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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1329096
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1329096
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Thank you for this. It is such a clear description of how nuanced, fluid and situational life is. Too often we see everything as black and white, where life is grey and messy and who we once were isn’t who we are now – for better or for worse.
Excellent read. Again, many thanks.
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Well stated and a great analysis.
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This was marvelous. Nothing is so effective as combining insight with distinctive personal experience. And for someone like me, a white, Midwestern boomer, it was a window into experiences far different from my own. It makes me want to read more.
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The Second Reconstruction was successful, but unfinished. Those of us who benefited from it did fairly well, but did not do enough to deal with the Second Reconstruction’s reaction.
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Great article. We all need to get beyond hero worship and realize that change only comes when we demand it, whether from Rs or Ds. I will differ on Harris’s record on marijuana prosecutions, as I believe she used a holistic approach to arrests and punishments, but that’s just my opinion.
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Great and thoughtful piece and a reminder not to take anything for granted.
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" It wasn’t always this way." Respectfully disagree, this is not a new game in the least.
Too bad the Republican strat of scaring people into submission worked as well as it did in this case.
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Well written and insightful. The use of the author’s life as a political memoir is effective and enjoyable. I will share and recommend this.
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“This is exactly what the Democratic Party of the 1990s became: they became Republicans with Black friends… Democrats have become Republicans”
This notion was horseshit back in the 1990s and it’s horseshit now. The extent to which anybody believes this is a reflection of how thoroughly bamboozled they’ve been both by the GOP and by the relentless fact-free both-sidesing of political coverage by legacy big media, with an assist by a Democratic Party that all too frequently is horribly inept at communicating what it believes to its own natural constituencies and to the nation at large.
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Great article, fascinating.
However I have always been uncomfortable with the trope that the Democrats have become the Republicans. No matter how well it plays with the far left it is a straw man.
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Really superb. “Clinton was a Republican with black friends.” I will use that one.
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Respectfully disagree. Economically, Democrats since Clinton have been Reagan Republicans. Maybe “moderate” Reagan Republicans, but still. It’s true that Democrats don’t share the hatred of black and queer people that animates Republicans, and that matters, and that Democrats have promoted some semblance of a social safety net, and that matters, too. But consider post-2008. Obama/Biden took care of the wealthy, and let millions of struggling homeowners get crushed. Ds since Clinton have seen the basic role of government on the economy as making sure the wealthy get wealthier and stay that way. This was the core of Bernie’s message, and it’s true. Hoping Biden listens well to Bernie.
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Nice read,my only jab here is.
"YOU believe that Donald Trump is the president that America needs to lead us forward.”
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Good explanation of why Hillary lost, both from what happened during the Obama/Biden administration and her calling the working class deplorables, implicitly including blacks. Clinton not only was a gung-ho mainstream capitalist globalism guy, to the detriment of the Amercan working class, but he also gave Rupert Murdoch citizenship, which allowed him to own Fox News and the rest of his media empire, something not allowed to non citizens.
Correction: Reagan not Clinton granted Murdoch citizenship. Clinton facilitated Murdoch’s ability to expand his media empire in a way not allowed before 1996. I don’t know if the rights of naturalized citizens re ownership were involved in that change.
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This is a very excellent piece which encapsulates what happened in the 80’s and 90’s.
For years before the Republican Party went crazy you had Black Republicans like Senator Ed Brooke, Jackie Robinson, Colin Powell and H.W Bush era HHS secretary Louis Sullivan were more in the party of Lincoln mold who were more in line with supporting parts of the New Deal and Great Society along with Eisenhower, Rockefeller and Nixon domestic and foreign policies. Ike happened to get around 40% of the Black vote. Robinson would not endorse Goldwater in 64 because he thought they went too far right and he was roughed up at the convention.
Then you have Black Conservatives like Candice Owens, Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Larry Elder, Justice Janice Rogers Brown and Star Parker want to roll back not only the Great Society and New Deal but want them declared unconstitutional as in the Lockner decision. Basically go back to the pre Progressive Teddy Roosevelt eta when wage, hour and worker safety laws did not exist. There was no FDA where unscrupulous merchants sold miracles remedies. In other words the “plantation” that they claim is oppression is one of corporate malfeasance with few regulations, no social insurance leading to diminished livelihood and less productivity and efficiency.
I wonder where this oppressive plantation is and look at the ways we benefit from effective government. The book Submerged state gets into this. The “Welfare state” is in the tax code.
The health insurance that is part of your employment contract is not provided by your employer out of the goodness of their heart, they get a tax credit for providing their employees with health insurance. This is the 2nd largest tax expenditure in the code, the 1st is the mortgage deduction which I’m sure they benefit from as well. I’m sure when they wake up in the morning and you step outside your door the streets are safe, the infrastructure is functional and inspected. When you take care of your banking the FDIC and SEC is looking out on your behalf so you are not taken in by some Ponzi scheme. Yeah, some plantation.
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Aurin Squire, write a damn book already. I’ll buy it.
I enjoy reading your writing.
Generally, I just skim over longer articles. Not this time.
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It was the Reagan administration in 1985 who gave Rupert Murdoch American citizenship. They also deregulated media markets allowing him to own newspapers and television stations in the same market. There was also the 1996 broadcast deregulation under Clinton that allowed radio stations to consolidate under a large conglomerate like Clear Channel.
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But if the party is so horribly inept at communicating, how do you know what its goals are?
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