He’s clearly talking about the political consequences for the Democratic Party, not for black people.
But there were none. The Democrats kept their majority in Congress uninterrupted until 1980, when the GOP briefly won the Senate and until 1994 in the House of Representatives. There were no negative repercussions for them.
Unless black voters migrating from voting in a block for Republicans to voting in a block for Democrats is to what you both are referring. Hard to see that as a “consequence” worthy of LBJ’s bravery. Please.
Thank you. That is at least a disagreement with what I actually said, which is far preferable to before.
If someone wants to argue the signing of that bill had no impact on where we are today then fair enough. For me, I think it’s difficult to tease apart the independent effects of LBJ signing the bill from the moves that were already way in the GOP to implement the southern strategy and what the party would subsequently use for the next 2 generations. So while it might be reasonable to question how singularly important its signing was I think it’s pretty clear it cemented us on the path that got us to the realignment we have had on how race and racism affects our politics, even if by only giving the Southern Strategy the anchor it was looking for. In understanding how important that was I’d say it 1) doesn’t need to show broad electoral effects immediately, or 2) have its effects limited to the south for it to have been a real precipitating point for where we are today
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I think that is a stretch. In 1960, all 22 southern Senators were Democrats. I think the most in the past 5 Congresses has been 4? Analysis a few years ago found that prior to 1963, conservative racial views strongly predicted Democratic party affiliation, by 1965 that correlation had simply vanished. Today, the Republican lock on the Senate is based on that hold on the South.
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To say the migration of the black voter played no role is, of course, inaccurate. But here is my view.
Go back and look at the votes for the Great Society programs. Bipartisan with the racist white Dems voting against. After those votes none of them bolted for the Republican Party. They continued to largely run as Democrats until the election of Reagan. That’s when the shift of white southerners from Democrat to Republican begins in earnest, though that process still takes twenty years to complete.
For me other social issues are pre-eminent, most especially the Roe v. Wade decision. This is what lifts social conservatism to the fore in the Republican Party and it, more so than racial issues, attracts white southerners to the party. I mean, we’re still arguing about Roe v. Wade 50 years later.
The second issue is the gradual decrease in the white population majority. Now, that is surely a racial issue, but it goes far beyond blacks, whose percentage of the population is pretty stable. This is why all the secure the border rhetoric.
I think white voters began moving fairly early, but Democratic incumbents managed to hang on into the Reagan era. But the Democrats lost an incumbent Senator (Thurmond in 1964) over the issue, and the movement was clearly happening through the 1970’s, which showed up in narrowing margins.
However, I do agree with the significance of Roe v. Wade in that process, I am persuaded by the argument in ‘What’s the matter with Kansas’ on that point.
What is the argument Frank makes about it?
It’s worth clarifying that the initial question was not one about partisanship in general, but specifically why racism specifically is such an appeal in the modern GOP. Obviously the issues that have generated the current partisan lines are more complex than just race and racism, but in that context the raising of Roe vs Wade is interesting. I think most men are familiar with the idea that arguments can often be about something other than the issue being fought over. Personally, I am open to the argument that what made Roe vs Wade a rallying point was actually racism (or at least using the racism of others to drive campaigns, and I’m not sure there is anything other than an academic distinction between the two) just masked as being about something else, but I don’t think that is the argument being made here.
Also worth pointing out that it is politics as much as culture that has resulted in Roe vs Wade still being a contested topic. It was a conscious decision of the RW to spend decades fighting losing battles in the courts over the issue because that at least allowed a settled ruling to be seen as contested. They weren’t putting the cases forward because they had merit, they were doing to shape the perception of it not being settled law and thus open the door for a court such as this one to ultimately rule this way once they finally stacked the court the way they wanted to.
I didn’t make any points, was just trying to clear up the obvious misunderstanding between you two. Seems to have worked and lead to an interesting discussion.
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Frank essentially points to Kansas’ proud abolitionist tradition that was tightly tied to the state’s strong history of left/progressive politics to suggest that ascribing the transformation of Kansas from one of the most left wing states to one of the most right wing to racial politics just doesn’t make a great deal of sense - particularly when one can repeatedly point to major events around abortion that changed conservative/GOP politics in the state, and almost none with an explicitly racial dimension.
In essence, he says it is social/moral issues that gets working class whites to ignore class in Kansas, not race.
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Isn’t that the point of dog whistles though? It’s about saying the thing but without doing so explicitly. That’s why stated values of strong families, self-sufficiency, and law and order appeal to racist voters so much because they hear it and understand it as code to means a policy platform that supports white (Christians), wont give their tax money to black people and instead will incarcerate them.
To be clear, I’d never claim race is the only issue causing he current situation, but when race is kept implicit in so much of the values based discussions that drive the political vibes, it is difficult to untie those different things. What Frank described was stuff that is now over 20 years old. It might have been a good explanation for the level of division then and the reasons people would give for those divisions, but the world has changed a lot since then. Back then Tucker was still an effete elitist on CNN.
Same thing with Barak Obama being declared a non-US Citizen (Birthers led by Trump) and calling him “Barak HUSSEIN Obama” indicating that he’s a closet Muslim and by direct correlation a terrorist sympathiser.
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Yeah, Obama’s election was definitely one of the major catalysts for the elevation of white fear of losing its hegemonic position.
We should understand, however, that this is a fairly recent phenomenon. Prior to Obama’s election, it may have been present but was not driving Republican politics. Just my opinion on that. I think it’s only been in the last ten years that white fear, if you will, has so noticeably driven the political process.
Really, going back to Reagan, the two parties pitch to the black voter has been thus.
Democrats: we will use the power of government to correct past wrongs. Hence, great society programs, school bussing and affirmative action.
Republicans: the Dems are yoking you to government help, which is keeping you dependent. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps and use the free enterprise system to make yourself better.
The above has just been a given in each election, with the Black vote being held mostly captive by the Dems, whose arguments they have for the most part accepted. I don’t see much movement there.
Meanwhile, in every presidential election since Roe, presidential candidates have had to specify their abortion stance, primarily because the president selects judicial candidates. Over the course of that time it has become increasingly difficult to be a pro-choice Republican (they no longer exist, really) or a pro-life Democrat (there probably are still a few, mostly Catholics who cleave to Democratic policies for other reasons).
Yes, when I read it a couple of summers ago, it was hard not to speculate that Kansas is probably a more racist place now.
I spent 5 years in the 90s in St Louis, a part of the country that has never seemed to understand if it is part of the south or not. Despite this confused identity the confederate flag was such a no go back then that I can still recall how shocked I was the first time I saw it being publicly flown on a road trip into Memphis. In the past couple of years if you go into any northern industrial city and you’ll see it all over the place - Canton, Pittsburgh. It’s wild where you will see it these days, but also wild that seeing it, even in these places, has lost its shock value.
This from a senior aide to President Regan in an 1981 interview
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Ner, ner, n***er”. By 1968, you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other.
So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the back-burner
I was born in the 70s and for my entire life until Trump the GOP has used race in 2 ways:
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Using the code alluded to the quote above to speak to racist voters in a way they can pretend means something else
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to make fake outreach to black people as a way of making white people who hear the dog whistles more comfortable for voting for a party fully embracing the racist platform (*look, they’re not racist because it’s not about segregation it’s about states rights).
The only thing that is new that has been thrown up since Obama’s election is that so many people gave up thinking adhering to the social contract on racism was worthwhile. As such the GOP not only didn’t need to use code words anymore, they actually benefited from full throated clear racist appeals.
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Sounds like an interesting article. Please post the citation. I’d like to read it.
What do you mean by this? What was the party’s “racist platform” during 1980s elections?
This story is not some obscure thing no one knows about, nor is a story about one guy making rogue comments that don’t reflect the overall attitude of the party. This guy was a Thurmond staffer who ended up at the heart of the Regan administration, who ran the Bush 88 campaign, and was a mentor to W. To extend the line all the way to the end of the pre-Trump era, this iteration of the story resurfaced because of how Atwateresque the racist appeals were of the then ongoing Romney campaign.
To take traditional pre-trump GOP messaging as being absent racist dog whistles requires you to pretend that extensively well covered stories don’t exist and be actively disinterested in hearing them.
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Actually, if you listen to the interview, he is saying that race was not the primary factor in the South in the 1980 election. He is saying the opposite. He says Reagan won the South in 1980 on an argument of fiscal conservatism and national defense. That is also my recollection.
interesting that a day after this post, this happens:
https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1585991938087395328?s=20&t=Q_FS36GpETcmPSuhMHCDfA
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Doesn’t sound like the assailant was trying to rob them. Was probably after Nancy