Sen. Barack Obama, in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal’s editorial board, expressed some admiration for Ronald Reagan, arguing that Reagan changed the direction of America in a way the “incremental” politics of Bill Clinton failed to do. These remarks set off a wave of Reagan Derangement Syndrome in the Leftosphere. One exception is Matt Yglesias:
Obama is pretty unambiguously claiming that much as Reagan was a friendly, popular face of a much more conservative governing agenda than the country had seen before, he thinks he can be the friendly, popular face of a much more liberal governing agenda than the country has seen before.
The reason Yglesias doesn’t get it is that he must not be afflicted with RDS (or at least not a full-blown case), a malady that interferes with the ability to understand abstract thought and metaphor. RDS also impairs the ability to understand history whenever the victim hears the name “Reagan.”ÂÂ
Yglesias links to Matt Stoller’s rant at OpenLeft, which exhibits the basic core of RDS:
It is extremely disturbing to hear, not that Obama admires Reagan, but why he does so. Reagan was not a sunny optimist pushing dynamic entrepreneurship, but a savvy politician using a civil rights backlash to catapult conservatives to power. Lots of people don’t agree with this, of course, since it doesn’t fit a coherent narrative of GOP ascendancy.
***
But if you think, as Obama does, that Reagan’s rise to power was premised on a sunny optimism in contrast to an out of control government and a society rife with liberal excess, then you don’t understand the conservative movement.
Stoller’s sole supporting link is to an op-ed by NYT columnist Paul Krugman. Those not afflicted with RDS will quickly recognize that relying on Paul Krugman for historical analysis may be a sign of mental lapse matched only by relying on Paul Krugman for economic analysis.
Krugman’s thesis springs from the fact that Reagan gave a speech including his support for state’s rights at the Neshoba Country Fair, just outside the Mississippi town where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964.
RDS sufferers like Stoller fail to note that Krugman’s thesis was debunked by Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, who wrote a response to Krugman showing that the Neshoba speech was not an effective symbolic appeal to white voters, but a political misstep that cost him support. At the Washington Monthly, Kevin Drum notes that:
(a) Reagan talked about states’ rights routinely in a non-racial context, (b) Mississippi at the time was seen as a swing state that Jimmy Carter had only barely won in 1976, and (c) the Neshoba event wasn’t orignally planned to be the kickoff for his campaign. His original intent was to kick off the campaign with a speech to the Urban League, but his advisors were afraid of the symbolism of doing that first and following it with Neshoba. ÂÂ
As a kicker, Drum notes that in 1988, Gov. Michael S. Dukakis spoke at the same Neshoba County Fair, at a time when he was trying to attract both white conservatives and blacks in the South.
As for Stoller’s RDS-inspired claim that Reagan’s rise to power was not premised on a sunny optimism in contrast to an out of control government and a society rife with liberal excess, it might be useful to start with the New York Times coverage of the 1980 election results:
Ronald Wilson Reagan, riding a tide of economic discontent against Jimmy Carter and promising ”to put America back to work again,” was elected the nation’s 40th President yesterday with a sweep of surprising victories in the East, South and the crucial battlegrounds of the Middle West.
***
A New York Times/CBS News poll of more than 10,000 voters as they left the polls indicated that the predominant motivation among voters was the conviction that it was time for a change. The biggest issue in their minds was the nation’s economy, especially inflation.
Or consider historian Arthur Schlessinger’s NYT op-ed, published the following day:
The long national nightmare is over, and we may speculate now about what the election really means. The basic maxim of democracy should always be: turn the rascals out. When people have been entrusted with power and make a botch of it, their options should be dropped.
Jimmy Carter’s Presidency was a manifest failure. It presented no vision, communicated no sense of direction, was wayward and negligent in foreign policy and left the domestic economy worse off than it had been four years earlier. Even its good intentions were compromised by an odious moralizing tone. For the voters to reward incoherence, incompetence, and sanctimony by re-election would have betrayed the obligations of democracy.
Indeed,  the establishment media echoed certain themes throughout Reagan’s presidency. For example, in 1985, TIME magazine reported:
Having shrugged off a major operation for colon cancer, Ronald Reagan seems to have earned a new wave of public sympathy and support through his patented optimism.
***
There was a striking discrepancy between Reagan’s personal popularity and his perceived ability to solve specific problems. A whopping three-fourths of those polled said they had “only a little confidence” or “none at all” that he could reduce the deficit. Only one in four had “a lot of confidence” that he could. The figures were similar when people were asked about Reagan’s ability to reform the tax code or negotiate arms-control agreements with the Soviets. (Emphasis added.)
In the 1980s, the establishment media frequently asserted that Reagan’s popularity was due to his sunny optimism and did not extend to his agenda. Krugman and his nutroots followers are now trying to change the liberal spin by 180 degrees.
Jane Hamsher displayed an even more advanced case of RDS at FireDog Lake. She cites the Neshoba speech (incorrectly seeting it in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town where the civil rights workers were killed), but cannot stop herself:
One of his first acts was to fire 11,000 air traffic controllers in 1981 — one of the most devastating union busting moves of the past century. And his vision of deregulation didn’t free the country up for entrepreneurship, it opened it up for the wholesale thievery of the savings & loan crisis.
Those not afflicted will recall that the PATCO strike violated federal law and the no-strike clause in the union’s own contract. Moreover:
Reagan stressed that he derived no satisfaction from sacking the controllers.  He pointed out that he was the first president to be a lifetime member of the AFL-CIO.  And he was aware that PATCO had been one of the few unions to support his presidential bid.  “I supported unions and the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively,” he wrote in his memoirs, ” but no president could tolerate an illegal strike by Federal employees.”
As for deregulation and the S&L crisis, RDS has clearly wiped out Hamsher’s ability to recall that this deregulation began with a Carter Administration initiative that: eliminated many of the distinctions among different types of depository institutions and ultimately removed the interest rate ceiling on deposit accounts; expanded the authority of federal S&Ls to make acquisition, development and construction loans; and lifted the cap on deposit insurance limit to $100,000 from $40,000. It has also impaired her ability to understand that the initiative was seen as necessary at the time, due to decades of bad economic policies from Johnson through Carter.
RDS has also impaired the ability of these left-leaning folk to apply their cherished principle of “fake, but accurate.” Even assuming for the sake of argument that Krugman and his nutroots acolytes got history correct, they cannot by their own thesis claim that the election of Reagan did not mark a national turn rightward. Income taxes were slashed, the Soviet Union was vigorously opposed, etc. Nor can they plausibly deny that the Democrats suffered mightily under Bill Clinton:
When the President was elected in 1992, the Democrats had fifty-seven senators; now they have forty-five. They controlled Congress, with a House majority of 266; now they have a minority of 211. They held twenty-eight governorships and a majority of state legislatures; now Democrats have seventeen governors and a minority of the state assemblies.
Any political realignment that occurred on Bill Clinton’s watch was toward the GOP. His legacy ultimately included deficit reduction, welfare reform, free trade agreements, a capital gains tax cut and class-action litigation reform. It took a dozen years and an unpopular war in Iraq to reverse the Democratic Party’s fortunes.
Perhaps Obama’s comments did not merely trigger a wave of RDS. Perhaps they also triggered a wave of Clinton Denial Syndrome.
Update: Michelle Malkin looks at scientific evidence of Bush Derangement Syndrome.
It’s scary to watch history being rewritten in real time.
Obama didn’t mention any policies of Reagan’s. That could actually prompt someone to ask The Big O what his policies might be.
That could actually prompt someone to ask The Big O what his policies might be.
A comprehensive Feel-Good Initative is pretty much the whole package, as far as I can tell.
I’m optimistic that Obama will have policies. He’ll probably need to get a new Trapper-Keeper for them, which is fun cause then you get to do stickers.
Yeah, that Ronald Ray-Gun was never popular:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:ElectoralCollege1984-Large.png
I take Conservatives at their word that they maintain consistent values. Why, then, should I believe that Ronald Reagan’s Neshoba Co. Fair speech did not reflect the editorial opinion of National Review, written a mere 23 years prior to 1980?
“The central question that emerges–and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal–is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes–the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced ace. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists. The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage.”
National Review editorial, 8/24/1957
They hated Ronnie because he showed that the Nation was NOT composed entirely of New Yorkers and Bostonians and San Franciscanites. Not even close. No matter HOW much they’d like it to be.
THAT was Regan’s “crime”, pointing out the Emperor’s naked ass.
uh, Reagan worked for National Review?
Maybe because it was, oh I don’t know, written 23 years prior? Or because it wasn’t written by Reagan?
maggie katzen’s 3 greatest hits:
so? huh? and your point is?
The National Review was the house paper of Conservative opinion. Given that Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, why should his speech at Neshoba not be seen as in a direct line from Conservative opinion in 1957?
Phoebe’s a bigot. And ignorant. No clue about the history of her party or she’d know how really shamefully stupid she looks.
because it was twenty years later and said by Reagan?
and Robert Byrd weighs in in 3…2…1….
If you are going to catapult yourself and your party to national power, you can’t pick a better starting point than Neshoba. NESHOBA!!!! Everybody’s heard of it.
Now, let’s talk about the symbolism of John Edwards opening his presidential campaign in a neighborhood that had been devastated by Katrina. All those black people killed in that very spot, and now Edwards trying to ‘kill’ the chances of a black man running for President. Sure, Edwards didn’t explicitly use the words of racism. But doesn’t it show that he is using symbolism to tell white people “I will kill the dreams of black men FOR YOU.”?
Yes, the Conservative Godwin… Robert Byrd.
But for serious. I would bet we’re in for a whole lot of phoebe-style bigotry as they – the media mostly, for sure NPR – reconstruct every stale meme they can between now and November that even remotely touches on race. Keeping bigotry alive if they have to prop up its corpse and wrap its cold dead hands around a mint julep.
Lots of people don’t agree with this, of course, since it doesn’t fit a coherent narrative of GOP ascendancy.
In other words, my li’l tribal chirrets, you are only smart enough to understand teh narrative passed on to you by the wise men, not those dangerous individual facts, some of which may not compute. It’s all about teh narrative for Stoller, isn’t it? And in his case, it’s the narrative about how all the Republicans are bad ol’ racists. One wonders how the boy takes a crap… “Hmmm… I don’t normally have a #2 at noon… doesn’t fit the narrative at all, which normally has me taking a crap at 9:00, right after I get to the office and have my second cup of coffee…”
One of his first acts was to fire 11,000 air traffic controllers in 1981  one of the most devastating union busting moves of the past century.
Indeed. Gorbachev wanted to institute bold reforms in the Soviet Union. He has stated that he was not sure whether Reagan could be trusted in his rhetoric, either in his saber rattling or in his overtures to the Soviets, but that when he stood behind his talk and fired the Air Traffic Controllers, an immensely politically dangerous maneuver, Gorbachev (and many in the high echelons of the Sov gov) realized that Reagan was a formidable man. And in Gorbachev’s case it was the key event that convinced him he could cut a deal with Reagan. It was the event that made them understand that both strategic arms reduction treaties and missile defense, so-called, were going to happen.
So yeah, it was one of the most destructive acts of the 20th Century, turning out in Gorbachev’s mind to be the fulcrum on which Reagan’s offensive to destroy the Soviet communist state rested. I guess in Hamsher’s case it just proves the old maxim that “even a blind pig finds a truffle every once in a while.”
Ursula’s ditzy sister Phoebe mistakes “consistent” for “monolithic.”
so Democratics are inconsistent?
phobe – Reagan only switched party affiliation in 1962, so he probably still had some of that leftover racism from being a democrat in 1964.
Michael Steele = race traitor
Barack Obama = “transcends” race
The preeminent voice of Conservative opinion in 1957:
“The central question that emerges–and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal–is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes–the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the median cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists. The question, as far as the White community is concerned, is whether the claims of civilization supersede those of universal suffrage.â€Â
Opposition to the Civil rights Act in 1964. Declaration of state’s rights at Neshoba in 1980. Yes, Conservatives do indeed maintain consistent values.
Would someone remind me of who it was that worked tirelessly if for naught to defeat the Civil Rights Act in 1964?
Oh, wait a minute…it’s coming to me…yes …YES!
White, southern democrats!
But that’s OK, ’cause all those crackers became Republicans or repented like Bobby “Hood Me” Byrd! Look it up!
Is it just me or lately has the political moronity scale been pegged to the red zone around here? A National Review Article from 1957 as an indicator of a speach in 1980? Yeesh!
BECAUSE PHEOBE HAS PRONOUNCED IT SO, but please don’t hold Democratics to the same standards. cause those cats are shifty
Yup, Phoebe. Barack Obama is running for president so you better remind him he’s damn lucky his people can vote at all so he doesn’t start having ideas.
You know it’s the sign of a strong argument if they find quotes that are 50 years old.
Oh for heaven’s sake, phobe. We’re just now- 7 years into the Bush administration- beginning to hear again that Clinton’s 1990’s existed. You can’t expect us to vouch for the 1950’s.
Nice shift. The subject is 1980. Editorial opinion in 1957 proclaiming white supremacy. Opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Declaration of state’s rights in 1980. 23 years of consistent Conservative values.
yes sir. Republicans may have voted for the Civil Rights Act but Ronald Reagan remained consistent with true conservatives.
you still haven’t shown the connection between Reagan and National Review.
You don’t know any actual conservatives do you? On the off chance, run this past them over coffee one day this week and report back on how that goes.
When folks on the Left like Kevin Drum can admit that Reagan talked about federalism all of the time in a non-racial context, and that candidates of all stripes have spoken at Neshoba, it’s fairly safe to conclude that phobe should be in line at the clinic to see about that RDS.
well, sure Kar, but what will I do for fun then?
IT’S A 23 YEAR STRAIGHT LINE TO NESHOBA, RACISTS!!!!!
Like a speeding bullet, opinion from 1957 hurtles through time and space and lands unscathed on Ronnie’s broad shoulders.
A MAGIC CONSERVATIVE BULLET!!!!
LOL, phobes, I’m gasping for air!
I bet she doesn’t have any black friends either, come to think of it. They’d get a kick out of phoebes for sure though.
phobe,
In favor of your pet theory, you have Paul Krugman’s assertion, and a paragraph written a generation before the election in question by somebody not involved in the campaign.
In favor of Karl’s theory, he has the man who wrote Reagan’s biography, a contemporary article by Kevin Drum, which includes the Dukakis campaign stop in ’88. Further, we have the fact that Reagan’s victory in ’80 was a landslide, and his victory in ’84 was even more lopsided.
Are you honestly contending that a significant majority of the country was composed of racists? Are you honestly expecting any rational audience to believe you?
Moreover, during the era phobe cites, Republicans — including many conservative Republicans — were busy advancing civil rights.
Karl, somebody had to go after all those disaffected… It’s common sense. Nixon did it, Carter did it, Reagan did it. The only difference with Reagan is his Conservative backslapping crowd, which included William F. Buckley, the writer of that 1957 editorial.
Did that order for better trolls get lost again? Will someone get the fuck on it!
Karl, according to Doughy Pantload, Everett Dirksen is a liberal fascist.
daley, be nice. She’s fighting the power.
The Republican Party was formed to oppose slavery in the Western US. So how does phobe get from there to where we are today, a bunch of racist’s?
That wins my vote for sentence of the week, Karl.
Phobes, why don’t you choke on this, from Karl’s link;
So, are you still going to quote articles from 1957 and make stupid statements about that opinion reflecting unchanged racial views for conservatives?
Or…are you tired of being a self-parody?
William Buckley, Karl Rove, Mitt Romney…THERE’S NO DIFFERENCE, NEOCONS!!!ONE!!!ELEVENTY!!!TWELVEONE!!ONE!!!
Odd that Senator Barack Obama apparently understands Ronald Reagan’s popularity and sweep to power, but the other leftists don’t. Too bad he’s deluded into thinking he’s anything like Reagan. He’s one president late. The country made the mistake of voting in a naive leftist who did incredible damage to the country and largely set up the terrorist problem we face to day after an unpopular Republican president, will it do so again?
Heavens! States’ rights == an aspiration to return to the gold old days of the plantation?
Please, let’s have a look under the hood of that equation. I’ve heard that it’s code, so please decode it for me.
gold = good. But you already knew that, didn’t you?
In 1980 I was a Democrat activist who believed socialism was the way to go. I campaigned for, and voted for Jimmy Carter. I hated Reagan. But never once did I consider Reagan a racist. The whole Kenosha was a big deal is a modern phenomenon, it wasn’t a blip on the national scene back then. We hated Reagan because his anti-Big Government stance was anti-socialist, and he was advocating massive military build-ups and nuclear escalation of the cold war. Trust me phoebe, it didn’t happen the way you are being told, I was there. The traditional Democrat south went Republican because of the Republican tendency toward conservative, Christian social values that the Democrats were abandoning, it had very little if anything to do with racism.
Teh Cartoon Narrative of conservatives = racists must be maintained.
Whats funny is that I well remember the campaign of Ronaldus Maximus. If there had been any racism in it, I wouldn’t have voted for the man. Of course, there were lots of leftist boobs like phobe accusing him of being one, but then again, they ALWAYS call their political enemies nasty names, so without specific proof, it’s real easy to discount. It doesn’t help their cause when they campaigned against W in 2000 the exact same way as they did vs Reagan.
Hell, the creator of the Democrat party was a slave holder and known racist. Its projection I tell ya!
Pablo,
Thanks.
Christopher Taylor,
We did in ’92, so why not?
There aren’t any racists except for the Ron Paul people. I heard John Sidney used to say the word gook like a lot though, and even when he wasn’t saying it you could tell he was thinking it.
Incidentally,
You don’t think phobe dug up that editorial from 1957, do you?
Proof that one of the few things more dumb than relying on Krugman is relying on Bob Herbert.
PHOBISTS!!!1!!!
Bob Herbert did good on the Tulia story. That’s for real fighting the power stuff though.
phoebe – Are you fucking serious? Opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Goddam public schools are a joke.
Does anyone remember Jimmy Carter?
I do.
I came to the US to work for the summer and fall when Reagan and Carter were going at it hammer-and-tongs. In Asbury Park, NJ – *New* *Jersey* – there was almost a popular uprising against Carter and his *complete* mismanagement of the Executive. Four hundred and forty four days, anyone? Desert One? Savage Rabbit? Amy as foreign affairs advisor? Cyrus F*CKING Vance? Panama Canal Treaty? Mexico Deportation Treaty?
Jeez! I mean, the worst poor old Ford ever did was fall off a plane in Austria.
How quickly history gets rewritten.
Patrick, that’s good but I think it would be a better argument maybe if it was in bold type. Twice. We’re not dealing with an amateur here.
Democrats like phobe sure do get angry when you disrupt their “you’re all racists!!!” diatribes by pointing out that it’s the Democrats who still have a Klansman representing them in the Senate.
The old version was inconvenient, in places.
And, get with the program. It’s not “history”, it’s “the narrative”. Because it’s just the narrative, rewriting it is just good editing.
Clinton Denial Syndrome.
I like it.
Given that Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Is Pheobe talking about Al Gore’s daddy again?
Shoot. Late to the party as usual.
Did a photoshop in honor of Jonah’s daily show appearance and Allah’s clown nose on, clown nose off for fun
Incidentially, the second comment at Hamsher’s (the first is one of those retarded “First! Fitz!” comments) was
You don’t suppose it’s a mole, do you?
Dear happyfeet, and slartibastfast,
Thank you both for the comments. I address you both because one-after-the-other you spark a memory.
After my summer/fall in the US, watching Reagan and Carter, I went back to Ireland to resume my university studies. Back to Ireland people would ask me “Who’s going to win the US Presidency?” I would answere, in every instance, “Reagan, in a landslide.” Nobody believed me. European news was so slanted to Reagan as Warmonger, Carter as Prince of Peace, that nobody believed any American would vote for Reagan. (And you can see the point. I mean, who wants to vote for world warfare?)
After Reagan *was* elected, the myth was firmly established that Americans are lunatics. Despite the end of Soviet Communism.
Americans are not lunatics. They’re more free than anyone on earth to react to unhappiness in their political environment. And they do, regardless of teh European press.
Which is why they rule. Literally rule. And I mean this in the literal sense – I don’t want to be an internet cliche.
;^), etc.
Did I just say “teh”?
Oy!
I mean…
Oh dear gawd…can we really blame Pheobe?
phobe, is this the same William F. Buckley who also featured Thomas Sowell on many occasions during his weekly “Firing Line” program only a decade after the 1957 editorial?
Regardless, “Once a bigot/phobe, always a bigot” really only applies to those who persistently remain bigots, eh what, phobe?
I had no idea you were from elsewhere, P. I love when people come here cause that saves me a lot feeling like I should travel more. I’m with you on Newt, btw. He’s become like the new Pat Robertson where his every fresh inanity is duly reported by the AP. I know he makes sense sometimes, but that’s a deal-breaker.
Cher pieds de joie: Ouai! Et, je parle (et ecrit) Anglais comme un Americain!
Homer says… Woo hoo!
B Moe – Remember the anti-Reagan T-shirts in 1980 with the mock Don Quixote scene – Reagan on the back of a donkey holding a space weapon with a blazing windmill in the background. I forget the exact text, but Reagan was spelled Ray-gun on the shirts. Good times.
Whoops! “Chere”.
Dear daleyrocks: Kind of reminds me of Reagan/Thatcher “Gone With The Wind” posters that were popular in the UK in the late 1980s.
I do American good too except for the punctuating part cause I’m subversive like that.
“B Moe – Remember the anti-Reagan T-shirts in 1980 with the mock Don Quixote scene – “
Yup, Reagan was mostly considered a feeble minded old puppet. David Stockman was considered the evil incarnate true villian, as ridiculous as that seems now. God is it humiliating to think about the bullshit I babbled back then.
All I remember is Phil Collins or maybe Genesis did a video with like Kroftt puppets and it wasn’t really pleasing aesthetically.
“Lots of people don’t agree with this, of course, since it doesn’t fit a coherent narrative of GOP ascendancy.”
Don’t mind me, guys, but didn’t Stoller just sort of step on his crank and admit up-front that his take is incoherent?
I like-a subversion.
Wait one. Perversion?
Is that Phoebe from Friends ?
Racist cat, racist cat what are they feeding you? Racist cat, racist cat it’s not your fault…
BECAUSE oF TEH NESHOBA!!!1111!!
happyfeet – You are too damn funny.
Could the National Review have been writing about the 1957 Civil Rights Act proposed by Eisenhower’s Attorney General, William P. Rogers? Y’all remember that one right? I mean it was the cause of the longest filibuster in history, sustained by the then Democrat Senators from the south who insisted on watering the historic Republican civil rights legislation down considerably before shutting up. The bill was the genesis, so to speak, of federal intervention on civil rights issues (aside from the Republican involvement in that disagreement in the 1860s). – Say, wasn’t there a party called the Copperheads or something like that during that disagreeable period?
That said, the Democrats didn’t stop Rogers from establishing Civil Rights Division within the DoJ.
Robert Caro does a good job of describing the dickering involved in getting racist Democrats to finally sit down and shut up in Book II (Master of the Senate of his biography of LBJ.
Phobe’s dumber than most varieties of dirt and I believe that whoever was responsible for recruiting new trolls for PW should be summarily
shotdismissed.Rick,
I believe the influx is from CNN’s Election Center. PW has no control over it, but it’s page views in Jeff’s pocket.
Karl,
That would certainly explain the IQ drop. Perhaps there’s a need to find a decent comic book which describes federalism and why the NR set itself in opposition to a Republican administration?
So we shouldn’t bring up Byrd….
How about Hugo Black, another Klansman?
Fritz Hollings, who was railing against “wetbacks” as recently as 1984?
Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson?
Dick Gephardt who asked for the endorsement of a white supremacist group, the Metro South Citizens Council?
Lee P. Brown, Andrew Cuomo, Billy McKinney?
What was the name given to the 1924 Democratic Convnetion? The Klanbake convention. I’ll give credit; some members in attendeance tried to get a patform plank condemning the KKK for violence. But that was defeated. ANd the convention even ended with a cross “lighting.”
What party did Orvall Faubus, George Mitchell, and Lester Maddox belong to?
Nixon v Herndon–the US Supreme Court had to strike down state laws barring balcks form the Democratic primaries. In response teh party just made rules to prevent minorities form participating in the exceutive committess, which sparked Nixon v. Condon.
“We favor the continuance and strict enforcement of the Chinese exclusion law, and its application to the same classes of all Asiatic races.”
–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1900
“The repeal of the fifteenth amendment, one of the greatest blunders and therefore one of the greatest crimes in political history, is a consummation to be devoutly wished for.”
–Rep. John Sharpe Williams (D., Miss.), 1903
House Minority Leader, 1903-08
“Republicanism means Negro equality, while the Democratic Party means that the white man is supreme. That is why we Southerners are all Democrats.”
–Sen. Ben Tillman (D., S.C.), 1906
Chairman, Committee on Naval Affairs, 1913-19
“We are opposed to the admission of Asiatic immigrants who can not be amalgamated with our population, or whose presence among us would raise a race issue and involve us in diplomatic controversies with Oriental powers.”
–Platform of the Democratic Party, 1908
“I am opposed to the practice of having colored policemen in the District [of Columbia]. It is a source of danger by constantly engendering racial friction, and is offensive to thousands of Southern white people who make their homes here.”
–Sen. Hoke Smith (D., Ga.), 1912
Appointed Secretary of the Interior by Grover Cleveland in 1893
“The South is serious with regard to its attitude to the Negro in politics. The South understands this subject, and its policy is unalterable and uncompromising. We desire no concessions. We seek no sops. We grasp no shadows on this subject. We take no risks. We abhor a Northern policy of catering to the Negro in politics just as we abhor a Northern policy of social equality.”
–Josephus Daniels, editor, Raleigh News & Observer, 1912
Appointed Secretary of the Navy by Woodrow Wilson in 1913
Appointed Ambassador to Mexico by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933
USS Josephus Daniels named for him by the Johnson Administration in 1965
“The Negro as a race, in all the ages of the world, has never shown sustained power of self-development. He is not endowed with the creative faculty. . . . He has never created for himself any civilization. . . . He has never had any civilization except that which has been inculcated by a superior race. And it is a lamentable fact that his civilization lasts only so long as he is in the hands of the white man who inculcates it. When left to himself he has universally gone back to the barbarism of the jungle.”
–Sen. James Vardaman (D., Miss.), 1914
Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources, 1913-19
“This is a white man’s country, and will always remain a white man’s country.”
–Rep. James F. Byrnes (D., S.C.), 1919
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941
Appointed Secretary of State by Harry S. Truman in 1945
“Slavery among the whites was an improvement over independence in Africa. The very progress that the blacks have made, when–and only when–brought into contact with the whites, ought to be a sufficient argument in support of white supremacy–it ought to be sufficient to convince even the blacks themselves.”
–William Jennings Bryan, 1923
Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, 1896, 1900 and 1908
Appointed Secretary of State by Woodrow Wilson in 1913
His statue stands in the U.S. Capitol.
“Anyone who has traveled to the Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results. . . . The argument works both ways. I know a great many cultivated, highly educated and delightful Japanese. They have all told me that they would feel the same repugnance and objection to have thousands of Americans settle in Japan and intermarry with the Japanese as I would feel in having large numbers of Japanese coming over here and intermarry with the American population. In this question, then, of Japanese exclusion from the United States it is necessary only to advance the true reason–the undesirability of mixing the blood of the two peoples. . . . The Japanese people and the American people are both opposed to intermarriage of the two races–there can be no quarrel there.”
–Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1925
President, 1933-45
“This passport which you have given me is a symbol to me of the passport which you have given me before. I do not feel that it would be out of place to state to you here on this occasion that I know that without the support of the members of this organization I would not have been called, even by my enemies, the ‘Junior Senator from Alabama.’ ”
–Hugo Black, accepting a life membership in the Ku Klux Klan upon his election to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Alabama, 1926
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937
“Mr. President, the crime of lynching . . . is not of sufficient importance to justify this legislation.”
–Sen. Claude Pepper (D., Fla.), 1938
Spoken while engaged in a six-hour speech against the antilynching bill
“I am a former Kleagle [recruiter] of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County. . . . The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the union.”
–Robert C. Byrd, 1946
Democratic Senator from West Virginia, 1959-present
Senate Majority Leader, 1977-80 and 1987-88
Senate President Pro Tempore, 1989-95, 2001-03, 2007-present
His portrait stands in the U.S. Capitol.
President Truman’s civil rights program “is a farce and a sham–an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I have voted against the so-called poll tax repeal bill. . .. I have voted against the so-called anti-lynching bill.”
–Rep. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1948
U.S. Senator, 1949-61
Senate Majority Leader, 1955-61
President, 1963-69
“There is no warrant for the curious notion that Christianity favors the involuntary commingling of the races in social institutions. Although He knew both Jews and Samaritans and the relations existing between them, Christ did not advocate that courts or legislative bodies should compel them to mix socially against their will.”
–Sen. Sam Ervin (D., N.C.), 1955
Chairman, Committee on Government Operations, 1971-75
“The decline and fall of the Roman empire came after years of intermarriage with other races. Spain was toppled as a world power as a result of the amalgamation of the races. . . . Certainly history shows that nations composed of a mongrel race lose their strength and become weak, lazy and indifferent.”
–Herman E. Talmadge, 1955
Democratic Senator from Georgia, 1957-81
Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, 1971-81
“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.”
–Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1957
“I have never seen very many white people who felt they were being imposed upon or being subjected to any second-class citizenship if they were directed to a waiting room or to any other public facility to wait or to eat with other white people. Only the Negroes, of all the races which are in this land, publicly proclaim they are being mistreated, imposed upon, and declared second-class citizens because they must go to public facilities with members of their own race.”
–Sen. Richard B. Russell Jr. (D., Ga.), 1961
The Russell Senate Office Building is named for him.
“I did not lie awake at night worrying about the problems of Negroes.”
–Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, 1961
Kennedy later authorized wiretapping the phones and bugging the hotel rooms of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“I’m not going to use the federal government’s authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. . . . I have nothing against a community that’s made up of people who are Polish or Czechoslovakian or French-Canadian or blacks who are trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods.”
–Jimmy Carter, 1976
President, 1977-81
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 2002
“The Confederate Memorial has had a special place in my life for many years. . . . There were many, many times that I found myself drawn to this deeply inspiring memorial, to contemplate the sacrifices of others, several of whom were my ancestors, whose enormous suffering and collective gallantry are to this day still misunderstood by most Americans.”
–James Webb, 1990
Now a Democratic Senator from Virginia
“Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you’d find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they’d just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva.”
–Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D., S.C.) 1993
Chairman, Commerce Committee, 1987-95 and 2001-03
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 1984
“I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia [Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter] that he would have been a great senator at any moment. . . . He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this nation.”
–Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), 2004
Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008
“You cannot go into a Dunkin’ Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent.”
“My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything [but] a Northeastern liberal state.”
“I mean, you got the first mainstream African American [Barack Obama] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy.”
“There’s less than 1% of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4% or 5% that is, are minorities. What is it in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.”
Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., (D., Del.), 2006-07
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, 1987-95
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008
Bonus quote:
“It has of late become the custom of the men of the South to speak with entire candor of the settled and deliberate policy of suppressing the negro vote. They have been forced to choose between a policy of manifest injustice toward the blacks and the horrors of negro rule. They chose to disfranchise the negroes. That was manifestly the lesser of two evils. . . . The Republican Party committed a great public crime when it gave the right of suffrage to the blacks. . . . So long as the Fifteenth Amendment stands, the menace of the rule of the blacks will impend, and the safeguards against it must be maintained.”
–Editorial, “The Political Future of the South,” New York Times, May 10, 1900)
Oh. Poor phoebe. I hope she has a strong support system. Here ya go. Your success is my success. Ok not really but we can pretend cause it’s a fake it til you make it thing, and I really believe in you. Ok not really.
oh good god
Reagan was hated by Those That Would Rule (for our own good, of course). He was the “napper”… and doddering fool that was a puppet of Corporate America (when he wasn’t that sly, savvy evil guy that won the election either by stealing it or by manipulating the obviously stupid voter)
GW wasn’t the first Republican to be linked with the word “chimp” (if I had a nickel for each time “Bedtime for Bonzo” was trotted out by RDS leftists)
As phobe demonstrates… for the Left, conservatives and Republicans are whatever THEY define; conservative and Republicans “really think” whatever Leftists assert. Usually prefaced with “everyone knows…”
Nice irony boomerang. Very observant.
Not surprised to see the only response is, the dems were racist too!!!!WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!
No shit Sherlock!
So, stop claiming the Conservative wing of the Republican Party is color blind!
Saint Ronnie was a pro at race baiting. Choke on it.
You’re incredibly thought-provoking.
Choke-provoking too!
WWWWWAAAAAAAA! I didn’t realize phoebe’s brilliance until that very moment. Phoebe, are you more dense than lead? The point was not that Dems are racist too, the point is that you are projecting your party’s racism onto the Reps. Prolly because you are ashamed of your own party’s actions. Maybe Dems are better able to find the underlying racist meanings because of their own overtly racist past, and they assume that everyone else is as racist as they are.
Caric and timmah are fuckers.
Is too!
Darleen:… “for the Left, conservatives and Republicans are whatever THEY define; conservative and Republicans “really think†whatever Leftists assert.”
Phoebe:”So, stop claiming the Conservative wing of the Republican Party is color blind!”
How do you train them like that Darleen? We should start calling you The Moonbat Whisperer.
Now that you’ve completely failed your reading comprehension test, why should we waste any further time on you?
Oh, and: here>‘s your teeshirt.
Man, RTO! While the rest of us were content to drop verbal JDAM’s or the occasional napalm carpet you just had to go nuclear on poor phobe. So who’s going to clean up the smoking radioactive wreckage?
That’s why we love you, man!
I adhere to a doctrine of overwhelming rationality.
The point is lost on Phoebe, of course; it’s not about promoting a logical falacy that its okay for Republicans to be racist becasue Democratics are too. It’s about demonstrating, unequivocally, that there’s a log in the eye of them what pass judgment.
Phoebe manages to get her party’s house in order, and I’ll be receptive to discussing how bad the other party is. Until then, (are you paying attention Phoebe?) the only constructive conversation on this topic is “here’s how we’ve made progress on correcting this problem, what’s been working for you?”
Speaking of Reagan Derangement, case in point.
how so? seeing as you have still not shown how he is connected to the National Review in 1957. Unless, you’re talking about the Buckley endorsement? does that make Democratics terrorists because Bin Laden is often endorsing their positions? just want to clear this up.
I totally endorse phoebe’s point of view.
[…] Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton join the nutroots in misconstruing Sen. Barack Obama’s comments about wanting to be to progressives what Ronald […]
hey, stop dumping on Phobe. I am here for your pleasure.
anyway. I’ll start by complimenting My. Karl (whomever) for Excellent reporting and history. This “post” is in Fact about 3 times more illuminating and interesting than the crap I’ve been reading at NRO (National Review online).
But, but there’s a problem. It’s just proving my prior points that we’ve had a conservative policy elite dominate the policies in the nation for the last 40 years. You claim that the Liberals have had “power”. I see no evidence. Where has the “left” (inaccurately called “Liberals” by the right-wing) have much power? Maybe in entertainment? Micheal Moore etc. Or in the ‘arts’…but not in governing.
e.g. Jimmy Carter(D)= conservative: most conservative (and southern) of the field of candidates gains power with a religious undertone of ‘sunny optimism’ (ala Huckabee currently). As president brings Conservative Democrats of the Scoop Jackson school of antiCommunistism into the policy making of foreign affairs. Anti Afghan occupation “war” begins..(it wasn’t Charlie Wilson’s war…Carter and his advisors wholeheartedly initiated the mujeheeden’s funding (no time for spell check..sorry). Carter pretends to care about environment but pushes for nuc. power solutions…but his aim is hijacked by Three Mile Island disaster, Carter gives oil companies vast govt. money stakes in developing oil shale and drilling in ‘overthrust belt of Wyoming…billions spent and going into oil companies coffers with little to show for it.
Carter refuses to participate in Moscow olympics….(imagine Bush backing out of the Bejing Olympics for some negligble reason like Bejing interferring in a neighbor’s politcal turmoil)? ( I for some reason thought it was insane to defend mulluhs in Afghanistan who were suppressing women and intelligent discourse even more than soviet communism was…and we got major ‘blowback’ as a result…)
Although Carter was decent about many things esp. human rights he neglected to mention or condemn the Indonesian genocide against suspected Communists and esp. ethnic Chinese. Estimates as high a million deaths by CIA supported Suharto’s military. And Indonesia became a hotbed for Muslim extremism minus ‘commies’ who were secularists.
Reagan (R) (conservative) hated by the left for good reasons but Reagan overplayed the threat of the Soviet Union…(who never attacked the USA directly unlike RightWing regimes of Confederacy, Nazi Germany, or Fascist Japan) In hindsite the Cold war was as much our fault as it was Stalin’s. And after Stalin died many attempts by the USSR for peaceful co-existance were rebuffed by the likes of JFK, Carter etc. but Reagan overplayed a threat from a decayed overbloated military state that hadn’t an economy to sustain it…(Liberal Democrats of the Containment School had won the cold war before Reagan even became President.)
We’re still living with Reagan’s AntiEnviromentalism. Any crap that goes down the pike: global warming, bad food and obesity, (and later) starvation, overpopulation, and shudder population die-back could be laid at the feet of ReaganismRepublicanism..thus why Reagan’s more hated of the conservatives.
Bush 1(R) Conservative and deeply invested in establishment and former CIA head. Profited from Iraq war that he started and connected to Saudi Monarchy.
Clinton(D) most conservative of the Democratic field. From a Southern state where he let Tyson Foods pollute rivers, attacked the teacher’s unions as governor, before President co-founded the conservative “New Democrat” movement ironically labled one establishment “Progressive Policy Institute” while few Progressives cared for Clinton and he wasn’t a “progressive” anymore than most Republicans were. During his Presidency “made nice” with Republicans even though they loathed him for stealing their messages like “ending welfare as we know it”. Relaxed banking standards (with Rubin as Sec of Treasury) helping lead us to banking “innovations” like ‘sub-prime’ lending and credit card companies charging formerly Illegal loan shark rates. Did expand tax base though with higher taxes on normal upper income people (while letting ultra rich some breaks…) and invested in infrastructure and policing which apparently primed economy for longest peacetime period of unstopped growth and prosperity (recession-less)..but accused of allowing later dot.Com bubble to develop (with help from Alan Greenspan)
Bush 2 (“compassionate” conservative) widely despised for his allowing no bid contractors making billions of a long war that is costing about 2 to 3 Trillion dollars. Wide corruption of contractors in Iraq leaving Iragis worse off than they were under Hussein dictatorship. so called ‘compassion’ wears off and Americans generally see George W for what he is: a spoiled frat boy, given a Presidency through nepotism accompanied with a insolent arrogance once masked by some considerable charm and humor which has worn off under threat of everything going wrong under his administration.
alas, our executive leaders since Nixon have all been ‘conservatives’, not “liberals”
so ease up on Phobe and “liberals”. Democrats have relinquished the rascists to the Republicans. Democrats prior to Johnson with their Southern core were heavily invested in rascism…but that was then, this is now. Left of center Democrats maybe should have a chance to ‘change’ things..but so far they haven’t. So conservatives deserve the credit for both Democratic and Republican misfires and disasters.
idiotdave – History is soooo much easier when you just get to make shit up as you go along, no? Right wing Confederates? Nazis?
The War on Poverty would work if we were only more liberal, right?
eÂ’re still living with ReaganÂ’s AntiEnviromentalism. Any crap that goes down the pike: global warming, bad food and obesity, (and later) starvation, overpopulation, and shudder population die-back could be laid at the feet of ReaganismRepublicanism
This might be one of the most condensed and comprehensive expressions of sheer and unadulterated stupidity that I have read in a while. Which is no small feat considering the volume of BS it has spewed recently.
I don’t think shuddering dieback victims are going to be particularly incensed at Reagan. It’s people what are comfortable extrapolating the word dieback from like snowy egrets to people that are the dangerous ones I think.
Guys–It’s nice of datadave to lay out the whole fractured prism through which he views the world the rest of us actually live in, but I don’t think there’s any way to educate him.
Normally I’m all for every effort to educate but this time it’d be a greater kindness to not torment the poor thing.
Kind of like trying to teach pigs to whistle.
He really is drifting kind of unabomberish. Yo Kaczynski… if you compose in Firefox it’ll automatically spellcheck for you, just so for when you do your manifesto it’ll get taken seriously. Hope that helps.
JD,,….soiling your pants again…gasping in anquish that I’d return to such abuse? Again, you’ve nothing to show for brains I see. What language do you understand? “Conservratlish”. Confedrates were ‘conservative’ they wanted the status quo and even wanted to force it on the Free States thus fugitive slave laws and the Battle at BullRun…an invasion of the Free Republic. To bad the sons of the Confederacy have taken over Lincoln’s party. (put it in historic perspective..,,,relatively not current history…but some ‘blowback’ seems to continue over the generation. And not your seeming yuppie present tense “Conservratlish”.) BTW: the War on Poverty was negated by something much more costly: the War of Foreign Aggression in Vietnam. We lost that one and are still paying its debts and our grandchildren will be paying the debts of imperial hubris and overreach of Republican Bush’s war in Iraq.
And could you just edit and be more concise: “This might be one of the most condensed and comprehensive expressions of sheer and unadulterated stupidity that I have read in a while.”…like say I am a bovine gastro liberal swine or something….but “name-calling” needs to be more creative to be interesting. Please!
u’re sounding more like NR and ol Buckley, Jr.
JD, you’re just a ‘dumbfuck’. Not worth talking to if you can’t acknowledge one fact: Conservatives Rule! Dude. Why don’t you feel good about it?
happy, you like Disney movies, I see. Only there are talking penguins living charmed lives. Real creatures like do stupid things like ‘overpopulate’ and ‘die’….of course Conservatives are by definition: lemmings. They believe if they might die, they’ll at least go to Heaven(TM).
That was WB. You’re not really expected to know that though.
thx, Warner Bros. ™
the trailer pretty much scared me.
All I know is my brother had to debrief his kids after. He said it was awkward.
who’s got time for spell check? that’s cheating anywa
Conservratlish tm
.tm
I think this thread might be evidence some day.
hf, I’m just glad my daughter was too young to understand the propaganda. All she got out of it was dancing, singing penguins. And the scary seal.
sorry, was trying to recreate that little ‘tm’ if happened like unplanned.
despite my anger at somethings I really, really like Karl’s piece. HONEST. And why is JD always posting after me…like The Hills Have Eyes or something?
All kids need to know is we leave our campsite cleaner than we found it.
datadave,
I thank anyone for kind words, even those with whom I disagree. As for JD posting after you, I would guess he notices you in the “recent comments” widget in the left sidebar.
I know about it and try to read more often and write less….but I had to just mention that Democrat leaders, even if Democrat, can be ‘conservative’. Some things are good conservative…but Democrats.
‘better a real Republican, than a Democrat pretending to be one’ someone said something like that.
I remains to be seen if Obama is in fact “liberal” or left-of-center. Suspicions are though that he maybe is the only person who can beat McCain and that would be just barely. (that’s a projection….) I think Romney can be beat by Hillary or Obama but again just barely if at all. the Dems can be relied upon to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Democrats seem to be just waiting for another Great Depression or something. Thus Kerry’s half hearted race for the President and Pres. Clinton’s seemingly sabotaging his own wife’s campaign of late. Jeesh, maybe he will punch a reporter after all…some other PW regular suggested that. S. Gotta go be a family again, thanks for some good reading.
picked this one out at MM’s place linked above…Now you’ll perhaps realize my paranoia might be justified….”
#54 On January 14th, 2008 at 2:01 pm, genso said:
“…about confronting these folks?â€Â
As I alluded to above (#8), we may be end up leaving the “cold†, nonshooting culture war and enter a hot civil war. That may be the only way for our culture to recover and survive.
It (the culture) has been perverted and devastated so by the socialists, leftists, Communists, hedonists, progressives (there’s a lie for you), self-haters (somebody stop me, please!), etc.; that reason and verbal, debate-type argumentative persuasion may be futile.
We cannot afford to meakly, effeminately end up like Europe; for that will seal our fate.”
A hot civil war? Do you know any other liberals really? Guerrilla warfare for them is when they key a Marine’s car.
[…] direct and aggressive criticism of Bill Clinton’s presidency yet,” though Obama was already headed in this direction when he praised Reagan and dismissed Bill Clinton’s presidency as […]
[…] about it (he is also wrong about the “history” he cites, but that’s a topic already addressed). Yet Matthew Yglesias has been pushing the “soft” version of this idiocy at The […]
I really like you site. Keep up good work
Ronald Reagan was a great president. Definitely not the same viewpoints at Obama.
Reagan > Obama