Demons of the Left

[_MeDotOrg]

No evidence of a party platform shift was offered just a shift in votes.

You mean other than the fact that Johnson supported the Civil Rights Act and Goldwater opposed it?

Your example is countered by Malcolm X's famous speech about political chumps.

When a Mormon has to rely on a (then) spokesman for the Nation of Islam, a religion that believes white people are the devil, to make his argument...you know he's in trouble. Talk about strange bedfellows!

But I appreciate that you believe a Goldwater pamphlet shifted the democratic and Republican party platforms 180 degrees within 4 years based on a few southern state votes for president.
More liberal dementia for your posts could not be infused.

Calling something 'liberal dementia' is not an argument. Florid rhetoric is not a hypothesis based upon facts.

Consider the following quote from Prologue:

After 1960, Goldwater was convinced that Nixon had lost because of his civil rights advocacy, and Goldwater began encouraging his party to peel off Southern whites on the basis of racial politics. In a speech to the Georgia State Republican Party, Goldwater pushed the abandonment of the black vote. "We ought to forget the big cities. We can't out-promise the Democrats. . . . I would like to see our party back up on school integration.

So again I ask: what issue other than Civil Rights do you offer to explain the dramatic Southern vote shift toward the GOP in the '64 election? Keep in mind the South voted for Kennedy, a rich Irish-Catholic from Massachusetts in '60, and overwhelmingly against his vice-presidential candidate and successor to the martyred President, who was both Southern and Protestant, in '64.

If it wasn't racism, what was it? Don't give me rhetoric, give me a reason. Give me something to back up your opinion.

Your belief that republicans wanting non white people to work and realize the American dream is racism while democrats wanting non whites to be put in isolated housing and put on government rations is somehow freedom says volumes.

My reply was to your original post: The idea that such a dramatic shift in party construction and philosophy would happen just simultaneously across the Dems and Repubs just further exemplifies how naïve and ignorant most Democrats are.

...When I provide evidence to prove that that was, in fact, exactly what happened, you offer nothing to refute it except more rhetoric.

Now, having offered no evidence to refute the argument I've made, you argue with a position I never espoused.

[_subgenius]

No, no, no. The social pressure and conditioning women receive from infanthood on has zero impact on their motivations and behavior as adults. It's science.

good point


ergo, the same holds true for men.....and who better than you to tell other people how to raise their children.
your conspiracy is imaginary

[_subgenius]

No evidence of a party platform shift was offered just a shift in votes.

You mean other than the fact that Johnson supported the Civil Rights Act and Goldwater opposed it?

So, why do you ignore the fact that the Republican party had supported the civil rights bill in 1957 and 1960? With substantially more support than the Democrats.
So, just because Goldwater capitalized on political rhetoric in the South hardly makes the case for a "party shift".
In fact, from your own citation:
"The decision to put Goldwater atop the ticket did not automatically result in an anti - civil rights platform. A number of prominent figures, including King, spoke to the platform committee advocating a strong civil rights plank." (emphasis mine)
http://www.archives.gov/publications/pr ... ash-1.html

Furthermore, the actual party platform in 1964 was:
"Finally, consistent with its historic opposition to racial discrimination, the Republican Party pledges its equal opposition to the rapidly evolving threats of inverse discrimination. A Republican Administration would oppose the shifting of jobs on the basis of arbitrary racial quotas, and also would oppose the abandonment of neighborhood schools, to meet racial quotas, or Federal pressure to force local authorities to bar children from attending the school nearest their home."(emphasis mine)

Contrast that with the rather flacid Democratic platform (from your own citation):

"The Democratic platform echoed that sentiment, in less fulsome language. "True Democracy of opportunity will not be served by establishing quotas based on the same false distinctions we seek to erase, nor can the effects of prejudice be neutralized by the expedient of preferential practices.""

So, we see a rather intentional platform of the RNC based on the notion that there should be no racial preferences - for any race...yet the DNC would rely upon racial preferences...rely on the carrot at the end of the stick to draw "political chumps" to their cause.

So, while i can concede that Goldwater took things a little to far to the "white" in his desperate efforts to play upon white backlash in the south, i cannot concede that this was a 180 change in either party's historical positions...a change that to this day has yet to occur. Ironically, we see the DNC using the Goldwater tactic in our modern day....fanning the flames of racism to garner votes.

Your example is countered by Malcolm X's famous speech about political chumps.

When a Mormon has to rely on a (then) spokesman for the Nation of Islam, a religion that believes white people are the devil, to make his argument...you know he's in trouble. Talk about strange bedfellows!

Huh? not exactly a rebuttal, but thanks for the rhetoric...ironically a rhetoric that later in this post you will demand will not exist in my response.
Funny enough, the "white devil" Malcolm talks about is the democratic party, not the republican.
chumps

But I appreciate that you believe a Goldwater pamphlet shifted the democratic and Republican party platforms 180 degrees within 4 years based on a few southern state votes for president.
More liberal dementia for your posts could not be infused.

Calling something 'liberal dementia' is not an argument. Florid rhetoric is not a hypothesis based upon facts.

see also "strange bedfellows" above

Consider the following quote from Prologue:

After 1960, Goldwater was convinced that Nixon had lost because of his civil rights advocacy, and Goldwater began encouraging his party to peel off Southern whites on the basis of racial politics. In a speech to the Georgia State Republican Party, Goldwater pushed the abandonment of the black vote. "We ought to forget the big cities. We can't out-promise the Democrats. . . . I would like to see our party back up on school integration.

So again I ask: what issue other than Civil Rights do you offer to explain the dramatic Southern vote shift toward the GOP in the '64 election? Keep in mind the South voted for Kennedy, a rich Irish-Catholic from Massachusetts in '60, and overwhelmingly against his vice-presidential candidate and successor to the martyred President, who was both Southern and Protestant, in '64.

If it wasn't racism, what was it? Don't give me rhetoric, give me a reason. Give me something to back up your opinion.

If you had read the Prologue article you cited you would have this answer...see my quotes from said article above in order to illuminate your posts.

Your belief that republicans wanting non white people to work and realize the American dream is racism while democrats wanting non whites to be put in isolated housing and put on government rations is somehow freedom says volumes.

My reply was to your original post: The idea that such a dramatic shift in party construction and philosophy would happen just simultaneously across the Dems and Repubs just further exemplifies how naïve and ignorant most Democrats are.

...When I provide evidence to prove that that was, in fact, exactly what happened, you offer nothing to refute it except more rhetoric.

Now, having offered no evidence to refute the argument I've made, you argue with a position I never espoused.

Evidence offered above.
There was in fact no shift in party platform - from either party. The argument may be more plausible that the Democrats saw an opportunity to take advantage of political chumps in order to win an election. The democratic party perhaps began its ruse of "racial equality" in 1964 culminating in social programs which were designed and implemented to denigrate minorities and poor people.
The Democrats want control of the fish and the lake and ultimately want to banish fishing rods and hooks.

[_MeDotOrg]

No evidence of a party platform shift was offered just a shift in votes.

You mean other than the fact that Johnson supported the Civil Rights Act and Goldwater opposed it?

So, why do you ignore the fact that the Republican party had supported the civil rights bill in 1957 and 1960? With substantially more support than the Democrats.
So, just because Goldwater capitalized on political rhetoric in the South hardly makes the case for a "party shift".

Have you never heard of the Southern Strategy'? Listen to Nixon Political Operative Kevin Phillips:

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.

In 2005 Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the National Republican Party, offered a belated apology for the racial strategies of his own party to the NAACP:

"Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."

How much more of a smoking gun do you want? (Wait! Maybe he was suffering from 'liberal dementia')

I'm not suggesting that all Republicans suddenly became racist in 1964. But I AM saying that racists, who had previously been comfortable in the Democratic Party, now deserted in droves, flocking to a banner, not of overt racism, but 'State's Rights' and 'limited Federal Government'. And Republicans knew what was precipitating the defection of these Democrats was racism, and they consciously and deliberately played on their fears (see the Goldwater pamphlet) and welcomed them with open arms. Welcoming those racists was a strategy both demonstrated and admitted by the Republican Party.

As far as the language of Party Platforms, quite frankly I've never put much credence in them.

John Boehmer at the 2012 GOP Convention:

Have you ever met anybody who read the party platform? I never met anybody."

Do you think white voters in Mississippi were scanning the Party Platforms, saying 'You know, the Democratic Platform is a little flacid (sic), on Civil Rights, we better vote for the Republicans.'

Yeah, right.

No, I think they were listening to Barry Goldwater. (Or Ronald Reagan, who opposed both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act).

Both Parties' Platforms are Fluff and Window Dressing. At the beginning of the Nixon Administration, Attorney General John Mitchell told reporters "Watch what we do, not what we say."

Your example is countered by Malcolm X's famous speech about political chumps.

When a Mormon has to rely on a (then) spokesman for the Nation of Islam, a religion that believes white people are the devil, to make his argument...you know he's in trouble. Talk about strange bedfellows!

Huh? not exactly a rebuttal, but thanks for the rhetoric...ironically a rhetoric that later in this post you will demand will not exist in my response.
Funny enough, the "white devil" Malcolm talks about is the democratic party, not the republican.

I cannot find any reference to 'the White Devil' in his 'chumps' speech. But regardless, I was referring to the Cosmology of the Nation of Islam, which states that ALL white people are the devil.

(When people use religious cosmologies to justify their view of the world, I don't think it's coincidence that in the United States, where racial conflict plays such a prominent role in our history, the major black home-grown religion casts white people as the devil, while the major white home-grown religion casts people of color as the recipients of the Curse of Ham.)

Malcolm X is an interesting man, and a man that a lot of very different people claim as 'their own'. But if you read his autobiography (which I recommend, it's Ghost-written by Arthur Haley and very compelling) you find out that one of the reasons that many people consider them 'their own' is that his opinions kept changing. Some people would argue that when he changed, he became 'wrong' and others would argue that he 'evolved'. I suppose it's all a matter of your perspective.

After Malcolm gave his 'chumps speech', he took his pilgrimage to Mecca, which next to his conversion to the Nation of Islam in prison, I would argue was the most significant event in his life. He gave up the Nation of Islam, became a Sunni Muslim, and when he came back to the United States tried to reach out to all black leaders.

When Malcolm gave the 'chumps' speech in the April of 1964. He was arguing that, up to that time, the Black community had given Democrats their support and gotten little but promises in return. And with respect to legislation he was right. That would change dramatically in 1964 and 1965, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. (Funny how recently the 'Civil Rights' Republican Party has been so interested in seeing the Voting Rights Act weakened).

But I appreciate that you believe a Goldwater pamphlet shifted the democratic and Republican party platforms 180 degrees within 4 years based on a few southern state votes for president.
More liberal dementia for your posts could not be infused.

Calling something 'liberal dementia' is not an argument. Florid rhetoric is not a hypothesis based upon facts.

see also "strange bedfellows" above

You accuse the Democratic party of racism today. Show me a flier that is as racist as the Goldwater flier I provided.

Again, give me a reason other than racism that caused Mississippi voters to go from 24.7% Republican in 1960 to 87.1% in 1964. The only time Mississippi had voted Republican prior to '64 was the Carpetbagger election of 1872. Suddenly Misssissippi gives the GOP the biggest percentage of votes of ANY state in the country. If not racism, why?

There was in fact no shift in party platform - from either party. The argument may be more plausible that the Democrats saw an opportunity to take advantage of political chumps in order to win an election.

Again, see the GOP's apology for the Southern Strategy.

The shift in voting patterns did not occur among black Americans, it occurred among white Americans. It was the Democrats who lost votes in the South, otherwise the only state Goldwater would have carried was Arizona.

What states would Goldwater picked up had he supported the Civil Rights Act? New York?

The democratic party perhaps began its ruse of "racial equality" in 1964 culminating in social programs which were designed and implemented to denigrate minorities and poor people.

The 'ruse' of racial equality? Could you explain why racial equality is a 'ruse'? I'd love to debate the other points, but not before knowing why racial equality is a 'ruse'.

The Democrats want control of the fish and the lake and ultimately want to banish fishing rods and hooks.

I must humbly profess my ignorance, subgenius-sensei. Your metaphor is beyond this student's understanding, Okay, I give up. What the hell does that mean? Who is the fish? Is there a game warden?

[_just me]

No, no, no. The social pressure and conditioning women receive from infanthood on has zero impact on their motivations and behavior as adults. It's science.

Sounds legit!

[_subgenius]

No evidence of a party platform shift was offered just a shift in votes.

You accuse the Democratic party of racism today. Show me a flier that is as racist as the Goldwater flier I provided.

you still have not provided any evidence that the Republican party shifted its platform simultaneously while the Democratic party would have done the same.
While you are fixated on shouting "racist" with every other post, you have yet to resolve how the Democratic party suddenly shifted their paradigm from Jim Crow to CRA in one election - while simultaneously the Repubs did the same.
????
Now you claim the issue of "race" encompasses the whole of both party platforms at this point and therefore feel justified with your Goldwater "tactic"....but that is all it was...a "tactic"...for which you do indeed have evidence for...but i have actually given you evidence from your own source that contradicts your claim and affirms mine...yet you deny it.
So, by your reasoning the Republicans suddenly abandoned their overwhelming support for civil rights in order to marginalize their base and chase after a few racist southern states...that they were using "racism: fear of the negro" to gain votes - even at the cost of their previously established platform and their legislative support for civil rights leading up to this point....an abandonment that would be a wholesale "shift" in their platform...even though the published platform reflected none of this.
But
you would also reason that the Democratic party simultaneously had a change of heart...that suddenly it was necessary to abandon their oppressive and racist policies in order to provide a lucrative (yes, lucrative) civil rights package to the negro...not because they were tired of losing votes...but because they suddenly had a change of heart...though not reflected in their platform....a sort of "racism: fear of whitey" tactic.

Simply put...and to illuminate you about the fish.
The Republicans prior support of civil rights was based on the notion that men could be taught to fish for themselves and artificial race quotas were as they eventually revealed themselves to be...useless. The Democrats countered with a civil rights plan that simply pretended to oppress whitey while giving fish to the negro...no giving the negro a fishing pole or a lake...but merely keeping the negro happy with as much fish as he could want...kind of a lotus eater effect if you will.
Nevertheless, the negro took the easy way...believed the big promises from the Democrats...thought all that free fish was somehow going to magically "elevate" them in society...but alas...after the vote was cast, the Democrats revealed their true selves once again...that their platform had not changed at all...they had just found a new legal slavery...called welfare....and the negro fell for it hook line and sinker....like the chumps Malcolm X knew them to be.

What you have merely illuminated is that the Democratic party knew it needed a minority vote due to the evenly divided white vote...the minority was the key to their power...pure and simple.

""You put them first," said Malcolm X, "and they put you last. 'Cause you're a chump. A political chump! ... Any time you throw your weight behind a political party that controls two-thirds of the government, and that party can't keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you are dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that party -- you're not only a chump but you're a traitor to your race.""

When President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty in 1965, 24 percent of black babies were born to unmarried mothers. Today that number is 72 percent. Then-presidential candidate Barack Obama said in 2008: "Children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves."

Democrats have convinced blacks that but for race-based preferences, black growth would suffer. Nonsense. Respected researchers Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom wrote: "The growth of the black middle class long predates the adoption of race-conscious social policies. In some ways, indeed, the black middle class was expanding more rapidly before 1970 than after."

From 1965 until now, the government has spent $15-20 trillion to fight poverty. In 1949, the poverty rate stood at 34 percent. By 1965, it was cut in half, to 17 percent -- all before the so-called War on Poverty. But after the war began in 1965, poverty began to flat line. It appears that the generous welfare system allowed women to, in essence, marry the government -- and it allowed men to abandon their financial and moral responsibility, while surrendering the dignity that comes from being a good provider. Psychologists call dependency "learned helplessness."

http://townhall.com/columnists/larryeld ... s-n1808196

[_MeDotOrg]

So, by your reasoning the Republicans suddenly abandoned their overwhelming support for civil rights in order to marginalize their base and chase after a few racist southern states...that they were using "racism: fear of the negro" to gain votes - even at the cost of their previously established platform and their legislative support for civil rights leading up to this point....an abandonment that would be a wholesale "shift" in their platform...even though the published platform reflected none of this.

Yes, you pretty much have it right, except for the part 'marginalize their base'.

Do you think the Republican Party was going to make a statement in its platform saying "Yes, we are willing to abandon the Black vote because now we wish to court disaffected white racists who previously voted Democratic"? News flash: Parties sometimes pay homage to ideas in which they don't really believe, and pursue covert strategies that they don't overtly acknowledge.

The GOP never disavowed environmentalism in their Party platforms. Are you going to tell me Republicans are the party of environmentalism because Nixon founded the EPA?

Do you think the GOP was distributing that Race-baiting Goldwater flyer in Massachusetts? Of course not. That would have alienated the liberal Rockefeller wing of the GOP. (When the GOP still had a liberal wing to alienate.)

The Southern Strategy was not spelled out in the GOP platform. The GOP was not that stupid. But it has been elucidated many times, by many key Republican operatives. Here's Lee Atwater in 1981, adviser to Reagan and Bush, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and cheerleader for the famous Willie Horton Ad.

"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."

Again I point out that the Chairman of the GOP apologized to the NAACP for using covertly racist strategies. When the Chairman of the GOP admits it was a strategy, how much more of a smoking gun do you need?

Of course not all Republicans were happy. Here's Rush Limbaugh's take on Mehlman's apology:

Know what he's going to do? He's going to go down there and basically apologize for what has come to be known as the Southern Strategy, popularized in the Nixon administration. He's going to go down there and apologize for it. In the midst of all of this, in the midst of all that's going on, once again, Republicans are going to go bend over and grab the ankles.

(Good old Rush - ever the conciliator).

Anyway, to summarize:

• Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act- Johnson supported it.
• The Republican Party actively courted Southern racists who were disaffected with the Lyndon Johnson's Support of the Civil Rights Act
• In 1964 the only region of the country Goldwater won was the Deep South, which is the only region of the country the GOP had never won since the 1872 Carpetbagger election.
• Starting in 1968, the 'Southern Strategy' was codified and elucidated by GOP operatives on numerous occasions.
• Two Republican National Committee Chairman, Lee Atwater and Ken Mehlman, have apologized for the GOP's past appeals to racism.

The naïveté of today's Dems who insist that the party that once supported Jim Crow laws has some "switched places" with the Republican party of old is just laughable.

I don't think Lee Atwater and Ken Mehlman were laughing.

In short, there's not only a smoking gun, there are powder burns.

But you would also reason that the Democratic party simultaneously had a change of heart...that suddenly it was necessary to abandon their oppressive and racist policies in order to provide a lucrative (yes, lucrative) civil rights package to the negro...not because they were tired of losing votes...but because they suddenly had a change of heart...though not reflected in their platform....a sort of "racism: fear of whitey" tactic.

I'm not suggesting that all Democrats held hands and sang "Kumbaya", but one of the key factors the contributed to the breakup of the Roosevelt Coalition was the Party's support of Civil Rights. And 'lucrative'? When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, he told an aide "We have lost the South for a generation." He was optimistic in his appraisal.

Three days after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. suggested to the new president that “one of the great tributes that we can pay in memory of President Kennedy is to try to enact some of the great, progressive policies that he sought to initiate.” President Johnson promised that he would not “give up an inch” and that King could “count on” his commitment. Seven and a half months later, on 2 July 1964, Johnson sat at a table in the East Room of the White -House and signed the Civil Rights Act.

a sort of "racism: fear of whitey" tactic.

Wow. You got me there! Lyndon Johnson, the son of poor white Texas hill country cotton farmers, masterminded the 'fear whitey' tactic. (For some reason this makes me think of Lenny Bruce's routine about teaching Johnson how to say 'negro'.)

Simply put...and to illuminate you about the fish.
The Republicans prior support of civil rights was based on the notion that men could be taught to fish for themselves and artificial race quotas were as they eventually revealed themselves to be...useless. The Democrats countered with a civil rights plan that simply pretended to oppress whitey while giving fish to the negro...no giving the negro a fishing pole or a lake...but merely keeping the negro happy with as much fish as he could want.

It sounds like you are talking about the War on Poverty, not the Civil Rights Act. (It's amusing when Republicans see the War on Poverty as only affecting African-Americans).

While I think it would be interesting to discuss the successes and failures of various poverty initiatives, it's not anything that was a part of your Original Post, or part of our discussion.

[_subgenius]

....still waiting for other breadcrumb trail where all the racist bigots decided to abandon the Democratic party because the Republican party decided to "out-racist" the Democratic party in 1964....

Democrats being racists up until what? If the Democrats had been controlled by these racist Klan members in the South for so long...why would they suddenly relinquish power and jump ship for the party that had long stood in their opposition?
And in the wake of this jumping of the ship, the Democrats suddenly decide to be "not racist" because the Republicans are now out-racisim-ing us,,,???


really?