it's not only voting rights-you can literally hear them salivating and panting like mad dogs over the latest anti-abortion case to actually make it to the Supreme Court..they are literally cheering it on-they don't just want segregation, they want women's rights revoked, the 14th Amendment thrown out and it's back to the 19th century with all due fanfare. They hate anything that advances the causes of women or POC and they'll stop at nothing to do stop them. Even rigging votes and keeping an insane con man in office.
They've all lost their minds except they still love the power their offices give them.
The problem with segregation is that when black communities become self-sufficient/successful the Republicans will destroy them just like in Tulsa. Just saying...
A couple of things: first, about Jesse Helms. I think you're underestimating him, Lucian. In his KILL SWITCH, Adam Jentleson makes a persuasive case that by the late 1970s he was the Senate's "master of the filibuster," which he used "to drive broader messages and advance a larger mission [than that of Sen. James Allen, who used it mostly for his own ends]: purifying the Republican Party by pulling it further to the right." Note the timing here: by the time Reagan was elected, Helms was well on the way to achieving his goal.
The other thing, about desegregation and the expansion of citizenship rights to include African Americans. In her excellent THE SUM OF US Heather McGhee argues, with solid economic and political evidence, that this was pretty much what broke up the post–New Deal consensus that supported an active role for government in improving people's lives. Many, many white people didn't want any of their tax dollars, or anyone else's tax dollars, supporting Black people in any way. Reagan and his successors (including Bill Clinton) played to this in a variety of ways, notably by attacks on the social safety net and the "war on drugs," which led to the mass incarceration of people of color. Education was very much affected, at all levels. Public schools might be legally integrated, but in areas where there were significant numbers of non-white people, the white people sent their kids to private or parochial schools or took up home-schooling. Dwindling public support for community and state colleges led to escalating tuition and (surprise, surprise) the student debt crisis of today.
The first line of McGhee's book asks "Why can't we have nice things?" Then she proceeds to answer the question. (Spoiler: Racism has a lot to do with it.)
Yeah, I've been reading a lot lately, and I strongly recommend reading these two books in close proximity. Taken together, and with an eye on the chronology, they explain a lot of what the GOP has been up to for decades now. I continue to hope that what we're seeing now is an extinction burst: the toddler throwing a world-class tantrum in the grocery store because his parents won't buy the Honey Smacks. But this particular toddler has already done plenty of damage, and is capable of doing plenty more.
State Sovereignty is just a 21st century term for Jim Crow and no one is being fooled. Progress sometimes slows or might go backward for a time, (Germany 1930's) but eventually it moves forward. President Obama's belief in the arch of moral justice is a real thing. Humanity has moved away from supernaturalism and medieval fantasy, we're not going back. Genetics is not going to be rewritten by republicans and women's rights are not going away. The Supreme court can overturn Roe V Wade and Brown V Board of Education but they can't erase progress. Russia copied the 18th century French and tried to reinvent the calendar and that lasted a few years and then went away. Trump holds sway today but by 2023 the country will get bored and let him go. Extremism defeats itself. Even Jesse Helms was finally dismissed and his handiwork tossed into the ash bin of history. Sen. McConnell and Congressman McCarthy are not the future, but a minor distraction.
I wish I could be as optimistic as you are-but when you see how many people actually believe the lie that DT actually won the election but it was 'stolen' from him, and also mask mandates are evil, the virus is a hoax, I don't give a lot of hope for this country at times. There are entire swaths of people who believe that women and POC should not have the right to vote, and the police are justified in lethal force every time..and they're growing larger. Until DT is convicted and put in prison along with a few other Republicans, this country is running on fumes and conspiracy theories.
I applaud your positive thinking but there’s a hell of a lot of hell to go through before we get to a place in our country where I’m similarly optimistic.
What really scares me is that Trump is about 10 years into his run if you look at his racist birther assault on Obama as a start point. Hitler had a 20 year run, Trump has 10 more to go to really fuck things up...he MUST be stopped!
Having lived through these times you write about, I hate to say that I agree with you and I shudder to think what this country will be like if we allow the white supremacists in Congress to undo all progress of these past few decades.
it's not only voting rights-you can literally hear them salivating and panting like mad dogs over the latest anti-abortion case to actually make it to the Supreme Court..they are literally cheering it on-they don't just want segregation, they want women's rights revoked, the 14th Amendment thrown out and it's back to the 19th century with all due fanfare. They hate anything that advances the causes of women or POC and they'll stop at nothing to do stop them. Even rigging votes and keeping an insane con man in office.
They've all lost their minds except they still love the power their offices give them.
Fuck them all.
Every supporter of this abortion assault hates women!
One has to wonder if their daughters and granddaughters hate them all as much as Mitch McTurtle’s do.
The problem with segregation is that when black communities become self-sufficient/successful the Republicans will destroy them just like in Tulsa. Just saying...
Why do Republicans hate America?
And women. Based on results.
Absolutely 🤬‼️
A couple of things: first, about Jesse Helms. I think you're underestimating him, Lucian. In his KILL SWITCH, Adam Jentleson makes a persuasive case that by the late 1970s he was the Senate's "master of the filibuster," which he used "to drive broader messages and advance a larger mission [than that of Sen. James Allen, who used it mostly for his own ends]: purifying the Republican Party by pulling it further to the right." Note the timing here: by the time Reagan was elected, Helms was well on the way to achieving his goal.
The other thing, about desegregation and the expansion of citizenship rights to include African Americans. In her excellent THE SUM OF US Heather McGhee argues, with solid economic and political evidence, that this was pretty much what broke up the post–New Deal consensus that supported an active role for government in improving people's lives. Many, many white people didn't want any of their tax dollars, or anyone else's tax dollars, supporting Black people in any way. Reagan and his successors (including Bill Clinton) played to this in a variety of ways, notably by attacks on the social safety net and the "war on drugs," which led to the mass incarceration of people of color. Education was very much affected, at all levels. Public schools might be legally integrated, but in areas where there were significant numbers of non-white people, the white people sent their kids to private or parochial schools or took up home-schooling. Dwindling public support for community and state colleges led to escalating tuition and (surprise, surprise) the student debt crisis of today.
The first line of McGhee's book asks "Why can't we have nice things?" Then she proceeds to answer the question. (Spoiler: Racism has a lot to do with it.)
Yeah, I've been reading a lot lately, and I strongly recommend reading these two books in close proximity. Taken together, and with an eye on the chronology, they explain a lot of what the GOP has been up to for decades now. I continue to hope that what we're seeing now is an extinction burst: the toddler throwing a world-class tantrum in the grocery store because his parents won't buy the Honey Smacks. But this particular toddler has already done plenty of damage, and is capable of doing plenty more.
State Sovereignty is just a 21st century term for Jim Crow and no one is being fooled. Progress sometimes slows or might go backward for a time, (Germany 1930's) but eventually it moves forward. President Obama's belief in the arch of moral justice is a real thing. Humanity has moved away from supernaturalism and medieval fantasy, we're not going back. Genetics is not going to be rewritten by republicans and women's rights are not going away. The Supreme court can overturn Roe V Wade and Brown V Board of Education but they can't erase progress. Russia copied the 18th century French and tried to reinvent the calendar and that lasted a few years and then went away. Trump holds sway today but by 2023 the country will get bored and let him go. Extremism defeats itself. Even Jesse Helms was finally dismissed and his handiwork tossed into the ash bin of history. Sen. McConnell and Congressman McCarthy are not the future, but a minor distraction.
I wish I could be as optimistic as you are-but when you see how many people actually believe the lie that DT actually won the election but it was 'stolen' from him, and also mask mandates are evil, the virus is a hoax, I don't give a lot of hope for this country at times. There are entire swaths of people who believe that women and POC should not have the right to vote, and the police are justified in lethal force every time..and they're growing larger. Until DT is convicted and put in prison along with a few other Republicans, this country is running on fumes and conspiracy theories.
I applaud your positive thinking but there’s a hell of a lot of hell to go through before we get to a place in our country where I’m similarly optimistic.
Yup.
What really scares me is that Trump is about 10 years into his run if you look at his racist birther assault on Obama as a start point. Hitler had a 20 year run, Trump has 10 more to go to really fuck things up...he MUST be stopped!
Having lived through these times you write about, I hate to say that I agree with you and I shudder to think what this country will be like if we allow the white supremacists in Congress to undo all progress of these past few decades.
Civil war?