He doesn’t seem to know much history, either. Racism wasn’t so much a Southern trait as a Democrat trait, and it doesn’t require any particular contortions to understand turn-of-the-century progressivism was synonymous with racism.
So I posted a couple comments pointing out the Democrat strategy has always been to garner as many votes as they can through whatever flavor of state-sponsored racism is fashionable, while Republicans have always promulgated race-neutral policies even at the expense of votes…. and after he lost the argument, down the memory hole the comments went (pointing out Holder’s racist DOJ policies was apparently double-plus ungood).
Remember, these are the people who claim to want a national dialogue on race. They just want you to shut the hell up while they have it, so they’re not inconvenienced by logic, or facts:
“The Republican party has been for more than fifty years the consistent friend of the American negro. It gave him freedom and citizenship. It wrote into the organic law the declaration that proclaims his civil and political rights, and it believes to-day that his noteworthy progress in intelligence, industry, and good citizenship has earned the respect and encouragement of the nation. We demand equal justice for all men, without regard to race or color; we declare once more and without reservation, for the enforcement in letter and spirit of the amendments to the Constitution, which were designed for the protection and advancement of the negro, and we condemn all devices that have for their real aim his disenfranchisement for reasons of color alone, as unfair, un-American and repugnant to the supreme law of the land.” – From Republican platform adopted at national convention 1908.
“The white man in the South has disfranchised the negro in self-protection; and there is not a Republican in the North who would not have done the same thing under the same circumstance. The white men of the South are determined that the negro shall be disenfranchised everywhere it is necessary to prevent the recurrence of the horrors of carpetbag rule.” -William Jennings Bryan, in a speech at New York in 1908.
P.S. Are there white racists in the GOP voter base? Of course, where else could they go when the Dems embraced ant-white racism? Does anyone try to deny all the nonwhite racists must be in the Democrat Party (after all, they don’t even try to hide it)? But as before, just one party is still promulgating explicitly racist policies.
Comments
6 responses to “Ta-Nehisi Coates, Coward”
Related to your quote, I saw someone on twitter quip that “Rand Paul arguing that blacks should support the GOP based on the 1964 Civil Rights Act makes as much sense as Democrats arguing pro-lifers should support them because Carter was more pro-life than Ford,” and that sums up my issue with this argument.
not that I buy into the “every presidential Republican victory post-1964 is because of racism” narrative liberals beat to death. But the parties have shifted and ideologically congealed since then. Nixon won over a lot of ex-Democrats (Wallace voters and otherwise) who were not cultural leftists and were alienated by the national Democrats’ politics, racial and otherwise, at the time.
JDP,
Good points, I agree slavery, Civil Rights Act, Reconstruction, etc don’t really have much relevance to blacks today. What’s interesting to me, though, is the commonalities — in both cases, the Democrats promulgated racism and racist state policies. Now, blacks today may prefer pro-black racism more than whites prefer pro-white racism, but I don’t think there are any sound arguments as to why black racism is preferable to white racism, let alone preferable to a colorblind policy. Unfortunately, there are strong institutional reasons for blacks to vote along racial lines, mostly having to do with the self-interest of “black leaders” who stand to lose power in a melting-pot America where identity politics doesn’t control voting behavior.
Principled race-neutrality is certainly a much more difficult case to make then “Vote for us and the government will do stuff for your race at the expense of other races!” 🙂 but I hope we can all get there someday.
BTW I’m sure there are Republican voters motivated by white racism. OTOH, Democrats have made racism one of their central policy planks — and as long as enough nonwhites buy into racism, that’s going to be a winning strategy.
Yes . . . that’s a winning strategy. Point to a speech from . . . 1908.
I mean, if this is where Republicans develop their strategy from, is it any wonder that Dave (Romney +7!)’s Republican is viewed so unfavorably?
Anyways, on the Black Panthers Meme, read the Inspector General’s report, not Fox “Terrorist Fist Jab” Nation. The report actually says that Holder’s DOJ disproportionately focus on the Black Panther case to feed the GOP tolls.
TheAJ,
Well excellent – a government report exonerates the government.
Next thing you will be telling me is that the Pope supports the Catholic Church.
Ah. “disproportionately focus” Does that include arrests?
Ah. “disproportionately focus” Does that include arrests?
No, there were no reasons to make arrests, based on the evidence there. Repeating the same thing 100x on Fox news does not strengthen the evidence. The Bush DOJ did not find a reason to pursue this case either.
Do you have any reason to really to dwell on this non-issue other than the fact that its become a meme repeated over and over again?
This is why the right-wing continues to not win a single minority vote, and even now lost the Cubans and Asians. They’ll take one perceived injustice against whites and turn it into another Holocaust and how its the worst racism in the history of this country.
You like to remind us about how much smarter than you are all those degreed people right, so pardon me I find it boggling how your big head gets so wrapped up in non-stories.
TheAj,
Your reading comprehension isn’t very good, the article is about the early Progressive roots of racism so a 1908 speech is quite relevant. And yes, GOP principled race-neutrality is a poor election strategy compared to Dem’s racist demagoguery — that was exactly the point I made. Also, it was Gallup that had Romney up 7.
As for the Black Panther case, it was dropped after it had already been won, and whistleblowers have reported the DOJ will not pursue black-on-white cases, which you’d know if you read the link.
Enjoy your trolling, further posts from you will be ignored as you don’t meet the minimal levels of reading comprehension necessary for a conversation. But unlike Ta-Nahesi, I’m happy to leave your posts on display for the world to judge on their merits 🙂