The activities of the Obama administration have progressed into Mafia territory the past five years. I never thought things could change this fast but it seems I was wrong. The latest example ?
Soon after the US Government sold the last of its stake in General Motors, the company began to announce a huge number of recalls. These safety defects were known for years but unreported until the federal government sold its interests, at a huge loss of course.
Taxpayers, drivers, and investors who assumed the government would never fail to disclose rampant safety problems in a company it owned can rest easy, though. Instead of investigating fatally flawed GM components while the U.S. government was the company’s largest single owner, the NHTSA was busy harassing Toyota — one of GM’s top competitors — for an alleged malfunction that led to “unintended acceleration” in Toyota vehicles. Toyota was fined and eventually bullied into recalling 8 million vehicles over the issue.
Toyota is probably the safest, highest quality auto maker in the world. I drive one and have bought Toyotas for my daughter.
And what was the final result of the NHTSA investigation?
Many drivers may have confused the gas and brake pedals a problem that may account for “the vast majority” of the unintended acceleration incidents the agency investigated, NHTSA deputy administrator Ron Medford said at Tuesday’s NHTSA press briefing.
“What mostly happened was pedal misapplication where the driver stepped on the gas instead of the brake or in addition to the brake,” Medford said.
The Toyota cases were always about driver error, not safety of the auto. Only the trial lawyers and a complacent government permitted this raid on a company to proceed.
Is that the only case ?
Some are willing to cite incompetence, although that gets harder and harder.
The emerging narrative of Barack Obama, the one that actually comports to reality, is that he is a rare political talent but a disaster when it comes to actually governing. The list of his failures is nothing short of staggering, from shovel-ready jobs that weren’t so shovel ready to the failures of healthcare.gov to the VA debacle. But it also includes the president’s failure to tame the debt, lower poverty, decrease income inequality, and increase job creation. He promised to close Guantanamo Bay and didn’t. His administration promised to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before a civilian jury in New York but they were forced to retreat because of outrage in his own party. Early on in his administration Mr. Obama put his prestige on the line to secure the Olympics for Chicago in 2016 and he failed.
Overseas the range of Obama’s failures include the Russian “reset” and Syrian “red lines” to Iran’s Green Revolution, the Egyptian overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, and Libya post-Gaddafi. The first American ambassador since the 1970s was murdered after requests for greater security for the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi were denied.
Healthcare is one example that stretches the definition of incompetence. Even the NY Times has questions. The Times has been a shameless cheerleader for Obamacare. Now ?
Grand jury subpoenas, issued last week by the United States attorney’s office in Portland and released on Tuesday by Gov. John Kitzhaber of Oregon, have demanded all records, including email correspondence and memos related to the application or receipt of federal funds that might have been used in developing, building or administering the state’s website.
Oregon had received $305 million in federal grants to build its exchange, according to the Congressional Research Service, but the flaws were so profound that residents were never able to negotiate through it without human help.
Older scandals were equally curious. “Fast and Furious” has never been explained. One common theme of Obama is retaliation against whistle blowers.
the U.S. Justice Department inspector general said Monday that one of the department’s politically appointed officials retaliated against a whistleblower by leaking derogatory information to a Fox News (NWS) television producer.
During the two-year Fast and Furious operation, agents in Arizona with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed the sale of more than 2,000 guns to suspected criminals thought to be linked to Mexican drug gangs. The ATF planned to trace the guns over the border as part of an investigation of the violent cartels. In a stupendous demonstration of incompetence, however, the ATF agents failed to track the contraband firearms.
It seems pretty clear that the plan was to accuse legal gun stores in the US of being a source for Mexican drug cartels’ guns. This is ridiculous as Mexico has sources for automatic weapons that don’t require purchase from US stores. The above link goes to a story by a reporter sympathetic to the administration but even friends have to recognize corruption when it gets too obvious.
The Veterans Administration has added one more scandal. The VA has always been dysfunctional but the recent stories suggest a new level of corruption.
Ron Fournier, a senior political columnist for National Journal, also weighed in, saying this scandal is different than the rest.
“Here’s why Democrats are upset,” he said. “Like the health care fiasco of last year, this reminds the American public why they don’t trust the government. If you want to be the party of an effective government, you can’t be not taking care of the veterans after years and years of saying you would.”
The phony “waiting lists” suggest similarities to scandals in the British National Health Service.
Thousands of patients have been denied surgery or had it delayed by NHS waiting list fiddles, a damning report said yesterday.
Hospital managers have resorted to ‘deliberate manipulation’ to meet Government targets on queues for operations.
They have used cruel tricks such as offering operations when they knew a patient would be on holiday, then dropping them from the list for refusing the date.
The National Audit Office, the Parliamentary watchdog, found that some hospitals have been massaging figures for years. Records were routinely fiddled to hide patients waiting longer than the Government’s 18-month maximum.
The similar scandals are striking and show what government health care looks like no matter which country is the provider.
More than 1,000 patients were deleted from waiting lists, never put on them or ‘inappropriately suspended’. Patients were offered dates at short notice, asked to come in when they had arranged holidays or ‘ intentionally held back’ from lists.
Bureaucrats are the same, especially the English speaking variety.
This does not even mention the IRS scandal in which it harassed opponents of the Obama administration. The IRS may have provided the margin of victory in the 2012 election for Obama.
In a rash of documents provided under the Freedom of Information Act to Judicial Watch, a non-partisan public interest law group, is an April 2013 email written by David Fish, acting manager of IRS Exempt Organizations Technical Guidance and Quality Assurance and sent to, among others, former IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner. It was part of a thread discussing a recent U.S. Senate hearing on the potential for the abuse of the 501(c)(4) tax status by organizations intervening inappropriately or improperly in candidate elections.
Responding to a message “What can I say?” from Lerner, Fish responds, “Tell Ruth she needs to get on the stick and that the next election cycle is around the corner. This is obviously a wonderful idea (that’s why we suggested it). I think you told Greg all you can tell him, unless you want to tell him that we’re taking guidance plan suggestions.”
The Democrats, of course, are outraged that anyone would question the motives of dedicated government employees.
Then, of course, we get to the Benghazi story.
a lot of things about the Benghazi disaster deeply trouble me.
One in particular stands out: The breaking of the bond between Americans sent to do dangerous things in dangerous places and the government that sent them. Lots of us have served in dangerous posts. Yes, of course, in the Foreign Service there is a band of officers whom I call the “Pierre Cardin crowd” because of their penchant for London, Paris, Rome, and Washington. Most of my friends in the Service, however, definitely belonged to the Cockroach-Terrorist-Iguana crowd. We wanted to go to the tough and rowdy posts. We went, however, with the knowledge that if the poop smacked the fan, our folks would come get us or at least make the effort. We had a very close bond with our military colleagues; we deeply respected their skill, capability, and courage. They, in turn, often thought we were nuts, but admired us for going to live in the places we did, and to work there with what struck them as minimal security. That bond was shattered in Benghazi by the National Command Authority; remember, even the hapless Jimmy Carter approved a far-fetched and dangerous rescue operation for the hostages in Teheran.
The link goes to the blog of a retired Foreign Service Officer and states, I think, the most important part of the sad story of Benghazi. The US broke faith with US officers who go to these places and represent us and expect that we will defend them if threatened. A somewhat similar event over 100 years ago illustrates what has happened to this nation.
In 1904, when an Islamic brigand named Raisuli kidnapped an American businessman named Perdicaris, President Roosevelt won his release by sending warships and this telegram: “The U.S. government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.”
Perdicaris wasn’t even a US diplomat. He was “just” a US citizen. How times have changed.
I could go on but most know other scandals, including the shameless profiteering by former officials who offer advice, for a fee, to those affected by the polices they advocated while in government. It is rampant with this crowd.
A pretty good list of charges that could be brought against this administration. Under this administration the U.S. is a corrupt enterprise.
There are only two things that should be done by the Feds. Fight our wars and carry out diplomacy with foreign states. Even those two primary functions have been botched by this administration.
The question keeps coming up – is it incompetence or planned failure? With this crowd it’s a truism that in all they do, power comes first and performance last. The net result is what seems an unfathomable result. Because there is both incompetence and knavery at work. It’s hard for a conservative to grasp this mindset. We value ethics and competence above all else. The progressives value power to force people to accept their version of reality above all else. To achieve their vision of utopia nothing is off limits.
The awful thing is that the LIVs don’t have a clue and will vote for the cool, charismatic progressive candidate every time. Reform will be hard.
Becoming a corrupt enterprise? Huh?
It seems to me it has been for a good long time, only lately the proles have been figuring it out.
I note that there are American citizens held both in Cuba and Iran today, essentially without comment by the US, let alone the sort of threat made by Roosevelt in 1904. And don’t forget about the Amanda Knox case, either. That trillion-dollar military- which most Americans might have assumed was maintained for occasions such as these- is nowhere to be seen.
In the case of Iran, I’ve recently read that US businesses are flocking there, without regard to the treats and promises made by that regime to nuke their supposed country at the first opportunity. In fairness, that might be merely a false claim. But it certainly matches up with their behavior in China and other places. For examples, I’ve also read recently that Boeing has a huge deal with Russia for titanium forgings. What could go wrong?
It’s an old Marxist saying that a capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him. Today, America’s capitalists will offer bulk discounts, pocket a huge commission, bankrupt their company, and stick the taxpayers with a hefty bill for a bailout.
I’m quite peeved about this.
Unfortunately the people who could have changed this situation haven’t been peeved, presumably because they’ve been too busy stuffing their pockets- and they like things the way they are.
Bluntly, we have been sold down the river by a corrupt elite, which has no particular interest in the United States or its laws. I include the Republican elite in this as well, in case anyone doubted.
I’ve seen various people on the internet express wonder at how Harry Reid got so rich- but GOP elected officials seem quite disinclined to follow up on this.
Why is that, unless the GOP is just as interested in getting rich the same way? On that subject, just how rich is Mitch McConnell?
Why doth treason never prosper, what’s the reason? Because if it prospers none dare call it treason.
For a country to be corrupt it is not necessary for every transaction with the government to be corrupt. The tipping point is when it can be widely assumed that government and private transactions will require payoffs to the State or connected rent-seekers, when the rule of law no longer exists, when bureaucratic whim replaces due process, and when the rich and powerful are publicly seen as using their resources to navigate that government created maze in ways that those without equivalent resources cannot.
Add to that the normalization of the idea that any approach to the government as other than a helpless supplicant carries with it a significant risk of the response being military levels of deadly force.
We are there. There is no organized political party that is not compromised and complicit in that maze. We are engaged in a process to see if a recovery is in fact possible without the historical resort to Clausewitz. The situation is in doubt.
Subotai Bahadur
The treatment of BP over its oil rig explosion and oil spill seems to have descended into a mere shake-down. It’s all becoming a bit Third World.
Besides the happy coincidence of the government selling their stake in GM just before the recall scandal, there’s the matter of the stock price.
The Fed announced quantitative easing, “QE3”, in Sep 2012 but started telegraphing it in the summer. It coincided with GM shares bottoming after declining over 50% from their IPO price.
GM shares then immediately rose 30% in the next couple months, just in time for Biden to guffaw during the campaign, ‘Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive!’
On December 10 of last year, the Treasury announced it unloaded the last of its GM shares after more than doubling its money from the start of QE 3.
With the government’s stake safely pocketed, a week later the Fed announced it was going to taper QE3.
GM shares have been dropping precipitously ever since.
Usually insider traders try to hide their actions, stagger their transactions, or otherwise keep things under the table. Unless you’re the government, in which case you brag about it during pep rallies and do victory laps, “We’re the government! Whatever we do is right because there’s nothing you can do about it!!”
“It seems to me it has been for a good long time, only lately the proles have been figuring it out.”
I don’t deny this. It’s just that a certain level of propriety was always needed to avoid consequences at the next election. The election of 2000 and the Clinton impeachment seem to have been a turning point. The Democrats have been out for blood ever since those two events. Kerry was an obvious incompetent in 2004 but Obama gave the party license by being the first black president. Now, nothing is too much.
The Republicans are almost as bad but still seem to be intimidated by the opinion of their voters.
Concur. It’s frightening how fast it has happened. One of the biggest evidence is the growth in wealth and opulence around the DC area. For an area that outputs nothing but regulations, the growth in wealth is mind boggling.
Comparing the Obama administration to Mafiosi is most likely a simple case of fevered imagination/juvenile exaggeration. But it smells like racism. It probably isn’t racist, but it sure smells that way.
If, the incompetence is so thorough, so rife, why strike at the administration’s legitimacy? Why insist on portraying them as willful traitors?
Incompetence? Pretty easy case to make and very damning. That’s a charge that’s far likelier to flatter the person making it.
Questioning Obama’s loyalty and legitimacy is like throwing the rabbit into the briar patch. He’ll escape every time.
All that happens when you compare Obama to a gangster is you make conservatives look paranoid and uninformed and plausibly racist.
Again, I AM NOT SAYING THIS MAKES CONSERVATIVES RACIST. I’m saying that it makes the racist allegation plausible, when it so clearly needn’t be.
MikeK,
I think you’re being to charitable toward the democrats. They’ve always been out for blood, certainly going back to the time when they willing to destroy the union to preserve slavery, and continuing to today, with Howard Dean declaring that Republicans are not Americans.
Considering that the party once engineered a Supreme Court declaring that people of African descent could not be Americans either, I see a continuity.
I think there needs to be a Godwin’s law corollary that has to do with racism.
I find your comment to be a glorious cavalcade of wrongness, so I’m going to quote it in full so I can savor it while I respond.
I wonder just what has to happen before you would permit me to suspect that Obama displays rather more than an ordinary amount of incompetence. I also wonder if you believe the endless shrieking from the left about George Bush while he was president made leftists seem paranoid and uninformed. I suspect not.
So let me discuss Obama.
First, he rather famously has had quite an acquaintance with notorious terrorist Bill Ayers, and has lied about it. He also spent a good bit of time listening to the vile anti-American ravings of Reverend Wright, and then lied about that too. In fact he lies quite relentlessly, about essentially everything, including the unworkable law that is commonly described using his name.
Second, he seems rather hostile to most Americans. That is, those of European descent. He infamously went before a camera of a Spanish language TV network- I forget which- and invited the viewers to go forth and punish their enemies, meaning Americans of European descent. He also seems rather hostile to the institutions created by the Founders of the United States, ignoring and undermining them at every opportunity.
Third, and about that legitimacy, he also disabled address checking for his campaign contribution website thus illegally allowing foreign donations. That sounds like a small thing, but essentially we have no real idea how much foreign money was spent to get him elected. He also used the various institutions of government to intimidate and harass potential political adversaries, which seems to me to be a serious challenge to his legitimacy.
I could go on, but I’m losing interest. Meh.
But I’ll add, in closing, merely to express my own amusement, that there is nothing that will make me presume bad faith quicker than to start talking about how racist it is or may seem to not think well of Obama.
Yes, I know you’re very concerned- very concerned– that conservatives might be plausibly accused of being racist because we do not accept Obama and his endless lies at face value.
Whatevs. Overuse has devalued the charge of racism so much that it has no meaning any more, to the point that it has become a joke.
I’ve spent most of my life being accused of being racist essentially everywhere, all the time, by leftists like Obama simply because of my viewpoint, not to mention my skin color. In fact any criticism of Barry, on any grounds, no matter what, is very often dismissed by leftists as racism.
The charge has lost its sting, and I suggest you come up with something different to stop us from thinking ill of Barry and his friends.
I suggest you come up with something different to stop us from thinking ill of Barry and his friends
Not gonna happen in my case. I’ve seen too much and my opinions of li’l barry and his minions (including the MSM) are set in stone and will never change.
Is Oliver S-B our new chew-toy? Penny was getting kind of stale and predictable, anyway.
A good few months – maybe a year or so ago – I began wondering pretty much the same thing. Can’t remember if I did a blog-post, or just a comment somewhere or other; that it felt as if a good and solid company had suddenly been taken over by the Mob, at the highest level. Very gradually, the senior offices were corrupted or replaced, the honorable and hard-working honest managers and section managers either being driven away, corrupted themselves, or regretfully taking retirement.
“But it smells like racism. It probably isn’t racist, but it sure smells that way.”
I think this is the best indicator of who you are that has appeared here. Patriotism used to be the last refuge of the scoundrel. Now, it’s racism.
The vehicle by which the United States government went into private business for their respective selves, the amalgamation of Finance, Government, Harvard Economists, the Foreign Policy establishment and their overseas partners was post USSR privatization, aka The Rape of Russia, and “reinventing government”.
Our modern institutions and modern governance are the chief work and legacy of Bill Clinton. That’s when it happened, for at the same time hundreds of billions were made off looting the USSR’s assets as well as loans front end bailouts back end of the US and European taxpayer, at that same point Clinton is “reinventing government” is his own image of privatizing it. Hopelessly corrupt.
We’re not becoming corrupt we have been for 20 years. The combinations above render hopeless any chance of elections uprooting them. Rather the point.
It’s not over, America has too much going for it intrinsically. For the country everything. For the government…nothing. There is nothing else for it.
@Subotai Bahadur,
May I suggest: lose the doubt and start thinking coldly about the matter.
We’ve had all the time to adjust we’ll get.
Wow. I write I AM NOT SAYING THIS MAKES CONSERVATIVES RACIST, in all caps and, in response, commenters rush to declare themselves not racist and offended by being called racist.
What’s up with that?
Got me. I don’t subscribe the phony morality of the late 20th century. There are far worst things to be than racist: tyrant, socialist, feminist, corrupt bureaucrat, traitorous politician to name a few.
Conservatives who worry about racism are so mired in Leftism they have forgotten their own heritage.
“Comparing the Obama administration to Mafiosi is most likely a simple case of fevered imagination/juvenile exaggeration. But it smells like racism. It probably isn’t racist, but it sure smells that way.” – Oliver S-B, above.
Definition of ‘innuendo’ [ pronounced ‘in-yoo-en-doh’]
noun, plural in·nu·en·dos, in·nu·en·does.
1. an indirect intimation about a person or thing, especially of a disparaging or a derogatory nature.
“What’s up with that?”
Only pointing out a fool. Most commenters here are rational and the discussions are interesting. We have resident troll who tries to be provocative. You seem to be working on the same plan.
Comparing the Obama administration to Mafiosi is most likely a simple case of fevered imagination/juvenile exaggeration. But it smells like racism. It probably isn’t racist, but it sure smells that way.
How familiar are you with the Mafia ? Most of the examples I provide above are stories of corruption. The country has not seen this level of open corruption since the 19th century. Even the Harding scandals were enough to put people in prison. Albert B Fall was pretty corrupt all along but was still elected to the Senate.
On February 1, 1896, Fountain and his eight-year-old son Henry disappeared near the White Sands on the way to their home in Mesilla, New Mexico. Fall successfully defended the men accused of the murder—Oliver Lee, Jim Gilliland and Billy McNew—at a trial in Hillsboro, New Mexico.
Evidence at the trial suggested Lee was involved in Fountain’s murder and disappearance, but investigators had to deal with a corrupt court system and Fall’s legal skill. The bodies of Fountain and his son were never found, which hampered the prosecution. The charges against McNew were dismissed by the court, while Lee and Gilliland were acquitted
We are approaching this territory. Even with this level of corruption, Fall went to prison later.
The investigation found Fall guilty of conspiracy and bribery, $385,000 having been paid to him by Edward L. Doheny. Fall was jailed for one year as a result—the first former cabinet officer sentenced to prison as a result of misconduct in office.
Former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine absconded with billions of customer’s money.
In March 2010, Corzine was named chairman and CEO of MF Global Inc., a financial services firm specializing in futures brokerage. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2011 after losing $1.6 billion of customer money[4] and Corzine resigned on November 4, 2011
Corzine has even been accused of impropriety.
In February 2013, a court approved a settlement deal among commodities firm MF Global’s bankruptcy trustees that will reimburse its customers for 93 percent of the value of their accounts, from which about $1.6 billion had disappeared during the firm’s bankruptcy.
In June 2013, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed civil charges against Corzine for using funds from MF’s customer accounts for corporate purposes. “Corzine is charged with one count of failure to segregate and misuse of customer funds and one count of failure to supervise diligently”, a news report said. The commission drew on extensive taped Corzine phone conversations in filing the complaint. Corzine’s attorney Levander issued a statement contesting the charges when they were filed
He has continued to be a major player in Democratic Party politics.
Corzine Has Bundled Over $500,000 For Obama’s Reelection Campaign. (Center For Responsive Politics, Opensecrets.Org, Accessed 10/31/11)
Dinesh D’Souza pleaded guilty to a far lesser offense.
The Mafia operates on a less sophisticated level.
This is sad, really. Once leftists could at least make an argument. Now they can only follow a script they don’t appear to understand, like pigeons trained to peck at a box to be rewarded by a nibben of corn.
Mention racism, and the evil rethuglicans just don’t know how to respond!! They’ll get all offended, and claim they aren’t racist, but all goodthinkers know the truth!!!! Use ALL CAPS, too, because then they won’t figure out that you’re a troll, because they are teh stupid and stuff.
Tiresome. OS-B not a single person rushed to declare themselves not racist or offended by the the slur. I know that’s what you expected, and I know you pretended it happened, but it didn’t.
I spent the most time on it, because I find the charge so pitiful and amusing. It’s the political equivalent of a lawyer pounding on the table because they have neither the facts nor the law on their side.
I consider this sort of idiocy a telling sign that the left has lost the argument in American public discourse.
So yeah, by all means keep bleating about racism. It’s the only word you’ll ever need to say.
It is the strategic situation and the ultimate outcome that are in doubt. I have no doubt about the seriousness. Venue and audience sometimes require circumspection in wording. Der Alte Karl is merely awaiting his turn, I’m sure.
Subotai Bahadur
The facts are there. Conservatives, as represented by the Republican Party, are widely perceived as racist. You can either deal with this problem or pretend that you can neutralize the perception simply by denying it or by calling liberals bad names.
Many Republicans do recognize this, are concerned about it and are trying to do something about. Others pretend that as long as they don’t perceive themselves as racist, everything is going to be OK as the party’s divisions deepen and it hurtles toward losing the popular vote in a seventh of eight elections.
Are conservatives racist? My own view is that everyone is racist in one way or another and those manifestations can and should be described on a continuum from benign to morally catastrophic. But the issue is what people do, not what they think. If you’re racist, but don’t act on it, who cares?
The problem (conundrum?) for conservatives is that they clearly represent white Christian power. This doesn’t mean they hate Muslims, gays, blacks, Mexican-Americans, etc. It merely means the party represents a constituency that is increasingly white and Christian and, therefore, isn’t internally driven to pursue the interests of other ethnic or religious groups.
Sure, conservatives can and will argue that their free-market orthodoxy is good for ethnic minorities and that the liberal welfare state is bad for non-whites. But the problem is, non-whites don’t agree and confirm that by voting almost exclusively for liberals and Democrats.
The Republican party itself is increasingly white, male and Christian and the conservative movement, from talkradio to the blogosphere to the Fox news is led exclusively by white people. Black people and uncloseted gays have no positions of power within the movement, while women, non-Christians and Mexican-Americans have almost no such positions.
Regardless of how you feel about the reasons for this circumstance, you must accept its reality and figure out some way to deal with it. Name-calling and denial only makes it worse.
“But the problem is, non-whites don’t agree and confirm that by voting almost exclusively for liberals and Democrats.”
Yes and that has worked well. For example in Detroit, or to take a real “nonwhite “example, in Africa or Egypt.
Your insight is just brilliant.
OS-B,
My interest in feeding trolls is limited.
But I will note that you are appallingly ignorant about actual reality.
Off the top of my head I can list GOP governors named Susana Martinez, Brian Sandoval, Piyush Jindal, Nimrata Haley nee Randhawa, all folks by your definition on the outs of the conservative movement.
I also note that GOP senator Tim Scott- an American of African descent- was elected to congress after defeating a relative of former Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, and was then recommended for appointment to the senate by retiring Jim DeMint, conservative movement favorite.
Xennady
Off the top of my head I can list GOP governors named… Brian Sandoval…
Recall what Harry Reid said when he was campaigning for re-election in the summer of 2010./a>
Not coincidentally, Harry Reid’s son Rory was running for Governor of Nevada, a race which he was trailing and lost in November. Who was Rory Reid’s opponent? Brian Sandoval. Yup, “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican.” Especially if a Hispanic would have the effrontery to run against Harry Reid’s son. That is something which is just not done in polite society.
What say you, OS-B, troll of the month?
Oh, yeah – I’ll throw out some troll-chow. It’s a Saturday evening, and I am bored.
*run, you little troll, as I bat you with my soft, cat-like paws. Run, wiggle and squirm. We hunger for amusement. Penny is no fun any more.*
And why, perchance, are Republicans, conservatives and Tea Party types perceived as racists? Why would that happen to be? Since, curiously, the Republican party was founded historically as an anti-chattel-slavery party, and fought the good fight (on Civil War battlefields and in the Reconstruction South, and in the Civil Rights movement of the 20th century)to defend the rights of citizens of color? The usual vile prog weasel-wording explanation is to insist that the two parties UNANIMOUSLY AND SIMULTANEOUSLY CHANGED POSITIONS sometime around 1970 or so, maybe even earlier. So now, Republicans are the force of evilness personified with regard to race. After all, Joe Biden says that Republicans want to put our fellow citizens of color back in chains.
Poor Joe – not that he can actually find any actual quotes from real Republicans who have said anything of the sort.
Let me offer up another item; regarding Tea Partiers. Everyone knows that those Tea Partiers are just poor dumb woman-hating stooges, racists and AstroTurf paid for by the Koch brothers. Everyone knows this … excepting maybe Tea Partiers who were there from the very beginning. I was one of them, too. I WAS THERE; sorry, no racists, and an astonishing number of the original starting members were women. Not racists, either – quite a lot of the most popular speakers at Tea Party rallies were not WASP, by any stretch of the imagination. Just people who focused on three elements: adherence to the Constitution, fiscal responsibility, and free markets. (Real free markets, not the simulacrum of crony capitalism.) Just that – nothing more, nothing less. The Tea Party was real people, getting involved and engaged in the business of a republic – getting involved, as is their right and custom. BTW, I had never even heard of the Koch brothers until some long time into political activism.
And of course, this posed a real threat to the powers that be. Quel horror! The ordinary people thinking that they have a right to demand an accounting of their political betters? Well, that can’t be allowed to let stand.
And so – out of nowhere, it seems that Tea Party adherents are righteously condemned by the political elite, the news and entertainment media. Dumb, racist, reactionary, tools… that was the judgment, solo and chorus. So the judgment was made, so it was carried out. In spite of it being completely contrary to everything that I observed, first-hand.
It’s been an education to me, now – seeing The Big Lie in action. Make it big, repeat it in every possible venue and from every compliant voice, no matter how incredible, no matter how contrary to personal experience. Just make it BIG and keep repeating it over and over again. Goebbels would be proud of his 21st century pupils.
The principle objection to the Tea Party, and to Republicans, is the concept of cutting spending, or even keeping it steady and not increasing. The welfare state does not aid the poor or the minorities. It is the prop of the white middle class government employee and that is the source of the fury we see.
Sgt. Mom
The usual vile prog weasel-wording explanation is to insist that the two parties UNANIMOUSLY AND SIMULTANEOUSLY CHANGED POSITIONS sometime around 1970 or so, maybe even earlier.
Following is some ammo against the progs.
One talking point that progs will bring up to support this narrative is that Strom Thurmond became a Republican. While Strom Thurmond, as a Democrat, ran for President in 1948 as a Dixiecrat, and like Senator Robert Byrd, filibustered against Civil Rights Bills, his conduct as a Republican is more commendable.
As a Republican, he was the only white Senator from the Deep South in 1971 to have a professional staffer who was black. Until someone can prove otherwise, this is also pretty good evidence that he was the first white Senator from the Deep South to hire a professional staffer who was black. From the March 18,1971 issue of Jet Magazine:
Only one of those Senators was from a Confederate state, and as Lloyd Bentsen was from the Rio Grande Valley and the grandson of Danish immigrants, he had a slightly different background and set of beliefs from Strom. Bentsen also made the hire about the same time as Strom.
Strom also nominated the first black from the Deep South to serve on the federal bench : Matthew James Perry, in 1975.
Strom Thurmond: Dixiecrat and segregationist as a Democrat who as a Republican appears to be the first white Senator from the Deep South to appoint a black to his own professional staff- certainly the only one in 1971- and nominated the first black from the Deep South to the federal bench: not as bad as you think.
Had Robert Byrd, or some such Democrat Senator from the South who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, had hired a black professional staffer as soon as Strom did, or had nominated a black from the Deep South for the federal bench, you can rest assured that we would be hearing from them how said Senator had “evolved.”
Well, yes. Strom Thurmond also impregnated his black housekeeper. His view was apparently that it’s okay to screw the help, as long as you don’t pay them a living wage. By Tea Party standards, apparently, that means he couldn’t possibly be a racist.
Oliver Suess-Barnkey
Well, yes. Strom Thurmond also impregnated his black housekeeper.
Strom did that when he was a Democrat.What you brought in no way contradicted my main point: “his conduct as a Republican is more commendable.”
And you have no comeback for Xennady’s comment.
Nor for mine, either.
*pouts, prettily* I expect that Oliver has to go back to his handler for the appropriately cutting response to my troll-bait.
Come out, come out, dear fresh little troll … we want to play with you.
Sgt. Mom
The usual vile prog weasel-wording explanation is to insist that the two parties UNANIMOUSLY AND SIMULTANEOUSLY CHANGED POSITIONS sometime around 1970 or so, maybe even earlier.
The prog narrative will inform us that before Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy, the “Solid South” voted overwhelmingly Democrat, and that Nixon’s Southern Strategy flipped the white voters of the Solidly Democrat South to Republicans. Or Goldwater’s Southern Strategy. Or Reagan’s Southern Strategy.
The truth of the matter is that by 1952, well before the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, the Solid South, a.k.a. the land of the Yellow Dog Democrats, had disappeared, at least at the Presidential level. In the 1940 Presidential election, FDR won 78.3% of the vote in the 11 states of the former Confederacy. By 1952, the Solid South had disappeared at the Presidential level. In the 1952 Presidential election, Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican candidate, won 48.1% of the vote in the 11 states that had formed the Confederacy. Eisenhower won the electoral vote in four former Confederate states: Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, and Texas. None of these states went for Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond in 1948. Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond won the electoral vote in four states 1948, Louisiana, Mississippi,Alabama, and Georgia. Democrat candidate Stevenson won all these 1948 Dixiecrat states in 1952. Doesn’t quite fit the prog narrative. Whaat? Dixiecrat states in 1948 reverted to the Democrats [Adlai] in 1952, and not to the racist Republicans? Of course, it would have been hard to peg Ike as racist,as he sent federal troops to Little Rock to enforce desegregation orders.
From The Myth of the Racist Republicans:
The GOP success in the South coincided with the introduction of air conditioning there. No doubt our troll thinks freon was a drug or something. The South changed politics as it changed population and the “sun belt” became an economic powerhouse. Pellagra was common in the South until the 1920s. The shift in population also brought the “rust belt” to the northern states as unions and left wing politics killed their economies.
The data are in, and they clearly contradict the notion that Sun Belt economic growth, rather than white-power voters, made the south Republican.
1. Southern cities vote Democrat. From Austin to Atlanta, New Orleans, Charlotte, Orlando and Miami — all support Obama. Cities generate about 85 percent of economic activity and, indeed, those who upwardly mobile voters who followed air-conditioning to the sunbelt are Democrat voters.
Republicans dominate in rural areas where education levels are lower and there is a greater reliance on federal spending, be it agriculture subsidies, military bases, food stamps or TANF.
2. Southern Republicans do not have and have never had a minority empowerment agenda. Indeed, Republicans/conservatives have vehemently opposed reparations for slavery, affirmative action, multi-culturalism, gay rights and other key items on the minority empowerment agenda.
3. The party literally represents white-power in that its membership is more than 90 percent white, as are its elected officials.
It just isn’t plausible to suggest that Republicans have been equal-rights crusaders in the south. To the extent that some conservatives try to peddle that, they only confirm a lack of sympathy for minority empowerment.
“Cities generate about 85 percent of economic activity ”
Yes, and Detroit is an excellent example. Have you ever heard of the phenomenon of suburbs ?
” Republicans/conservatives have vehemently opposed reparations for slavery, affirmative action, multi-culturalism, gay rights and other key items on the minority empowerment agenda.”
Yes, reparations are a big help to minorities. Multiculti is a big economic booster. Gay rights are certainly popular with blacks.
All key items.
Brilliant.
Oliver Suess-Barnkey
The data are in, and they clearly contradict the notion that Sun Belt economic growth, rather than white-power voters, made the south Republican.
And you make that assertion without showing links. Also note that I began with a historical perspective,mentioning 1940 and 1952 election data, whereas it appears you are caught up in an analysis de jour. I did some number crunching, you know, actually looked at some data.You DO know what data is, don’t you? From Wikipedia, I got election results for 1924,1932, 1940, 1952,1960,1980,2000. I calculated the fraction of the vote that the Republican Presidential candidate captured in the eleven states that had made up the Confederate States of America.
I then went to Census data. No. HS-35. Personal Income and Personal Income Per Capita by State: 1929-2001.
I converted the PDF data into a spreadsheet, and calculated the average per capita income of the 11 states that had made up the Confederate States of America. I then compared the [former] CSA average with USA per capita income, to come up with [former] CSA per capita income as a fraction of US per capita income.
Year fraction of CSA per capita income to USA per capita income
1929 0.531428571
1933 0.561052888
1940 0.589457601
1950 0.702107164
1960 0.726393993
1980 0.842786105
2000 0.866235075
For example, in 1929, Alabama’s per capita income of $323 compared with USA per capita income of $700- less than half of the US. By 2000, Alabama’s per capita income of $23,766 was 79.8% of US per capita income of $29,772.
I used the following pairing of election year and income year
1924 election- 1929 income (1928 was an electoral anomaly due to Al Smith’s Catholicism.)
1932 election- 1933 income
1940 election- 1940 income
1952 election- 1950 income
1960 election- 1960 income
1980 election-1980 income
2000 election- 2000 income
From Wikipedia, I calculated fraction of Republican vote for President in former CSA.
1924 0.279
1932 0.187
1940 0.216
1952 0.481
1960 0.456
1980 0.514
2000 0.542
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1932 etc etc. You can change the year to get other links.
The correlation of fraction of Republican vote for President in CSA with CSA average per capita income as a fraction of USA per capita income was 0.917. That is a VERY high correlation. Did increasing economic prosperity in the South/Sun Belt/former CSA states go with voting Republican: Hell, yes! Only an ignorant fool would claim otherwise.
You might try looking at data before you make claims about data, O S-B.
But then Demos do very well with low-information voters, some of whom troll here.
As the South became more prosperous and thus more like the rest of the country, it lost its yellow dog Democrat ways, and increasingly voted Republican. Period. And this change had occurred by 1952.
The data shows it. Period.
As noted, Large US cities, defined here as those with 150,000 or more inhabitants, generated almost 85 percent of the country’s GDP in 2010.
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/urbanization/us_cities_in_the_global_economy
These cities are also bastions of support for Democrats, while Republican voters cluster in rural and semi-rural counties that rely more heavily on federal spending, be it from military bases, or food stamps, TANF or other programs.
As noted, major southern cities — the places where productivity and educated people are concentrated — vote Democrat. The Republican majority is spread across rural areas with high federal subsidies and very, very few liberals or Democratic voters.
This is the data that contradicts the notion that the south turned Republican because incomes rose.
In fact, the data Gringo cites contradicts his own assertion. If rising incomes caused people to vote Republican, then higher income states would vote Republican. Of course the opposite is true for the south. Nine of the 10 poorest states are in the South. While the south managed to increase per capita incomes over the past half century, the figure is still well below average. Again, if there were a correlation between income and Republican voting, the south would be voting Democrat, because Southern incomes remain well below average. And if we look at the numbers county by county, we find that the hubs of growth in the south — the cities — vote Democrat.
Correlation isn’t causation and the tiny amount of data Gringo seems to believe valid doesn’t even show a plausible correlation. The time periods don’t match and while one set of numbers is per capita, the other isn’t adjusted for shifts in population. The array essentially gives a random result. You could find similar levels of correlation between, say, ice cream consumption and rising stock prices, average temperatures and foreign exchange rates, ie it’s meaningless.
But suppose, for the purpose of discussion, we concede that the south is Republican because it’s average resident became a little less poor relative to the rest of the country, over the years. You have to ask yourself, why is the party left to make such baroque explanations for the reality that it fails to attract non-white, non-Christian and non-heterosexual voters?
If it’s a matter of income, why is the party’s leadership almost exclusively white? Why is the leadership of the conservative movement almost exclusively white?
Beyond that, look around the world. In every developed country, the most racist political movements are on the right. Talk about correlation!
In Ameica, the conservative movement can be divided into white-power conservatives on one side and libertarian conservatives on the other. For the Republican party to survive as a national party and for the conservative movement to survive, the libertarian side will have to find the courage and honesty to acknowledge that there is a white-power element in its midst and find a way to distance itself from that faction. It can’t be that hard…
I think we’ve lost O-S-B to the loony tunes left. I expect to read about him, unless that is a pseudonym, attacking a sorority someplace because Republicans don;t believe his BS.
If rising incomes caused people to vote Republican, then higher income states would vote Republican.
Which is precisely what occurred in the South in the 1952 election, the election which was the breakthrough for Republicans in the South.
1952 % Rep PC income
Texas 53.13 1,363
Florida 54.99 1,304
Virginia 56.32 1,257
Louisiana 47.08 1,117
North Carolina 46.09 1,077
Georgia 30.34 1,065
Tennessee 49.99 1,028
South Carolina 49.28 925
Alabama 35.02 909
Arkansas 43.76 847
Mississippi 39.56 770
The 3 poorest Southern states averaged 39.4% vote for Eisenhower. The 3 richest Southern states averaged 54.8% for Eisenhower.
Q.E.D.
Firstly, Eisenhower was not a conservative. He would have most likely been a Democrat where he to have run for office the post Civil Rights Act era. In 1952, the Democratic party still included many white-power conservatives, especially in the South. It was after the Civil Rights Act that the Democrats lost the South as the segregationist vote went to Republicans.
What does that same comparison show since 2000? Or since the Civil Rights Act?
OS-B
If you look at Congressional District Economic Data, you will find, as OS-B claims, that the 6 richest Congressional Districts and 14 of of the 20 richest Congressional Districts, as measured by per capita income, are Democrat. Overall, Democrat Congressional Districts average $28,006 in Per Capita income, while Republican Congressional Districts average $26,837. At the same time, Democrat Congressional Districts have more income inequality than their Republican counterparts, with a GINI of 0.462 versus 0.447 for Republican districts.
However, in the South/11 former CSA states, we have a different story. Here Republican Congressional Districts average $26,248 in Per Capita income, while Democrat districts average $22,823.84. Just as for the US as a whole,in the South, Democrat districts have greater income inequality than Republican districts: GINI of 0.467 for Democrat districts versus GINI of 0.458 for Republican districts.
When one digs deeper into the data, beyond the 85% of wealth etc., the notion is not contradicted at all.
So WHY did the Solid South of 70-80% Yellow Dog Democrat fame turn into the South in play for Republicans, which it did by 1952, when Eisenhower captured 48% of the vote in the 11 states that once comprised the Confederacy? Inquiring minds want to know. Please note that because the South had turned into a two horse race for the Presidency by 1952, well before Nixon or Goldwater, anything that Nixon or Goldwater may have done or not done is irrelevant to answering the question. Hint: read The Myth of the Racist Republicans.
Gringo, here is proof that debating these folks is useless. They are in the grip of an incurable delusion. No concept that the Civil Rights Act passed because of Republicans. My daughter was taught this nonsense in college and has ignored it to become one of the new libertarians.
Oriented Strand Board,
Saying the same thing using more words rarely helps an argument.
Anyway, it’s just fascinating to see a prog complain about people receiving money from the federal government considering that the left is always fighting to increase spending for transfer payments of almost every kind. You’d think they’d eventually stop fighting to send money to those evil white people who infect flyoverland, but apparently they’re just too stupid to simply let conservatives get their way and pare back the welfare state gravy train. Plus, it’s interesting to see military bases described as welfare state havens, all things considered.
And, again, I named off several GOP governors and one senator who are not “white”, by OSB’s definition. It seems to me that when a state elects a non-“white” Republican to be governor that sort of indicates that the leaders of the conservative movement actually does include plenty of non-“white” people.
Somehow, they just don’t count according to progs. Why can’t you see the people of color, prog? Why don’t they matter to you?
You have to ask yourself, just why are leftists so stupidly oblivious to reality? Why do they lie so shamelessly? Why are they so murderously vile?
Meh. I’m just tired of them, and their endless incompetence and failure.
OS-B
It was after the Civil Rights Act that the Democrats lost the South as the segregationist vote went to Republicans.
Look at the data.
1940 Presidential Election 21.6% Republican
1952 Presidential Election 48.1% Republican
1980 Presidential Election 51.4% Republican
From 1940 to 1980, the Republicans gained 29.8% of the South’s vote.
From 1940 to 1952, the Republicans gained 26.5% of the South’s vote.
That is, 88.9% of the Republican’s gain had occurred already by 1952. [26.5/29.8]
Your “explanation” doesn’t account for 88.9% of the change of the Yellow Dog Democrat Solid South to the slightly Republican majority South.
I suggest that you read The Myth of the Racist Republicans.
Did he come back? Darn, missed all the fun. I have a huge book project to finish … and we had to go down to my former partner’s house – she’s on hospice care, and … well. Very close to the end. We’ve been very close, over the last five years, my daughter very much closer to her. Anyway.
I do find young Nollie’s claim of the Republican leadership being white is most amusing. No differentiation between the establishment GOP old bulls, and the new Tea Party backed up and comers; people like Alan West, Ted Cruz, Mia Love, Ben Carson, Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley. They must be that ten percent, I guess.
“As noted, major southern cities — the places where productivity and educated people are concentrated — vote Democrat. The Republican majority is spread across rural areas with high federal subsidies and very, very few liberals or Democratic voters.”
Not so, Nollie. Not in Texas, anyway. ‘Tis true that Obama took Austin in the last election by a goodish margin … and the next three largest cities in Texas, too, but by considerably less goodish- or even squeaking in by a pretty small margin.
And as for the rest of Texas cities with a population of over 150,000 (which in Nollie’s world are the only ones which count as REAL cities, apparently), Austin is pretty well known as a lonely island of blue in a sea of red – but those other cities – Dallas-Fort Worth, Midland-Odessa, Plano, Amarillo, Corpus Christi … they are pretty much booming, and didn’t go noticeably go goo-goo for Obama. Plano just scored a new Toyota plant, and HQ, relocating from California. Other, smaller Texas cities have their own local and profitable industries, or are suburban orbits of the larger cities. Quality of life and standards for education are pretty rigorous in those smaller cities and suburbs. Wonder why that would be so, Nollie? Is it all that white racism on tap, perchance?
Funny how a state that was a die-hard Dem stronghold since the Civil War turned into a die-hard Republican, libertarian one in the last few decades. Wonder if it isn’t something in the water.
Cherry picking will get you nowhere. You claim a big Republican gain in 1952, but the fact is, Republicans lost the entire “deep South” in that election and, indeed, lost every southern state except Florida and Texas. Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, West Virginia and Kentucky, all voted for the Democrat in that election.
When we look at Congressional representation, the pattern is even clearer: As of the 83rd U.S. Congress (1953-1955) the following states were represented exclusively by Democratic Senators: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Mississippi, Virginia and West Virginia. Kentucky was split with one Democrat and one Republican.
In the House, the following states had ONLY Democrats: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas. North Carolina had 1 Republican and 11 Democrats. Kentucky and Tennessee each had 2 Republicans and 7 Democrats. Virginia had 2 Republicans and 8 Democrats.
And this is in a year when there were REPUBLICAN MAJORITIES in both houses.
Gringo’s assertion that Republicans had made significant political gains in the South as of 1952 is preposterous on its face.
“Cherry picking will get you nowhere.”
Actually, it will get me a cherry pie and that is my favorite.
You are wasting your time. You will not convince us and we will not convince you. At least you are allowed to post comments, unlike places like Washington Monthly and Mother Jones where disagreeing comments are banned.
Thanks MikeK, I’m confident that you speak for yourself accurately. You will not be convinced by facts or logic as your conclusions were arrived at without them in the first place. As for me, I am very open to being convinced by facts and/or logic. This is why I bothered to dig up the facts on the 1952 election and Congressional representation. I took Gringo’s comments seriously and so, needed to check on whether he had a point. The resulting research shows he did not, but I am always prepared to adjust my conclusions based on new information. It’s a shame you don’t get how irrational it makes you look to admit a priori that you can’t be convinced.
OS-B
You are going to inform me that these figures do NOT represent a big gain?
Denial is a River in Egypt, and Cairo is a city in Ellanoy.
Perhaps you should get your facts straight before attempting to correct me. In 1952, Eisenhower won four Southern states. In addition to Florida and Texas, he also won in Virginia and Tennessee. Your pointing out that Eisenhower lost in the Deep South brings up an important point: Republicans initially made inroads in the South in the less backward, in the less racially charged parts of the South.
From 1880 to 1924, the Republican Presidential candidate won a former Confederate state only once: Harding won Tennessee in 1920. The election of 1928 was an outlier, as Al Smith, the Democrat’s candidate, was Catholic, which at the time didn’t go over well in the Protestant South. Five Southern states voted for Hoover: Florida, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. From 1932 to 1948, the Republican candidate won only 1 electoral vote in the South: 1 electoral vote in Tennessee in 1948.
With the exception of the outlier election of 1928, from 1880 to 1948 the South was definitely the Solid South: only Tennessee in 1920 and 1 electoral vote from Tennessee in 1948 went to the Republican candidate. In this context Eisenhower’s winning FOUR [NOT 2] states was a game changer.
When you include the outlier election of 1928, in the 18 presidential elections from 1880 to 1948, Republican Presidential candidates won a grand total of 6 states of the former Confederacy + 1 electoral vote: that would be 1/3 southern state per election. Whereas Eisenhower won 4.
From 1952 on, the South was in play for the Republicans at the Presidential level, which with the exception of the 1928 election, had not been the case after 1876. From 1952 on, the Republican Presidential candidate won at least 45% of the vote in the 11 states that once comprised the Confederacy.
You are correct that it took decades for Republicans to win in the South at the Congressional District and local level. “The Myth of the Racist Republicans” makes the same point. But it remains correct that the inroads of the Republicans in the South began with Eisenhower in 1952. Perhaps I should have previously mentioned that Republicans took decades to win in the South at the local level, but I figured that was covered in The Myth of the Racist Republicans, which I assumed you were going to read.
Gringo’s assertion that Republicans had made significant political gains in the South as of 1952 is preposterous on its face.
You are definitely math-challenged: 48% in 1952 versus 26.5% in 1948…21.6% in 1940…
You still haven’t answered my question:
So WHY did the Solid South of 70-80% Yellow Dog Democrat fame turn into the South in play for Republicans, which it did by 1952, when Eisenhower captured 48% of the vote in the 11 states that once comprised the Confederacy? Inquiring minds want to know. Please note that because the South had turned into a two horse race for the Presidency by 1952, well before Nixon or Goldwater, anything that Nixon or Goldwater may have done or not done is irrelevant to answering the question. Hint: read The Myth of the Racist Republicans.
Why? Inquiring minds want to know.
The previous was mine. Ciao.
“I am very open to being convinced by facts and/or logic.”
I didn’t say I “couldn’t ” be convinced. Only that you with your selective assertions couldn’t convince me. I also pointed out that you will not be convinced as you choose your own facts.
A waste of time for all of us.
“So WHY did the Solid South of 70-80% Yellow Dog Democrat fame turn into the South in play for Republicans, which it did by 1952, when Eisenhower captured 48% of the vote in the 11 states that once comprised the Confederacy?”
That’s a false premise, as I have shown. The South remained a bastion of Democrats until 1968, by which time segregationists had fled the Democratic party because Lyndon Johnson proposed and signed the Civil Rights Act.
As Gringo shows, the Republicans did make inroads in the South before the Civil Rights Act (in particular in fringe states with rapidly growing populations and heavy immigration from northern states.) It makes sense that Northerners moving into the area to escape long winters would have been repelled by the white-power politics of Democrats in the South. But these new arrivals were never enough to overcome the political power of segregationists. And when segregation ended, those voters left the Democratic party for good, switching to the Republicans, who became the white-power party.
Again, the Republican constituency in the South is almost exclusively white, increasingly rural, older and increasingly with no college education. This is a portrait of white-power voters. These are well-established demographic facts. Reaching back to 1952 doesn’t tell us anything about where we are now…
” It makes sense that Northerners moving into the area to escape long winters would have been repelled by the white-power politics of Democrats in the South. ”
Finally a true comment from this person.
Air conditioning has been recognized as the chief factor in the changes in the demographics of the South since 1964. It’s not that the previous segregationist Democrats became Republicans. It’s that their children, exposed to new opportunities and better educated and more prosperous, changed affiliation. The older yellow dog Democrats, for the most part died off.
The leftists, as we see here, are desperate to explain the changes as an example of the racism of Republicans that has never existed. Blacks booted Republican when they were able to vote, until Roosevelt, and chiefly after Kennedy which coincided with the 1964 Civil Rights Act, passed with Republican support that overcame Democrats’ opposition.
An interesting piece on the Democrats’ attitude toward black Americans .
“Blacks booted Republican when they were able to vote, until Roosevelt, and chiefly after Kennedy which coincided with the 1964 Civil Rights Act, passed with Republican support that overcame Democrats’ opposition.”
95 percent of black people or more vote for Democrats.
You really want to say that’s because of air conditioning?
Oriented Strand Board,
So 95% of blacks vote for a party led by a guy who describes white people as his enemies, apparently full of people who believe blacks should get a check every month just because they are black, comprising an assortment openly racists groups such as the New Black Panther Party and the National Organization for the Race- and white people are the racists?
Hmmm. No, I don’t think that’s because of the air conditioning. I think it’s because the democrat party is still the place for racists to be, just like it has been ever since The Civil War and prior.
I also note yet again that those evil white racists happily vote for non-whites for every office in the land, up to and including voting for Barry for president. This of course includes Republican voters who have elected people such as Tim Scott, etc.
Are you going to explain all that, or just keep on repeating the same moronic insults?
I just realized that autocorrect changed “voted” to “booted.” Weird.
Obama was elected twice. It’s obvious that a much larger % of white voters voted for him than against him based on race. It’s also obvious that a very large % of black and other self-described minority voters voted for him based on race. White racism simply isn’t a significant public-affairs issue anymore. Black racism, OTOH, is a significant factor in our politics, but the Left suppresses public discussion of it by using word games to dismiss it (only whites with their innate privilege can be racist) and by smearing as racist anyone who brings it up.
Racism accusations – so vague and difficult to disprove, they tie your interlocutors up in rhetorical knots – are the last refuge of lefty ideologues and corrupt political ineptizoids eager to divert attention from the failure of their policies. Obama is a disaster: inept, corrupt, driving our public finances off a cliff, impoverishing the middle class to enrich cronies on a scale never before seen in this country, using the federal bureaucracy against his political opponents, gutting our national defenses and setting us up to be attacked and perhaps sucked into a major war. Yet the Left’s chief concerns are frivolities such as gay marriage and phony issues like sexual pay equality, and the possibility that some white people somewhere might be racist.
” the Left suppresses public discussion of it”
Like the absence of discussion of the attacks on tourists and passersby in Chicago last summer and the silence on the Memorial Day riot in Florida.
A glance at the Huffington Post is usually a good way to quickly discern the left’s agenda for the day. For example .
You’ve apparently missed the point, Jonathan. It isn’t that many conservatives wouldn’t vote for Obama because he’s half black; it’s that many conservatives are willing to attack Obama’s legitimacy because they believe that, as an ethnic minority, he is vulnerable on that score — that, somehow, he is less than fully legitimately American.
So it is that instead of criticizing Obama’s Middle Eastern foreign policy, conservatives focus on some cockamamie conspiracy theory that has Obama deliberately causing the deaths of Navy SEALs, or “apologizing” for America, or, in wingnut welfare fraudster Dinesh D’Souza’s formulation, wishing the worst for America as punishment for its inherited colonial sins. Birtherism? How do you explain that other than that many otherwise sane conservatives are willing to wager huge political capital on the ludicrous notion that Obama isn’t a legitimate American.
Yes, some conservatives do focus their criticism on policy questions, but they are drowned out by the small-minded, bigoted caterwauling by the likes of D’Souza, Cliven Bundy, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. Every other day there’s another conservative bigot caught on youtube spouting or dog-whistling something about what a threat non-white people are to the status of whites.
Even Jonathan travels down that road, asserting absurdly that black racism is an active threat, while white racism is a chimera, since Obama was elected twice. Really Jonathan?
If the conservative movement expects to wield power, it has to figure out a way to put a cork in the spewing white-power resentments of talkradio hosts, Fox News and the like. As long as people like Bundy and D’Souza and Limbaugh are lionized within the movement, you can’t possibly expect to be perceived as anything other than small-minded, resentful white-power wingnuts.
QED
Note especially that the commenter thinks it’s important to accuse Dinesh D’Souza of making bigoted statements, but the fact that the Obama Justice Dept. is prosecuting D’Souza on obvious political grounds is not worth mentioning.
Well, you certainly can’t miss the big puddles of dripping condescension, either. Or the vigorous demolition of straw-men. Look, Nollie – I don’t really think you know any real-life conservatives or libertarians at all. All you know is what pop-media and your professors tell you – a kind of cardboard caricature of white-racy-Rush-listening-Fox-watching conservatives, who are waiting breathlessly for you to sweep in and breathlessly administer the politically-correct lecture of the day.
Seriously, have you even READ any of the CB archives? And do you know how much of a condescending, ivy-league prat you sound like to the grown-ups?
L’il Ollie is too stupid to notice Sgt. Mom. He knows what he knows and will not be swayed by any facts whatsovever.
I think trolling rather than stupid. He repeatedly diverts the discussion away from govt corruption by insinuating that the people who disagree with him are racist. Maybe it would be better not to take the bait.
Real racists aren’t going to care if you call them out. Racism accusations, even mere insinuations, are an effective tactic precisely against people who aren’t racist. Such people are likely eager not to be labeled racist and will attempt to rebut the accusation. So the discussion gets derailed and the troll and his political allies win. Better to stick to the original topic. The troll is defending corruption and failed public policies, and he is doing so by the use of rhetorical tricks rather than by argument and evidence.
I have to disagree. I think one of the ways the left wins is simply by shrieking vile lies over and over again, because of people of good faith and honorable intentions often aren’t interested in responding to obvious nonsense.
I recall that the left lyingly claimed- ahem- over and over again that Bush lied us into the Iraq War, somehow absolving most of them of their votes in favor of the war- and the GOP declined to respond.
The end result isn’t that the left is despised as the contemptible untrustworthy liars that they are. It’s that swarms of people actually believe Bush did in fact lie about the war.
This is an example of failure, in my view.
Jonathan: You’re wildly misrepresenting what I’ve written. Why? For example, you say I’m derailing the discussion, but derailment is exactly what I’m talking about here, for example:
“So it is that instead of criticizing Obama’s Middle Eastern foreign policy, conservatives focus on some cockamamie conspiracy theory …”
That’s directly addressing the subject of this post: “Is the U.S. becoming a corrupt enterprise.”
Instead of discussing specific examples of corruption and what to do about them, an attempt is made to attack Obama’s motives and legitimacy. My theory is that is because many conservatives perceive that Obama is vulnerable on that point because of his skin color. Again, they don’t hate him because he’s black, they just believe that enough people are suspicious of him for that reason.
What “derails” the conservative movement and leads to liberals winning is this penchant for painting Obama as “other” ie not fully American. As long as many of the loudest voices are doing that, the conservative movement will keep having to wear the “racist” label, whether or not they actually are.
And Jonathan, you admit that conservatives keep losing the debate on this point. Wouldn’t you agree a new approach to it is warranted?
Vile assertions backed by nothing.
More stupid nonsense. When people criticize a failed policy by definition they make note of some examples of the failure. And you don’t get to tell people which examples they can select, nor what conclusions they can draw from policies Obama chose.
Perhaps Obama could adjust his policies so that there was some success to highlight, instead of sending minions out to complain that people have noticed his incompetence.
This is yet another vile lie. Essentially no conservative or Republican of any significance was willing to respond to Obama’s endless complaints about “birtherism,” despite Barry’s obvious attempts to get someone to do so. It took Donald Trump, and then the only reason Barry released his birth certificate was because Trump’s questions were starting to cause democrats to wonder. Of course Barry was later discovered to have been claiming to have been born in Kenya in an obscure author’s bio, but I assume that is just another example how shameless a liar he happens to be. Right?
Good thinking conservatives focus their criticisms on policy questions- which they lose, of course- but badthinkers ask questions that can’t be answered. So I’ll lump in those badpeople with others like some guy who resisted having the government steal his cattle and a serial adulterer and admitted felon.
Meanwhile, on MSNBC, every day there’s another leftist bigot caught spouting or dog-whistling something about how evil white people are because they criticize Obama, which is sure evidence of racism.
But of course some random guy on youtube posting videos he made in his basement doesn’t have nearly the audience of an MSNBC show- oh. Sorry, my bad.
Yeah, really. Pardon folks for noticing, but once again I will point out that Obama quite openly described white people as his enemies, while attempting to generate votes by stirring up racial hatred. I also note, again, that the New Black Panther Party is quite openly racist, and Obama infamously intervened on their behalf in a voting rights case. And, yet again, that white people are quite willing to vote for non-whites, everywhere, while most blacks apparently aren’t, if they don’t have to. Plus, the quite amazing amount of crime directed against whites, which I hear rather too much about.
Really Oriented Strand Board? Really? What has to happen before you notice the ugly reality? I don’t like it either, and I wish it were not so- but it is, alas.
Shut up, OSB explains, because he is so concerned that the people he believes are racist scum get to wield power.
And I’m sure he really knows just who the movement “lionizes” too, because he’s on the mailing list for the conservative movement’s national directorate, which tells everyone who to lionize, as well as what to think.
Sure thing, pal. Nice trick, there at the end of your asinine little screed, though. You lumped Rush Limbaugh in with an obscure rancher who resisted when the government tried to steal his cows and a felon who had been fired from at least one job because of his lack of character.
Hey, I can do that too. As long as people like Bill Ayers (terrorist) and Fred Phelps (democrat candidate for office, multiple times) and Hillary Clinton (I’m not sure what she’s ever accomplished, except marrying a future president) are lionized within the movement, you can’t possibly expect to be perceived as anything other than murderous, traitorous anti-American homophobes.
“Obama quite openly described white people as his enemies, while attempting to generate votes by stirring up racial hatred.”
Vile assertions backed by nothing.
“White people are quite willing to vote for non-whites, everywhere, while most blacks apparently aren’t if they have a choice”
Black Republicans, that endangered species, get less than half the black vote, while white Democrats like Bill Clinton get more than 90 percent. Xennady’s assertion is false on its face.
“Plus, the quite amazing amount of crime directed against whites, which I hear rather too much about.”
Classic white-power dog whistle. Are you saying we should fear blacks because they commit so many crimes? Or are you just hoping we get the innuendo while you maintain some weirdly small-minded shred of implausible deniability?
“obscure rancher who resisted when the government tried to steal his cows…”
The point about Cliven Bundy isn’t that he considers paying fees to use government land as theft, but that he is also of the opinion that blacks were better off under slavery. Talk about derailing discussions!
Oh, there he is again, writing novel-length screeds on a thread several weeks old. I have to agree that Jonathon is right about our Nollie.
” he is also of the opinion that blacks were better off under slavery. ”
This who saw his comments, instead of reading or seeing edited versions, saw much of why the Duck Dynasty fellow said.
I personally associated with many black people when I was young. I saw intact families, friendly people and much, much less crime. I have no experience with slavery, contrary to the Muslims, so I can’t compare the present state of black despair with the slaves.
Well no, he said it on tape. So my assertion is backed by video of words coming out of Barry’s own mouth. Of course you put a happy face on Barry’s racism and I don’t.
What percentage of the black vote did Hillary Clinton get, when running against Barry? And black republicans aren’t quite so endangered, and get plenty of white votes. And if when black republicans run they get anything more than what a white politician would get this is also- alas- an example of black racism, considering that there are relatively few black republicans. I wish it were not so, and I expect it wouldn’t be if the GOP establishment wasn’t such a swarm of cowards, but that’s how it is now.
But congrats for almost- almost having the guts to notice I was criticizing you directly, instead of pretending not to notice what I said.
Classic crazy-stupid leftist nonsense-excuse making. I’m saying the law should be enforced, and criminals put in prison, so they cannot commit crimes. Your weird leftist affinity for criminals is bizarre and vile, but typical. When blacks commit crimes against whites I’m not making some dog-whistle claim about something whatever.
I’m saying quite directly, right to your face- right to you, yes, you– that some blacks commit crimes against whites because of racism. I’ve heard plenty about that both in person, from various personal experiences, and from various examples I’ve read about. It happens, rather too often.
I have no sympathy for those criminals, because of their skin color or any other reason. You do, because you are an anti-white racist devoted to making excuses for anti-white racism.
No, the point about Cliven Bundy is that he’s just some guy no one has ever heard of or cared about. No one gives a rat’s anus about his thoughts about anything, except that our leftist regime wanted to steal his cows and boot him off the land he’d been ranching on since I-don’t-care.
Again, I don’t care. Don’t tell me he’s anyone I care about, because again I don’t care.
The only reason I’ve heard of him and you know about his silly opinions is that the government tried to steal his cattle.
And he objected. And then the government- led by Barry Obama- sent troops. Hmmm, troops. Why is that, exactly?
He’s a canary in that proverbial coal mine- and at the end of the day the canary always ends up dead.
Xennady, you may be right, I don’t know. He’s either obtuse or good at pretending.
Either way, your points about big lies are spot on.
Oliver wrote:
I gave a specific example of corruption in the selective prosecution of Dinesh D’Souza (while the New Black Panthers were allowed to walk, while the Obama election campaign encouraged illegal online monetary contributions, while the IRS illegally abused Tea Partiers, etc.). You entirely avoided responding. If your arguments are valid why are you afraid to argue on the merits?
No, you dishonest jerk. I did not “admit that conservatives keep losing the debate”. What I wrote was that well-intentioned conservatives tend to allow themselves to be distracted from their valid arguments by bogus racism accusations from leftist trolls. Do you really think readers aren’t going to scroll up to see this for themselves?
I also wrote:
You must agree with me on these points since you have made no attempt to refute them.
Jonathan: Claiming D’Souza’s prosecution is corrupt is not an “example,” it’s an unsupported assertion. D’Souza broke campaign finance laws, and the best evidence for that is that he pleaded guilty.
D’Souza never even attempted to deny that he’d broken the law. Instead, he tried to claim he was unfairly targeted for prosecution. However, he provided no evidence of that, according to the judge. In pleading guilty, he said:
“I knew that causing a campaign contribution to be made in the name of another was wrong and something the law forbids. I deeply regret my conduct.”
If someone says “Cheney and Bush invaded Iraq to enrich Halliburton” would you say that’s an “example” of corruption? Of course not. You would rightly dismiss it as an unsupported assertion. Your claim on D’Souza belongs in the same category.
Likewise with the New Black Panthers. You make an allegation. That’s not “evidence.” If you have evidence, bring it and I’ll be happy to refute it, or, indeed, accept it, if it’s not the same cascading assertions that have been behind previous attacks on the subject.
As for D’Souza, his supporters have claimed the law he was prosecuted under is unconstitutional. That could be. Even if they are correct, that would not be a case of corruption, by any stretch of the imagination.
Happy to take these on too:
“Obama is a disaster: inept, corrupt, driving our public finances off a cliff impoverishing the middle class to enrich cronies on a scale never before seen in this country.”
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and I’ve seen none to support those wild allegations.
On public finances: the 10-year note is trading above par at yield just below 2.5 percent. If finances were “off a cliff” that would not be possible. The deficit has declined rapidly in recent years, which is one reason Treasury yields remain so low.
As for “impoverishing the middle class,” yes, the middle-class is narrowing, but I see no evidence for how Obama is the cause of this. True enough, he should be doing more to stop the decline, and we could perhaps have an interesting discussion of varying approaches to getting that done, but you’d have to climb down first from the wild, weird allegation that this is all a plot to enrich Obama’s cronies.
Indeed, the data are in and the benefits of the Obama recovery are dramatic for the wealthy, in particular those who own significant amounts of stock in companies. But there’s no evidence I’m aware of that these benefits are somehow exclusive to Obama’s “cronies.” If you have any such evidence, Jonathan, I’d be happy to entertain it. But I don’t get why you think such an extraordinary allegation should be taken seriously absent extraordinary evidence.
Same goes for these allegations:
“using the federal bureaucracy against his political opponents,”
Unsupported assertion. If you have any evidence, bring it on and I’ll be happy to rebut. If you don’t, you’ll have to accept that your motives are open to question.
“gutting our national defenses”
Defense spending is running at about $600 billion a year, down from the record $700 billion levels set in 2011, toward the end of Obama’s first term. But the reduction was mandated by the budget sequester deal demanded by Republicans, not the president.
“setting us up to be attacked”
Not sure what this even means. Are you suggesting the president is clandestinely helping our enemies carry out some future attack? Or are you simply assuming that because we aren’t spending on this or that weapons program, or invading this or that country, that we are being “set up” for an attack? This is truly an irresponsible allegation, no matter how you slice it.
“and perhaps sucked into a major war.”
The evidence against this is overwhelming. We’ve avoided getting sucked into major wars in Syria, Iran, North Korea, and Ukraine, just to name a few. Indeed Obama un-sucked us from the debacle in Iraq and is, at last, starting to disentangle us from Afghanistan. The record is clear and quite consistent with the way Clinton operated, another 2-term Democrat who managed to steer clear of major wars.
It’s important to consider Jonathan’s extraordinary assertions in the context in which he intends them. Rather than framing his dissent from the administration’s policies as an ideologically driven critique of liberalism, he chooses to frame it as a personal attack on the integrity and legitimacy of the president. Why would he do that? Strategically, it’s moronic. Talk about derailing. Instead of having to demonstrate the shortcomings of liberalism, you’re forced by your own paradigm into the futility of trying to demonstrate that the presidents motives and legitimacy are suspect — virtually impossible to demonstrate and, more importantly, a tangent, really, given that what matters to voters and to the economy and national security is results, not motives.
Moreover, before long Obama will be a lame duck and soon after, gone. Where does that leave the conservative movement? Without an Enemy No. 1? Presumably the movement will take after Hillary Clinton with exactly the same critiques, showing that all the stuff about Obama being “unprecedented” this or that was BS they didn’t even believe themselves. Or, conversely, if they DON’T go after Clinton the same way — even though she will almost certainly be advocating the exact same Obama policies — it will seem obvious that the problem they had with Obama was related to his perceived vulnerability as a black man.
Yes, the corruption claims are crazy talk, the widespread anecdotes of abuse are meaningless, since we don’t have video of Obama ordering the IRS to abuse Republicans. The economy is doing fine at less than 2% annual growth and a much higher level of long-term unemployment than existed a few years ago. Real asset prices are going up because everything is great, not because there has been significant monetary inflation. D’Souza got what he deserved. The NBP thugs were unfairly prosecuted. Obama is a widely respected world leader. No meteorite has ever hit your house, therefore the burden is on us reckless meteorite partisans to prove that meteorites exist.
And of course there is a dishonest personal attack, crudely framed as concerned analysis:
Notice the leap from “extraordinary assertions”, which is a theatrical exaggeration but still within the realm of plausibility, to the entirely bogus “personal attack on the integrity and legitimacy of the president”. The troll is getting cocky. I wonder if Oliver is also Joe Citizen or one of the other verbal comets who visit here once in a while.
Jonathan, if you don’t like personal attacks, don’t make them. How is that you feel free to issue fatuous ad hominem at will, then whine when a response veers anywhere near the personal? If you can’t accept the most basic level of reciprocity, you’re doomed to reveal yourself as a hypocrite over and over again.
“The widespread anecdotes of abuse are meaningless”
Telling comment. If they are so widespread, where is the evidence to support them? If they are meaningful, where is the evidence?
The sad part is there is so much that can be said about Obama’s shortcomings that stem from his political opportunism. Conservatives could make quite a case based on that, but the surrender that position without a fight by spewing “widespread anecdotes” that only show how gullible and resentment-driven they are.
Oliver, there are none so blind as will not see. I have unfortunately encouraged you by response. That ends now.
Thanks Mike! I appreciate your participation, even as you declare a priori that it will be without substance. ;-)
You know, when I am wearing out my scroll-wheel, skimming Nollie’s eructations, I keep flashing back to this line from Blazing Saddles –
http://youtu.be/2JfzMqwltHk
You’re welcome – I live to serve.
Thanks Sgt.! Each of us contributes what we can to the conversation.
In your case, Nollie – not much and most of that condescending, insulting and not adding much to the overall conversation. Have a nice weekend – and bless your heart.
Thanks again Sgt. I know you try so hard to be be condescending and, truly, it is the effort that counts in these matters. I especially liked “chew toy” for what it says about your self-image. But I do give you an “E” for effort!