Flory: That is a perceived flip. But it is not a fully true statement.
While chatting with Brian Lamb, Rangel dropped a few falsehoods as casually as cigar ash. This isn?t to pick on Rangel; he?s just illustrative. His assertion ? that the Republican and Democratic parties ?changed sides? in the 1960s on civil rights, with white racists leaving the Democratic party to join the Republicans ? has become conventional wisdom. It?s utterly false and should be rebutted at every opportunity.
It?s true that a Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, shepherded the 1964 Civil Rights Act to passage. But who voted for it?
Eighty percent of Republicans in the House voted aye, as against 61 percent of Democrats. In the Senate, 82 percent of Republicans favored the law, but only 69 percent of Democrats. Among the Democrats voting nay were Albert Gore Sr., Robert Byrd, and J. William Fulbright. The Republican presidential candidate in 1964 also opposed the Civil Rights Act.
Barry Goldwater had been an enthusiastic backer of the 1957 and 1960 civil rights acts (both overwhelmingly opposed by Democrats). He was a founding member of the Arizona chapter of the NAACP. He hired many blacks in his family business and pushed to desegregate the Arizona National Guard. He had a good-faith objection to some features of the 1964 act, which he regarded as unconstitutional. Goldwater was no racist.
The same cannot be said of Fulbright, on whom Bill Clinton bestowed the Medal of Freedom. Fulbright was one of the 19 senators who signed the ?Southern manifesto? defending segregation. Okay, but didn?t all the old segregationist senators leave the Democratic party and become Republicans after 1964? No, just one did: Strom Thurmond. The rest remained in the Democratic party ? including former Klansman Robert Byrd, who became president pro tempore of the Senate. Former racists of both parties renounced their old views (as Kevin D. Williamson points out, Lyndon Johnson himself voted against anti-lynching laws and poll-tax repeals), and neither party has a perfect record on racial matters by any stretch. But it is a libel to suggest that the Republican party, the anti-slavery party, the party of Lincoln, and the party that traditionally supported civil rights, anti-lynching laws, and integration, became the racist party after 1964.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...sm-mona-charenIt's a lie. It's not true. Only slightly proportional. It's a gotcha. Like calling the left Snowflakes, but it is a much worse slur.These Republican gains came not from the most rural and ?deep south? regions, but rather from the newer cities and suburbs. If the new southern Republican voters were white racists, one would have expected Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to be the first to turn. Instead, as Gerard Alexander notes in ?The Myth of the Racist Republicans,? the turn toward the GOP began in Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, and Florida. Eisenhower did best in the peripheral states. Alexander concludes: ?The GOP?s southern electorate was not rural, nativist, less educated, afraid of change, or concentrated in the . . . Deep South. It was disproportionately suburban, middle-class, educated, young, non-native southern, and concentrated in the growth points that were the least ?Southern? parts of the south.?
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...sm-mona-charen
Repeating it, believing it even, shows a lack of investigation into the Right side of the argument, or even attempting to listen. It is as easy as just actually talking to somebody from the right. It should dispel much of this quickly, as even Sarah Silverman found out.
Turns out, they are just people. Not some uncaring, phobic, caricature of the person I keep seeing you guys repeat on here. That ignorant view of the right, that disconnect from reality, is not something to applaud. It makes such a foolish stereotype of genuine and intelligent people that the truth of it would make you ashamed.
I was driving with one of my bosses down to Chattanooga, a really smart gentleman. By smart, he is one of the underlying minds on modern machine controls, function blocks and related. You might have had to use his book in college: https://www.amazon.com/Successful-In.../dp/1556178441
He pointed to Lookout Mt, and proceeded to tell the story of how the North pushed the South off of the mountain, then down to a local ridge. The South started shelling them in the valley that is now the city, and as he does this he points out "They could see them from that point", pointing to Lookout Mt., "And they were hiding on this ridge right here", pointing to the hill we are driving past.
The soldiers just got fed up with being shelled camped on the base, and started attacking the ridge. Without the officers direction, and not concentrated, it was a bit of a mess. The officers followed, and right there on Missionary Ridge they broke the back of the southern army under General Bragg and pushed into Atlanta, effectively ending the war.
That is why he is proud to be a conservative he told me. Because they defeated the south. Because the won. He is proud to be part of Lincoln's legacy. Of freeing the slaves, reuniting the nation.
So many here are. Enough that I look at that comment for the raw ignorance it is. Repeated for political power, but without a strong leg to stand on if you actually go to fly over states and talk to the Deplorables. They would throw a better punch than Anti-fa would at you if you called them a racist. And you would deserve it. They are proud of kicking the South out of here. Kicking the democrats in the ass, and breaking the war. The town wears it's bullet holes you can still go up and touch in some places with pride.
It is a lie repeated till it is believed a truth. But it is still a lie.