Those Democrats left their party after 1968….
Will Donald Trump sent some of them back to Joe Biden and the party they left….
While they might have embraced the Republican view of America?
Donald Trump could too much for them swallow when they vote this time…And Joe Biden might just be the right person, like Barack Obama was back in 2008 for a LOT of people…
President Trump is eager to frame this year’s election as another 1968, when chaos sent voters fleeing to the candidate who promised law and order. That’s far-fetched, given 2020’s fundamentals. More than any other recent presidential race, this campaign looks like a repeat of 1980. That’s when Republicans wooed the “Reagan Democrats” out of FDR’s New Deal coalition and into the GOP fold. This year, Democrats have an opportunity to chisel off a demographic that will come to be known as “Biden Republicans.” The question is whether Democrats will let these voters migrate back to the GOP after November, or whether our party will become their permanent safe harbor.
First, let’s be clear about 1968. Two wings of the Democratic Party went to war with each other, essentially upending the progressive movement until Bill Clinton pieced things back together a quarter-century later. Today, by contrast, even if Democrats disagree on the path forward, we share the same objectives: expanding health coverage, curtailing climate change, and promoting economic equality and social justice. For that reason alone, the 1968 analogy doesn’t hold.
This year, Democrats have the chance to achieve a generational transformation. Beyond broadening the coalition to include moderate voters who oppose President Trump, we could deepen our base by turning disaffected Republicans into Democrats. Voters in places that were once beyond our reach—suburban parts of Maricopa County, Ariz.; Mecklenburg County, N.C.; and Bucks County, Pa., for example—are open to conversion. So beyond thinking about the outcome this November, Democrats need to focus on what happens after Mr. Trump has been ushered off the stage.
The 1980 election was a touchstone because it offered clear evidence that, in politics, culture counts. Reagan Democrats in places like Macomb County, Mich., walked away from the New Deal coalition not because Democrats had abandoned progressive economics or organized labor. Rather, Reagan used crime and welfare to argue that the left had turned its back on working-class values. Most important, these voters stuck with the GOP even as Reagan championed tax cuts for the wealthy, revealing that cultural concerns tied corporate leaders and unionized rank-and-file workers—an unlikely coalition that’s lasted for decades…..
…
Set the underlying merits aside—these issues reveal a cultural shift that cuts against the Republican Party. Culture now works in the Democratic Party’s favor….
I assume you meant to say that Reagan Democrats left their part in 1980, not 1968? Anyway, Ihave no reason to believe that the Biden Republicans will be the same people as the Reagan Democrats.
Well…1968 election?
…’It was the first presidential election after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had led to mass enfranchisement of racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South.[3] Nixon’s victory marked the start of a period of Republican dominance in presidential elections, as Republicans won four of the next five elections.’…
Wiki…
James,
I was familiar with the 1968 election. It had nothing to do with Reagan Democrats as your email suggested. ANd as a side note, the people who voted in that election will mostly not be voting in 2020.
As a second side note, even though Goldwater did very poorly In the rest of the country, he did well in the South – which is where he won most of his states. So i think that passage of the Voting Rights Act gets more credit than it deserves for swinging the South to the GOP. I will concede it deserves some credit.
Zreebs is right. I sent this article to you and it appears you didn’t read it James.
Biden Republicans are highly educated individuals who have soured on the racist in the White House.
Reagan Democrats were, for the most part, motivated by racial animus. After all, Reagan did kick off his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi, the place only famous for killing civil rights workers.
Two very different types of voting groups.
Trump is creating a new generation of Democrats, and most of those Reagan Democrats are dead.
LBJ passed the Civil Rights Law in 1968…..
Things went down hill from then for Democrats in the South…
Wallace lost to LBJ in the Democratic Party in 1964…….
Guys?
U can talk all ya want about 1980….
But the Reagan Democrats began leaving the party behind back in 19644 to 1968…
I remember 1980…
It wasn’t about anything except Jimmy Carter the peanut farmer was a failure as President….
Reagan….Like Trump was a performer and projected a strong personna…
If ya wanna talk about race and Democrats defecting u ARE talking about 1964-1968…
If ya wanna talk about person’s?
1980…
How old where u Z in 1968?
Amazed that someone would try to deny or distort what the Republicans did in 1980 or what they are doing now. While Reagan announced his candidacy in NYC on November 13, 1979, he launched his general election campaign on a tour that included Philadelphia Mississippi on August 3, 1980. His first campaign trip that broke with tradition and started before the traditional Labor Day speech.
The news sites I have looked at all reference the fact that Reagan launched his 1980 general election campaign with a speech lauding “states’ rights” outside Philadelphia, Mississippi — the site of the notorious “Mississippi Burning” murder of three civil rights workers in 1964.
James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were abducted and killed in Mississippi by the local Ku Klux Klan in June 1964 — a case that garnered enormous national attention because, as Schwerner’s widow said, he and Goodman were white.
On August 3, 1980, Reagan traveled to the Neshoba County Fair, which a prominent state Republican had recommended as the place to find “George Wallace-inclined voters.” There — within walking distance of the earthen dam where the murderers of the three civil rights workers had surreptitiously buried them just 16 years before — Reagan delivered a speech including these lines:
“I know that in speaking to this crowd, that I’m speaking to what has to be about 90 percent Democrat. I just meant by party affiliation. I didn’t mean how you feel now. I was a Democrat most of my life myself. …
I believe in states’ rights. … And I believe that we’ve distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment. …”
As columnist William Raspberry wrote upon Reagan’s death, his endorsement of “states’ rights” — the same phrase white Southerners had used for decades to justify Jim Crow segregation — was “bitter symbolism for black Americans” and “an important bouquet in [GOP] courtship” of Dixiecrats. Some of Reagan’s staff anonymously told the Washington Post that they were coming to Mississippi to wink at those folks…..
The “states’ rights” reference was just one of many racist dog-whistles Reagan employed throughout his political career. During his unsuccessful 1976 run for the Republican presidential nomination, Reagan decried “welfare queens” and a “strapping young buck” who bought T-bone steaks with food stamps. In his 1984 reelection campaign he even returned to Philadelphia and declared that “the South shall rise again.”
Now, it is true that Carter went to the same fair grounds to campaign in 1976, but does anyone think he gave a speech that in anyway resembled what Reagan said?
Reagan’s speech was simply a continuation of the Nixon Southern Strategy and the GOP continues that tradition today.
What cannot be misread is the way that Keith used racial animus in the 1980s when he was a paid political operative in Chicago and how he specifically received national attention for the shameless way he utilized racism. And to this day, he refers to Obama as “boy.”
The speech in MS was not a kickoff to anything for Reagan. It occurred after the convention and after he had already done several other rallies and events.
In 1980, Carter “kicked off” his campaign in Tuscumbia, AL, the birthplace of the Klan and spoke of the “nobility” of those who died for the Confederacy,
But that also does not mean that Cater was signaling he was a racist.
In 1976, the year Carter went to the Neshoba County Fair, he was saying that he supported local control over neighborhoods and housing even if they wanted “ethnic purity.”
He also said:
“To build a high‐rise, very low‐cost housing unit in a suburban neighborhood or other neighborhoods with relatively expensive homes, I think, would not he in the best interest of the people. who live in the high‐rise or the suburbs.”
No wonder Donald Trump voted for Carter.
People who hate Reagan, just hate Reagan. He beat them in two landslides, and will use any method of distortion.
If I remember we had a recession on Carter’s watch?
The guy just had the cards stacked against him….
And imagine?
He out manoeuvred Teddy Kennedy to get the nomination…
Z?
I remember being in a supermarket and overhearing people shit-canning the President that was ‘peanut farmer and naval engineer’….and lousy President
He also carried his brother on his back while in office…
Reagan was this actor the sweated ‘confidence and stature’….
Carter went down in flames….
Bless the old timer but after he left office other Democrats seemed to keep their distance from the guy who thinks very different from the party people…
Thanks Z for bring some of this back for me…
The thing was for Reagan?…
It seemed like his last year and half in office?
His staff ran things….
He didn’t seem to ….
He was out of it seemed…
And the attempt on his life probably left him damaged….
U remember Alexander Haig Z?….
Anybody?
Did Trump vote for Carter over Reagan in 80?
Because you have to admit Reagan’s “welfare Queen” pitch is one I could definitely hear Trump making today.
He voted and contributed the max for both Carter and Mondale.
When Keith uses the term “boy”, it is always in the context of how Republicans view Obama. Keith supported Obama in 2008 when the Dem establishment supported Hillary. You know all this, bu you don’t care. Anything to discredit Keith. It is who you are.
It sounds racist and we both know of his past.
I skipped past the “boy” reference Zreebs. Of course I meant it sarcastically.
I was one of the first of the Clinton alum to back Obama, my husband too. We raised lots of money for him, his finance director was a tenant of ours (she is still a good friend).
I can remember canvassing for Obama in Virginia and having Republicans refer to him as “boy” and ask me if I knew where he was born. The Republican party just oozes racism and Trump has put it on heat.
I specifically recall when Trump, after endorsing Romney in 2012, started his birther thing. Saint Mitt never bothered to correct him as I recall.
So, Trump, like his criminal children, may have been, at one time, a registered Democrat. He was always a Republican in his black bloated heart.
You call Obama “boy” and Ben Carson “Uncle Ben.” There are not a lot of people who visit this site, but subtlety is not something you are very good at.
We would want to refrain from using those descriptions here in the future….Even if one means no harm …But to emphasise a point we all understand…We Know u mean no harm…
I think he might mean harm, though he knows he is pretty powerless at this stage,. Remember though how he tried to goad Kyle at the other site.
NO CG….
He DID NOT…..
Leave this along and let go it away….
This is very much like that pornography Corey kept saying I posted but no one but Corey remembers.
No one cares Corey Ray.
CG’s portrayal of Keith as some sort of villain is comical. And one that has gained no followers no matter how hard he tries.
Anytime Keith counters him, he trots out this same old tired line.
He needs a new shtick.
Ok then, I am out.
Oh this has been coming for awhile.
A classic case of being able to dish it out but being unable to take it.
And all because Keith had the temerity to disagree with his portrayal of Ronald Reagans well known invocation of “States Rights” forty years ago.
Did he purposefully use the term “States Rights” because he knew it was a code word that was used in the south to indicate opposition to Civil Rights ?Sure he did.
Now, do I believe Reagan was a racist?
No,I don’t
Like Kamala Harris told Chris Dodd ,”just politics.”
They have a history Scott
It comes up here from time to time…
I have read Hundreds of Keith’s posts on race over the last 12 years. Not once do I think he made a racist comment. CG suggesting that Keith is a racist tells us more about who he is.
I am not saying CG is a racist. I am saying that he often struggles to put things in context. There is a lot the regulars on this site don’t know about each other, but we know or should know that Keith is not a racist. (With the caveat that we all might be racist in ways that we don’t recognize)
CG is a guy basically at war with himself.
He is a Republican who ,at least presently, can’t stand hardly any Republicans.
He describes anyone who supports Trump,the Leader of the Republican Party ,as a “MAGA red hat wearing bootlicker.”That describes every Republican Senator except Romney and most Republican House members.
So He takes refuge in the past when Republicans like the Bushes and Reagan predominated .Accordingly ,when the Democrats here were criticizing Reagan over the Mississippi episode (a matter we have discussed here many times before I might add) he cracked.You could see his rage building throughout the discussion and he lashed out at Keith as usual.Then after some relatively mild rebukes from Scott and I announced he was “out.”
I had seen this building for awhile so it wasn’t unexpected.His position seems to be that he can criticize any Republican he wishes but when any of us do it merits a personal vilification as he constantly does with Keith and sometimes each of us.
I actually like CG.Hes a smart fellow and has a good knowledge of politics.I particularly enjoy his analysis of the various political races.They are well written and informative.Maybe we will See him again.Maybe not.Actually I feel a little bad for him.The Party he has believed in and supported his whole life is now nothing more than a cult for a gangster.
Like I began this, Hes at war with himself .Hope he finds some peace.If not here, somewhere,
I’ll keep reading CG’s Race of the Day posts–even if I’ll have to hunt them down since he won’t be here to link them. They are pretty well researched and I am mostly in agreement with his predictions so far this year.
I don’t fully agree with Keith that Reagan Democrats were mostly motivated by racial animus. Some were, but There were other parts of Reagan’s message that appealed to people. While it is hard to believe 40 years later, Reagan’s message that tax cuts could pay for themselves was actually endorsed by a handful of university economists, Lafler and Wasinsky come to mind. Those theories have subsequently been debunked in economic journals, but Reagan’s message of borrow and spend clearly appealed to less educated workers, and the budget deficits exploded during his terms in office. Also Reagan gave the image of strength – and this was helped by the deal that foreign leaders (such as Bani-Sadr) said he made with the Iranians to keep the hostages in captivity until after his inaugural address. Some people genuinely believed that the hostages were released because the captors feared Reagan. In hindsight, it is clear that Carter prevented a war with Iran while also sending a message that America’s patience would not last forever. And we know how US wars in that part of the world have subsequently turned out.
I didn’t wade into the discussion about Reagan and race yesterday and I don’t believe that Reagan was a racist.
However, the term “Welfare Queen” that he used on the campaign trail definitely sounds Trumpy.
In forty years things change and some of the other candidates of that age–imckuding Carter– had appeals that would not be seen as favorably today.
But for CG to point at something Carter said about housing and say that’s why Trump voted for him while ignoring the Welfare Queen comment of Reagan’s was–well–very CG.
I hope he returns though.
I am reminded by a story reported in the 80s that Samuel Pierce (Director of Housing and Urban Development) and the only black in Reagan’s cabinet was at a conference of mayors and Reagan approached him and asked “So how are things going in your city, Mr. Mayor?”
For whatever reason, I never forgot that story.
I said they were “largely motivated by race” not totally. But, the symbolism of a speech in that place on that topic must have thrilled lots of good ol’ boys.
Ronnieevan referenced Willie Horton (the Bush dog whistle) and now fast forward to today. It’s been decades and the Republican Party is still peddling racist tropes.
And the leadership of the Party knows it. What does that make them?
I have said it before, not all Republicans are racist, but all racists are Republicans.
The youngest of the voters from 1968 would be about 73 yoa.(the voting age in most states then was 21 yoa.) .
And the Reagan Democrats were generally middle aged people who called themselves Democrats(although many if not most ,had also voted for Nixon in 72 and Nixon or Wallace in 68).If they’re still around?They are in their Eighties.
Minimum 80s Jack, most over 90.
And yes, today’s Republican Party is the Know-Nothing Party and proud of it.
It’s evil to support the guy in the White House. Those people only care that Trump hates the same people they do.
Yes,to even be talking about “Reagan Democrats “ is to be rehashing 40 year old history.
The few that are left are elderly and certainly no longer a factor in today’s political life.
I feel like political journalists referred to “Reagan Democrats” long after they were politically significant.
By the 90s they either returned to the Democraric fold or became Republicans.
Totally correct.
As I pointed out ,many were southerners who usually voted against the Democratic nominee for President and had been for a number of years while remaining loyal Democrats in state and local elections.
Indeed, here in S.C. where Republicans made no major inroads in state and local offices until the late Eighties ,the last Democratic presidential candidate who polled a majority of White voters was Franklin Roosevelt in 1944.
I assume that LBJ won the white vote in 1964.
In SC?
Hell no.It was overwhelmingly for Gokdwater
Oh I thought you were talking about the national vote.
Carter must have carried the white vote in SC in 1976.
I am not going to bother to understand the minutia of these arguments, but james seems to not understand what the concept of what the “Reagan Democrat” was and how that might be very different than what Democrats are hoping to see in the “Biden Republican.”
Simply put, blue collar non-traditional Republicans helped Regan and white-collar non traditional Democrats might help Biden.
The big difference though is that people voted FOR Regan and this time are planning to vote AGAINST Trump.
I understand PERFECTLY CG….
And I pointed to the origins of Reagan Democrats before they KNEW and Identified with the President that WAS a union member but broke the back of the Air Traffic Controllers Union and lost his union card….
I LIVED thru this stuff…
Almost nobody sided with the Air Traffic Controllers.
It was a strike that put the lives of numerous people at risk and thus illegal.
I agreed with Reagan on the air traffic controller strike.
No he didn’t.
He beat Ford by a hundred thousand out of a total 800000 cast.
The S.C. vote was at least quarter Black or around 200000 .Carter got almost all of those votes..
Indeed ,Ford handily won among White voters.
The “myth “ of southern Democrats lives on.
The fact is that Southern White Democrats , as I’ve explained here many times ,have been voting Republican in presidential elections for many years.
They called themselves Democrats because they generally , but not always, supported Democrats in state and local elections
This started changing in the late Eighties and by the late Nineties was fairly well established.
By then they were mostly calling themselves Republicans.
Issues surrounding national security and the military played a huge role in this of course.
Yeah and so did Race.
People who went Nixon in 72 (like you and the vast majority of the country) were probably not voting solely on race and then we saw Carter carry the southern areas in ’76, and by ’80, the people who switched to Reagan were likely doing so on other matters.
The main theme is that America and individual Americans got less racist after the Civil Rights Movement. That is a good thing. Things do not stay frozen in time. Of course we still did and still do have a ways to go.
I would not know how to readily look up the statistics there but it does not seem to add up, Carter won by 13 points statewide and carried 43 of 46 counties, flipping all 43. I do not know how that could still allow for Ford handily winning white voters there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_United_States_presidential_election_in_South_Carolina
Seems perfectly logical to me.
Around 800000 total votes cast.
Carter got 450000.Ford got around 350000
Black vote is about a quarter of that total or around 200000 which almost all went to Carter.
What does the county vote have to do with it?
Wouldn’t there have been counties with few black voters.
Unless the 1972 black vote there was incredibly low or that in 1976 there were a lot more upscale suburbanites already than I may realize, it does not seem to add up. I do not know if an actual primary source exists that would have the number.
We know that Ford carried the white vote nationally by 4 points while losing by 2 points nationwide.
He lost statewide in SC by 13 points. It might have been close, but it is hard to see how he would have won the white vote there, or at least won it “handily.”
Think what you want.
I just illustrated it for you.
White Democrats in SC have been voting Republican in presidential ekections for years before they started calling themselves Republicans.
But in ’76 a lot of them voted for Son of the South Carter.
Carter won by much larger margins in other southern states that have smaller percentages of African-Americans such as Arkansas.
Arkansas and South Carolina are not all that similar other than both being “southern”.
I specifically said that I was talking about South Carolina.
Carter won more White votes than McGovern ,Humphrey, Johnson ,Kennedy and Stevenson for sure.
He didn’t win a majority though .
They would have had to have been a lot different in 1976 than I realize then. SC must have had far more bankers and golfers then than I realize.
If Ford won the white vote by 4 nationally while losing by 2 nationally, how much more pro-Ford must white South Carolinians have been than the national average, if he lost the state by 13.
And while I get Georgia was Carter’s home state, were the white people in SC that much more pro-Ford than they were in neighboring states?
Maybe native Carolinian Elizabeth Dole won over a lot of the folks for the Ford-Dole ticket.
The Know-Nothing (or [Native] American) Party was far more anti-immigrant (of any color) than specifically anti-Negro.
After coming in third in the election of 1856, the party split (like the Democrats and the Whigs) into the “North Americans” and the “South Americans”.
Many of the former went into the Republican Party.
See Eric Foner’s book Free Soil, Free Labor and Free Men: the ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War and The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861 by David M. Potter and Donald Fehrenbach.
The demographic of the parties has been changing. people with an advanced degree have been voting Democratic for some time now, but now people with a college degree are Also heavily voting Democratic, and 2020 will be the Democrat’s most lopsided advantage for these groups ever.
There is irony in that although the Democratic Party is the party of educated people, they remain so committed to fairness. Many of us personally have little to gain from progressive or even liberal policies. How does advocating for economic or racial justice benefit me, yet these are probably the two biggest issues that drive my vote. I’m pro environmentalist, but the reality is i might be dead before climate change becomes as big of an issue as Covid-19. However, I suspect that Scot and CG will likely see that day.
So (for the most part) the people who are Left in the GOP only care about maintaining their own wealth or are driven by fear of minorities. Those who were promised a manufacturing or coal mining job in 2016 likely didn’t get one. Those who advocated a wall or voted for Trump because they liked his racist rhetoric might Have gotten what the wanted, but they are not better off. In the meantime we now have a deficit that has exploded from where it was under Obama, and how will we pay for social security?
And that is why I believe that most Republicans are either stupid or evil
If we think of the Republican party as an apartheid party, their actions start to makes sense. They don’t really believe black and brown people should have the same protections to vote as whites as they seek to preserve the “culture” that they see being under attack. They know they are a minority and will use all means available to preserve their power and privileges. Through this lens, the actions of Barr, McConnell and others in service to Trump make complete sense.
Briefly-
Reagan 1980 in Philadelphia, MS-
Not a “kickoff” to anything. It was in the middle of a campaign
It was at a very large event in a swing county in a swing state
Carter went there to campaign in 1976 and won the state
Carter would also campaign in places in 1980 such as Tuscumbia, AL which had a bad racial history, Just about every place in the South had
What Reagan said at his rally, word for word, is available online. He said nothing controversial and nothing different that he said at previous or future stops
That whole week was a schedule of Reagan visiting areas that Carter had one four years earlier as he was calling for “change” and delivering the same message in all places
Right before this stop, he campaigned in the Bronx, NY and did an event with Jesse Jackson
Reagan advocated states rights in that speech. Although I suspect you have never spent a second in that state, it I was clear to people of Mississippi exactly what Reagan was saying, and the location for saying that was significant. The Reagan campaign knew what it was doing;
Read the transcript:
http://neshobademocrat.com/Content/NEWS/News/Article/Transcript-of-Ronald-Reagan-s-1980-Neshoba-County-Fair-speech/2/297/15599
Nothing remotely “racial” and the exact same message he was delivering that year in the Bronx and everywhere else.
Why would it have been ok for Carter (who some years earlier had campaigned for Governor as a segregationist) to give a speech at the same county fair in 1976 but not for Reagan in 1980?
Reagan talked about how the federal government was too large and intrusive on economic matters and contrasted it to his experience for eight years as Governor of California. Nobody could claim that Reagan advocated segregation or opposed civil rights for African-Americans as Governor of California.
Dukakis also spoke there in 1988 as the nominee.
I don’t see it as a problem in that Reagan campaigned there. It is what he said while there that is a problem. You may not know this, but talking about states rights in the eighties meant Primarily one thing to people of Alabama and Mississippi. And the Reagan campaign knew it.
He spoke about it everywhere, including the Bronx. You can read the transcript. He is clearly speaking about economic matters and educational programs, etc. He is not calling for the repeal of the Civil Rights Act, etc by any stretch.
“States Rights” gets used all the time such as Barney Frank naming a bill “States Rights for Medical Marijuana”, etc.
I said states right meant primarily one thing in AL and MS. it is meaningless term in the Bronx.
That’s your opinion. If you read the transcript of Reagan’s speech, there is not anyway what he was trying to express could be misread. He was not talking about anything racial and had spoke of equality and against bigotry that entire campaign. That doesn’t mean you have to agree with his small government philosophy.
Carter would say he favored civil rights and I do not doubt that, but he sure tried to have it both ways as a Presidential candidate and a President, far more than Reagan ever did.
“This is a natural inclination on the part of people, and I made this statement in Milwaukee, where there has been over a period of 100 or 150 years a compatibility among neighborhoods, for the churches, the private clubs, the newspapers, restaurants, all designed to accommodate members of a particular ethnic group. I see nothing wrong with that as long as it’s done freely.”
“I would never, though, condone any sort of discrimination against, say, a black family, or any other family, from moving into that neighborhood. But I don’t think government ought deliberately to try to break down an ethnically oriented community—deliberately by injecting into it a member of anothor race, This Is Contrary to the best interest of the community. It creates disharmony. It creates hatred.”
Once again Zreebs, you are too nice for this type of discussion, and I mean that as a sincere compliment.
Of course the Reagan speech location, one of his very first in a non-traditional campaign start time, in Philadelphia (on the door step of where civil rights workers were brutally murdered) and where he endorsed “States Rights” was chosen to send a dog whistle message. It is also one of the reasons that Don Jr. went back to Philadelphia Mississippi at the start of his father’s campaign.
So, for Republicans this is sort of a sacred place where they travel to acknowledge, with a wink and a nod to States Rights, their subtle, and in the case of Trump, not so subtle racism.
Yes, it is what they said, others have campaigned in this town, Carter and others, and we know Carter didn’t campaign on States Rights when he ran for President. But, it’s pretty obvious the Republicans use the symbolism of this place and will again.
So much exaggeration here for a Sunday.
As I recall, Carter did, because I was on staff in that ill-fated campaign, (meaning I got paid) start his campaign for President in Alabama (since he had to hold on to the South to have any chance of winning) and the Klan picketed his campaign rally. I never recall Carter making the same subtle racist appeals to white voters that Reagan did. It is a traditional Republican play (you could ask Lee Atwater if he were still here).
Why do we go down all these rabbit holes with our friend Corey? Trump gave money to lots of people, he gave 6K to Kamala Harris for Christ sake. She gave it away. I am more concerned with the taxpayer dollars he spends everyday to get himself re-elected. He is a businessman, a failed businessman, who gave money to curry favor with lots of people. What does that have to do with his racism or the Republicans who enable that racism?
Are we still, after all these years of racist dog whistles from Republican Presidential candidates and their surrogates still trying to find some false equivalency between the parties because I wrote a letter to the editor in 1983? Really?
How does that change the fact that Reagan said to an almost all white crowd as he kicked off his campaign, “I believe in States Rights.” Jack will tell you what that means.
The Republican fantasy world that has been on display here for years is quickly disappearing, much faster than I would have even hoped for.
The progress that the Black community was experiencing in the 1970s came to a screeching halt in the Reagan years. That is responsible for the poverty and disparity we see today. His administration aggressively fought affirmative action programs at every turn and promoted the concept of “reverse discrimination”. I remember how during the Reagan years , racists felt less inhibited and how GHWB’s Willie Horton campaign was able to take hold in this climate.