim Crow Returns by Greg Palast for Al Jazeera America, 10/29/2014).
If a match is discovered, the voter could be determined to be a double voter and their name purged from the rolls. Because, as we all know, every single American's name is unique. Two people with the same name (or similar name) MUST actually be the same person voting (fraudulently) in two different states.
Or, it could be that we're dealing with blatant election fraud perpetrated by Republican operatives who strongly believe in "winning" by any method available. Methods like deliberately tanking the economy, playing to the racists in their ranks, and outright cheating. The kind of cheating Chris Christie is hopeful might help him win the presidency in 2016.
So why the hell did MSNBC allow Steele guest host, and have as his first guest Republican Strategist John Feehery, with who Steele discussed potential GOP presidential candidates who "appeal to a broader base of voters". Candidate like Randal Paul, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are all responsible candidates who are "ready to have that conversation". These names represent a "deep bench of good candidates" said Feehery.
"What, is this, Republican propaganda hour?" I wondered. Although the other guest, Jonathan Capehart did point out that the "Republican autopsy" and then ignored the report's findings, instead taking a route that further alienated African Americans, the Gay community and Latinos.
Steele thought this was the Party taking one step forward and then one step back. Right. Lying about no longer using the Southern Strategy isn't a "step forward", Steele. Maybe he believes his own BS, but I find that hard to swallow, given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. A person would really have to have the wool pulled over their eyes to buy that nonsense.
Nonsense that MSNBC should not be allowing to be propagated on their airwaves. Although "Morning Joe" might also be guilty of this. I would not know because I've never watched it. I do, occasionally, tune into MSNBC prior to Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Lawrence O'Donnell, and will once in awhile watch Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz. Matthews is to Middle of the road for me, which may explain why he was OK with Steele filling in for him.
Me, while Steele did an OK job otherwise, I didn't care for his mixing in of Republican untruths and talking up of potential GOP presidential candidates who might tell some fibs to win minority votes - when the Party has done absolutely nothing to indicate they have any intention of making any kind of effort of actually doing anything for these constituents. Aside from paying them some lip service in an effort to fool them into voting Republican.
The question of why poor people vote Republican is not simply an issue of income but primarily race and partly region and gender. Poor people may be more likely to vote Democrat; poor white people are not ~ Gary Younge writting for The Guardian in a 10/29/2012 article, "Working class voters: why America's poor are willing to vote Republican".
The following is an excerpt from the Thom Hartmann Radio Program, 3/13/2012, which I edited for brevity and clarity. Have Right to Work laws made people in the Southern states stupid? Thom answers a caller's question.
Caller: I was wondering, what divides us intellectually from Mississippi and Alabama? Why are those states deemed as being the "stupid states"?
Thom: A lot of it has to do with the history of labor. During the industrialization of the United States, in the 1920s through the 40s... The Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) was passed in 1935 and Union shops started, and the South started unionizing just like the North did. Although most of the industrial activity was still in the North. The South was still largely agricultural, although there was a lot of textile work going on in the south... a lot of clothing being made. And people were forming unions.
Then, in 1946 the Republicans took both the House and Senate for the first time since the crash of 1929. They only held the House for 2 years... they lost the House for over 30 years - they didn't get it back until the year Newt swept the House in 1994. So, during that 2 years they did a lot of damage.
Harry Truman proposed a bill that would give everyone in American free health care. It was Medicare Part E, basically... they shot that down. They then passed a bill called the Taft-Hartley Act (Labor–Management Relations Act) which said that individual states could opt out of the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act [Congress overrode Truman's veto]. If a majority of people in a workplace voted for a union, that was fine, but not everybody had to participate in that union. Which basically makes it real easy for employers to bust unions, and radically reduces the benefits, both to the union and the union employees, of having a union.
The Southern states were the first to jump on this bandwagon and they all became right-to-work-for-less states, very, very quickly. And so, since the 40s they've had lower wages... in the average right-to-work-for-less state people make 5 thousand dollars a year less than they do in a free bargaining state. They are also twice as likely to die on the job.
Now we're almost 3 generations away from this, and I would say that's the largest single reason. Because there was less [tax] revenue [because workers were earning less], there was less money for education and people were stuck in cyclical poverty. It's a genuine tragedy.
END Thom Hartman Program excerpt. If you are a subscriber to the Thom Hartmann program podcast, the location of this segment of audio can be found at 17:50 to 21:21 of Hour 2 on Tuesday March 13, 2012.
Keeping wages low for average workers is ABSOLUTELY the reason why the south is essentially a solid, grim block of poverty. I say this in agreement with a recent post on the excellent blog "Progressive Eruptions", a blog where the proprietor, Shaw Kenawe pointed out the following...
...the south is a solid bloc of conservative voting. This is what southern conservative leaders have done for the citizens who vote against their best interests by keeping those conservatives in office. And here is the result of their failed conservative policies. Nothing but misery has "trickled down" to these southern states. (H/T to Progressive Eruptions. Posted on 7/3/2014 at 7:25am).
And why is the South solidly Republican? The answer is slavery and the Civil Rights legislation signed by LBJ in 1964, previous to which it was the Democratic Party that supported Slavery and racism. But that all changed when Democrats flipped to support to equality and Republicans (several years later) took up the mantle of White racism in order to win the South.
Wikipedia, Solid South: ...beginning in the 1960s, Southern support for the Democratic Party started to decline given its national leaders' support of the civil rights movement, including school integration. The Republican Party began to make new gains in the South, building on other cultural conflicts as well.
In 1968, President Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy is credited with allowing either the Republicans or Southern Democrat George Wallace's independent campaign to keep much of the South out of the Democratic column at the presidential level.
The South continued to send an overwhelmingly Democratic delegation to Congress until the Republican Revolution of 1994. Today, the South is considered a Republican stronghold at all levels above the local level, with Republicans holding majorities in every state except Arkansas and Kentucky after 2010. Political experts have often cited a southernization of politics following the fall of the Solid South.
The South's history of slavery and racism and Republican Party's desire to pander to these voters is why the South is today solidly for the GOP. And the South is poorer than the rest of the nation due to the Republican Party being the party of the wealthy and big business...
From a business perspective... the loyalties of the parties did not really switch. ...the Republicans remain, throughout, the party of bigger businesses; it's just that in the earlier era bigger businesses want bigger government and in the later era they don't. ...earlier on, businesses needed things that only a bigger government could provide, such as infrastructure development, a currency and tariffs. Once these things were in place, a small, hands-off government became better for business. (excerpt from a 6/14/2014 post from the Soadhead blog "Why Did the Democratic and Republican Parties Switch Platforms". Authorship attributed to "Sharon" with quotations from Eric Rauchway, a professor of American history at the University of California, Davis).
So, the flipped platforms referred to in blog excerpt above is in reference to support for Big Government. The Republicans used to support Big Government and now they do not. But they obviously ALSO flipped on the issue of support for African Americans, going from supporting ending slavery to opposing equality/civil rights legislation.
And this is the same Republican Party that began as a reform party that initially opposed slavery. But the priority of pandering to the wealthy won out and the decision was made (by Nixon) that the racist White vote was needed in order to win elections, which is why the Republicans and Democrats flipped positions on the issue of racism; after LBJ signed the Civil Rights Legislation of 1964 the GOP became the new home for America's racists.
And the South is decidedly poorer and dumber as a result. Poorer because big business does not want to pay as low of a wage as possible to workers, and with Republicans in control, they get what they want (Right-to-work legislation). Dumber because, as research has shown, poverty makes people less intelligent.
Image Description: This map shows U.S. poverty rates, which are highest in the south. Red-shaded states indicate poverty rates between 17.9 and 22.8 percent. Orange is 15,9-17.8 percent. Light orange indicates 12.2-15.8 percent, and yellow indicates 9-12.1 percent (source: These Nine Maps Show How The GOP is Destroying Southern States by John Prager from Americans Against The Tea Party, 3/6/2014).
From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats ~Richard Nixon (1/9/1913 to 4/22/1994) the 37th POTUS, serving from 1969 to 1974, when he became the only president to resign the office.
This recent straw man from the blog of a fiscally Conservative Libertarian-leaning idiot..
Willis Hart: On the Hackneyed Leftist Assertion that all of those Segregationist Dixiecrats Ultimately Became Republicans... I gotta go, false, on this one, folks. Al Gore Sr. never became a Republican. John Stennis never became a Republican. Sam Ervin never became a Republican. James Eastland never became a Republican. Everett Jordan never became a Republican. William Fulbright never became a Republican. George Wallace never became a Republican. Lester Maddox never became a Republican... I mean, yeah, you did have Strom Thurmond switching over but one is a hell of a lot different than all and this is one bromide that really needs to be put to rest, I'm thinking. (5/20/2014 AT 8:18pm).
The argument, I'm fairly certain, is that the majority of the vote that used to go Democrat from racially biased Southerners ultimately flipped to the Republican Party. The argument isn't that every single racially-biased Democratic politician who identified with the Dixiecrats switched the political affiliation to GOP.
How easy it is to disprove an argument when you set it up as a straw man! The straw man in this case being the inclusion of the word "ALL" as well as narrowing who we're talking about to politicians. People become set in their ways and cling to their bigotries. That many Dixiecrats stayed with the Democratic Party until their deaths is NOT a big surprise.
The ACTUAL Leftist argument is that the vote of those inclined to racial bigotry flipped from Democrat/Dixiecrat to Republican over time as those people (had a change of heart) or, (more frequently) died. And it is a known fact that Richard Nixon specifically courted the racist Southern vote (people who would have, if they had been alive during the time of the Dixiecrats) voted Democrat.
But this attempt to smear modern day Democrats with the sins of Democrats of yore is old hat for the Hartster. Conveniently he ignores the reality of the situation (which is that the Party that represents the racist vote flipped from D to R) in order to paint the Democrats as the Party of the "real" racists.
The Truth About Republican Racism and the "Southern Strategy": it's easy to say Lincoln was a Republican and the KKK was largely built by Democrats, but by doing so you only prove your own ignorance of history. You're ignoring the fact that as Democrats evolved to embrace equality for African Americans, Southern racists were left looking for a new political party — and they found one that not only embraced their racism and bigotry, it sought it out. (Excerpt from the Forward Progress 6/4/2013 article by Allen Clifton).
What the actual takeaway from this history should be is that the Democrats progressed while Republicans have regressed. The fact is that now/today it is the Repubs who most racially biased voters identify with (the Tea Party wing of the GOP in particular).
Wikipedia: The Republican Party was founded in the Northern states in 1854 by anti-slavery activists, modernizers, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers [and] quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Southern Democratic Party.
[But the Republican Party eventually turned away from their anti-slavery roots...]
Though the "Solid South" had been a longtime Democratic Party stronghold due to the Democratic Party's defense of slavery before the American Civil War and segregation for a century thereafter, many white Southern Democrats stopped supporting the party following the civil rights plank of the Democratic campaign in 1948 (triggering the Dixiecrats), the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and desegregation.
The [Southern] strategy was first adopted under future Republican President Richard Nixon and Republican Senator Barry Goldwater in the late 1960s. The strategy was successful in winning 5 formerly Confederate states in both the 1964 and 1968 presidential elections. It contributed to the electoral realignment of some Southern states to the Republican Party, but at the expense of losing more than 90 percent of black voters to the Democratic Party.
Talk of the Democratic Party having a racist history (which it does) somehow excusing/negating the Republican Party's racist PRESENT is one bromide that really needs to be put to rest, I'm thinking. And we can also awaken people to the FACT about where the Dixiecrat (racist) vote went too (it went to the GOP... which actively courted it).
7/6/2015 Update: Willis frequently posts on the same topic (and says essentially the same thing) many times. As if restating the same belief over and over will validate his bullshit. That, or he simply forgets he already wrote a blog post on the topic.
Willis Hart: On the Fact that Al Gore Jr., John Stennis, Sam Ervin, James Eastland, Everett Jordan, William Fulbright, George Wallace, and Lester Maddox All Got Buried with Their Democratic Boots on... So much for the Democratic racists changed parties narrative. (7/1/2015 AT 9:36am).
As I already pointed out, it is NOT the "narrative" that the politicians changed parties. The "narrative" (reality) is that the voters switched parties. And I'm referring to "voters" as in people who vote, not individuals. The fact that the South is solidly Republican is proof positive that this "narrative" is 100 percent accurate. That Willis insists that the "narrative" is that the politicians changed parties is another of Willis' infamous strawmen (the reason why I call him "Willis I love strawmen Hart").
When he signed the act he was euphoric, but late that very night I found him in a melancholy mood as he lay in bed reading the bulldog edition of the Washington Post with headlines celebrating the day. I asked him what was troubling him. "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come", he said ~ Bill Moyers, on page 167 of his 2004 book, Moyers on America. Bill D. Moyers (dob 6/5/1934) is an American journalist and liberal public commentator who served as White House Press Secretary in the Lyndon Baines Johnson administration from 1965 to 1967.
Conservatives hate that African Americans vote Democratic in overwhelming majorities. Obviously, in their minds, the reason for this must be that they were (and are still being) tricked and/or are lazy. Offer Black people goodies and get them hooked on those goodies. Then they'll have to keep voting Democratic... that or get jobs, work hard and provide for themselves. But, if you're thinking that sounds racist (that an entire group of people could be manipulated in this manner), well, the Cons and Libertarians are quite eager to point out that the reverse is actually true... it is actually the Democrats who are racist!
In fact, the very president who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964was himself "a bigot and a racist of high order" according to Libertarian blogger Willis Hart who repeats a supposed quote from LBJ in a post on his blog...
Willis Hart: Lyndon Baines Johnson 1963... "These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference... I'll have them niggers voting Democratic for the next two hundred years". (12/31/2013 at 8:42pm).
Whether or not the quote is authentic is questionable, but I'll get to that later. First an excerpt from a political talk radio program in which the host, Thom Hartmann, discusses racism with Jennifer Burke of the "Tea Party News Network". Jennifer Burke, herself an African American, subscribes to the "tricked" theory to explain why a majority of African Americans vote Democratic, as well as the claim that it is actually the Democrats who are racist.
Excerpt from the discussion between Thom and Jennifer on the 10/23/2013 airing of Thom's program as follows (Thom does his set up and then introduces Jennifer 2:20 into the first hour & I pick up the conversation at the 5:17 mark)...
Jennifer Burke: It amazes me that the Left tries to take their racist history... the KKK was formed by the Democrats...
Thom Hartmann: Oh, the Democrats were definitely the party of racism in the early 20th century, absolutely. And they changed in the 1960s, and, as I'm sure you know, in the 1970s Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy was to reach out to Southern racists. That's why, when Ronald Reagan was nominated to be president, the first speech that he gave as a presidential candidate; his first official speech was in Philadelphia MI where those three Civil Rights workers were murdered. And he gave a speech about State's Rights, wink, wink. JB: So, State's Rights now equals racism, so Ronald Reagan was a racist?
TH: It certainly did in 1980. In 1980 there still was an ongoing effort to roll back the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. Yes.
JB: You mean the Civil Rights Act that the Democrats tried to stop from happening?
TH: No, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act that the Democrats passed overwhelmingly, Lyndon Johnson signed; and that's how the Democrats lost the South. He told Bill Moyers at the time he signed it that the Democratic Party would lose the South for a generation. Turns out it's been two generations.
[Thom next points out that, although the Democrats used to pander to the racists, now it is the Republicans who do, and that a large number of racists have gravitated to the Tea party. Thom then asks Jennifer Burke what she thinks the Tea Party should do about it].
JB: I have no idea what you're talking about. ... I've been a member of the Tea Party since it's inception, and I've not seen that. Now, what I have seen is a history in the Democrat Party of having a control factor under the guise of compassion for Black people. It was Lyndon Johnson that said, and it holds true to this day, and these are his words, during his Great Society push... "I'll have those niggers voting Democrat for the next few hundred years".
And, that is the stronghold that they have had; that guise of compassion; let us take care of you...
TH: I have no knowledge of Lyndon Johnson ever saying that.
JB: Anybody that tries to get them [the Democrats] to see beyond skin color and to see beyond a certain circumstance; that government does not have to be the answer. And, if you ask me, Democrats constantly pushing big government as the answer to everybody's problems ... "generational welfare" is racist...
TH: Well, it's not always productive, I'll grant you that. Lyndon Johnson did cut poverty in half in the United States, both in the poor Black and the poor White communities, and set the stage for an emerging Black middle class in the 70s, 80s and 90s. JB: And how are Blacks faring under Obama now? Black employment is...
[Thom agrees with Jennifer Burke's statement about Black unemployment, but he correctly blames Reaganomics. Then, as the music indicating that the segment is nearly over has started to play, Thom says goodbye to Jennifer, plugs her writings on Teaparty.net, and thanks her for being on the program... but she has already hung up. The segment ends at 9 minutes & 45 seconds into hour 1 of the program].
That Jennifer Burke is African American does not make the suggestion that Black people vote Democratic because they've been tricked by racist White Democratic politicians not itself racist. Escaping poverty can be extremely difficult, and although welfare can sometimes be "problematic" as Thom points out, the solution isn't to get rid of it. That suggestion, that welfare actually "subsidizes" poverty is self-serving nonsense (this is an actual argument that Mr. LB has made previously).
And that Democrats do not have genuine compassion (and belief that we are our brother's keeper), but that it is only a "guise" maintained for political benefit - is also self-serving claptrap. That government has a RESPONSIBILITY to all the people (including the poor ones) is one Democrats take seriously. "Buying votes" is how Conservatives and Libertarians characterize it because they see their responsibility as being only to the class that funds their campaigns; the wealthy.
The poor, in the minds of the "fiscally Conservative" deserve no representation because they cannot afford it. What we need to do is help the rich and the poor should be satisfied with what is "trickled down" onto them.
Also, as pointed out by a caller to Thom's show later in the hour, the LBJ quote is suspect; the source being an author and journalist who currently writes for NewsMax, of all places! (a Conservative propaganda machine that has a history of lying about Democratic Presidents).
What follows is from hour 1 of the same Thom Hartmann broadcast quoted above, this time beginning at the 37:14 mark...
Caller: ...the woman who gave a quote from LBJ; saying that the Democratic Party was going to have, quote, the "niggers voting Democratic for the next 100 years...". ... That quote can be found all over the internet on Rightwing blogs, and it can be traced back to one book by a very Rightwing author, Ronald Kessler, and it's in a book called Inside the White House. And [the quote] has never been corroborated by anyone else. He is the only person who ever alleged that LBJ said that, that I can find.
TH: To say that trying to eliminate poverty in the United States, when the vast majority of people in poverty in the United States were [and are] White, was going to, somehow win the Democratic Party the Black vote for 200 years; that doesn't make any sense that LBJ would say such a thing... it's not how he spoke; it's not how he thought; and it certainly wasn't his motivation. But it has clearly brainwashed some young Conservatives. Thanks for sharing that with us.
Those brainwashed include some older Libertarians as well (as illustrated by the excerpt from the Hartster's blog above, as well as this comment from the blog of Ayn Rand devotee rAtional nAtion). And Wikipedia notes that Mr. Kessler is also the author of a 2004 book titled "A Matter of Character" which is "an admiring look at George W. Bush's presidency". That is reason enough to strongly suspect that the LBJ quote is not accurate.
While I can not say for sure if Mr. Kessler is the only source for this quote, LBJ's prior actions while in the Senate very much contradict the idea that LBJ was a racist who signed Civil Rights legislation because it would help Democrats trick African Americans into voting Democratic. The following book quote via an article on the Media Matters website...
LBJ biographer Robert A. Caro: In the Summer of 1957... Lyndon Johnson, in an abrupt and total reversal of his twenty-year record on civil rights, would push a civil rights bill, primarily a voting rights bill, through the Senate [even though it had] no realistic chance of passage [LBJ,] in one of the most notable legislative feats in American history, would cajole and plead and threaten and lie, would use all of his power and all his guile, all the awe in which his colleagues held him, and all the fear, to ram the bill through the Senate.
It was, thanks to him, a bill that the House could also pass, and that the President could sign - the first civil rights legislation to be added to the statute books of the United States since 1870. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 made only a meager advance toward social justice, and it is all but forgotten today, partly because it was dwarfed by the advances made under President Lyndon Johnson's Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. But it paved the way - its passage was necessary - for all that was to come. As its Leader, he made the Senate not only work, but work toward a noble end. (Excerpt from Caro's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Master of the Senate).
So, given the quote at the top of my post by Bill Moyers and LBJ's past history of championing Civil Rights legislation, do I think the quote is authentic? No, I do not. LBJ's signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 COST the Democrats, politically. They didn't benefit from it. Yes, the signing of the legislation by Johnson does have a lot to do with why African Americans vote Democratic, but the Republicans have won a few elections since 1964 without the Black vote. Fact is, Nixon's Southern Strategy gave the Republicans a virtual lock on the South (by appealing to White racists).
I find it quite unbelievable that the LBJ who rightly and correctly worried that his actions had "just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come" would also gloat (racial epithet, or no) about how his actions had ensured that African Americans would be tricked into voting Democratic for a long time to come. For this reason my verdict is that the quote is false. And my other verdict is that people who very willingly believe that African Americans are gullible in this manner might be a wee bit racist.
Update 8/9/2015: Bob Mack likes this commentary and has placed it on his Facebook page.
In King's teachings, affirmative action approaches were not "reverse discrimination" or "racial preference". King promoted affirmative action not as preference for race over race (or gender over gender), but as a preference for inclusion, for equal opportunity, for real democracy. Nor was King's integration punitive: For him, integration benefited all Americans, male and female, white and non-white alike ~ Paul Rockwell writing for FAIR, as quoted in his 5/1/1995 article "The Right Has a Dream: Martin Luther King as an Opponent of Affirmative Action".
Affirmative Action. Conservatives hate it. Why? I'd say that it's because they have racial biases; biases they willingly acknowledge or biases they are in denial regarding. Many of these Conservatives (in denial or not) like to cloak their biases in lies about their goal being total equality. As an example I present to you the words of one Dennis Marks, a Conservative who often argues against AA, often asking (something along the lines of), "What is so wrong, Dervish, about giving everyone a fair shake?"
Then he, as many Conservatives have done over the years, quotes Martin Luther King Jr in defense of his anti-Affirmative Action position...
MLK: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. [source].
The "I have a dream" speech was "a public speech delivered by American activist Martin Luther King Jr. on 8/28/1963". A speech "in which he called for an end to racism in the United States". Note the "end to racism" bit. Does anyone seriously believe that racism in the United States has been ended? Witness the stark racial divide in the aftermath of the George Zimmerman verdict. According to a WP-ABC News poll "86% of African-Americans disapproved of the not guilty verdict [while] 51% of whites... supported the verdict".
We are not living in a post-racial society; and I could come up with many more examples than the Zimmerman verdict to prove it. Most (if not all) of us know this, so I believe the following advice from MLK still applies (and I offer this quote to rebut the previous quote from Dennis. A quote he incorrectly believes shows that MLK would oppose AA).
MLK: It is impossible to create a formula for the future which does not take into account that our society has been doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of years. How then can he be absorbed into the mainstream of American life if we do not do something special for him now, in order to balance the equation and equip him to compete on a just and equal basis? [source].
The large number of hits and responses to my posts about the Zimmerman trial were a wake up call to me. Although I'm sure these Conservative bloggers do not represent the mainstream thinking of the Republican electorate (as with the primaries, it appears as though the Conservatives who blog represent the fringe)... still, it was a little shocking to me how racist many of the comments I received were.
The Repubs and racists (those who exist in both parties and in society at large) still have their thumbs on the scale, tipping it in disfavor of Black Americans. Therefore, as MLK advised, it is still appropriate that there exists some method by which the scales can be tipped back (if even only a little bit) in FAVOR of African Americans.
But the Repubs (even though there may be White Dems who fall into the racist camp) are still the party of the racists. They left the Democratic Party and traveled over to the Republican camp after then candidate Richard Nixon used the Southern Strategy to gain "political support or winning elections in the Southern United States by appealing to racism against African Americans". They've been employing it ever since, yet some Conservative are in total denial regarding this strategy.
To illustrate this I present another quote from the Conservative who is hip with those who wish to rewrite history (I'm talking about Mr. Marks)...
dmarks: The Southern Strategy? Quite defensible. When the Dems became racist, favoring "affirmative action" policies which tilted the playing field in favor of blacks and instead of whites, people who wanted a fair, level playing field were understandably disenchanted with the Dems. A ripe time for the GOP, which then and now pushes for a level playing field to come in. (5/5/2013 AT 4:53pm, comment on the blog My Daily Trek).
The Dems became racist by opposing racism? The Dems became racist when they realized racism was tipping the scales in disfavor of Blacks - so it was necessary to come up with something to counteract that? Some will try and convince the gullible that up is down and black is white, but rational thinking people reject this nonsense (peddled by the likes of Dennis Marks and others on the deceitful Right). In response to these people (those who complain about the "reverse racism" of Blacks "discriminating" against Whites), I offer another quote from MLK...
MLK: Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. [source].
In my opinion this quote applies to many Conservatives. Those who do not practice conscientious stupidity or are sincerely ignorant use calculated deceptiveness to dupe others (those in the first camp) into voting Republican. But the duping is only possible because they are receptive to it. If not strongly racist they harbor some racial biases. These biases usually concern Blacks wanting "freebies" (even though more Whites receive government assistance) as well as blaming them for being victims of poverty (even though the number of poor Whites is greater).
Yes, there are more Blacks than Whites living in poverty, percentage-wise, but this is due more to White privilege and generational poverty, and much less to do with poor Black people getting comfortable in a social safety-net hammock created by Dems in an scheme to trick them into not voting Republican. This is the kind of victim blaming Republicans excel at.
The bottom line is that the Republicans will use any tool at their disposal to keep poor people down. That there is a group of people who can't compete (and get ahead) due to their race is just fine by them. In fact, we should maintain that disadvantage. Although they lie about that being their goal, which explains the denials when it comes to the racists in the Tea Party (for example). Dennis sounds sincere, but his denials give him away. It would be another thing altogether if he acknowledged the racism within the Republican Party; if he acknowledged that the ENTIRE PURPOSE of the Southern Strategy was to appeal to Southern racists. He does not; instead Dennis presents a laughable lie that "the GOP... THEN and now pushes for a level playing field".
He says they did this "then", as in back then when Richard Nixon used the Southern Strategy. That would be the same Richard Nixon who said this...
Richard Nixon: From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats. [Source].
But Dennis says the Southern Strategy was all about the Democrats moving "away from equal rights, leaving their political opponents a space to rush into". Sure. Clearly Dennis is employing the big lie strategy... and I find it hard to believe that Dennis does not know exactly what he's doing. Anyone who would defend the Southern Strategy and actually attempt to portray it as an anti-racist platform to go against the "racist" Dems?... I say that person has a screw (or more) loose, or is big lie-ing his ass off.
2/11/2016 Update: dmarks sez (in a 5/4/2015 comment) "whatever someone said about riots being the language of the unheard: they were very wrong on that. Riots are the language of the greedy, the violent, debased, the savage: those who just want to steal stuff and commit savage acts of violence".
The ignorant dmarks is obliviously unaware that it was MLK who said "a riot is the language of the unheard". Which it is. Although, MLK identifying that people riot because they feel they are unheard doesn't indicate he supported it. This I pointed out to Mr. Marks after he wrote "I find it hard to that this American saint of nonviolence was supporting such orgies of violence against innocent people".
Again displaying his ignorance, in that, Dennis, as a White guy, has no clue what's it's like to be unheard. And yet Dennis quotes MLK on his blogger ID page (where it says: "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?"). Looks like another example of a Conservative cloaking his biases, IMO. I'd bet a lot of money that if MLK were alive today he'd be strongly WITH the Black Lives Matter movement... and that Dennis would be calling him racist.
The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case ~Thomas Paine (2/9/1737 to 6/8/1809) an English-American political activist, author, political theorist and revolutionary. As the author of two highly influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, he inspired the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Britain; as quoted in "Dissertation on First Principles of Government" (pub. 1795).
An anonymous commenter (not a sock puppet of mine) said I should "check out this exchange in RN's comment section". "RN" is shorthand for an individual who refers to himself as rAtional nAtion. He thinks he's rational because he subscribes to the Ayn Rand nonsense that individuals acting in their rational self interest aren't greedy as#holes... which is how everyone else on the planet would describe people who follow Ayn Rand's sick Objectivist ideology.
So I checked it out and found a discussion that concerned the (wrong/racist) SCOTUS decision (Fisher v. University of Texas 2013) that we need "tougher scrutiny of Affirmative Action Plans". A commenter who calls himself dmarks (actual name: Dennis Marks), cheered, proclaiming that this ruling was a "victory for those who want progress toward equal treatment, diminished racial bias, and level playing field".
Then the discussion turned to the (wrong/racist) SCOTUS decision (Shelby County v. Holder 2013) to allow states to disenfranchise minorities if they please (minorities that vote Democratic in large numbers). Again Dennis cheered. He SAYS he cheered because restricting the right ability of the people to vote will weed out "fraudulent voters [including] illegal aliens, felons... [and] those who vote in multiple districts. [As well as] those who choose to vote Acorn-style with [a] fake name".
To this I say bullpucky. People who pay attention to the subject of voter fraud know it is extremely rare, and that the much more serious problem is election fraud. For those of you who don't know what the distinction is: Voter Fraud is when individual voters cheat (as per Dennis' examples). This, as we know, if very very rare. Election Fraud is when the officials in charge of running the elections cheat. Examples of this type of election theft include things like hacking vote machines (or servers tabulating votes) to change the totals, as well as the institution of restrictive voting regulations that "discourage" people who are legally entitled to vote from doing so.
This "discouragement" includes tactics like voter caging, challenging voters at the polls (thereby causing them to have to use a provisional ballot, which is a type of ballot that frequently isn't counted), and by deliberately causing long lines in the hope that people will give up or have to leave (because their presence is required by their employer, for example).
So that they can engage in this kind of discouragement of voting by minorities and other groups (like educated people) that tend to vote Democratic is why the Repubs want restrictive voter laws, NOT to deal with "fraudulent voters". We ALL KNOW this, so Dennis is simply lying. This is why the SCOTUS struck down section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 4 is "the provision of the landmark civil rights law that designates which parts of the country must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal government or in federal court". Section 4 covered the states that have a history of disenfranchising minorities (Shelby County v. Holder 2013).
And, as the shenanigans leading up to the last election PROVE, these states are still at it. We have not entered a post racial society, despite the election of the first African-American president. Fact is, the election of Barack Obama has enraged the racists in the Republican Party. Also, and this is crucial in understanding why the Repub Party is now the party of the racists, the Repubs are EMBRACING them. The racists may be a minority, but the Repub Party at large has decided to use them to further their goals.
This tactic came sharply into focus with the ascendance of the Tea Party. The racists who were dumbfounded when the White candidate lost to the Black candidate in 2008 came out in force and joined the Tea Party protests. Although they waived their racist signs (and guns) and spewed their racist rhetoric, others in the Tea Party strongly denied they existed. I visited a Right-wing blog recently, and was informed (by a Conservative with the ID of "kid") that "Tea party people are the most non-racist, non-violent people on the planet".
Kid said it was Southern Democrats who opposed Civil Rights and voted against it in 1964. And, even though Lyndon Johnson (the Democratic president at the time) signed the legislation, it is the Republican Party that we should actually be thanking for the passage of Civil Rights legislation. OK, so Kid has a valid point. Southern Democrats did oppose Civil Rights. Wikipedia notes that 199 Democrats voted for Civil Rights, but 112 voted against it (and that most of the NO votes were from Southern Democrats)... Among Congressional Republicans, 163 voted YES, while only 41 voted NO.
Then Kid tells me that Lyndon Johnson "had" to sign the bill. I suppose that case could be made, as the numbers existed that, if Johnson vetoed the legislation, Congress could have overridden his veto. LBJ may have been a bigot, as bloggers like Willis Hart like to point out, but he did sign the bill and does receive credit. But this is only one of the reasons why Black Voters cast their ballots in favor of Democrats in overwhelming majorities. The primary reason they do is because, after the Democrats abandoned the racists and began advocating an end to bigotry and racism, the Southern Democrats left the Democratic fold for good (previously they had made their displeasure with the less-bigoted Northern Democrats known when they tried to break away and form their own party, the Dixiecrats).
But after the passage of Civil Rights, the Southern Democrats had had enough. This time, however, instead of forming their own party, they accepted an invitation from Richard Nixon to join the Republican Party. Nixon, seeing that the Democrats didn't want them anymore, decided he would get the racists voting Republican. This goal was achieved using a tactic Nixon and Republican Senator Barry Goldwater dubbed the "Southern Strategy". Nixon's Southern Strategy was wildly successful... the vast majority of the racists who formerly voted Democratic switched over to the Republican Party, where they remain TO THIS DAY.
Which brings us to the recent SCOTUS decision to get rid of section 4, and the aforementioned discussion on the rAtional nAtion blog I previously mentioned. The Republicans, who are STILL employing Nixon's Southern Strategy, are seeing the beginning of the end of the effectiveness of it. It isn't working anymore because the racists are old and dying off. That is why they have to cheat so much to win. But the election (and re-election) of Barack Obama has proven that even the voter suppression techniques they employ aren't enough any more.
This is why the Conservative justices on the Supreme Court decided to "stick a dagger into the heart" of the Voting Rights Act and jettison section 4. Yes, they said Congress could restore section 4 if they came up with a new formula to apply to states seeking to be exempted from it, but surely Roberts knew our Congress is so dysfunctional (thanks to House Repubs) that the likelihood of that happening is slim.
The purpose is CLEAR... to pave the way for more restrictive voter restrictions. The undeniable goal here is to disenfranchise enough minority (and other Democratic-leaning groups) and swing elections in favor of the Republicans. But Republicans strongly deny that this is the case, as evidenced by this exchange on the ironically titled rAtional nAtion blog...
Anonymous: At a time when restrictive voter laws are being passed in State Houses and challenged in the courts, for the Supreme Court to say Sec. 4 [of the Voting Rights Act] is outdated, is another example of conservatives denying reality. dmarks: I spent some time looking for it on my own after reading [the anonymous] comment... and found nothing other than the fact that the supposedly suppressed ethnic group actually voted in much larger numbers the last time. Dervish Sanders: They voted in larger numbers for two reasons: [1] The superiority of Barack Obama's get out the vote effort over Mittens, and [2] In the states that tried voter suppression tactics such as reducing available vote machines and voting hours... which lead to LONG lines and hours and hours of waiting... the people got MAD and decided to not give up and go home like the Repubs wanted (although some had to or they would lose their jobs). rAtional nAtion: Perhaps you could provide a link to a reputable and unbiased source that supports your assertion Anon. I know I would like such data and suspect dmarks would as well. Dervish Sanders: You wouldn't. Articles describing the disenfranchising tactics and laws employed by the Repubs in the last election are numerous and easy to find. One could only not find them if they specifically did not look for them... or if one considered ANY reporter or commenter these facts to be "far left", which is something Dennis FREQUENTLY does. So why bother? Dennis finds the information he wants to find. Any information that does not conform to what he THINKS the truth is - it is "far left" (and then he INSISTS that he's talking about the "far left" as measured from the Middle, and that he is the only one qualified to do the measuring). He should just be honest with himself and admit that he's very happy about this victory for White Power (i.e. Republican power).
[Note: RN has comment moderation enabled and none of what I wrote above was approved for publication on his blog].
You see what they are doing, right? It's complete and total denial (willful or knowing; you be the judge). The restrictive voting laws are to protect against (virtually non-existent) voter fraud and NOT due to their desire to suppress the vote (yeah, right). Because the electorate is becoming less racist, less homophobic, and less White, the only way Republicans can win elections going forward is to seriously ramp up the suppressionary tactics. Question is, is this indicative of the last gasps of a dying party, or will the White Power Republican Party succeed in moving us toward the oligarchic form of government they desire; one where only the right kind of people are allowed to vote?
As pointed out in the SCOTUS majority Opinion in the bush V. Gore case (this would be the case in which the SCOTUS stole the election for GWb), the Constitution contains no guarantee of a Right to vote for US citizens...
The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. (In Search of the Right to Vote By Victoria Bassetti, Harper's Magazine October 2012).
So, apparently a state could dispense with presidential elections entirely and directly appoint the electors of it's choosing. They could, but they won't, because they know the people would rise up in protest. So, in order to get the electors they want, they only suppress the votes of people who might vote the "wrong way". That way the people won't rise up, because people only tend to care about injustices when they are the victims of those injustices. Take away the ability to vote for a small number (enough to flip an election) and the people will remain largely apathetic.
Undoubtedly this is the strategy. But will (or for how long) will it work? Now that the Voting Rights Act has been gutted, we shall see. Already several states are rushing to pass new voter suppression laws... as reported by The Raw Story on 6/25/2012...
Officials in Texas said they would rush ahead with a controversial voter ID law that critics say will make it more difficult for ethnic minority citizens to vote, hours after the US supreme court released them from anti-discrimination constraints that have been in place for almost half a century. The Texas attorney general, Greg Abbott, declared... "with today's decision, the state's voter ID law will take effect immediately. Photo identification will now be required when voting in elections in Texas".
Immediately following the announcement Greg Abbott shouted, "White Power!". OK, I admit he didn't. But he was probably thinking it. Texas Republicans are worried because the state is turning purple (and may even go blue). Texas is currently the only state that is majority minority and still voting Republican. Personally I believe section 4 of the Voting Rights Act should apply to all 50 states, given that other states on covered by it did pass (or attempt to pass) laws restricting voting "rights" leading up to the 2012 election.
How do you think this is going to play out? Will Congressional Dems and reasonable Republicans get together and pass some legislation rejiggering (and restoring) section 4, or will they be blocked by the obstructionists who view this as a means by which the plutocratic dinosaur party can remain competitive?
Video:Paul Weyrich (now deceased) explains how Republican can win elections with only the support of a minority of the people (0:32).
Update 10/26/2014: Dennis has deleted all his comments from the thread on the rAtional nAtion blog this commentary references. See TADM #50 for more on Dennis' obsession with the "old bone" debunked Acorn conspiracy theory.
