To understand the Republican Party, grab a highlighter and a

[hedgehog]

copy of Gone With the Wind.

Seriously.

I'm re-reading it for book club, with eyes opened by the fine revisionist historians who've come along since the 1970's. Or should I say, the fine historians who dug done to find out what really happened. Even within this novel, the author accidentally reveals the reality she denies.

The book is important not because it describes what happened, but because it is the Bible of the Great Myth.

This is not an attack on the South, but on a mythical version of the South that is a festering sore. There a many people in the North who have adopted the attitudes of the novel whole hog.

An example: the claim made repeatedly that freed blacks were transported from place to place on election days to stuff the ballot boxes for the Republican Party. (This was during Reconstruction, when the roles of the parties were pretty much the opposite of what they are today.) The charges are practically word for word the same justifications being used today to support voter suppression laws!

[HockeyMom]

1. Now they just redistrict

This is how they keep Republicans in power. Have a section that is mostly Dem, and Minority? Redistrict it to another area. A part of Naples, Florida is districted into Miami. Guess who are in this portion? Besides, look at a map and see where Naples and Miami are. It only make sense for one reason.

[hedgehog]

2. Gerrymandering is almost as old as the Republic.

Here in New York the bargaining to preserve the Democratic hold on the Assembly and Republican hold on the State Senate is embarrassing. It results in a dysfunctional state government and has hollowed out both parties.

What's pertinent to my OP is that Mitchell assumed that Georgia belonged to the rich white people. People of color and/or poor people and/or newcomers need not apply. Any efforts, legal or illegal, to restore power to the proper people are legitimate. Sound familiar?