Republicans tell us what they are. Doy!
1 Like
Ouch.
1 Like
When Vernon Jones says
“The Democratic Party does not want Black people to leave their mental plantation. I have news for Joe Biden: We are free, we are free people with free minds, and I’m part of a large and growing segment of the Black community who are independent thinkers, and we believe that Donald Trump is the president that America needs to lead us forward.”
I do not understand how you can praise a single thing about him. He’s not a democrat, he is either a moron or a disgusting opportunist based on his own words.
4 Likes
There seems to be certain disconnect between repeatedly recognizing that everything the Republican’s sold themselves as back in the 80’s was a bill of goods, while also talking about how greatly the party has changed today. Seems the only change was the quality of the lies.
9 Likes
Feel free to find the inaccuracy in my statement. 
1 Like
Well…
It started as an unspoken agreement. Then it became winks and nudges. Then it turned into a “quiet rooms”. Now it’s a megaphone.
But people have gotten so used to accepting those lies as truths that it really doesn’t matter.
3 Likes
Hadn’t considered praising him, actually.
1 Like
Actually I was referring to the author of the article but…ego I guess.
There are many things I agree with here, but some real clinkers too. If anyone believes the Republican Party is different in ideology today, than it was during the Reagan administration, then consider this me laughing in your face.
All that is different is the costume and the salesman. No Reagan, no Trump.
Reagan was a Tupperware salesman owned by J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn. Agent T-10. We still live in the world created by Nixon, J. Edgar, and Roy Cohn. It’s just that now we have forgotten the trailhead from which it all started, and we look back nostalgically at our naivety in our youth. But make no mistake about the historic, blatant, and extreme racism endemic in the Republican Party. It didn’t just spring to life under Trump. Trump just watered and fertilized what was already there, waiting like Tolkien’s ring of power.
The author makes some fine points, and I have always read his writing in awe of his skills. But to think James Clyburn takes the black vote for granted is a bridge too far for me.
15 Likes
This was a really good read and gave me a good view on a different world. I grew up in the same time line. My retired grandparents voted Democrat since WWII. Their whole world was always the Democrats stand up for the little people. While at the time I did not see the racist side of their stances. We lived outside DC in Wheaton MD and they rented. But as more Asians and Blacks moved into neighborhoods the further outside of DC they moved. I never fell into that view as somehow my grandmother even with underlying racism still felt everyone should be treated the same and the little people always needed to be helped. They were all solid D votes till they died. We were never in warzones just always way out on the fringe of suburbia and we were never rich. My GREAT grandmother supported us by living off her Government pension. Something the GOP is always about getting rid of. If it had not been for SSI and that pension we would have been living in a box on the street. But we didnt and managed. And somehow that idea that to take away peoples life lines like the GOP wants to do and has always wanted to do even when they tantalized with trickle down economics yeah that never resonated with me. Boot strap Ayn Rand self blah blah . .all a lie. A false prophet in my mind.
7 Likes
Yeah… it reads like he’s not really processing or is in denial about the damage his parents and those like him caused to their OWN community. He’s glossing over all that and apparently transferring that guilt.
2 Likes
How might one go about justifying or substantiating the assertion?
1 Like
Although I disagreed with much written in the last few paragraphs, there’s too much of the same tired and lazy distilling down of how the parties moved to the right, I do agree with most everything said in the first half. In fact, most of what was said in the first half of the piece explains why the Black community fully supported things like the '94 Crime Bill. It explains why even much of the rhetoric surrounding the bill, rhetoric we now realize was pretty racist, was welcomed and applauded by much of the Black community. Both of my grannies lived in houses with bars on every window and triple locks and huge motion sensored flood lights that lit up their homes like a sunny July day if a stray cat so much as ran across the porch after dark. The crack epidemic ravaged once beautiful neighborhoods and left people living in utter terror. Folks desperately wanted relief.
Amen! The both-sides nonsense is what bothered me as well. It ignores too much of what went on and pretends that the country didn’t change during the time from '68 to '92 when for all but four years the country was run by a Republican led executive branch. It also pretends there wasn’t good damn reason electorally speaking why the Democrats weren’t forced to the right.
19 Likes
Yes, this part is pure horseshit
For someone who claims to be a CSPAN nerd, it requires a very selective memory and even more selective definition of Republicans. So let us refresh our memories,shall we:
- Clinton pushed through, what was then the largest tax increase to date, almost all of it on the rich
2.His administration had drawn up a plan for a carbon tax which was thwarted by the likes of David Boren - Remember Hillarycare? That was another attempt at universal health care.
- Clinton started the country on the LGBT rights from the Government side. He wanted to remove the ban in the military but had to settle for DADT.
- He had more women and AAs in senior administration positions upto that point.
- He nominated the likes of RGB.
None of these, not one, would be considered Republican policies, not then, not now.
18 Likes
Exactly. Most pre-Trump Republicans understood the dog whistle, they knew not to say the quiet part out loud while Trump screams it into a bullhorn, but let’s not pretend it wasn’t there. Reagan launched his campaign in Philadelphia, MS, built his destruction of the social safety net on the demonization and humiliation of Black people, and his trickle down economics are much of the reason why Black people still lag way behind their white counterparts economically.
15 Likes
That seems like some major league historical revisionism.
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Clinton said. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
She said the other half of Trump’s supporters “feel that the government has let them down” and are “desperate for change.”
“Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well,” she said.
16 Likes
Perhaps, but Boren and Moynihan and Nunn, three of your major Clinton-thwarters, were … Democrats.
Maybe that’s relevant?
I agree with other things you say but I did not hear Clinton’s remarks in this way.
3 Likes
Southern Conservative ? Maybe that is relevant versus the party label? Always has for me.
4 Likes
RE: AS’s remarks about Clarence Thomas
Presidents can be more deadly than cynical in the conduct of the office, but I was first struck and and still feel the Pappy Bush’s nomination of Thomas to the 'unofficial Black Seat" was THE MOST CYNICAL POUTS move in my lifetime. Just back slapping high five-ing Willie Horton ad cynicism.
10 Likes