How the Liberals Lost the South... Anyone Remember these Two Writers who Warned Dems?

[KoKo]

[bJust Wondering if ANY DU'ers REMEMBER THESE TWO?

I think the Left of the Dem Party NEVER made a REAL EFFORT to engage that part of our Country which seems to Dominate these days even influencing President Obama.

They saw them as "God, Guns & Gays" and never got where they were coming from being "Left Behind" in the Global Economy and with no where to go but the CRAZIES in their Churches and and there Greedy Politicians who got WIRED IN...just like the Rest of our USA Politicians got "Wired In" but it hit the South because folks view those in the South as Crazies from the Get Go...but, wouldn't it have helped if anyone did the work to understand the Southern Impoverished?

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Joe Bageant's Writings are a Clue about how the "Liberals Lost the South." He had a great vision and I wish he was still alive these days to enter into discussions.

"Deer Hunting with Jesus" is (I think) his last book on this....and Amazon has some good Review/Discussion/Critique of his thoughts there from what I remember from when I ordered that book.

http://www.amazon.com/Joe-Bageant/e/B001JRZ4CC

Molly Ivans is the next person who got it correct about the South and the Contradictions and where it might all go. SHE WAS THE BEST....and she died too.....Just When WE Dems needed her voice the most to deal with the "Tea Baggers."

http://www.amazon.com/Molly-Ivins/e/B000APEBCI

BUT, both Bageant and Ivans managed to lay out what we are faced with and if one looks to that past of them...one can see much in their writings.

[agbdf]

1. The South was lost for a worthy cause!

Democrats knew fifty years ago that the likely consequence of supporting civil rights legislation and working for the demise of Jim Crow, would be the loss of The South.
So be it. We did the right thing.

[amandabeech]

21. Lyndon Johnson said it himself.

But he pushed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act because it was the right thing to do.

[agbdf]

25. LBJ was a great President!

Few Presidents accomplished more than LBJ whose time in office lasted just over five years. The Great Society helped to insure upward mobility and a strong middle class for decades. He personally twisted arms while using his significant cache as a Southern to Push through The Civil Rights Act and The Voting Rights Act. Many have said he accomplished, in this regard, what Kennedy could not have.

He fought a valiant war against poverty all the while being incessantly protested by the radical, fringe left who would chant, just outside the White House, "Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today!"

This tormented him and led not only to his famous refusal to run for reelection but, in my opinion, his premature death less than five years after leaving office.

Yet, the positive impact his Great Society
is still being felt today.

[uppityperson]

28. LBJ got us into and kept us in Viet Nam. Bah to all those killed and injured in his "war".

Proud member of that "radical fringe left" who saw LBJ as the murderer he was.

[agbdf]

34. I can respect your position uppityperson

Yes, while I do respect your comment, I must respectfully disagree. President Obama, among his other glowing remarks about the LBJ presidency, just recently said, "I reject such cynicism because I have lived out the promise of LBJ's efforts." Bill Clinton voiced similar approval. While we today enjoy a perfect historical perspective on that policy which comes from the luxury of hindsight, I will not second guess LBJ's judgment at the time given the fact that we were locked in a bitter Cold War against a formidable Communist adversary who did not share our basic ideals and commitments to freedom as well as civil and human rights. LBJ was following the Truman doctrine of containment just as JFK did.

I'm afraid I must, even knowing what we do today about Viet Nam, throw my hat in the ring with Presidents Obama and Clinton in praising LBJ. Two great Presidents whom, I might add, are not part of the radical fringe left.

[eridani]

37. Cold War justifications of the mass murder of a million Vietnamese are just bullshit

Johnson himself had serious misgivings about it, but did not back off because he felt that his domestic agenda would not happen if conservatives played the "soft on Communism" card.

[Samantha]

30. These were pieces of legislation John F. Kennedy planned to try to implement

LBJ ran for the one term he was actually elected to office on promising to end the Vietnam war. Three days after his election, he escalated the war. He chose not to run for a second term because he knew he would not win.

Sam

[RainDog]

31. What LBJ shows me

Is the complexity of political life for anyone holding office. He did do some wonderful things - and he also did some questionable things.

like every other politician who has ever held office.

Sadly, the only way the civil rights act got passed is because Johnson framed it as a way to honor the legacy of JFK - nationally - Republicans couldn't fight that with the feelings about JFK after his death - although, yes, even after death JFK had his detractors -- and he's another who did both good and bad things - but overall, he did another hugely important thing - which was to keep the cold war cold.

[AgingAmerican]

2. Liberals never had the south...

...to lose

[LostOne4Ever]

3. If losing the south

was the cost of standing up for minority rights, it was well worth it.

I say this as a Texas Dem.

[HooptieWagon]

5. +1

The Dem Party lost the South, but Southern Democrats weren't liberals. They were conservatives still fighting the Civil War... ie: They were Democrats because Lincoln was a Republican. Good riddance to them. A concerted 50-state effort can rebuild the party in the south, especially among youth, women, and minorities. Third Way aint gonna cut it.

[leftstreet]

4. They could go after the non-voters

Both parties ignore half the voting population - the eligible voters who don't vote, then whine and sniffle because they can't figure out how to go left and/or right enough to snag the other side's vote

Pfft

[KoKo]

19. They wrote them off as lost cause...and the Wall Street Money Men always manipulated them...

and there were other factors. The "Other Factors" were always the problem.

They felt their values were always mocked in media and books. We can't ignore the Racial/Slave Dark side of the culture. But, that was the "Planter Class Elite" linked to the New England faction who were happy to bring the slaves in to supply the Planter Class with what they needed.

We never really addressed what went on down there...that there were so many immigrants who weren't part of the Planter Class on the Coasts who never benefited from Slave Trade or Government Policies.

[Brigid]

6. "Better Off Without 'Em"

-- Chuck Thompson

[RainDog]

7. Right to work laws

are what created an impoverished south - that and a lack of state investment in their populations via education and poverty programs.

this is tied into institutional racism - there's no way around it, and then sets up a dynamic of working people fighting among themselves instead of fighting together to raise the standard of living for all.

then you had Jerry Falwell uniting with Reagan to convince fundamentalists Jesus had been on the side of the rich all the time... and Reagan's tough guy act made some feel empowered. The right wingers fought against the era, as well, from a religious pov.

same thing we get now with science and gay civil rights - and people who say "I'm not prejudiced against gays, but my god is, so have to go with that" - you can't make a reasonable argument against that because the idea is based upon revelation, not reason - which was the exact thing that happened with civil rights - which fundies now pretend never happened - i.e. claiming god created races to exist separately. iow, "revelation" changed, not the reality of civil rights.

that's something I wonder about among religious righties and their rejection of evolution/genetics, etc. because evolution demonstrates race is a cultural construct - but, the reality is we are all part of the same human family.

But I agree they were both great writers.

I just don't see how Democrats could've gotten past the voting segregation - Atwater played white southerners with dog whistles, as he admitted.

It's not worth it to me to be a part of a political party that will make concessions on issues of racism or sexism

[butterfly77]

8. I think the Cons win because..

.the Dems don't try and they just listen to the media who know nothing they go into certain areas of these states then report that everyone really agrees with the CONS. I also think that the CONS steal some of these elections and pay off officials. The media goes along with this same old theme.

Yes,I have seen videos of some of the rednecks who are illinformed but with all of the things the CONS have been doing for decades they have to be affected in many ways some are angry because they don't know shit but what they hear from FOX or some of their neighbors...


And a lot of Dems who run on our side aren't really Dems we have the CONS on DU collecting info and asking questions trying to see how many Dems they can shift..Hey trolls ur not fooling me..

[el_bryanto]

9. Part of me agrees with what others have said

When we took on Civil Rights we lost a lot of the south. That said, I also agree that communicating how the southern wealthy were taking advantage of the southern working and middle class, would probably have helped us quite a bit.

Bryant

[pipoman]

10. wow, by the tone of the responses here you would think

Dems don't need voters. ..short sighted dismissal doesn't win elections

[RainDog]

11. I don't say that

but how do you think Democrats can reach the white, mostly protestant fundamentalist majority in the south?

I think voter registration, etc. can help - but Republicans already try to repress voting among demographics they think benefit democrats

...and they gerrymandered so many districts...

the only thing I can see that might help is a backlash against the teabaggers who won seats when people see how incompetent they are (c.f. Ted Cruz's attempt to shut down the govt)

but it's really hard to reach fundamentalist religious believers when their leaders tell them to vote for Republicans b/c of the fear of their own souls if they vote with people who uphold separation of church and state, rather than play along with the bullshit about this being a christian nation.

[pipoman]

13. Maybe by not supporting trade agreements that kill jobs

Actively supporting ending pot prohibition, removing impossible gun control plank from the platform, not demeaning people's religion, basically being the big tent that has been abandoned. It really wouldn't take too much to outweigh the benefits provided by the thugs.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. And concentrate on ECONOMIC issues

Ask them how their social issues help them feed their families.

Figure out what the Southern voters really need in terms of economics and run on that.

[pipoman]

18. Exactly

The only thing that keeps them voting rethug is that there is no difference to their economic situation either way, therefore they choose the party that supports their social viewpoint. Simply extending unemployment benefits would send a message...4 month with no income under a Democratic administration will go to the timeless question when going to the polls, 'am I better off today than 4 years ago?'...

[Lasher]

17. And stop putting Social Security on the auction block.

Medicare too.

[pipoman]

20. Yep...In short, acting like Democrats

[JoeyT]

35. You're largely talking about the *old* Southern white population.

For the unaffiliated, most are either liberal on social issues or don't give a damn about social issues. Virtually all of them hate free trade, and think there's absolutely no difference between the parties as far as economic issues that will impact them. As far as they're concerned their choice is to vote for the Republican that will fuck the economy up so there aren't any jobs, or for the Democrat that will push for more free trade agreements so there aren't any jobs. Either way the rich win and everyone else loses.

I say this as someone that took part in GOTV efforts in Alabama and talked to a hell of a lot of people. You want the unaffiliated voters under 40 in red states to flock to you? Ditch the free trade bullshit and go tell them how you'll make their lives better.

That 18-40 are the people you want, because you want to win elections ten years from now, too. And you don't have to win too many of them over to utterly wreck gerrymandered districts.

[RainDog]

40. Yes. There's definitely that

you hear that ALL the time in just about anywhere I've been in this nation.

I was talking about who was actually going to the polls - motivated voters who want to deny rights b/c of religious beliefs, etc. Those are not going to be votes out there for the picking. The Republican base in the south.

I think most people have believed for a while that our representatives don't really represent our goals for this nation - or democrats come off as too conservative for some, which puts them off from voting - but if they don't show up to vote for a liberal, it's the same old same old.

[JoeyT]

41. Yeah, the Republican base will be a problem for a while.

I don't particularly want to woo them though. I want to woo their children and grandchildren and watch them shriek in impotent rage as they fade into irrelevance.

[BillZBubb]

12. Everyone knows the Democrats need voters.

But to bring the southern whites on board, we'd have to get as loony as the republicans. Do we want to sell our souls for short term political gain?

[pipoman]

14. Being the opposition to labor exporting trade agreements, as it should be,

Would earn the votes of many...How Democrats became the champion of exporting jobs...Selling out to the same masters as the thugs has sent much of the labor vote to the right.

[RainDog]

15. Why not focus on Republicans keeping unions out of the south?

...one problem is the "anti-union" mindset of many in the south - the way the argument used to go is that unions are corrupt... therefore getting shafted on wages is a good thing, or some such.... but it's also that thinking that unions are "outsider" and traditionally northern and midwestern.

before that, unions were associated with godless communists.

It's not free trade per se with the south - it's an identification among too many whites with the white corporate/political leaders who dog whistle about any sort of govt. programs.

AND - why not talk about the way state-level Republicans have needlessly punished the poor in their states by not accepting mc payments.

The campaigns in the south are always centered around who is the candidate the white fundie protestant god wants, unless there are districts that are not gerrymandered to benefit such voters.

the other areas of the south that are consistently liberal are cities - as in every other part of the country.

maybe a focus on GOTV in cities would help?

[JI7]

24. the people themselves voted against joining a union at the VW plant

but it's easy for certain types to just complain about both sides being the same.

[RainDog]

27. yeah.

that's why I mentioned the anti-union sentiment in the south.

it's crazy, but then so is insisting noah had dinosaurs in the ark.

if Democrats wanted to do something like the Freedom Riders for election days - or whoever would do that - I bet they could get a good turn out for volunteers.

I've voted early in a couple of elections in order to have a paper ballot, so anyone in a state that offers the same could do it.

it would maybe even generate publicity to show busloads of people armed with portapotties.. lol. j/k but you know what I mean.

every year Republicans suppress the vote - imagine if there were young people who could remind others of the importance of voting that created the first Freedom Riders.

my other thought on this subject was to create something like the "Full Voting Rights Righteous Democratic Gospel Choir" - something silly but serious too, that could go places to perform - parks, etc, and have people there to register voters long before voting - and people could find out if others would need rides to the polls, etc.

They could take songs like You Better Run and change the lyrics to "Vote, vote, vote. You better vote, better vote better vote, you better vote in the precinct you live in, you better vote... or something like that. Maybe people would think it's sacreligious - but I don't mean it that way.

Someone could talk about the way spirituals were a way enslaved people communicated to others about escape routes on the underground railroad, etc... to make that point as well.

[JI7]

23. the people themselves voted against joining a union at the VW plant

[pipoman]

39. After a threat/promise about the same it was narrowly defeated..

[pragmatic_dem]

22. Dems never lost the south... they panicked after Reagan

and decided a new more conservative political party was needed. Reagan and Regan gave free money away to rich people. Embarrassed by Carter, frightened by Reagan, Democratic Party leadership made a wrong headed decision to do the same.

So it became a battle to win the rich. When the best interests of the rich overlap with the other 99% of us, it looks like progress is being made. Typically, in areas of social policy.

But in terms of economic policy, it is conservative, trickle down, supply-side policy; alive and well in both parties. Same goes for military policy, both foreign and domestic.

The rich are hoping to keep us busy with abortion, as jobs continue to hemorrhage to Asia, H1Bs continue to flood our labor pool, and new trade agreements suck the last dime from the middle class while entitlements for the rich remain untouched.

Both parties are following the money, and that means they represent the rich first.

Johnson, Carter, Clinton - from the south, of course.

Best way to keep people away from extremism is improving justice, jobs and quality of life.

Dems let Wall Street walk away with the greatest fraud in recorded history, then followed that up by defending a massive domestic surveillance program and pushed for a new trade agreement that would send even more jobs to Asia.

And they wonder why voters are cynical.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. Liberals never lost the South. Dixiecrats simply changed their name and affiliation.

[Cali_Democrat]

29. Bingo. nt

[jaysunb]

33. +1 n/t

[dionysus]

32. there are plenty of good liberal southerners, but alas, outnumbered. my brother in georgia sincerely

believes Obama is the anti-Christ, and that satan has taken over the film and music industries.

he preaches trickle down, but lives in a trailer.

hates that "libruls" call him a racist but he says "wetback", and most likely outside of my presence he calls black people niggers.

he doesn't think America is broke because of the trillions wasted on war, he thinks it's because of the people on welfare.

of course he means Blacks and Hispanics on welfare, because his white daughters get Govt Assistance, but it isn't bad if you're a good, white Jesus lovin (but also loves guns, which Jesus wouldn't like) person on welfare.

considered, my Dad is named Delano after the D in FDR (he was born in 1935) these family chats don't end too well

[Recursion]

36. The South ain't lost. The Reverse Great Migration is happening now

It may end up actually being bigger than the original one.

[eridani]

38. Both Bageant and Ivins pointed out that if Dems had not abandoned economic populism--

--that all the culture war crap would have made much less difference.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2004/09/karaoke_night_i.html


The fat lady sings, then drops dead. Dot's life has been every bit as hard as Patsy's. Harder because she has lived twice as long as Patsy Cline managed to. By the time my people hit 60 they look like a bunch of hypertensive red faced toads in a phlegm coughing contest. Fact is, we are even unhealthier than we look. Doctors tell us that we have blood in our cholesterol and the cops tell us there is alcohol in that blood. True to our class, Dottie is disabled by heart trouble, diabetes and several other diseases. Her blood pressure is so high the doctor at first thought the pressure device was broken. Insurance costs her as much as rent. Her old man makes $8.00 an hour washing cars at a dealership, and if everything goes just right they have about $55 a week for groceries, gas and everything else. But if an extra expense as small as $30 comes in, they compensate by not filling one of Dot's prescriptions -- or two or three of them -- in which case she gets sicker and sicker until they can afford the copay to refill the prescriptions again. At 59, these repeated lapses into vessel popping high blood pressure and diabetic surges pretty much guarantee that she won't collect Social Security for long after she reaches 63. If she reaches 63. One of these days it will truly be over when the fat lady sings.

<snip>

Although my people seem to step on their own dicks (I couldn't think of a female metaphor) every time they get near polling place, it is not entirely because we are drunken inbreds, although it is a contributing factor. The truth is that Dottie would vote for any candidate, black, white, crippled, blind or crazy, that she thought would actually help her. I know because I have asked her if she would vote for a president who wanted a nationalized health care program?" "Vote for him? I'd go down on him!" Voter approval doesn't get much stronger than that.

But no candidate, Republican or Democrat, is going to offer nationalized health care, not the genuine article. Of course we expect the Republicans to be pricks, but the Democrats are no better. Guys like John Kerry think they can stay in Washington and BUY progress with the money they take from health care industry lobbyists buying off both parties with campaign contributions. John Kerry does not know anybody in Dottie's class. John Edwards claims to, but he's not very convincing to these people. As Dink puts it, "Neither one of 'em gets me hard." If Dot is lucky, a Democratic pollster might call her, take her political temperature over the phone to be fed into some computer. But that is about as much contact as our system is willing to have with a 300 pound diabetic woman with a small bird and a husband too depressed to get out of his TV chair other than to piss or stumble off to his car washing job.