The correct answer is the Democratic Party has never been cohesively liberal. From '40s to the '60s, you had that huge block of conservative, Southern Democrats that routinely teamed up with Republicans to block any meaningful liberal legislation. (Though the Southern Democrats harbored most of the blame). The logjam was finally broken when Johnson came to power and, being the master politician that he was, and thanks to the Democrats' huge majorities, maneuvered all of that wonderful legislation through the Senate.
The first thing LBJ did when he was president was sign a tax cut bill (that cut the top marginal tax rate) in the hopes that it would fuel economic growth. Not exactly a liberal line of economic thought.
The big problem with the "the Democrats weren't pro- gay marriage either until very recently" line of thinking is politics.
Clearly (or so it seems to me) the right way to go about assigning blame to political organizations and movements is to think through the counterfactual - what would the world look like if the movement had done something differently? Politics is full of lesser-of-two-evils choices. Bill Clinton pushing for marriage equality would have been disastrous, even if mainstream Democrats would have been happy to go along with it. Gay rights could easily have been set back a decade, to say nothing of other social issues which would have suffered by association. Republican support for gay marriage in 1996, though, would have almost certainly yielded results. Would the Democrats have refused to follow along and endorse gay marriage if Newt Gingrich was constantly out there castigating Clinton for his bigotry? At the very least the Republicans could have forced integration in the military and killed DOMA easily. It's important that many Democrats take a conservative stance on various social issues only because they're worried about being attacked by Republicans for being too liberal, whereas Republicans take a conservative stance on various social issues because they're trying to get out their own base or win a primary. Republicans have the power to move politics to the left very quickly; Democrats can't go too far or they risk a backlash, and just have to slowly chip away at public opinion over time.
In short, much more blame typically rests with the organization or movement which is maybe only slightly more wrong. The rest of the political world can't get too far away from the wrong position without being counterproductive (by losing elections) and frequently isn't nearly as invested in the position.
The correct answer is the Democratic Party has never been cohesively liberal. From '40s to the '60s, you had that huge block of conservative, Southern Democrats that routinely teamed up with Republicans to block any meaningful liberal legislation. (Though the Southern Democrats harbored most of the blame). The logjam was finally broken when Johnson came to power and, being the master politician that he was, and thanks to the Democrats' huge majorities, maneuvered all of that wonderful legislation through the Senate.
The first thing LBJ did when he was president was sign a tax cut bill (that cut the top marginal tax rate) in the hopes that it would fuel economic growth. Not exactly a liberal line of economic thought.
It would be nice if the Progressive Caucus was the actually platform of the democratic party and that they could get elected on that, but whatevs, Id rather have democrats get elected than be progressively pure, because that would just leave us with nutjob republicans
The correct answer is the Democratic Party has never been cohesively liberal. From '40s to the '60s, you had that huge block of conservative, Southern Democrats that routinely teamed up with Republicans to block any meaningful liberal legislation. (Though the Southern Democrats harbored most of the blame). The logjam was finally broken when Johnson came to power and, being the master politician that he was, and thanks to the Democrats' huge majorities, maneuvered all of that wonderful legislation through the Senate.
The first thing LBJ did when he was president was sign a tax cut bill (that cut the top marginal tax rate) in the hopes that it would fuel economic growth. Not exactly a liberal line of economic thought.
LBJ had one of the most liberal records on social issues since FDR, if not more. The Great Society was largely a stimulus project alongside an expansion of social programs, he passed the ESEA, expanded Medicare, created Medicaid, and of course passed Kennedy's civil rights bill.
I see others have already addressed your wrong- headed post. You might try reading more than one LBJ biography before continually flogging your knowledge about him in here.
You knew my family was entwined with the Johnson's didn't you? I know I've told that story in here before.
LBJ had one of the most liberal records on social issues since FDR, if not more. The Great Society was largely a stimulus project alongside an expansion of social programs, he passed the ESEA, expanded Medicare, created Medicaid, and of course passed Kennedy's civil rights bill.
Please, PD, tell me more about LBJ. I don't know anything about him.
The discussion was about the ideology of the Democratic Party as a whole, not the views of one man. And the truth is, the Democratic Party has never been cohesively liberal.
It also wasn't about being cohesively liberal, it was about being liberal. You moved the goalposts so you could show us all that you read a book about LBJ. Which has absolutely nothing to do with what we were discussing.
Please, PD, tell me more about LBJ. I don't know anything about him.
The discussion was about the ideology of the Democratic Party as a whole, not the views of one man. And the truth is, the Democratic Party has never been cohesively liberal.
Apparently you don't, which is why I'm baffled at your previous post given you just read Indomitable Will...
The democrat party has largely supported a host of social programs and domestic spending within the last 100 years. It's largest failure, civil rights, was addressed during the transformational LBJ years and solidified in the 70s. In fact the 70s and early 80s were dominated by a new wave of even more liberal democrats in the house and senate who further championed social programs while advocating a less interventionist foreign policy than LBJ and republicans.
Many memes and stereotypes about "weak" tax and spend democrats originated in the 70s, and the country largely rejected some of the more liberal products of Washington like Mondale in the 80s. So yes, in terms of liberalism and policy the democrat party certainly carried that torch in the mid and late 60s.
In short, keep reading history but read some about the 70s and 80s while you're at it.
It also wasn't about being cohesively liberal, it was about being liberal. You moved the goalposts so you could show us all that you read a book about LBJ. Which has absolutely nothing to do with what we were discussing.
I didn't move any goalposts. You said the Democratic Party hasn't been liberal in a long while. Which, from the way I read it, read as if you were saying the Democratic Party could have been, at one point in time, described as liberal as a whole. Cohesive. That's not true, given Southern Democrats at the time. Now, if you meant that it's been a while since the Democratic Party has acted liberal, then I could see where you're coming from, though I'd still disagree.
Apparently you don't, which is why I'm baffled at your previous post given you just read Indomitable Will...
The democrat party has largely supported a host of social programs and domestic spending within the last 100 years. It's largest failure, civil rights, was addressed during the transformational LBJ years and solidified in the 70s. In fact the 70s and early 80s were dominated by a new wave of even more liberal democrats in the house and senate who further championed social programs while advocating a less interventionist foreign policy than LBJ and republicans.
Many memes and stereotypes about "weak" tax and spend democrats originated in the 70s, and the country largely rejected some of the more liberal products of Washington like Mondale in the 80s. So yes, in terms of liberalism and policy the democrat party certainly carried that torch in the mid and late 60s.
In short, keep reading history but read some about the 70s and 80s while you're at it.
My great-grandaddy and he were friends growing up around the Perdenales. Before they graduated high school, they'd talked about hopping a truck to California for work. Johnson decided he had better talents for the world -- good call -- but my great-grandaddy went and picked oranges. They stayed in touch for awhile but lost track of each other.
Fast-forward to the seventies, when Lucy Bird brings her kids in to Dr. Kocen's office, where my mother worked. They get to talking and discover the old connection. Mom and Dad get invited out to the ranch and me and my siblings start getting Christmas presents from Lucy Bird, which we are absolutely not allowed to touch.
They're still stored in my mom's closet. She won't even let us have them and we're all adults now.
My great-grandaddy and he were friends growing up around the Perdenales. Before they graduated high school, they'd talked about hopping a truck to California for work. Johnson decided he had better talents for the world -- good call -- but my great-grandaddy went and picked oranges. They stayed in touch for awhile but lost track of each other.
Fast-forward to the seventies, when Lucy Bird brings her kids in to Dr. Kocen's office, where my mother worked. They get to talking and discover the old connection. Mom and Dad get invited out to the ranch and me and my siblings start getting Christmas presents from Lucy Bird, which we are absolutely not allowed to touch.
They're still stored in my mom's closet. She won't even let us have them and we're all adults now.
Your argument makes no sense, and to be honest your flippant defense isn't particularly endearing either. Southern democrats didn't attempt to block "any" meaningful legislation that came up. They routinely supported FDR's New Deal, which was the definition of liberal policy; LBJ, a southern democrat, ran as a New Deal democrat during his years in congress and then the senate.
Democrats failure on civil rights doesn't negate the economic and social liberalism they championed as a whole - and nor does LBJ signing Kennedy's tax bill mar his liberal legacy. Likewise, the republican party's support for abolition and civil rights didn't disqualify them from largely being conservative on most issues of that time.
Fast-forward to the seventies, when Lucy Bird brings her kids in to Dr. Kocen's office, where my mother worked. They get to talking and discover the old connection. Mom and Dad get invited out to the ranch and me and my siblings start getting Christmas presents from Lucy Bird, which we are absolutely not allowed to touch.
They're still stored in my mom's closet. She won't even let us have them and we're all adults now.
My great-grandaddy and he were friends growing up around the Perdenales. Before they graduated high school, they'd talked about hopping a truck to California for work. Johnson decided he had better talents for the world -- good call -- but my great-grandaddy went and picked oranges. They stayed in touch for awhile but lost track of each other.
Fast-forward to the seventies, when Lucy Bird brings her kids in to Dr. Kocen's office, where my mother worked. They get to talking and discover the old connection. Mom and Dad get invited out to the ranch and me and my siblings start getting Christmas presents from Lucy Bird, which we are absolutely not allowed to touch.
They're still stored in my mom's closet. She won't even let us have them and we're all adults now.
Your argument makes no sense, and to be honest your flippant defense isn't particularly endearing either. Southern democrats didn't attempt to block "any" meaningful legislation that came up. They routinely supported FDR's New Deal, which was the definition of liberal policy; LBJ, a southern democrat, ran as a New Deal democrat during his years in congress and then the senate.
Democrats failure on civil rights doesn't negate the economic and social liberalism they championed as a whole - and nor does LBJ signing Kennedy's tax bill mar his liberal legacy. Likewise, the republican party's support for abolition and civil rights didn't disqualify them from largely being conservative on most issues of that time.
My flippant defense of what? My argument makes perfect sense. I read besada's statement as him saying the Democratic Party was cohesively liberal (which it wasn't). Southern Democrats were uneasy about the New Deal's social reforms for one, and remember FDR tried to purge conservatives from the Democratic Party. Truman's Fair Deal was a bust, and there was little done in the way of housing assistance and minimum wage increases until LBJ became Majority Leader.
It's hard to explain. LBJ was like Texas royalty, even though huge swaths of the state hated his policies. He went to Washington and shook those mothers up. So, that stuff has been treated like it was a gift from the Pope. It's wrapped up in linen, in a box, stored in a plastic bag. She used to tell us she was protecting the gifts from our grubby hands, but that stopped being a viable excuse when we all grew up
As for what's in them, I got a pocket knife one year and a swim suit the next. My sister got a doll and a swimsuit.
It's hard to explain. LBJ was like Texas royalty, even though huge swaths of the state hated his policies. He went to Washington and shook those mothers up. So, that stuff has been treated like it was a gift from the Pope. It's wrapped up in linen, in a box, stored in a plastic bag. She used to tell us she was protecting the gifts from our grubby hands, but that stopped being a viable excuse when we all grew up
As for what's in them, I got a pocket knife one year and a swim suit the next. My sister got a doll and a swimsuit.
It's hard to explain. LBJ was like Texas royalty, even though huge swaths of the state hated his policies. He went to Washington and shook those mothers up. So, that stuff has been treated like it was a gift from the Pope. It's wrapped up in linen, in a box, stored in a plastic bag. She used to tell us she was protecting the gifts from our grubby hands, but that stopped being a viable excuse when we all grew up
As for what's in them, I got a pocket knife one year and a swim suit the next. My sister got a doll and a swimsuit.
It's hard to explain. LBJ was like Texas royalty, even though huge swaths of the state hated his policies. He went to Washington and shook those mothers up. So, that stuff has been treated like it was a gift from the Pope. It's wrapped up in linen, in a box, stored in a plastic bag. She used to tell us she was protecting the gifts from our grubby hands, but that stopped being a viable excuse when we all grew up
As for what's in them, I got a pocket knife one year and a swim suit the next. My sister got a doll and a swimsuit.
It's amazing what giving electricity can do to your popularity.
Lesson for today's politicians, you're not getting into history's hall of fame by dominating the newscycle, get off your ass and better people's life.
A discussion about race descended into chaos at CPAC on Friday when an attendee suggested slaves benefited from being given "food and shelter".
The provocatively titled session, "Trump the Race Card: Are You Sick and Tired of Being Called a Racist and You Know You're Not One", had been billed as offering a way for Republicans to counter suggestions of racism and win over minority voters.
But it fell apart when two people at CPAC, the largest annual gathering of US conservatives, interjected from the floor and and made a series of extreme remarks.
The session's moderator, K Carl Smith, described himself as a "Frederick Douglass Republican", an audience member interjected. "When Douglass came through slavery … he [wrote] a letter to his former slave master and said: 'I forgive you for all the things you did to me'," Smith said.
From the floor, Scott Terry, pictured, asked: "For giving him shelter and food for all those years?"
After the session, Terry, 30, claimed to the Guardian that he was a direct descendant of former confederate president Jefferson Davis, and that he was "not prepared to throw all my ancestors under the bus".
Asked if he disagreed with slavery, Terry described it as a "complicated issue. I can't make one broad statement that categorically it was evil all the time because that's not true". Asked to clarify his comments about "shelter and food", Terry said: "The slaves couldn't just work without being supplied quarters and all that. And you couldn't just it's not legal to murder a slave. Slaves even had rights under the old south."
note: post will contain a lot of "nigga", since I'm directly referring to the Chris Rock skit I posted earlier, lol. That said, I do still see this as politically related, so I'll leave this post here...
also, I'm black, I have genetic permission to type/say it! haha
while I can appreciate the humor in what Chris Rock is saying (I'm sure I laughed as hard as everyone else when that HBO special first came out), it does kind of remind me of all the Bill Cosby stuff that would happen later. Oh, and that Obama "be a father to your kids!" speech. Spending time criticizing "niggas", when "niggas" probably already hear these criticisms enough in their own community, and don't need a rich, privileged comedian or politician calling them out on it as well. And it can also contribute to setting up the divide between "the good black folks" and "the bad black folks", when we're ultimately all in this together. And these days, whenever something sounds like conservative "personal responsibility!" framing and lecturing, it bothers me because it often distracts from very real structural problems that exist (and those are the problems that often influence people to be the "niggas" Chris Rock mentions)
Now I'm not saying Chris Rock is some evil villain that hates "niggas" or anything, and yes, I know it's just comedy, but it's just something I try to always keep in mind, and not take it too seriously as social commentary. And of course, I know that not every black male is a shining beacon of peace and love and rational decision making
(after all, we saw PD's electoral predictions! shots fired! j/k GAF-Hop 4 life)
I just try to take extra care with making sure I'm not jumping on the "black men sure do suck, don't they?" bandwagon. We get enough of that from society in general, after all.
It's kinda like what's happening with a few people in this thread. Yes, I know there are some "stupid kids with their iphones that can't even buy food!" that exist, so if it's just on an individual level, I may poke fun a little bit. But I try to make sure my focus is always on the larger societal issues that usually cause these types of situations in the first place, since that's the primary source of the problem.
In some ways, it was worse than slavery, because of the societal attitudes and institutions it set in place that we're still dealing with to this day.
Having grown up in various southern states, then getting out of there, I later realized this once I had the experience to place things in context: the beliefs and attitudes of many white folks in the south are absolutely unchanged for the last century and a half. Many people there may as well be living in 1890.
My flippant defense of what? My argument makes perfect sense. I read besada's statement as him saying the Democratic Party was cohesively liberal (which it wasn't). Southern Democrats were uneasy about the New Deal's social reforms for one, and remember FDR tried to purge conservatives from the Democratic Party. Truman's Fair Deal was a bust, and there was little done in the way of housing assistance and minimum wage increases until LBJ became Majority Leader.
So unless every member of the party votes in unison, you cannot say what is the dominant ideology? The fact is that FDR's New Deal was supported by the vast majority of the party. Al Davis and other conservative democrats opposed it, but I wouldn't use that to suggest the party wasn't moving to the left.
FDR created the federal minimum wage in 1938. A group of southern democrats opposed it whereas many more passed it through. The more conservative democrats of the time were slowly purged by New Dealers like LBJ. Which suggests a party moving to the right and becoming more and more liberal as a whole.
So unless every member of the party votes in unison, you cannot say what is the dominant ideology? The fact is that FDR's New Deal was supported by the vast majority of the party. Al Davis and other conservative democrats opposed it, but I wouldn't use that to suggest the party wasn't moving to the left.
FDR created the federal minimum wage in 1938. A group of southern democrats opposed it whereas many more passed it through. The more conservative democrats of the time were slowly purged by New Dealers like LBJ. Which suggests a party moving to the right and becoming more and more liberal as a whole.
Yup. Eric Erickson has been a riot since Portman's comments lol. So much stupid stuff that probably even turns off some people who don't even support gay marriage. And the best thing is that I don't see an alpha male candidate within the party who can unite all the factions. They'll continue sniping each other for the next 3 years, especially if Obama manages to pass some moderate bills through the House.
