The Ugly Side Of The GOP

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I applaud the thousands of people, many of them poor, who traveled from around the country to protest in Jena, La., last week. But what I’d really like to see is a million angry protesters marching on the headquarters of the National Republican Party in Washington.


Enough is enough. Last week the Republicans showed once again just how anti-black their party really is.
...


This is the party of the Southern strategy — the party that ran, like panting dogs, after the votes of segregationist whites who were repelled by the very idea of giving equal treatment to blacks. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. (Willie Horton) Bush, George W. (Compassionate Conservative) Bush — they all ran with that lousy pack.

...



In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan’s presidency, the late Lee Atwater gave an interview to a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, explaining the evolution of the Southern strategy:

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Ni--er, ni--er, ni--er,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘ni--er’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/opinion/25herbert.html?_r=1&n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/Bob%20Herbert&oref=slogin

[bryant69]

1. Southern Strategy should be remembered

They are trying to airbrush it out of history.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. Yeah

In 68 Nixon beats Humphrey 43% to 42%... Wallace gets 15% or so of the vote, mostly from disaffected white southerners... In 72 Nixon adopts the Southern Strategy, co opts the Wallace voters and trounces McGovern 61%-39% by getting all the Wallace votes and then some... In 76, the Dems run a white , southern Protestant male for pres and get enough of the disaffected white voters back, sweep the south, and win the White House...

We could go campaign by campaign to the present...


A lot of history there...

[WCGreen]

10. They adopted that strategy with the Silent majority crap in '68...

And Kevin Phillips. the man behind that slogan, has been apologizing for it ever since...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. The GOPU Didn't Really Need A Strategy

Many of those votes fell into their lap... When Johnson passed the epic civil rights legislation he opined it would cost the Democratic party control of the South for a generation...

[WCGreen]

17. He was right...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Agree, But, the "ugly side" presupposes a "not ugly side".

One that has been invisible to me.

[Beetwasher]

3. "The Ugly Side"?????

That implies there's a side that's NOT ugly. It's ugly all the way down.

[redqueen]

4. There's a non-ugly side?

:shrug:

[SoCalDem]

7. good answer..

:)

[catnhatnh]

8. Nope...

Just like Anderson Cooper, they are ugly 360.....

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

14. The only explanation is the GOP is a Möbius strip.

[redqueen]

15. Yup... ugly any way you look at it.

How else can anyone view a party based on racism, greed, and faked religious beliefs?

:shrug:

[yardwork]

5. Is there a non-ugly side to the GOP?

I used to think so, but I think they are all long gone.

[PDenton]

9. Forced bussing sucked

I was a victim of forced bussing. If that makes me a closet racist just becaues my parents withdrew me from public schools, then there is something deeply wrong with the soul of liberals. They didn't withdraw me because they hated blacks, but because the hour long bus ride straight into the ghetto was killing my performance in school.

[redqueen]

11. A "victim" of forced bussing? Interesting terminology you use there...

I ENJOYED the PRIVILEGE of "forced" bussing.

Guess it's all a matter of perspective.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. Jesse Jackson Used To Have A Saying

"It's not the bus. It's us."

[PDenton]

18. bussing into the ghetto

was turning me into a nutcase. I hated the ghetto, I hated the grafitti everywhere, the smell of hair relaxer in every class. I was too young to really understand the sufferings of African-Americans, and I doubt I would even care to understand at that point. All I knew was I was uncomfortable being in that school. What was funny and sick is the number of kids who were poor but wearing expensive tennis shoes. My parents did not raise me in poverty and we never cracked jokes about what shoes people wore (I usually wore Payless), and I never heard so many tasteless jokes about "lay-away".

Bussing is just collective punishment on the privileged. I'm glad it is over and no longer practiced. It is no way to heal a nation, whatever its intents were. It took me a long while before I felt remotely comfortable around blacks after that. I don't know if that was an intended consequence or not, but I sort of doubt that's what all those civil rights leaders set out to do.

Oh yeah, the private school I went to was not all white. It was mostly white sure but there were some black kids there. It was a great experience. I remember learning alot more than I thought I'd ever know about Canada and South America. One teacher there was a bit of a jerk but the rest were pretty nice.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

20. What would your solution to the problem of de facto segregation have been..

I was in junior high when desegregation came to my particular neck of the woods.

I clearly remember being treated as a pariah by many of my fellow white students because I actually tried to treat blacks as fellow human beings..

Put the shoe on the other foot sometimes and see how it feels.

[PDenton]

21. there is no easy solution that is fair to everyone

maybe redistributing money and resources to underprivileged areas?

Punishing kids for being white and living in an affluent neihborhood is wrong. It does nothing. Kids should go to local schools that are in their town, or close to it. Not on the other side of the county.

[redqueen]

22. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

As for my experience, I was also bussed into "the ghetto", but not forced. That's where the talented and gifted magnet was located, in an annex to an inner-city school. So I got to hear rapping and beat-boxing at lunch, and got to know kids I'd never have had the chance to otherwise.

I wore hand-me-downs but only got put down for it at middle class schools.

Just goes to show... much in life is perspective / attitude.

[youthere]

12. The only ugly sides to the GOP-the outside and the inside.

[Name removed]

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