The GQP: Trumpist Death Cult

[UpperWestside 6,134]

22 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

See--the problem with the last section is twofold:

1) If Trump loses, he won't have the good grace to go away like Nixon or McGovern.  He'll stick around.  It always has to be about him.  And he's got enough supporters that they will make it about him.  The GOP can't move past Trump.  Not while he's alive.  It will always be the Party of Trump.

2) If the Democrats gain control of the House and Senate, the first thing they're going to pass is a new Voting Rights Act.  And that is going to make it impossible for an all-white party to win going forward.  And what're the chances of the Trumpublican Party changing its colors to become something other than an all-white party?

The thought process of “We’ll just rebuild it post-Trump and everything will be okay is a fantasy. It absolutely does not bother to see how the last 50 years of the Republican Party is why they are now a cult. When you spend five plus decades fighting against change you get what they are now.
 

Sasse is a joke. He is emblematic of why that party needs to be stricken from American society and never be heard from again. The idea that they will just re-form around some new ideals is ridiculous and should get pushback from the parts of society that recognize the Republican Party for what it is. It is a party of racists who would love to go back to the good old days when Jim Crow ruled the roost and white people did not have to recognize black folks as being their equal. You can throw a gallon of lipstick on the pig, but it’s still a pig.

[wildcat09 29,226]

31 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

See--the problem with the last section is twofold:

1) If Trump loses, he won't have the good grace to go away like Nixon or McGovern.  He'll stick around.  It always has to be about him.  And he's got enough supporters that they will make it about him.  The GOP can't move past Trump.  Not while he's alive.  It will always be the Party of Trump.

2) If the Democrats gain control of the House and Senate, the first thing they're going to pass is a new Voting Rights Act.  And that is going to make it impossible for an all-white party to win going forward.  And what're the chances of the Trumpublican Party changing its colors to become something other than an all-white party?

You’re forgetting that John Roberts will strike down whatever they pass.

[MonkeyDoughnut 10,140]

Making everything about Trump gives him way too much credit... GOP got "stuck" with him (their own doing) and didn't know what to do with him when he somehow pulled it off last go round, but the party has been on implosion mode for way longer than Trump has been affiliated with it. He's just taking the expressway instead of the scenic route.

Both sides should thank him for speeding up the process. It will be Dems turn next... the cracks are already there.

[GopherRock 1,765]

This piece was from June 24, but I didn't see it in this thread. 

538: The Republican Choice

Quote

The GOP’s whitewashed political reality is no accident — the party has repeatedly chosen to pursue white voters at the cost of others decade after decade. Since the mid-20th century, the Republican Party has flirted with both the morality of greater racial inclusion and its strategic benefits. But time and again, the party’s appeals to white voters have overridden voices calling for a more racially diverse coalition, and Republicans’ relative indifference to the interests of voters of color evolved into outright antagonism.

 

[Brisketexan 104,560]

11 minutes ago, GopherRock said:

and Republicans’ relative indifference to the interests of voters of color evolved into outright antagonism.

This has been the break-point for a fair number of people.  "Indifference to the interests of voters of color" -- while short-sighted etc. -- is at least something of a race-neutral approach.  Again, I don't think it's a good one, but at least it's a discussion about POLICY, and it is fundamentally objective (sure, used as a trojan horse for racism by some folks, but not by all).

It's the shift to outright antagonism -- the nativist xenophobia, questioning the Americanism of anyone who doesn't have a "white" name or face, characterizing black people broadly as "thugs," and people who are going to "ruin your neighborhoods.".....that's the jaw-dropping part.  The fucking GOP is gleefully aligned with white nativism, at the expense of literally everyone else, all of whom are lesser than "real Americans."  That it's so fucking naked, and joyfully so....that's the fucking sickness.

[Pig Bellmont 8,691]

I’m still shocked they aren’t going to have a platform. Just a big fuck you to all of America. “You don’t need to know what we stand for, just vote for us”. 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,546]

13 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

"This is way better."

 

[deech 2,251]

1 hour ago, Pig Bellmont said:

I’m still shocked they aren’t going to have a platform. Just a big fuck you to all of America. “You don’t need to know what we stand for, just vote for us”. 

Don't need our candidates tax filings.

Don't need a platform.  

Don't need a logical consistent position.  

Just party over all (and by party I mean Trump)

William F. Buckley has to be rolling over in his grave.  

Edited August 24, 2020 by deech

[Ghost of LL 15,477]

2 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

You’re forgetting that John Roberts will strike down whatever they pass.

No, he won't.  Congress has broad power under the Fifteenth Amendment to ensure voting rights.

The problem with the Voting Rights Act was the disparity in treatment of some states requiring pre-clearance vis-a-vis some other states without a specific congressional finding.  I think Congress will probably clean that up in the next go-around.

[wildcat09 29,226]

23 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

No, he won't.  Congress has broad power under the Fifteenth Amendment to ensure voting rights.

The problem with the Voting Rights Act was the disparity in treatment of some states requiring pre-clearance vis-a-vis some other states without a specific congressional finding.  I think Congress will probably clean that up in the next go-around.

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here. Without a specific finding as to what? 

 

[Dnaguy 11,770]

4 hours ago, TXSG8R said:

Quote

 

The result is political anarchy. Traditionally, the run-up to a convention sees a party attempting to tame rival factions and unite around a dynamic vision for the future. Instead, Republicans have spent the summer in a self-immolating downward spiral. 

On Capitol Hill, several House Republicans berated a member of their leadership for defending the integrity of the nation’s top infectious disease expert amid a raging pandemic; one of them, days later, accosted a young Democratic congresswoman on the steps of the House, allegedly calling her a “fucking bitch,” while another one, who had proudly refused to wear a face covering around the Capitol, contracted Covid-19. Things weren’t much sunnier on the Senate side, where one Republican touted a new investigation that would “certainly help Donald Trump win reelection” while his GOP colleague concluded that a separate probe exonerated Trump’s campaign of wrongdoing in 2016 when it did precisely the opposite. Meanwhile, as party operatives worked feverishly to win ballot access for Kanye West, a bipolar Black celebrity who could ostensibly draw votes from Joe Biden, emerging victorious from at least three GOP primaries were congressional candidates who have expressed support for QAnon, the psychotic conspiracy theory that accuses Democrats and Hollywood elites of trafficking and cannibalizing young children. Given a chance to disavow this nascent movement, the president pleaded ignorance and, along with other party officials, embraced these candidates, even the self-described “proud Islamophobe” who has fantasized about immigrants dying en masse. 

All the while, Trump kept busy suggesting a delay to the November election and predicting that the only way he will lose is if ballots are rigged against him. He repeatedly misstated the key statistics of the coronavirus and misleading citizens about its scale; condemned American cities to “rot” amid continued social unrest and violence; defended the Confederate Flag and suggested that the Civil Rights Act was a mistake; promised a “full and complete health care plan” that never materialized; declined to attend the Capitol funeral of civil rights icon and beloved congressman John Lewis; dog-whistled to white suburbanites that Black and brown people are readying an “invasion” of their neighborhoods if Biden wins; extended well-wishes to Ghislaine Maxwell, who stands accused of running Jeffrey Epstein’s underage sex-trafficking ring; pondered a sabotage of the United States Postal Service for the purpose of suppressing absentee votes; warned that Biden, a lifelong Roman Catholic, is “against God” and will “hurt God” if elected; indulged an encore presentation of birther speculation, this time with regards to Kamala Harris, the California-born Democratic V.P. nominee; and, naturally, pressured the governor of South Dakota to make room for him on Mount Rushmore.

This is not a party struggling to find its identity. This is a party in the middle of a meltdown.

 

Got damn!

 

The Aristocrats!

[Ghost of LL 15,477]

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying here. Without a specific finding as to what? 

 

The problem with the preclearance regime under the VRA was that there wasn't a specific finding of recent discrimination or voter suppression in the states that were required to obtain preclearance.  So it had the effect of treating some states worse than others based on some historical fact.

Congress can fix that with a finding of specific voter suppression in, for example, Georgia, that would require Georgia to submit to preclearance of its redistricting maps.  Or, in the alternative, it can just require every state to submit to preclearance.

Regardless, it is a problem that has an easy fix.

[softlynow 1,783]

4 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

See--the problem with the last section is twofold:

1) If Trump loses, he won't have the good grace to go away like Nixon or McGovern.  He'll stick around.  It always has to be about him.  And he's got enough supporters that they will make it about him.  The GOP can't move past Trump.  Not while he's alive.  It will always be the Party of Trump.

2) If the Democrats gain control of the House and Senate, the first thing they're going to pass is a new Voting Rights Act.  And that is going to make it impossible for an all-white party to win going forward.  And what're the chances of the Trumpublican Party changing its colors to become something other than an all-white party?

The problem is Arthur Brooks is looking at Trumpism as if it was an isolated bad presidency that led to the upheaval. Trumpism is more akin to the cataclysmic events in our history. After the Civil War the GOP won 9 of the next 11 presidential elections. After the onset of the Great Depression Dems won 7 of 9. Following the fracture of what historians call the Democratic-Republican Party in 1924 (marking the beginning of the robust two-party system Brooks looks to for solace) the Dems won 6 of 8.

It's foolish to look at the 1970s, when liberalism was losing intellectual momentum and conservatism was stretching its legs as a data point for the resilience of today's GOP. If anything those roles are reversed. Progressive ideas abound, and are, for the first time in a while, a decent threat to take control of the Democratic Party.

I would argue, that, If your looking for parallels, Biden is the Dems Nixon, who with conservative support, though wasn't conservative. Conservative activists saw the disaster in '64 as reason enough to get in line with the GOP in '68 and hope to continue to work within the party apparatus to capture it ideologically. One could easily see that dynamic play out over the next decade or so as boomers give way to millennials as the dominant electoral block.

In short, I agree. If GOP activists want to prevent long-term electoral carnage, they need to work with their donors to isolate Trump as a political force. There's no guarantee that any strategy along those lines would be successful, but if there is any path to parity with Dems in the near-term it includes total disavowal of Trumpism.

[Brisketexan 104,560]

42 minutes ago, softlynow said:

There's no guarantee that any strategy along those lines would be successful, but if there is any path to parity with Dems in the near-term it includes total disavowal of Trumpism.

Or....and follow me here.....the GOP could just destroy any and all institutions and mechanisms that could force them from power, rigging the game for the next 50 years.

Which path do you think they'll take?

[softlynow 1,783]

13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Or....and follow me here.....the GOP could just destroy any and all institutions and mechanisms that could force them from power, rigging the game for the next 50 years.

Which path do you think they'll take?

How are they going to do this? I get that they might want to. But what you're talking about takes competence. Trump ain't no Cheney.

Let's assume, arguendo, that Biden takes the EC. What does the GOP coup look like?

I'll grant that they will try to rig the election. Gym laid out one plan for us today (again, I think a fascistic takeover is beyond the grasp for these D-teamers). But humor me and consider that they just can't quite get that done.

[UpperWestside 6,134]

21 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Or....and follow me here.....the GOP could just destroy any and all institutions and mechanisms that could force them from power, rigging the game for the next 50 years.

Which path do you think they'll take?

They're attempting to do it now. The only thing standing between them pulling this off is the election results. It is not an exaggeration to say that if Dotard is re-elected that we are  going to see riots on a scale that has never been seen in this country. Just like the Cult puts their racism in the storefront window, those of us who are sick of it have our opposition for everyone to see. I personally would not riot, but I will not condemn it either. We are witnessing a cult attempting to turn us into a fascist country and that absolutely has to be prevented. We're on that path right now, but it can be halted. Getting this idiot out of office would be a beginning to righting the ship, but it will take years to repair things just to get back to some semblance of a functioning democracy.

Edited August 24, 2020 by UpperWestside

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

1 minute ago, softlynow said:

How are they going to do this? I get that they might want to. But what you're talking about takes competence. Trump ain't no Cheney.

Let's assume, arguendo, that Biden takes the EC. What does the GOP coup look like?

I'll grant that they will try to rig the election. Gym laid out one plan for us today (again, I think a fascistic takeover is beyond the grasp for these D-teamers). But humor me and consider that they just can't quite get that done.

They're going to try. And that's bad.

Gone With The Wind was on tv this weekend. I'm not a big fan of the movie although I adore many of the actors and actresses who were in it. I believe Mitchell's tome might have gone the way of The Thorn Birds and other long historical works of fiction if it weren't for the movie. I didn't watch more than a a brief bit at the start, waiting for Olivia de Havilland and then the initial face to face meeting between Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in the parlor at the Wilkes' plantation. But prior to that is the scene that leads to Gable exiting the afternoon drinks and smokes conversation with the men about impending war and he has this quote:

"*I think it’s hard winning a war with words, gentlemen. . . . I’m saying very plainly that the Yankees are better equipped than we. . . . All we’ve got is cotton and slaves, and arrogance.”  With that, he turns to leave quipping, “I seem to be spoiling everybody’s brandy and cigars and dreams of victory.”

Mitchell and then later, the film producers had the benefit of hindsight with the outcome of the war, but Rhett Butler wasn't wrong, and the toll was significant.

*I cut out some of the dialogue for brevity.

[ChiTownDoc 21,098]

The R party is dead with a loss in November.  The only question is does it come back with the same name or another.  All the more reason to get the fucking vote out.  Also do your best to get those you love to get to actual polling stations.  Unless they're voting R...in which case why do you love assholes? 

Sadly, the mail in options should only be used as a last resort right now.  

['stache 21,763]

1 hour ago, ChiTownDoc said:

The R party is dead with a loss in November.  The only question is does it come back with the same name or another.  All the more reason to get the fucking vote out.  Also do your best to get those you love to get to actual polling stations.  Unless they're voting R...in which case why do you love assholes? 

Sadly, the mail in options should only be used as a last resort right now.  

42% of voters still like this regime. If they lose, they'll make a few tweaks while keeping the white supremacists, and start winning again. And that's assuming they lose. If they win, it's obviously their country for the foreseeable future. If Biden wins, all it will take is a few of his decisions to be blasted on fox news as "socialism" "radical" leftist" and a few child sex ring pizza parlor conspiracy theories to get back into power. Because American's are fucking stupid and the republicans learned first how to take advantage of them.

[UpperWestside 6,134]

1 hour ago, ChiTownDoc said:

The R party is dead with a loss in November.  The only question is does it come back with the same name or another.  All the more reason to get the fucking vote out.  Also do your best to get those you love to get to actual polling stations.  Unless they're voting R...in which case why do you love assholes? 

Sadly, the mail in options should only be used as a last resort right now.  

I would like to believe this, but I will not underestimate just how easily millions of Americans can be led down the path of fascism. All it takes is someone charismatic who can re-brand the evil with a shiny new bow. Then we start with this all over again. Our country has a lot of decidedly not sharp tools in the populace. 2016 out front shoulda told you.

[ChiTownDoc 21,098]

18 minutes ago, 'stache said:

42% of voters still like this regime. If they lose, they'll make a few tweaks while keeping the white supremacists, and start winning again. And that's assuming they lose. If they win, it's obviously their country for the foreseeable future. If Biden wins, all it will take is a few of his decisions to be blasted on fox news as "socialism" "radical" leftist" and a few child sex ring pizza parlor conspiracy theories to get back into power. Because American's are fucking stupid and the republicans learned first how to take advantage of them.

You act like the olds aren't gonna die off.  The younger generation isn't into this same bullshit and the olds are dying, trust me. 

9 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

I would like to believe this, but I will not underestimate just how easily millions of Americans can be led down the path of fascism. All it takes is someone charismatic who can re-brand the evil with a shiny new bow. Then we start with this all over again. Our country has a lot of decidedly not sharp tools in the populace. 2016 out front shoulda told you.

This was literally all kinds of 1/100 chances that all hit at the same time.  I don't buy this being the new norm.  People have a terrible recency bias. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

That someone is probably Josh Hawley. This article was posted on Surly before, but it bears reposting. He would remake government to serve God, specifically his version of militant Christianity.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/josh-hawley-could-be-the-face-of-the-post-trump-right.html

[Buzzrock 14,870]

The R party is dead with a loss in November.  The only question is does it come back with the same name or another.  All the more reason to get the fucking vote out.  Also do your best to get those you love to get to actual polling stations.  Unless they're voting R...in which case why do you love assholes? 
Sadly, the mail in options should only be used as a last resort right now.  

It could be argued that the only way the R party survives is with a loss in November. Then they get to work on the long slow rebuilding process four years sooner. If Trump stays for four more then the damage could be permanent.

[Buzzrock 14,870]

The Olds dying off...I’ve been thinking that would happen for 30 years.

[TwiceHorn 31,264]

5 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

No, he won't.  Congress has broad power under the Fifteenth Amendment to ensure voting rights.

The problem with the Voting Rights Act was the disparity in treatment of some states requiring pre-clearance vis-a-vis some other states without a specific congressional finding.  I think Congress will probably clean that up in the next go-around.

Yep I was thinking that some new fact findings would be timely and would support a new VRA.  Part of the Shelby County deal was that there weren't good/recent fact-findings supporting things and making them look arbitrary.

[ChiTownDoc 21,098]

3 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

 

It could be argued that the only way the R party survives is with a loss in November. Then they get to work on the long slow rebuilding process four years sooner. If Trump stays for four more then the damage could be permanent.

 

Yes - that's what I mean by it may be called the R party but they'll do their best to kill off the radical elements that have made them so toxic.  Maybe just a return to 'don't say the quiet part out loud'...either way, it will be a very different party (optically) imo.  Not one I'm going back to either way.  It's obvious who they are, regardless of what is said/presented. 

Edited August 24, 2020 by ChiTownDoc

[UpperWestside 6,134]

14 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

You act like the olds aren't gonna die off.  The younger generation isn't into this same bullshit and the olds are dying, trust me. 

This was literally all kinds of 1/100 chances that all hit at the same time.  I don't buy this being the new norm.  People have a terrible recency bias. 

I am trying not to just look through the lens of what happened four years ago. We are not suddenly going to have 55-60 million voting adults, not to even mention the people who do not vote who support this clown, all dying off and slithering away. Civil Rights Laws and reform in the 60’s did not end racist behavior. If anything it emboldened millions of people to continue to be that way, but in more hushed tones.
 

This isn’t just about Biden winning or losing. I will vote for him and I believe he will win. I do not believe that the people who vote for Dotard will suddenly have a come to Jesus moment and renounce who they are. They’ll get quiet again and find a new messiah to follow. History is littered with idiots following an idiot with a message they want to hear. 

[UpperWestside 6,134]

I do absolutely believe the youngest current generation is the smartest and most informed we have ever had though. The thing with them is seeing if they will follow through this n the years and years of work ahead that will be required from them and the rest of us to sow this country back together into some form of a functioning democracy.

[NameAlreadyInUse 5,106]

7 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

I’m still shocked they aren’t going to have a platform. Just a big fuck you to all of America. “You don’t need to know what we stand for, just vote for us”. 

Tahoe would tell you that it was always thus, they just used to write things down they didn't actually believe in.  And he was proud of that about his party.  

Also, I'm realizing now that our biggest mistake as a country, aside from slavery, was not doing to the south the same things the germans did to the nazi's after WWII.  It should have been drilled into them that what the south did was to shame its descendents.  The fact we let them go on glorifying the losers and carrying their symbols and normalizing the okayness of that train of thought back then made it all but inevitable that we'd get here one day.  

[WhatTheBuck 28,705]

7 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

I’m still shocked they aren’t going to have a platform. Just a big fuck you to all of America. “You don’t need to know what we stand for, just vote for us”. 

They can't make overtly pro-Russian changes to their platform if they have no platform. 

[JimmyJames 12,271]

The party that believes in nothing should not have a platform, 

[HornOnTheBayou 8,881]

57 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

I would like to believe this, but I will not underestimate just how easily millions of Americans can be led down the path of fascism. All it takes is someone charismatic who can re-brand the evil with a shiny new bow. Then we start with this all over again. Our country has a lot of decidedly not sharp tools in the populace. 2016 out front shoulda told you.

I really do think that in many ways Trump's stupidity saved us these last four years. Trump doesn't scare me anymore. The Guy After Trump does. The next person is going to be smarter and is going to have some political acumen. That's when things are going to get real bad. 

Edited August 24, 2020 by HornOnTheBayou

[JimmyJames 12,271]

[WhatTheBuck 28,705]

30 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

It could be argued that the only way the R party survives is with a loss in November. Then they get to work on the long slow rebuilding process four years sooner. If Trump stays for four more then the damage could be permanent.

 

Clinton dragged the Democratic Party to the center after 12 years of Republican rule. After Obama was reelected, some were calling the GOP the "party of stupid" and suggesting that they should start making room for the interests of non-white voters in their policies. Then Trump happened. 

I think a Hillary Clinton victory might have forced them to change. Now I think it's still going to take 12 years of Democratic rule before they adapt. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13,049]

23 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

I am trying not to just look through the lens of what happened four years ago. We are not suddenly going to have 55-60 million voting adults, not to even mention the people who do not vote who support this clown, all dying off and slithering away. Civil Rights Laws and reform in the 60’s did not end racist behavior. If anything it emboldened millions of people to continue to be that way, but in more hushed tones.
 

This isn’t just about Biden winning or losing. I will vote for him and I believe he will win. I do not believe that the people who vote for Dotard will suddenly have a come to Jesus moment and renounce who they are. They’ll get quiet again and find a new messiah to follow. History is littered with idiots following an idiot with a message they want to hear. 

 

20 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

I do absolutely believe the youngest current generation is the smartest and most informed we have ever had though. The thing with them is seeing if they will follow through this n the years and years of work ahead that will be required from them and the rest of us to sow this country back together into some form of a functioning democracy.

This is why the agenda released today by Trump has the teaching of American Exceptionalism. The curriculum in the US was beginning slowly and glacially to reflect the many faces and many voices of Americans. Americans who have been present for all of American history but seldom allowed to speak or be recorded. Oppressors always fear the oppressed because they fear that others will do to them what they have done. That fear is understandable, but the young have to be taught to hate, so they'd like their curriculum back. You cannot have a nationalist ideology without it. Stephen Miller and people like him are not going to go away as long as the ground is fertile for others to be radicalized the way he was. We were making slow progress but the GOP is trying to take it back now or, as you suggest, they may try and take it later with a smarter, groomed and trained, authentic made in America fascist.

[BrickHorn 18,186]

10 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

After Obama was reelected, some were calling the GOP the "party of stupid" and suggesting that they should start making room for the interests of non-white voters in their policies. Then Trump happened. 

And he proved them!

[WhatTheBuck 28,705]

14 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

I really do think that in many ways Trump's stupidity saved us these last four years. Trump doesn't scare me anymore. The Guy After Trump does. The next person is going to be smarter and is going to have some political acumen. That's when things are going to get real bad. 

But did that guy host a long-running reality tv show that convinced millions that he's someone who he's not?

[TwiceHorn 31,264]

16 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

Tahoe would tell you that it was always thus, they just used to write things down they didn't actually believe in.  And he was proud of that about his party.  

Also, I'm realizing now that our biggest mistake as a country, aside from slavery, was not doing to the south the same things the germans did to the nazi's after WWII.  It should have been drilled into them that what the south did was to shame its descendents.  The fact we let them go on glorifying the losers and carrying their symbols and normalizing the okayness of that train of thought back then made it all but inevitable that we'd get here one day.  

As to the second paragraph, I think that's mistaken.

First, you have to consider that many of those opposed to slavery were not exactly ready to treat blacks/former slaves as full equals.  A sizable percentage of abolitionists (not just in the US) still believed blacks were inferior.  It wasn't just Confederate officials, officers and sympathizers that were white supremacists in that sense.  Pretty much the entire world was at that point in time, regardless of their view of slavery.  It wasn't until Darwin that a real enlightened view of blacks as full-fledged human beings began to take hold universally.

Jim Crow and associated racism existed to as large an extent in non-slave states as it did in the South, but the tensions were more acute in the South due to proximity and numbers.

Once slavery took hold in the US to the extent it brought millions of blacks into the country, the die was cast.  There was no avoiding what happened subsequently other than somehow achieving a more gradual integration or assimilation of blacks into society (like the rest of the civilized world got), or somehow rapidly changing human nature.

[StassneyHorn 6,536]

How you vote for the State Board of Education here in Texas will be 100 times more consequential than whether you voted for Trump and “ American exceptionalism.” Textbook decisions nationwide are largely made based on what Texas does.

[Ghost of LL 15,477]

18 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

As to the second paragraph, I think that's mistaken.

First, you have to consider that many of those opposed to slavery were not exactly ready to treat blacks/former slaves as full equals.  A sizable percentage of abolitionists (not just in the US) still believed blacks were inferior.  It wasn't just Confederate officials, officers and sympathizers that were white supremacists in that sense.  Pretty much the entire world was at that point in time, regardless of their view of slavery.  It wasn't until Darwin that a real enlightened view of blacks as full-fledged human beings began to take hold universally.

Jim Crow and associated racism existed to as large an extent in non-slave states as it did in the South, but the tensions were more acute in the South due to proximity and numbers.

Once slavery took hold in the US to the extent it brought millions of blacks into the country, the die was cast.  There was no avoiding what happened subsequently other than somehow achieving a more gradual integration or assimilation of blacks into society (like the rest of the civilized world got), or somehow rapidly changing human nature.

You and @NameAlreadyInUse both live in the same ahistorical fantasyland in which the war ended at Appomattox and the North won.  It didn't, and it didn't.

Saying the North won is like saying the United States won the war in Iraq after it captured Baghdad.  After Appomattox, the federal government began a military occupation of the South, which the South violently resisted.  The Confederate Army may have been dissolved, but as in Iraq, a popular insurrection took its place.

The governor of Louisiana was forced from office in a coup in 1874.  The governor of Mississippi fled the state in 1875 after hundreds of Republicans were murdered.  And, as in Iraq, after ten years of insurgency, the United States had had enough.

So federal troops took off.  Which means that white Republicans fled (including my ancestors).  And the recently freed blacks were returned to slavery.  Ok--it wasn't "slavery."  They were sharecroppers--people who had to lease the land and whose recompense never allowed them to buy the property or relocate.  So they became serfs.  A decade after Russia (of all fucking places) abolished serfdom.

And serfs they remained until the mid-20th Century.

Yeah--go ahead and tell your kids that the North won the Civil War.  Kids should hear fairy tales before bed.  But don't believe it yourself.

[TwiceHorn 31,264]

28 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

You and @NameAlreadyInUse both live in the same ahistorical fantasyland in which the war ended at Appomattox and the North won.  It didn't, and it didn't.

Saying the North won is like saying the United States won the war in Iraq after it captured Baghdad.  After Appomattox, the federal government began a military occupation of the South, which the South violently resisted.  The Confederate Army may have been dissolved, but as in Iraq, a popular insurrection took its place.

The governor of Louisiana was forced from office in a coup in 1874.  The governor of Mississippi fled the state in 1875 after hundreds of Republicans were murdered.  And, as in Iraq, after ten years of insurgency, the United States had had enough.

So federal troops took off.  Which means that white Republicans fled (including my ancestors).  And the recently freed blacks were returned to slavery.  Ok--it wasn't "slavery."  They were sharecroppers--people who had to lease the land and whose recompense never allowed them to buy the property or relocate.  So they became serfs.  A decade after Russia (of all fucking places) abolished serfdom.

And serfs they remained until the mid-20th Century.

Yeah--go ahead and tell your kids that the North won the Civil War.  Kids should hear fairy tales before bed.  But don't believe it yourself.

Nothing I wrote implies any of that.  

My point was that punishing or executing confederate officers and officials likely would have accomplished nothing, as it was the ignorant people that were the real problem.  The latter-day worship of Confederates and the Confederacy is but a symbol of the deeper problem.  Making martyrs out of them would have made it worse.

On that point, we seem to agree.

And secondarily, that white people in close proximity to freed slaves in the middle 19th century, and for decades thereafter, treated them like shit, whether they were in Mississippi, Maryland, Manchester, or Marseilles.  The larger the number of blacks, the bigger the problem.

Edited August 25, 2020 by TwiceHorn

[Ghost of LL 15,477]

34 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Nothing I wrote implies any of that.  

My point was that punishing or executing confederate officers and officials likely would have accomplished nothing, as it was the ignorant people that were the real problem.  The latter-day worship of Confederates and the Confederacy is but a symbol of the deeper problem.  Making martyrs out of them would have made it worse.

On that point, we seem to agree.

Sorry, but I don't agree.  It was short-sighted and lazy of the federal government to abandon the freed slaves in the South to their fate.  Aside from their moral obligation, they had a strategic imperative to dismantle the plantation economy, break down the culture of white supremacy, and thoroughly de-Confederatize the South.  And in the same way that de-Nazification required hanging some goddamned war criminals (including Keitel and Jodl), de-Confederatization should've including some hangings (including Lee and Pickett).

[TwiceHorn 31,264]

5 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

Sorry, but I don't agree.  It was short-sighted and lazy of the federal government to abandon the freed slaves in the South to their fate.  Aside from their moral obligation, they had a strategic imperative to dismantle the plantation economy, break down the culture of white supremacy, and thoroughly de-Confederatize the South.  And in the same way that de-Nazification required hanging some goddamned war criminals (including Keitel and Jodl), de-Confederatization should've including some hangings (including Lee and Pickett).

Well, I agree that what happened was sub-optimal.  

I think, though, that the problem extended beyond "leadership" to the people themselves, their hearts and minds, and I don't think a "de-Confederatization" would have eliminated racism in the South, or anywhere else for that matter.  Maybe you can terrorize people into changing those kind of attitudes, but I don't think so.

Having blacks flee to a homeland like Israel, extracting themselves from the problematic place, likely would have been more effective.

[gmr548 16,491]

when the 65% of republicans who didn't want him at the start of primary season are split between 20 other guys who might as well be the republican rosencrantz and guildenstern that's what happens - no serious primary challenge.  hell, if it was trump, rosencrantz, and guildenstern, one of the latter two might have won the primary season. 

I'm talking about 2020. 65 percent may not have voted for him in the primary but they largely came around and have stayed around. Let's not overthink this.

[Buzzrock 14,870]

3 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

I do absolutely believe the youngest current generation is the smartest and most informed we have ever had though. The thing with them is seeing if they will follow through this n the years and years of work ahead that will be required from them and the rest of us to sow this country back together into some form of a functioning democracy.

You must not be on Instagram. 

[UpperWestside 6,134]

1 minute ago, Buzzrock said:

You must not be on Instagram. 

Instagram is more funny than anything. Young people express themselves in ways that seem crazy, but most of it is just young people doing their thing.

[High Plains Drifter 10,970]

 

On 8/23/2020 at 9:09 PM, Ghost of LL said:

I am still trying to wrap my head around a political party that doesn’t have a party platform.

A political party exists to advance policies. A political party with no policy positions is not a political party. I’m not sure what it is.

Just a gang, I guess.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I honestly think its quite simple: adopting a platform would have been an epic shit show, better to just avoid the entire thing.

I mean can you imagine the kind of insane shit that the far far right crazies would have wanted to put in there? The slightly less crazy party leaders took the safe route here.

 

[UpperWestside 6,134]

Their platform:

Punish the black and brown people as much as possible as often as possible. That’s the entirety of it. Anything they say or any idea put forward is based on that.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11,668]

2 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

It was short-sighted and lazy of the federal government to abandon the freed slaves in the South to their fate.

It was trading the presidency in 1876 for it, not laze.  Maybe that qualifies as short sighted because longer reconstruction would have been better than the presidency.    But then it would have been reconstruction under a D president.  So not reconstruction as we now know it. 

[troph 24,562]

Their platform:
Punish the black and brown people as much as possible as often as possible. That’s the entirety of it. Anything they say or any idea put forward is based on that.

That’s the effect. But that doesn’t let them say “we aren’t racist bigots” so their platform as stated is preserving their ole timey religion, culture and heritage.