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The racist history of the Democratic Party (1 Viewer)

timschochet

timschochet

Footballguy
Thanks to @BladeRunner for giving me this idea. 
 

I’m planning for this to be a narrative thread, similar to the one I did a few years back on the Civil War. That means it’s going to take some time. But with so much closed down again in my state, I appear to have that time. 

Why focus on the Democratic Party? Why not the Republican Party? The Republican Party has a long history of racism just as the Democrats do; for most of its history, the Republicans were more quiet about it. And I’ll touch a little on that. But the Democratic Party is more interesting to me because, even before it became the liberal party, it was a populist party. Also because it underwent a great change in the 60s- or did it? That’s worth exploring because there’s a lot of misconception about it. 
Most importantly: I believe the Democratic Party is a good microcosm of American society. And I am one of those liberals who firmly believe that we as a society are collectively guilty for the history of racism that existed here, some of it remaining, and that we have a collective responsibility to try and make things right. 

The political parties  of the 19th century were very different from they are today, and I want to discuss modern times only (relatively) so I am going to restrict my discussion to the start of the 20th century up to today. I have several different sources but I haven’t decided on all of them yet so I will list them later on. 
As always I invite discussion from all interested parties. 

 
This is going to be a good thread.  Thanks, @timschochet !

At this point, there is ZERO doubt in my mind that the Democrats have tried to rewrite history and pretend that racism was almost exclusively GOP.  In fact, in all the times the Democrats have been on the wrong side of history (Slavery, Civil War, Jim Crowe, KKK, Abortion, etc...) you'll notice they always come up with the excuse, "Well, we were the Republicans back then".   

All hogwash.  One of the biggest cons in history was when the Democratic Party convinced black people to vote for them.  Between the handouts, giveaways and policies the Democrat Party platform has simply moved black people from a physical plantation to a virtual one.

I'm willing to listen, but know that it won't be easy to change my mind.  But maybe you will or maybe I'll change yours.  When the left can accept that not only their Party WAS the original party of racism and continues it to this day (in various forms), then we can begin healing.  And I'm not saying their ain't racists on the Conservative side as there certainly are, but not nearly the extent that a) the left thinks there are and b) not even comparable to what the left has on it and c) they really aren't serious about it (only in election years).

Let's get it on!

 
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urbanhack said:
This is a good read and summary.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/991131180593541121.html
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The Goldwater/Thurmond moment was transformative in how Americans understood the two parties on civil rights. 

Until 1964, it seemed clear that Democrats were the party of economic liberalism and the GOP economic conservatism, but civil rights had been left out of the picture.

Indeed, as @edsall has noted, as late as 1962, polls asking which political party was “more likely to see to it that Negroes get fair treatment in jobs and housing” showed that Americans saw virtually no difference between Democrats and Republicans.

But in 1964, when asked the same question, 60% said Democrats were more in favor of fair jobs and housing for blacks; just 7% said Republicans. 
Click to expand...

 
big surprise here.  Race again, & again.

good luck & God bless.  for those offended by the "G" word insert something to your liking.

 
Woodrow

Any discussion of the modern Democratic Party has to begin with its first great figure, Woodrow Wilson. 

It is a popular argument among many liberals that today’s Republican Party defends or tolerates racism. As a response, many conservatives point out that the Democratic Party has a history of racism. As a response to this response, liberals argue that it was Democrat conservatives who were the racists; Democrat liberals were always opposed to racism. The story is that in the 1960s the liberals finally took over the Democratic Party and the conservatives (mostly southern) all fled to the Republicans. This is a very simplistic and somewhat erroneous summation, as I will attempt to show. And it is destroyed already at the beginning of this history because Woodrow Wilson was not a conservative and a racist; he was a liberal and a racist. 

 
shadrap said:
big surprise here.  Race again, & again.

good luck & God bless.  for those offended by the "G" word insert something to your liking.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I"m not confident this thread lasts very long due to the usual suspects who come into threads and totally ruin them.  We'll see.

Update:  Looks like @Leroy Hoard has already started to kai-bosh it 3 posts in.  Well, it was a good run.

 
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BladeRunner said:
This is going to be a good thread.  Thanks, @timschochet !

At this point, there is ZERO doubt in my mind that the Democrats have tried to rewrite history and pretend that racism was almost exclusively GOP.  In fact, in all the times the Democrats have been on the wrong side of history (Slavery, Civil War, Jim Crowe, KKK, Abortion, etc...) you'll notice they always come up with the excuse, "Well, we were the Republicans back then".   

All hogwash.  One of the biggest cons in history was when the Democratic Party convinced black people to vote for them.  Between the handouts, giveaways and policies the Democrat Party platform has simply moved black people from a physical plantation to a virtual one.

I'm willing to listen, but know that it won't be easy to change my mind.  But maybe you will or maybe I'll change yours.  When the left can accept that not only their Party WAS the original party of racism, then we can begin healing.  And I'm not saying their ain't racists on the Conservative side as there certainly are, but not nearly the extent that a) the left thinks there are and b) not even comparable to what the left has on it.

Let's get it on!
Click to expand...
There’s a lot here to unpack. 
1. I’m not going to discuss abortion in this thread. 
2. As I just pointed out, they don’t say “we were the Republicans back then”; they say “we were the liberals back then”. That’s not necessarily accurate either. 
3. I have to tell you that describing liberal attempts to help blacks since the 60s as a “plantation” is offensive. It’s ugly language that doesn’t at all apply, much like using “concentration camps” to describe Trump’s detention camps. You will never convince anyone when you use such analogies; you just turn them off. 
4. Hopefully this will be a long thread and we can all learn stuff, me included. 

 
Skoo said:
I have no idea why you're being so hostile to me in this and the other thread.

Like none.
Click to expand...
I'm not being hostile at all.  I'm just suggesting you go ruin another thread.  Think  of it as me helping you out with helpful suggestions.

I mean, it patently obvious what you and @Leroy Hoard are doing already.  You really think no one notices?

 
timschochet said:
There’s a lot here to unpack. 
1. I’m not going to discuss abortion in this thread. 
2. As I just pointed out, they don’t say “we were the Republicans back then”; they say “we were the liberals back then”. That’s not necessarily accurate either. 
3. I have to tell you that describing liberal attempts to help blacks since the 60s as a “plantation” is offensive. It’s ugly language that doesn’t at all apply, much like using “concentration camps” to describe Trump’s detention camps. You will never convince anyone when you use such analogies; you just turn them off. 
4. Hopefully this will be a long thread and we can all learn stuff, me included. 
Click to expand...
I only pointed out abortion only because, y'know, Margeret Sanger was an avowed racist and abortion was a means to control the black people (have less of them).

Today's Democrats want to pretend the real reason behind abortion was some noble cause.  It wasn't.  It was started based on racism.

 
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BladeRunner said:
I'm not being hostile at all.  I'm just suggesting you go ruin another thread.  Think  of it as me helping you out with helpful suggestions.

I mean, it patently obvious what you and @Leroy Hoard are doing already.  You really think no one notices?
Click to expand...
Maybe you're just an angry guy, I dunno.

At any rate, request denied.

 
BladeRunner said:
I have zero idea what you're talking about.  Care to unpack?
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“Most of the other old Dixiecrats in Congress didn't switch parties themselves, but oversaw a transition for the next generation.

Take former Senate Maj. Leader Trent Lott. He served as an aide to Rep. William Colmer (D-MS), head of the House Rules Committee. 

When Colmer retired in 1972, he handpicked Lott to fill the seat -- but told him to run as a Republican. He did & won.

Or consider Jesse Helms. He'd grown up a southern Dem, getting his first taste of politics helping Democrat Willis Smith run a race-baiting campaign for a NC senate seat in 1950 (see the ad below).

When Helms ran on his own in 1972, though, like Lott, he ran as a Republican.”

From the link in the second post. 

ETA - for context of the first sentence, Strom Thurmond abandoned the Democrat party hen he was given a sweetheart deal to keep his seniority.

 
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-jb- said:
“Most of the other old Dixiecrats in Congress didn't switch parties themselves, but oversaw a transition for the next generation.

Take former Senate Maj. Leader Trent Lott. He served as an aide to Rep. William Colmer (D-MS), head of the House Rules Committee. 

When Colmer retired in 1972, he handpicked Lott to fill the seat -- but told him to run as a Republican. He did & won.

Or consider Jesse Helms. He'd grown up a southern Dem, getting his first taste of politics helping Democrat Willis Smith run a race-baiting campaign for a NC senate seat in 1950 (see the ad below).

When Helms ran on his own in 1972, though, like Lott, he ran as a Republican.”

From the link in the second post. 
Click to expand...
Interesting....was there more?  Or just those two?  Do you have sources with more detail?

Also, care to explain Robert Byrd?  What was his deal?

 
BladeRunner said:
How do you disagree?  Can you elaborate with more detail?
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There are many, many people and groups actively working to fight racism every single day.

Those people aren't guilty of racism just because they are a part of a system that promotes racism.

 
Woodrow Part 2 

So before we examine Woodrow Wilson’s racism, we need to see if it’s truly accurate to describe him as a liberal. It’s true that he defined himself as a progressive, but that term wasn’t necessarily synonymous with liberal back then as it is today. Essentially, “progressive” prior to 1920 meant being in favor of breaking up the big trusts that controlled so much of the American economy. Thus, both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were progressive. 
During Wilson’s term, women received the right to vote. This was clearly a liberal movement, and that would help define Wilson as a liberal. Yet there is plenty of evidence that he was extremely reluctant to do this and only gave in under severe public pressure, so it’s hard to give him too much credit. At the same time Wilson was violating the First Amendment by jailing anyone who spoke out against World War I. 
Ultimately what defines Wilson as a liberal is his internationalism and desire to spread democracy around the world. And here there really can be no equivocation. Woodrow Wilson may have been naive, but he believed that all people around the globe deserved a democratic form of government. He further believed that democracy in itself is a virtue and leads to freedom. And he held that an international organization of states could end war and bring the fruits of democracy to everyone. All of these are highly debatable ideas, but there is no question that they are LIBERAL ideas. And as the most famous world leader ever to have these ideas (with the possible exception of FDR) I think it is fair to describe Woodrow Wilson as a liberal. 
Next, we will examine his racism...

 
One of the challenges with ascribing views to either party, is that it fails to account for what a "party" is.

A party is not static.

A party is a coalition of like-minded people at any given time.

Those coalitions change over time.

The GOP under Trump is very different than the GOP under Bush or Reagan or Nixon.

The Dems under Biden, will be a different coalition than those under Kennedy or Clinton.

 
Skoo said:
There are many, many people and groups actively working to fight racism every single day.

Those people aren't guilty of racism just because they are a part of a system that promotes racism.
Click to expand...
Well, i vehemently disagree that the system is racist.  The data simply doesn't support it.

However, cherry-picked data might.  But, then again, we're all using cherry-picked data I suppose.  :(

 
Do we have any actual black posters here at FBG?  Or do we just have white, middle-aged guys speaking on their behalf?

 
BladeRunner said:
Do we have any actual black posters here at FBG?  Or do we just have white, middle-aged guys speaking on their behalf?
Click to expand...
Oh this history won’t be restricted to blacks. The Democrats were plenty racist against Asians too. And Latinos. We’ll get into all of it, no worries. 

 
BladeRunner said:
Interesting....was there more?  Or just those two?  Do you have sources with more detail?

Also, care to explain Robert Byrd?  What was his deal?
Click to expand...
Strom Thurmond, Willis Godwin.  The rest of the seats moved organically over time on a number of platforms.

Robert Byrd?  His deal was he was a ####ed up racist that traded seats with Thurmond a bunch of times.  Yes, as a Democrat.

 
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