Kamala Harris was sincere in bringing up her past in this weeks debate, but disingenuous in hanging it on Biden who had to work thru the past with what he had…
This comment from one of our regular history reminding guys…..
I’m a little taken aback, although I shouldn’t be surprised or shocked, at what looks like a chasm in political and historical knowledge.
Those of us growing up in the 1950’s and 1960’s (even those like me who were staunch advocates of civil rights) recognised the political realities of the time. Before the Voting Rights Act of 1965, (1) it was nearly impossible for a non-segregationist to win the almost lily-white electorate in any if about a dozen former slave states. And it was extremely difficult in border states such as Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee *, so consequently (2) dealing with segregationists was an everyday political reality for both Northern & Western Democrats and for Republicans, just as upholding segregation (at least nominally) was a necessity for any Southern politician who did get elected.
Only a rare bipartisan coalition of Republicans with Northern & Western Democrats was able to pass the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 & 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
But ever since the 1870’s much of the GOP had abandoned the black citizen freed by Lincoln and protected during Reconstruction in a (usually-vain) attempt to woo Southern white voters. So both the Republicans and the non-Southern Democrats found it easier to coalesce on a particular issue with the huge segregationist bloc in Congress (about a quarter to a third of its total membership) then with the other Northern party. After 1938, the so-called Conservative Coalition of Dixiecrats and Republicans blocked or tore up much of the New Deal and Fair Deal.
* Some illustrative details: (a) the only Republican to win election to a Senate seat south of Kentucky before 1964 was John Tower of Texas in the early 1960’s. In 1964, he was one of only 6 Republicans to vote against the Civil Rights Act. Interestingly the only deep-Southern vote for the Act came from Tower’s fellow-Senator from Texas, Ralph Yarborough who survived a Republican challenge from George H. W. Bush in 1964, but lost the 1970 Democratic primary to the more-conservative Lloyd Bentsen (who in turn defeated a second try by GHW Bush). (b) Someone said this week in relation to the Harris/Biden interchange that the scholarly Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-Ark.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, asked the Johnson Administration if his vote might be necessary to pass the Civil Rights Act. Their reply was that his vote was more valuable in another matter (and implicitly, that he shouldn’t imperil his political career with an unneeded vote on Civil Rights). Like every other Southern Senator outside Texas and Tennessee, and nearly every other Southern Representative, Fulbright had signed the Southern Manifesto of 1956. (LBJ of Texas and Tennessee Senators Al Gore, Sr, and Estes Kefauver, who was seeking the 1956 Democratic presidential nomination, were the only Southern Senators who declined to sign the Manifesto.)….
DSD @ Politicaldog101…..
How about Medicare?
We hear a lot about “Medicare For All.”Well there would be no “For All” without Medicare itself existing.
And who did Lyndon Johnson have to cajole in the Congress to get it done?None other then the Chair Of the House Waya nad Means Committee, Rep.Wilbur Mills of Arkansas,yes, a segregationist.
Johnson also had to deal in the Senate with Finance Committee Chairman Harry Byrd of Virginia,and he was very much a segregationist.(Byrd,in fact was who the Unpledged segregationist electors Of Alabama and Mississippi voted forPresident in 1960).
Once again, the point is that if you wanted to get things done in those days you had to deal with these people.Due to the then seniority rule they controlled most of the Congressional Committees.
Democrat from Texas gets a MAJOR Civil Rights Law passed in 1964!
and Harris retreated from raising her hand with Sanders on Medicare for All cancel private ins!
Sanders doubled down higher taxes for middle class to do his Medicare for All
The South (and southern-leaning states on the border and in the Southwest) dominated committee chairs by seniority for a pair of interlocking reasons: (1) in essentially one-party states, the likelihood of turnover in a general election was very low (certainly compared to states and districts with two competing parties), and (2) vacancies in Southern seats were often filled by very young men, who would last and accumulate seniority over long careers before retirement.
Here are the committee chairmen (no chairwomen) of the 90th Congress, which sat from Jan. 1967 to Jan. 1969. As Keith could tell you in far more detail, some committees such as Appropriations, Rules, Judiciary, Senate Finance and House Ways & Means (followed closely by Agriculture, Armed Services and Public Works) are much more powerful than others, and were even more powerful 50 years ago.
U.S. Senate:
Aeronautical & Space Sciences: Clint Anderson (N.M.)
Agriculture & Forestry: Allen Ellender (La)
Appropriations: Carl Hayden (Ariz.)
Armed Services: Richard Russell (Ga)
Banking & Currency: John Sparkman (Alab.)
Commerce: Warren Magnuson (Wash.)
District of Columbia: Alan Bible (Nev.)
Finance: Russell Long (La)
Foreign Relations: J. Wm Fulbright (Ark.)
Government Operations: John McClellan (Ark.)
Interior and Insular Affairs: Henry Jackson (Wash.)
Judiciary: James Eastland (Miss.)
Labor & Public Welfare: Lister Hill (Alab.)
Post Office & Civil Service: Mike Monroney (Okla)
Public Works: Jennings Randolph (W. Va)
Rules & Administration: Everett Jordan (N.C.)
U.S. House of Repesentatives
Agriculture: W. R. Poage (Texas)
Appropriations: George Mahon (Texas)
Armed Services: Mendel Rivers (La)
Banking & Currency: Wright Patman (Texas)
D.C.: John McMillan (S.C.)
Education & Labor: Carl “Blue Suède Shoes” Perkins (Ky)
Foreign Affairs: Thomas E. Morgan (Pa)
Government Operations: William Dawson (Ill. — Chicago)
House Administration: Omar Burleson (Texas)
Interior & Insular Affairs: Wayne Apinall (Colo)
Interstate & Foreign Commerce: Harley Staggers (W. Va)
Judiciary:: Emmanuel Celler (N.Y. — New York City)
Merchant Marine & Fisheries: Edward Garmatz (Md)
Post Office & Civil Service: Thaddeus Dulski (N.Y.)
Public Works: George Fallon (Md)
Rules: William Colmer (Miss.)
Science & Astronautics: George Miller (Calif.)
Un-American Activities (HUAC): Edwin Willis (La)
Veterans’ Affairs: Olin Teague (Texas)
Ways & Means: Wilbur Mills (Ark.)
Future Republican Senate Leader Trent Lott served as Administrative Assistant to segregationist William Colmer,Chair Of the Rules Committee f the House for many years.
Lott in later years related that his becoming a Republican was due to attending meetings of the Democratic AAs where he agreed with little that was said.
The deeper you dive into this?
The more you see the dimensions of past vs present knowledge….
Harris knows this….
Biden also….
Biden past is a good part of his strength ….
Trump’s angst is his lack of the past and virtually ANY political norms….
Voting for someone who has NO political history of knowledge is looking to just elect ANOTHER Donald Trump….
Every candidate votes for ‘change’….
But most human do NOT like it…
The way the American political system works IS COMPROMISE…
The system is messed up today due to intolerance , division and lack of COMPROMISE….
It will only get back to working if Biden’s push for COMPROMISE comes back either ya like the other guys politics or not….
Another piece that mirrors DSD’s back in the day political climate for Democrats….
At Thursday’s Democratic debate, former vice president Joe Biden came under even more fire for bragging about his ability to work with southern segregationists during his early years in the Senate. Sen. Kamala D. Harris, the only African American candidate on the stage with Biden, attacked him in searingly personal terms, explaining, “it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.”
But such criticism is unfair. Biden was far from the only progressive Democrat to have worked with former segregationists in the era to which he referred. They had to. Many of these segregationist senators maintained political power well into the 1980s, holding important positions, including chairmanships, on key committees with the support of their colleagues and the majority of the voters in their states.
The most prominent progressive Democrat to embrace the segregationists was Jimmy Carter….
More…
The way the American system works today is that people need to “work” with Trump or with Trump political allies to “get things done.”
If Biden and others historically can be excused for dealing with the reality of their situation, then attacking Republicans for going along with Trump to try to accomplish goals is simple rank hypocrisy. We all know that term applies to a few that post here.
Of course there is also a responsibility then and now to mix a desire to move the ball forward with the moral responsibility of leadership and conscience.
Your point does NOT address what this is about…
GOPer’s since 2020 early compromise….
Dem’s back in the day DID…
Yes, people in politics often need to compromise.
Attacking those who do it on the one hand is hypocritical when you defend those who have done it on the other.
Generally speaking though, the people who tend to be most admired in politics are those that stand on principle, even if they sometimes have to start off alone.
Principal isn’t getting Democrats much these days….
Neither party seems to care much about principle these days. It’s just about power.
I can’t understand either Bernie Sanders or Kamala Harris raising a hand for Chuck Todd’s question about replacing private health insurance, because, as Sanders said, every significant free nation with socialized medicine also allows private practice and private insurance (in the UK, the British United Provident Association, or BUPA, in addition to the National Health Service).
However, (and perhaps this was the unspoken distinction in Todd’s yes-no question), those who buy such insurance (or their employers) may also have to buy (as Sanders’ remark implied) into the public plan as well.