Prometheus 6

LATER: Apologies to Mr. Murdock for misspelling his name in the title. At least I got it right in the text...

John H. McWhorter
Party of Chains
The greatest oppressors of blacks have been Democrats, says Bruce Bartlett.
8 February 2008

Since there's nothing new here, I'm just going to quote a post from three years ago that covers Bartlett's...and McWhorter's...ill fantasies.

Bruce Bartlett collected racist quotes from ancient Democrats for the Wall Street Journal and got more of a response than I thought he would. Maybe because he squeezed a few questionable from post-Civil Rights Democrats into his list. Racism Review put those few into historical context...keep it in mind, Bartlett wrote a whole book of this nonsense. And Matthew Yglesias got Bartlett to give up the whole reason for that book:

Bruce Bartlett responds to my post on his book:

Matt's reaction is exactly what I expected from the left. Since the history cannot be denied they will sweep it under the rug as old news--and boring news at that. But considering the recent flap about Reagan's Philadelphia, Mississippi speech in 1980, I don't think liberals can dismiss my argument without also dismissing their own efforts to use 27 year old speeches to damn the Republican Party for racism. They can't have it both ways. Either history matters or it doesn't.

More Reagan worship.

Bartlett ignores the central stuff, of course...that our politics take place now.

The first level of outrage here is that he’s smearing the modern Democratic Party for the actions of the same racist white supremacists that the party institutionally repudiated in the civil rights era (at great political cost). During this same time period, Bartlett’s own party – whose rank-and-file are largely non-racist – institutionally adopted this grotesque bloc of Bull Connor voters. Since then, at the institutional level, the GOP has intentionally fanned racial flames through opposition and/or indifference to civil rights legislation, through inflammatory code words, and through turning a blind eye to institutional actions by the GOP in southern states (e.g., Georgia Confederate flag controversy).

Admittedly, the Democratic Party is guilty of taking the black vote for granted. And they are also guilty of not pushing as hard as they could for fear of white backlash. But that said, they’ve been the only ones who have even been trying for the past 40 years. The Democrats are the ones fighting for the programs and laws that disproportionately help poor and urban African-Americans. The Democrats are the ones fighting against race-based voter disenfranchisement efforts (e.g., “voter ID”). The Democrats the ones fighting against judges who are hostile to civil rights achievements.

The parties’ record on race over the past 40 years illustrates all too clearly just how dishonest Bartlett is being. That’s bad, but it’s not the worst part. The more outrageous part of Bartlett’s argument is not the dishonesty, but the callous indifference to historical discrimination. He treats the whole thing like a chess pawn in a silly DC talk show game.

All the responses I've seen are worthy. But why did I dismiss and ignore Bartlett's little screed? Because it's not only wrong, it's not even new. I responded to this nonsense in Feb 2005, when Deroy Murdock wrote it up for The National Review. And I quote (me):

Deroy Murdock has trouble distinguishing between the moon and the finger that points at the moon.

Grand Old Party
Blacks might be surprised to compare Republican history with the Democrats .

The only way we'd be surprised is if we confuse the names of the parties for the membership. Is Steinbrenner's Yankees the same team as Babe Ruth's Yankees? Is the L.A. Dodgers the same team as the Brooklyn Dodgers?

But let's make the entirely nonsensical assumption that the Republican Party of pre-Civil War days is the same group of people as the Republican Party of today. Deroy gives us two examplars of each party he felt the need to expand on:

February 2005: The Democrats' Klan-coddling today is embodied by KKK alumnus Robert Byrd, West Virginia's logorrheic U.S. senator and, having served since January 3, 1959, that body's dean. Thirteen years earlier, Byrd wrote this to the KKK's Imperial Wizard: "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia." Byrd led Senate Democrats as late as December 1988. On March 4, 2001, Byrd told Fox News's Tony Snow: "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I'm going to use that word." National Democrats never have arranged a primary challenge against or otherwise pressed this one-time cross-burner to get lost.

Foolish as it is to remind people of mainstream politicians with ties to the Kouncil of Koncervative Kitizens since those Republican connections are actually current, we will note Senator Byrd started out as a fucked up individual but has since assumed more progressive (as opposed to progressive) positions.

The Republican example Deroy gives us is Barry Goldwater

July 2, 1964: Democratic President Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act after former Klansman Robert Byrd's 14-hour filibuster and the votes of 22 other Senate Democrats (including Tennessee's Al Gore, Sr.) failed to scuttle the measure. Illinois Republican Everett Dirksen rallied 26 GOP senators and 44 Democrats to invoke cloture and allow the bill's passage. According to John Fonte in the January 9, 2003, National Review, 82 percent of Republicans so voted, versus only 66 percent of Democrats.

True, Senator Barry Goldwater (R., Ariz.) opposed this bill the very year he became the GOP's presidential standard-bearer. However, Goldwater supported the 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts and called for integrating Arizona's National Guard two years before Truman desegregated the military. Goldwater feared the 1964 Act would limit freedom of association in the private sector, a controversial but principled libertarian objection rooted in the First Amendment rather than racial hatred.

There are two things to note here: First, that Goldwater originally voted for the Civil Rights acts in '57 and '60...but changed, became more regressive as time passed. The opposite of Senator Byrd's vector. In other words, as time passed, Byrd became less hostile to Black civil rights as Goldwater became more so.

Goldwater's transformation was mirrored by his "Democrat" associates of the day. This, in fact, was the event that caused all the Democrats that couldn't abandon their racism to abandon the Democratic Party.

Which wouldn't surprise Deroy if he really understood the history of the Republican and Democratic parties.