Associated Press
Strom Thurmond, pictured here in 1957, left the Democrats when the party embraced civil rights.
Kevin Williamson covers some well-traveled ground this week, making the case that, despite popular political "myth," it's the Republican Party that's the "party of civil rights.
That Republicans have let Democrats get away with this mountebankery is a symptom of their political fecklessness, and in letting them get away with it the GOP has allowed itself to be cut off rhetorically from a pantheon of Republican political heroes, from Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to Susan B. Anthony, who represent an expression of conservative ideals as true and relevant today as it was in the 19th century.
Perhaps even worse, the Democrats have been allowed to rhetorically bury their Bull Connors, their longstanding affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, and their pitiless opposition to practically every major piece of civil-rights legislation for a century.
The right brings this up from time to time, sometimes as a defensive reaction when Republicans are feeling vulnerable on civil rights, but usually as a way of trying to convince African-American voters to ignore the last several decades and break from the Democratic coalition.
But the historical record doesn't do the GOP any favors.
The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to two broad, competing constituencies -- southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled with this conflict for years, before ultimately siding with an inclusive, liberal agenda.
As the party shifted, the Democratic mainstream embraced its new role. Republicans, meanwhile, also changed. In the wake of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party welcomed the white supremacists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Indeed, in 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater boasted of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and made it part of his platform. It was right around this time when figures like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond made the transition -- leaving the progressive, diverse, tolerant Democratic Party for the GOP.
In the years that followed, Democrats embraced their role as the party of inclusion and civil rights. Republicans, meanwhile, became the party of the "Southern Strategy," opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, and politicians like Helms and Thurmond.
Williamson's piece emphasizes Democratic votes from mid-19th century. His observations aren't wrong -- Democrats were, in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War -- on the wrong side.
The problem, however, is with the relevance of Williamson's observation. Which matters more in contemporary politics: that white supremacists were Democrats in the latter half of the 19th century or that white supremacists made a new home in the Republican Party in the latter half of the 20th century?
Democrats have no reason to sweep this history under the rug: they eventually got it right, and dispatched the racists and segregationists to the GOP, which welcomed them and their racial attitudes. Indeed, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee conceded just two years ago that his party deliberately used racial division for electoral gain for the last four decades. (This includes, by the way, Ronald Reagan.)
By Williamson's reasoning, voters should care less about the last four decades, and more about the Democratic Party's divisions four generations ago. I'm afraid that's backwards.
If history ended in the 1960s, Williamson may have a slightly more legitimate point. But given what we've seen over the last half-century, the more salient point is that Dems have been part of the solution on race, and the GOP has been part of the problem.
For more on this, check out pieces from Jon Chait and Jon Bernstein.
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So what you're REALLY saying is it doesn't matter your party affiliation, there is just something in the water down there in the South?
As a grudging denizen of Tennessee, that's the best explanation I've been able to come up with. That, combined with the so-called "thought-processes" of the local GOP, makes for the best argument for drinking only booze ever.
Yeah, Republicans, and I even remember back about 90 years ago when you came up with the idea of an "Equal Rights" amendment? How'd that turn out? Did you all do your utmost to get equal treatment for women throughout the land?
Hey, the Republican legislature and the Republican governor in Wisconsin just repealed the equal pay act. How weird is that?
This is one of those Republican talking points I see echoed so many times. It's so easy to research, but they just want to spout the untruth to show they're really more progressive.
(To be fair though, there were some racist Democrats still in the party for years after the Civil Rights Act (Senator Byrd - who renounced his racism from his past and late in his career stayed true to progressive values, receiving a 100% rating from the NAACP.))
Yep that wiley old Republican, Lyndon B. Johnson, spent DECADES pretending to be a Democrat, just so he could pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for the Republican Party!!
I guess it is ok to restate the obvious. After all you have to write about a dozen new posts a day.
Williamson needs to face the reality that when John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson embraced the civil rights movement, the Republicans embraced the white separatists no longer welcome in the Democratic party. Many of my Republican friends who witnessed the southern strategy were very pro civil rights. They could never square their party's sudden embrace of intolerance, nor would they leave their cherished party. It was all very sad.
And of course, the flip side of the GOP pointing to what the party was in the 1800's is to see what it is in the 21st century - Exhibit A, Ken Bennett in Arizona.
Oh please. The Trayvon Martin saga complete with marches and mayhem instigated by Sharpton, Jackson, and the MSM, says all that needs said, about Democrats and race.
Tsk.
No mayhem, but yes, it does... It says they care about the victims of racially-motivated murder, unlike you and your kind.
Which is what, exactly, Shooter?
How about 'let's lynch a white-hispanic boy'?
Amazing how some will interpret a call for legal justice.
You know that 'lynch' is a word meaning to KILL a person in extra-judicial mob form, with the authorities looking the other way.
There has been absolutely no lynching going on here.
Sharpton never called for lynching. Nor Jackson. They call for justice, administered through a trial.
Yes, it was Al Sharpton who instigated the whole Trayvon Martin incident when he convinced Zimmerman to stalk a teenage boy, ignore the explicit instructions from the police dispatcher to let the cops handle it, and then get out of his car and shoot the boy dead.
Damn you, Sharpton! You're the Real Racist™ here!
Excuse me? Call for legal justice? Aren't we up to four individuals in the MSM fired for doctoring audio files to make Zimmerman look guilty of racism? How about the $10,000 bounty on Zimmerman by the New Black Panthers and tacitly endorsed by the left by their silence? How about Jesse Jackson calling Martin a martyr?
No, this isn't a call to justice, it's a media lynching.
@Otto
Yes, I've heard the narrative. If all you describe had actually happened, you'd have a point. But, since it didn't, you don't.
http://www.wagist.com/2012/dan-linehan/evidence-that-trayvon-martin-doubled-back
Here's a thought - It's a free country, people are free to go where they like. If he doubled back, so the f--k what? In fact, under the law that the murderer is trying to hide behind, he has a right to confront someone threatening him. If it applies to Zimmerman, it applies to Trayvon... unless you subscribe to the whole "he's black, so the laws apply differently to him" thing, which isn't a stretch given your posting history. Comparing "he doubled back" to "he stalked someone because of their race and dress and shot them mortally" is comparing apples and atom bombs.
As for the editing bit, they did NOT add in the "f--king coons" comment; that's all Zimmerman.
Just want to point out folks ~ 'innocent until proven guilty' is the way our Justice system is structured .... we should all breath throughout this and reframe from judgement lest we become what we hate.
'innocent until proven guilty' was not bestowed by zimmerman to trayvon , and the kid was murdered no matter what the courts say , he is dead ...
So skip was never stalked by an adult when he was a kid , TM gave the rabid racist the slip , like any kid would , but he had nothing to run from and didn't , via he was speaking with his girl friend the whole time, till psycho showed up and had a 9mm melt down for no reason , the affidavit says GZ pursued TM , the kid with the candy was not presenting a menacing personality , that would be GZ
In 1954, Brown, the Court found that seperate but equal was unconstutional in matters of education. It would be safe to say almost 60 years. The 1964 Civil Rights Act tied Title VI funding to the elimination of segregation. That gave both parties 10 years to play musical chairs. This parlor game seems to be taking place again begining 2012, and civil rights is still the crux of the issues. Home of the free?
We are taught at an early age to walk, to talk, to use the toilet. Next comes religion, and our place in society, vis a vis "others". We reach the age of reason- the ability to think- about the same time we enter college. Sadly, many do not get that experience, and it is why the GOP fears higher education.
Here's another way to look at it; the Democrats are the party of intellectual growth (in attitudes and subsequent policies dealing with race), while the Republicans are not.
The Corporate IngSOC Party, err Republican Party, has a Ministry of (un)Truth busy rewriting what must be rewritten so that when the Corporate takeover in late 2012 finally occurs, less work will need to be done. How many of us will be working there when the new order takes place?
If you think about it, it is pretty bizarre that the party of Abraham Lincoln worships Ronald Reagan as the greatest president in history. Williamson neglects to explain exactly how Democrats are "cutting off" Republicans from their historical forebears.
The other piece of this puzzle is for generations, Republicans couldn't get elected in the South precisely because they were the Party of Lincoln. That didn't change until the Civil Rights era, when they turned their backs on his legacy. And coincidentally, I'm sure, that was when states started adding the stars and bars to their state flags.
This is the kind of blatant intellectual dishonesty the GOP has to engage in to try to rewrite the Democratic Party's history of pushing for civil rights. Although it's distasteful, it's at least a useful reminder that the GOP is truly ashamed of its legacy and feels the need to poach that of the Democrats to make their case to the public. Imitation - even when carried out through plagiarism - is the sincerest form of flattery.
I'm sure in 20 years, the Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs of the world will claim it was the GOP that actually spearheaded the cause for gay marriage, and that Obama was just copying the GOP when he came out in support of it in 2012.
Has there ever been a party (or a presidential candidate) whose complete disdain for the intelligence of voters has been more complete?
Romney promises his donors he'll cut education massively; turns around to Latinos and says, "Education is a Civil Right."
Who do they think they are fooling?
DAY - the Republicans don't want to kill higher education. They want to privatize it. Defund public education at all levels and what is left? For-profit education. The defunding has begun with a vengeance across the land, in the name of cutting the cost of government. Apparently the repubs have a taste for seed corn. Oh, that last is my euphemism for our childrens' futures. I learned that in public school. Euphemism. And all I had to do was bring my lunch.
Sorry but higher education has been "private" since 1981. When the Dole-Bayh Act was passed the stream of information and technology dried up. Pick up a textbook that is used in College and University Agriculture classes and ALL of the data and research is older than 1981. Big business, politicians, and Wall Street have already won this war and NO ONE even noticed! This is why the average meal is made up from ingredients that have traveled 1500 miles.
It's funny how Republicans wants us to remember how the party used to be while their candidate for President does not want people to remember how he used to be.
My three-times-great grandfather, a Quaker abolitionist (our family became abolitionists in 1688, when the first of my ancestors to come to this country helped make the policy of the Germantown Quakers, that one could not own a slave and attend meeting, the first abolition of slavery by Europeans in history) was one of the founders of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, as the party of abolition. He was so strong in his opposition to slavery that he even supported his son leaving the Quaker church to fight in the Civil War, following Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. Our family remained Republican due to the issue of racial equality until 1932 when my father voted in his first election for FDR, and my very Republican grandmother ended up in 1948 voting for Harry Truman for his desegregation of the armed forces.
I have been certain for the past 50 years that my Pennsylvania Quaker Republican ancestors have been spinning in their graves, that the party they worked all their lives for to change American racial policy would in the end be taken over by the very people they were willing to leave their church to go and fight - the Southern traitors who now pass themselves off as the "party of patriotism".
Republican pseudohistorian David Barton has as a companion lecture to his "Thomas Jefferson was a deeply religious Christian" which is his equally dishonest "Republicans are the Party of Civil Rights." (the book was called Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black and White.)
Almost all of the right-wing pundits use the same talking points cited in the excellent article. What fail to mention is that the party affiliation had little meaning compared to the geographical location of the politician.
It is easy to see what is going on when you look at how the actual vote of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 broke down:
Original House Version Yea Nay Senate Version Yea Nay
Southern Democrats 7 - 87 Southern Democrats 1 - 20
Southern Republicans 0- 10 Southern Republicans 0 - 1
Northern Democrats 145 - 9 Northern Democrats 45 - 1
Northern Republicans 138 - 24 Northern Republicans 25 - 5
The best way to look at it is that the Democrats take people as they are and strive to expand them (& themselves) to be the best that they know how to be, while the Republicans assume that they already are the best that they can be and strive to 'hold short' ....
democrats will always experience the thrill of a controlled landing while that GOP will usually experience the kill of the crash ~
Revisionist history of this nature is always to be expected from the party of
Rape-Public-Con men
grifting and fraud, par for their course
I was reading about Reconstruction after the civil war. I find it quite interesting that by 1869 a Republican Congress passed the 14th and 15th amendments, which, in essence, gave blacks equality. Then Pres Andrew Johnson pretty well screwed it up and helped the mostly affluent whites, Democrats all, to win these states back and re-establish Jim Crow laws, in other words, returning blacks to being second class citizens with marginal rights. By 1877, the South was, again, all Democrats.
But, in the end, Reconstruction failed and the South, as far as blacks go, returned to poverty.
My... how things have changed.
Civil rights is not a Republican vs. Democrat cause -- it was and still is a conservative vs. progressive cause.
From the end of the Civil War until the 1960's, the Republican Party was the progressive force behind civil rights efforts. But when LBJ led the charge toward mandating the end of segregation in the South, a dramatic shift in party affiliation began which culminated in the rise of the ultra-conservative Religious Right in the 1980's. As a result, racially and religiously intolerant social conservatives are accurately identified with the GOP of the last half century.