Just a heads-up...Dems are finished. After all the time they spent trying to come up with a new mascot, they got one in the form of an Antifa assassin. Here's a long litany of testimonies from former core liberal demographics--it's over for them:
Without fail, you can always count on White Republicans to affirm the broad themes undergirding William F. Buckley's central thesis in his infamous essay "Why the South Must Prevail" whenever they start talking about Black Americans' alignment with the Democratic Party, aka "the real racists" in common Republican parlance. The huge irony here is how this goes clear over the heads of at least 90% of them that espouse such rhetoric but let them tell it, it's unconscionable that I even dare to make such a claim since I don't even have two brain cells to rub together to intelligently cast my ballot.
It's quite a nasty, despicable behavior to propagate, but even worse is how it's ultimately self-defeating (i.e. "Conservatives aren't racists; Blacks simply have low IQs and don't understand how to vote in favor of their own self-interests."). Oh...and it's just flat-out wrong.
I understand the anger, but let us be clear about what is actually being argued. No one is saying that Black voters are too unintelligent to vote in their own interests. What is being said is that the Democrat Party has spent decades defining those interests for them, and has done so in ways that produce dependence rather than progress.
Invoking Buckley’s “South Must Prevail” is a distraction. His defense of segregation is not the argument here. The real issue is that Democrat politicians have created a new form of political plantation, where loyalty is secured with promises, handouts, and constant appeals to fear. The results are plain: cities run by Democrats for generations have higher crime, poorer schools, and fewer opportunities.
When pointing this out gets twisted into “you think Blacks are stupid,” that is not an honest rebuttal. It is an evasion. The real question is simple. After more than half a century of near-automatic support for the Democrat Party, are Black communities better off in terms of education, employment, safety, and economic independence? Or are they worse off?
That is not a question that requires insults. It is a question that requires honesty.
You're simply invoking the companion argument found on the other side of the coin, namely, Black Americans are merely passive observers of the political process along the margins of American society. All we do or could only ever hope to do is react to decisions made by officials to whom we are alien; the very notion of us acting proactively and exercising agency in participatory democracy to further our own interests is unconscionable. The truth is that it was Black Americans who drove the civil rights agenda to the forefront in American society in general and the Democratic Party in particular as participants in the Great Migration who were allowed to vote in their new homes in Northern and Western cities where there had already existed regional expressions of the party who were more sympathetic to civil rights issues. During the same time, Republicans were busy implementing their "Lily White" strategy in the South which resulted in much more solidified Southern Republican opposition to landmark civil rights legislation in the 60s, albeit with much less Congressional representation. The GOP's nomination of Goldwater in '64 (the divergence between his personal activism and political posturing on the '64 Act made his nomination all the more glaring) was just as decisive as LBJ's vocal advocacy of the major civil rights legislation of the 60s, if not more so, in the emerging new partisan realignment of that time.
But I always find it interesting how many who say the sky is really falling in America and has been for a number of years based on trends in industry and around the world that are beyond the control of any individual suddenly change their tune if we're talking only about Black Americans. All of sudden, everything is just peachy for everybody except Black people who just want to remain victims forever which explains our lack of progress. Apparently we're not at all impacted by technological innovation or broad cultural shifts or national major policy shifts; our relative positions always have something to do explicitly with how we're actively f'in things up because we wanna just sit home all day and collect checks for merely procreating.
I utterly condemn the notion that "nothing's changed" or, even worse, that we've lost ground in every area of life over the past 60 or so years. I don't accept that foolishness from those who wish to identity racism as the culprit and I don't accept it from those who identity the Democratic Party as the culprit. The "no progress" narrative is pure bunk, regardless of its ideological bent. If often think of my 90-year-old grandmother who was born and raised in the rural upper Lowcountry of SC when these claims are stated as though they are irrefutable true because they constitute a slap in her face and a total disconnect from reality. It also reveals the rose-colored lens through which some folks view the past when they wax nostalgic about the 50s and 60s. I'd be here all day listing all of the beneficial legislation Democrats have been responsible for over the years on both the local and national levels but for the sake of brevity, I'll just say this. When one looks at the trajectories of our performance over the past several decades, a pattern emerges that has also come to reflect emerging trends today. Much of the lack of progress of Black Americans in key categories is attributable to widening disparate outcomes between Black and White men. On the flip side, Black women have made notable progress in key areas relative to their White counterparts. Now that doesn't explain everything but it's a start. Before COVID, life expectancies had been narrowing significantly between Blacks and Whites. Racial gaps in wealth and income are mostly explained by the gap between the top 10% of Whites and Blacks but apart from that, there is much compatability. For areas like crime/violence, unmarried reproductive rates, etc, those are areas where American society overall has backslid. Guns are more ubiquitous now than ever everywhere. Marriage and fertility rates are declining in the general American population. And so on and so forth. But this narrative that says there's never been a worse time to be Black in America than right now needs to DIE, and quickly.
Oh and Buckley's essay wasn't written in defense of segregation per se but rather to oppose Black suffrage and enfranchisement which is the same as your roundabout project.
And YES, BLACK COMMUNITIES ARE ABSOLUTELY BETTER OFF in terms of education, employment, and economic independence than we were 50 or so years ago. EMPHATICALLY YES! Safety (which isn't limited to criminal victimization) is questionable for much of the same reasons it is for the general population. And for health, I'm tempted to say yes on one hand but no on the other but the ACA in particular resulted in improved health outcomes in key areas for Black Americans.
But it should be noted that no one gets anything in exchange for party loyalty. You can only expect something in the case your party or preferred candidate wins elections. Black folks weren't exempt from the policies of Reagan in the 80s just because we didn't vote for him.
Yeah, but people have short memories, and they've been so conditioned that it will still be a battle.
Another great post. You ought to compile these into a book.
That’s a good idea.
Just a heads-up...Dems are finished. After all the time they spent trying to come up with a new mascot, they got one in the form of an Antifa assassin. Here's a long litany of testimonies from former core liberal demographics--it's over for them:
youtube.com/watch?v=PEcMzZvBrYc
I'm not aware of one thing that actually works like that in the real world.
Without fail, you can always count on White Republicans to affirm the broad themes undergirding William F. Buckley's central thesis in his infamous essay "Why the South Must Prevail" whenever they start talking about Black Americans' alignment with the Democratic Party, aka "the real racists" in common Republican parlance. The huge irony here is how this goes clear over the heads of at least 90% of them that espouse such rhetoric but let them tell it, it's unconscionable that I even dare to make such a claim since I don't even have two brain cells to rub together to intelligently cast my ballot.
It's quite a nasty, despicable behavior to propagate, but even worse is how it's ultimately self-defeating (i.e. "Conservatives aren't racists; Blacks simply have low IQs and don't understand how to vote in favor of their own self-interests."). Oh...and it's just flat-out wrong.
I understand the anger, but let us be clear about what is actually being argued. No one is saying that Black voters are too unintelligent to vote in their own interests. What is being said is that the Democrat Party has spent decades defining those interests for them, and has done so in ways that produce dependence rather than progress.
Invoking Buckley’s “South Must Prevail” is a distraction. His defense of segregation is not the argument here. The real issue is that Democrat politicians have created a new form of political plantation, where loyalty is secured with promises, handouts, and constant appeals to fear. The results are plain: cities run by Democrats for generations have higher crime, poorer schools, and fewer opportunities.
When pointing this out gets twisted into “you think Blacks are stupid,” that is not an honest rebuttal. It is an evasion. The real question is simple. After more than half a century of near-automatic support for the Democrat Party, are Black communities better off in terms of education, employment, safety, and economic independence? Or are they worse off?
That is not a question that requires insults. It is a question that requires honesty.
As usual, dead on target!
You're simply invoking the companion argument found on the other side of the coin, namely, Black Americans are merely passive observers of the political process along the margins of American society. All we do or could only ever hope to do is react to decisions made by officials to whom we are alien; the very notion of us acting proactively and exercising agency in participatory democracy to further our own interests is unconscionable. The truth is that it was Black Americans who drove the civil rights agenda to the forefront in American society in general and the Democratic Party in particular as participants in the Great Migration who were allowed to vote in their new homes in Northern and Western cities where there had already existed regional expressions of the party who were more sympathetic to civil rights issues. During the same time, Republicans were busy implementing their "Lily White" strategy in the South which resulted in much more solidified Southern Republican opposition to landmark civil rights legislation in the 60s, albeit with much less Congressional representation. The GOP's nomination of Goldwater in '64 (the divergence between his personal activism and political posturing on the '64 Act made his nomination all the more glaring) was just as decisive as LBJ's vocal advocacy of the major civil rights legislation of the 60s, if not more so, in the emerging new partisan realignment of that time.
But I always find it interesting how many who say the sky is really falling in America and has been for a number of years based on trends in industry and around the world that are beyond the control of any individual suddenly change their tune if we're talking only about Black Americans. All of sudden, everything is just peachy for everybody except Black people who just want to remain victims forever which explains our lack of progress. Apparently we're not at all impacted by technological innovation or broad cultural shifts or national major policy shifts; our relative positions always have something to do explicitly with how we're actively f'in things up because we wanna just sit home all day and collect checks for merely procreating.
I utterly condemn the notion that "nothing's changed" or, even worse, that we've lost ground in every area of life over the past 60 or so years. I don't accept that foolishness from those who wish to identity racism as the culprit and I don't accept it from those who identity the Democratic Party as the culprit. The "no progress" narrative is pure bunk, regardless of its ideological bent. If often think of my 90-year-old grandmother who was born and raised in the rural upper Lowcountry of SC when these claims are stated as though they are irrefutable true because they constitute a slap in her face and a total disconnect from reality. It also reveals the rose-colored lens through which some folks view the past when they wax nostalgic about the 50s and 60s. I'd be here all day listing all of the beneficial legislation Democrats have been responsible for over the years on both the local and national levels but for the sake of brevity, I'll just say this. When one looks at the trajectories of our performance over the past several decades, a pattern emerges that has also come to reflect emerging trends today. Much of the lack of progress of Black Americans in key categories is attributable to widening disparate outcomes between Black and White men. On the flip side, Black women have made notable progress in key areas relative to their White counterparts. Now that doesn't explain everything but it's a start. Before COVID, life expectancies had been narrowing significantly between Blacks and Whites. Racial gaps in wealth and income are mostly explained by the gap between the top 10% of Whites and Blacks but apart from that, there is much compatability. For areas like crime/violence, unmarried reproductive rates, etc, those are areas where American society overall has backslid. Guns are more ubiquitous now than ever everywhere. Marriage and fertility rates are declining in the general American population. And so on and so forth. But this narrative that says there's never been a worse time to be Black in America than right now needs to DIE, and quickly.
Oh and Buckley's essay wasn't written in defense of segregation per se but rather to oppose Black suffrage and enfranchisement which is the same as your roundabout project.
And YES, BLACK COMMUNITIES ARE ABSOLUTELY BETTER OFF in terms of education, employment, and economic independence than we were 50 or so years ago. EMPHATICALLY YES! Safety (which isn't limited to criminal victimization) is questionable for much of the same reasons it is for the general population. And for health, I'm tempted to say yes on one hand but no on the other but the ACA in particular resulted in improved health outcomes in key areas for Black Americans.
But it should be noted that no one gets anything in exchange for party loyalty. You can only expect something in the case your party or preferred candidate wins elections. Black folks weren't exempt from the policies of Reagan in the 80s just because we didn't vote for him.