Comments on: Necrotrends: The GOP Was The Party of Civil Rights

By: brantl

brantl — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:41:21 +0000

But Someguy doesn’t get something even that basic. If he thinks that 2/5 of blacks are in the 2/5 highest echelons of income, he doesn’t get out of his mother’s basement enough. Or associate with any blacks. But that went without saying, having seen his posts here.

By: Fats Durston

Fats Durston — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:05:01 +0000

If by vast majority you mean 3/5s.

Come on, this “statistic” shows that Someguy is taking the piss. No one would be so tone-deaf as to choose this fraction when describing black American voter preferences…

By: Dr. Pion

Dr. Pion — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:22:32 +0000

Apropos the comment about “law and order” as a racial code word, these days the code word for “uppity” is “elitist”. And why do Republicans prefer candidates like Bush and McCain, who squandered their elite private boarding school education to become just another barfly, over the Horatio Alger stories they say they prefer?

It is true that Republicans used to be the party of civil rights, just as it used to be that the Democrats were the party that took us to war. What is overlooked is which party integrated the US military, and started the move of racist Southern Democrats to the Republican party.

By: Bruce Baugh

Bruce Baugh — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:19:45 +0000

Uncle Kvetch: Well, look. Do you want a party with prominent people who have a tendency to form long-lasting heterosexual unions and to keep their various commitments, or do you want a party that understands the closeted life, self-loathing, transgressive relationships, and unorthodox bonding of all kinds? Don’t you as a gay man feel drawn to the people who understand alienation best?

(Someone’s going to think I’m serious, I just know it.)

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:40:48 +0000

Next week, someguy will explain to us how gay men like myself are a natural constituency for the Republican Party. I mean, think about it: the highly publicized and exceedingly tawdry sexual antics of all those closeted, self-loathing prominent Republicans just serve to make the rest of us look that much more wholesome and well-adjusted in comparison.

By: Jeff Rubard

Jeff Rubard — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:35:37 +0000

John, I gotta tell you, the Republicans were the original party of civil rights and it matters: there’s a historical part to historical materialism (the original formulation of which involved Marx warmly congratulating Lincoln on a job well done), and being a cultural materialist requires recognizing that blacks are receptive to long-dead candidates. As for Democratic necropolitics, I like to think the Revolutionary George Clinton was a good guy (maybe even some blacks agree), but the history of Democrats on race relations really isn’t heroic.

By: CJColucci

CJColucci — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:14:43 +0000

I don’t know who white people should vote FOR, but if there were a party that based much of its appeal on hostility to white people and their interests, white people would certainly be well advised to vote AGAINST it—even though they would probably find themselves “taken for granted” by whatever alternative party they ended up supporting.

By: Dreadnaugh

Dreadnaugh — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:58:52 +0000

Who should white people vote for? As we know there could be no dissent within a racial group.

By: someguy

someguy — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:47:18 +0000

John Holbo,

No I don’t see the flaw. Drats.

By: tom

tom — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:30:05 +0000

@#40 (myself) i just realized that my phrase “other than darker skin” is rather stupid. i was, of course, talking about skin color in relation to my own, which is the palest of pale. i try to check myself on those things, sorry

By: abb1

abb1 — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:30:15 +0000

Kenny, a group of elected politicians will not affect the party platform much, if at all. It’s the opposite causation here: the RNC defines the parameters and elected Republicans are supposed to go along with the program. If they don’t, they will be kicked out one way or another.

By: Kenny Easwaran

Kenny Easwaran — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:02:18 +0000

It’s clearly true that every demographic would be better served by being up for grabs, rather than having one party be able to take them for granted. But this doesn’t mean that they should aim to vote 50/50 for the two parties, with deviations only when one party changes their policies in a direction that’s more favorable for the demographic.

What it really suggests is that (in this case) black people should enthusiastically take part in Republican primaries and vote for the candidate who will be more favorable for issues that are relevant to their community, and then vote in the general election for whichever party’s candidate is better for their community (which will still probably be the Democrat). But if enough Republicans with policy positions that are relatively favorable for black communities move up in the party, then the two parties will both start to become acceptable choices in the general election, and the interests of the community will be better served over all.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Republicans have been doing much to encourage this strategy at all.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:46:30 +0000

“Identifying party policies that impact income growth might be impossible but identifying policies that impact your after tax income is a lot more possible.”

So you have no choice but to conclude that the fanatical tax-cut party is the party most likely to improve your economic well-being? Come now, surely you can see the flaw in your own argument, someguy.

By: snuh

snuh — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:40:23 +0000

according to wikipedia, there have been 90+ african american members of congress since ww2. of these, only 4 have been republicans, and that includes 1 non-voting rep from the virgin islands and 1 rockefeller republican senator from massachusetts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_in_the_United_States_Congress

By: Bruce Baugh

Bruce Baugh — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:20:11 +0000

This is one of the things black voters know. In 1981, campaign planner Lee Atwater had this to say:

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964… and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster…

Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps…?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ 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. You follow me – because obviously sitting around saying, ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’