I know that some of my readers come in and out, and I know that others are regulars, checking in on some kind of schedule. For those who drop in occasionally, depending on what publishing event draws them, it is possible for you to get wildly disparate ideas of what is going on here. I am sometimes attacked by some folks as a racist, hiding my paleo-conservative outrages under a thin veneer of Jesus-talk. I am also attacked by others as a race traitor, one who believes that blacks can do no wrong.
It is difficult for me not to take this phenomenon as clear evidence that I am a true moderate, right in the middle of the road. I am standing on the yellow lines, arms outstretched, with extremists to my left and right. That’s really the only theory that accounts for all the evidence.
This is said as a run-up to a clarification I need to make. That’s what moderates do—issue clarifications, right? The clarification is important enough that I am filing this post under retractions so that people can find it later.
In my recent response to The Huffington Post, I said this:
“The state of the black family today in the United States is tragic, and you can’t blame slavery for it. Thomas Sowell makes this point. “In the late nineteenth century, when blacks were just one generation out of slavery, there was nothing like today’s level of unwed births or failure to participate in the labor force” (Black Rednecks and White Liberals, p. 161).
“Official Census data show that blacks had slightly higher marriage rates than whites for every census from 1890 to 1940, but far lower marriage rates than whites by 1960” (Ibid. p. 161).
Note, according to the headline, I was talking about the black FAMILY. What slavery couldn’t do, what decades of Jim Crow couldn’t do, the Great Society—brim full of unmitigated whiteness as it was—accomplished in just one generation. And what was that? Demolish the black family.”
Go back to that first sentence, and you will find what I want to clarify. What I wrote was that you can’t blame slavery for the tragic state of the black family today. I still hold that, but a reasonable reader could think that I was maintaining that slavery had absolutely nothing to do with it, which is not what I believe. I do believe that (race-based) slavery two centuries ago has left a complicated and tangled legacy, and that we are all still dealing with it.
But I do not believe that the slavery, and the bigotry that followed the slavery era, are the prime culprits in our current woes. Our current woes are largely being caused by current idiocies. What I believe, and what I was seeking to argue, is that socialistic do-goodery has done to blacks what it is capable of doing to any race or tribe, wherever it is instituted. It is working its magic in Venezuela right this minute.
What has happened to the inner city black family has also been done to our Indian reservations, and the Indians were never slaves. What has been done to the American blacks has also been done to whites in London, where all the same pathologies appear, and have been recorded for anyone who is willing to read. What has been done to the black family, whatever devastation it was, did not fully appear until a century after slavery ended. It did not really manifest itself until the white liberals of the Great Society appeared, checkbook in hand, ready to wreck. And make no mistake—if there is a besetting white sin, it is the hubris and lunacy of rationalized socialism.
So the reason slavery had something to do with it is pretty straightforward. Because of race-based slavery, and because of the resultant bad blood from how slavery was ended, and because of Jim Crow bigotries, the liberals were in a position to make a plausible case for “restitution” of some sort. Every irrational bigot of the previous two centuries was ceding the moral high ground to the liberals, which is why they got a chance to try out their jitney salvation on the black family. Restitution is clearly in order, they said. We have to do something, they said. We have to fix things, they said. They said all these things while carefully holding their economic nincompooperies behind their back.
But you don’t make restitution to a people by destroying them.
I agree with you on the problem, and certainly don’t think it’s limited to blacks. To widen the issue beyond the salient cases you mentioned, we could draw in a discussion of the drastic rise in heroin-overdose deaths in the Midwest. The point I take issue with is what makes for an effective solution. The standard conservative line has been that removing the incentives to be unproductive will be sufficient. But not everyone is capable of being, or willing to be, self-supporting, and I think we have to have an answer for those people. (Again, this isn’t a problem restricted… Read more »
Somewhere the line between offering a helping hand and becoming a nanny has been blurred.
I’d think the first step is to provide opportunities to support the sudden influx of unskilled labor. The second would be to remove incentives to stay unemployed. I don’t know if the middle to older generations who have never entered the workforce would be willing workers or not, but it’s worth trying.
It’s a tough and good question, ashv.
I’d like to think the unwilling outnumber the truly unable and that it is possible to distinguish between them, yet there is probably some overlap too. Perhaps part of the answer is to re-think our concept of self-sufficiency, and to start with the realization that none of us truly and completely are. Might not a Christian response include looking at the problem in terms of mutual obligation? That seems to be the biblical emphasis, and it includes a particular obligation within families. To complicate things though, we’re not just dealing with individuals within families are we? Three characteristics of our… Read more »
Ephesians 4
28 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.
Once again, The Word has things covered! ; – )
Does this cover your treatment of infants and elderly parents?
Infants: Luke 11 11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for[f] a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Elderly parents: Ephesians 6 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long… Read more »
I wish I knew. By definition there are always going to be people with low IQs. In my childhood there were jobs that paid enough for a man to support his family and that did not require a high level of academic intelligence. I no longer see as many of those kinds of jobs. It is useless to tell such people they can rise from poverty by designing computer software at home. My chief concern is for those who want to work, who are willing to work hard, and who will never find a job that will provide self-sufficiency.
This is precisely the kind of thing I have in mind. So far as I can see, the three choices are that a person can be a self-supporting taxpayer, a ward of an individual or private group, or a ward of the state. While trying to get as many people possible into the first column is laudable, the latter two need to be considered as well.
Trumpkin
Doug WIlson – I think you are moderate among your readers. But I think your readers in no way represent the national whole. I don’t think anyone on this page represent the center of the national sentiment.
I’d argue with you, but I’m too busy teaching the neighbor’s kids the finer points of field dressing a deer. :) (kidding. It’s not deer season yet.)
It’s getting close though. :-)
I immediately visualized a deer wearing a blue velvet dress and a summer hat.
It’s a lot like that. Kind of like Sacajawea meets Jackie O.
High Cascades already started in Oregon.
Certainly “representing the center of the national sentiment” would not be considered a virtue. Pastor Wilson has obviously been reading Thomas Sowell-a very dangerous man.
More rebuking them sharply?
LOL
My take-away is that Wilson is saying liberalism is worse than slavery. Would you disagree?
My take-away is that Wilson is saying liberalism is worse than slavery. Would you disagree?
Did you even read my comment?
Yes, yes I did. And I was even able to discern its meaning.
Now that we’ve covered that, would you care to answer my question with something other than a question?
Modern liberalism is, ironically enough, a form of slavery where people are enslaved to the government, for their own good.
Actually, I believe the enslavement is primarily for the good of those in power.
Well, yes. I should have put that bit in quotes, to indicate sarcasm.
I saw the implied quotes.
Duly noted. Carry on, sir.
Pastor Wilson,
Thanks for the post!
I have never noticed ads on your blog before. At the bottom I see “Melissa FINALLY reveals secret to 75 pound weight loss.” Just a heads up!
It happened once before. Probably whenever disqus pushes an update it resets the preferences to allow ads by default.
Speak for yourself. Some of us have been waiting a long time for Melissa to let us know that weight loss comes by endlessly clicking through a series of computer-crashing shockwave plugins.
One needs reference points. If we are them then oh dear.
I come here enough to know that Doug is a fan of marvel comics.
Amen! This is a great clarification and I am in agreement.
Something I noticed about BLM, no mention of black men, no mention of fathers. Really unfortunate because it is yet another exploitation. They are outraged over the deaths of men and yet men have no place in the agenda and mission statement of what they stand for. If anything it is about smashing the patriarchy and dismantling what is left of the traditional family
Forgiveness is the best response to Moral debts. Moral value and monitary value are not the same currency, and can’t pay debts of the opposite kind. Galatians 6 2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. 4 Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, 5 for each one should carry their own load. 6 Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should… Read more »
The people calling you a racist are typical liberals, while the people calling you a “race traitor” are on the extreme right. So no, not quite a moderate, unless everything between Hitler and Pol Pot is moderate.
The real flaw in your argument is that if liberalism is so bad for black people, why don’t black people notice? The only possibility is delusion. If it were a 50/50 thing then you might have some ground there, but it’s more like 90+%. Clearly something else is going on here.
“Clearly something else is going on here”
1. Decades of effective social engineering from the Left
2. Rampant racism lurking in the heart of so many on the Right.
“Rampant racism lurking in the heart of so many on the Right.”
And, once again, ‘ME’ proves that she’s just another leftist.
No, I speak the truth. Shall I link to all the discussions advocating white nationalism, to all the articles alleging DNA makes black folks less intelligent, to all the vile and appalling comments about race on this very blog?
It’s a huge pile of elephant poo right in the middle of the room, and we all try to politely avert our eyes as if it doesn’t exist, but it’s real enough.
That might be interesting, but be sure to also link to all the Black Panther, Malcolm X, black liberation theology, Margaret Sanger, and Black Lives Matter websites you can find. While you will no doubt find some pretty stupid sites promoting white nationalism, you’ll no doubt be intrigued that those decrying the racism of these sites are simply the pot calling the kettle–well, ahem–Black.
Since when is racism supposed to be some kind of competition? Besides, there’s a huge difference here, BLM, Malcolm X, etc aren’t even pretending to be Christians. The white nationalists are.
Of course it is competitive. That’s why they call it a race.
So…do you believe intelligence isn’t inheritable?
llion, you call me a leftist, as a reference to collectivism perhaps? No, not at all, but I do think we must find some “collective” balance between the two extremes of “personal responsibility means nothing that befalls another person is ever going to be my problem,” versus I am entitled to perpetual victim status. Like it or not, I and many others have not been impressed by the vast majority of those of the right side of the aisle’s unwilingness to even look at the log in our own eye. Even many conservative Christians, quick to point fingers at homosexuals,… Read more »
Rampant? In so many?? I know personal experience is never a good judge of the larger macrocosm, but I have to admit to seeing quite the opposite playing out. I suppose your personal experience could be entirely different, but from my POV, true racism hardly exists anymore and the word has been trotted out so damnably frequently that it has lost all reasonable meaning. Furthermore, where true racism does still lurk, it is rather found the ProgLibs, which have spent SO MUCH ENERGY perpetuating Black dependency on others. Lastly, I would add that the “something else” going on is culture,… Read more »
When do you think the Southern Strategy stopped working? I’d love to hear an actual general date range. Why did “Obama was born in Kenya!” get so much traction when neither he nor his mom had been anywhere near that half of the world, and the idea of a heavily pregnant woman of meagre means secretly flying across oceans in 1960 to have a baby in a remote Kenyan village for no discernable reason and then immediately lie about it, is one of the stupidest ideas that an entire political party can latch onto… yet they somehow came up with… Read more »
Jonathan wrote: Why does Trump associate with that network so closely, and why does it appear to win him more votes than it loses? The obvious answer is that Trump is a populist, and is good at saying what people want to hear. The implied question is, why do people want to hear this sort of talk? I think it’s a counter-reaction against the bleeding heart, PC movement, idle, false-guilt-peddlers. If folks are going to be condemned as racist anyway, regardless, then there is nothing to lose in assuming the mantle, and there is a great deal to be gained… Read more »
“If folks are going to be condemned as racist anyway, regardless, then there is nothing to lose in assuming the mantle…” If by “assuming the mantle” you mean sneer at false accusations and say “think whatever you want”, I get it. On the other hand if you mean “fine I’ll really be what you call me” or “you were right all along, I’ll finally own up to it”, then I am not sympathetic. I believe there is a great deal to be lost by actually assuming that mantle. I’ve been want to ask someone rational, and not emotionally invested in… Read more »
An excellent question. I tend to put Republican candidates and their supporters into three categories. First, the old-style patricians who vote Republican as certainly as they go to New England boarding schools and dress for dinner. I don’t think the average Trump supporter has much use for these people. Secondly, evangelical Christians who reject the Dems on moral grounds. These may or may not support Republican fiscal policy. The ones who aren’t necessarily conservative on fiscal issues also include cross-over Catholics who aren’t on board with baby-killing. I don’t see the appeal there for the kind of angry, secular Trump… Read more »
I suppose fit into the second category. When it comes to purely economic issues, theoretically I more or less split the difference, but in view of practice I reject Republicans and Democrats about equally. Of course moral issues and fiscal matters overlap considerably, so I have tended to tip toward the GOP even on fiscal issues.
I think a sense of betrayal is a reasonable explanation for why the GOP is in the doghouse, although I think the phenomena is mostly at the federal level, and not nearly so much at the local level.
Along with JohnM, I’m not sympathetic with anyone who actually takes up the cause of racism. When I say “nothing to lose”, I mean in the eyes of the social justice warrior types, not in God’s eyes.
I never doubted you. :)
JohnM, I think the sense is that it was all a sham. William Kristol, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News. People really believed that they were real conservatives and cared about America. The truth they found was really heartbreaking to them. I never understood the attraction to Rush, but a lot of folks were crushed when he continually sneered at Trump supporters. People actually thought that he was just ill informed and not a puppet on a string. It was a lot like finding out your beloved spouse was not only cheating on you but that she never loved or even liked… Read more »
Funny thing is Fox “News”, Limbaugh, and the like prepared the ground for Trump’s success. I get the feeling Trump supporters are still down with the style, whatever they have come to think of individual media figures.
I’m not sure about the style part as I don’t watch TV, but their dishonesty and hypocricy certainly paved the way for Trump. The problem for the media, the DNC and the GOP is that Trump is intimately familiar with all of them and how they work. They, on the other hand, know very little about what drives the average American. This is why he will win by such a large margin. When Trump announced I wondered if having a president who was a master at playing according to the world’s rules was a good idea. I still don’t know… Read more »
The style is a lot like Trump’s, though slightly more coherent than his, that bar being set as low as it is.
For a number of reasons I have no expectation that Christians will wrestle back control under a Trump administration, starting with the fact that Christians never had control in the first place. A lot of Christians have entered public discourse for as long as I can remember, and yet, here we are.
I have hope that Christians have learned from their mistakes and recognize the consequences of doing nothing. Also I pray that we have repented for not regarding our liberty in Christ as something that we must cherish, maintain and protect.
You could be right, but I hope in this instance that you are wrong!
People who aren’t never make it to the Presidency.
I would disagree with that. I see most of the political folks as people who are willing to be good puppets. Very few in politics call the shots independently. They are all subservient to various donors, party leadership, etc.
Trump is different in that he has become the R nominee because he is such an adept player. If he hadn’t been, he never would have gotten this far. Look at how he Rickrolled the press this morning. That’s being a master player.
I agree about the difference in character. I’d just say that they’re playing the same game, except Trump is a king instead of a pawn.
Very well said, and that’s my concern. At least when pawns are in charge, other pawns act as a natural brake on some of their bad ideas. With Trump, I expect he will accomplish what he sets out to do. Is that good or bad?
If they were in charge, they wouldn’t be pawns. :-) Trump is an unusual billionaire, going after formal power directly rather than exerting informal power (as is done by people like Sheldon Adelson or George Soros). Is what Trump sets out to do good? Building the border wall and deporting invaders certainly will be. Everything else is less important.
I don’t think anyone understands Trumpism, really. Maybe it’s too soon and we need some hindsight. One explanation is that it is the revolt of true conservatives against the faithless RINOs. But then Trump isn’t a conservative and never claimed to be. A significant part of his appeal seems to be that he doesn’t much care about conservative orthodoxy. Another explanation is that the relentless demagoguery of right-wing radio and such has taken on a life of its own. Republicans were happy to accept the benefits of riling up the base, but always kept it at an arm’s length and… Read more »
One can admire one’s enemies even while fighting them. Traitors deserve no pity.
I agree with most of what you say Katecho, except for the source. When do you think this counter-reaction started?
Since the Southern Strategy that Trump is employing was used, by the RNC’s own admission, from the early 1960s through the 1990s, is this a counter-reaction to the bleeding heart PC movement of the 1950s? Or do you have to admit that the sentiments were already there long before “PC” was a word in anyone’s vocabulary?
Jonathan wrote: … is this a counter-reaction to the bleeding heart PC movement of the 1950s? I doubt it, since most of Trump’s supporters weren’t even around in the 50’s. Jonathan wrote: Or do you have to admit that the sentiments were already there long before “PC” was a word in anyone’s vocabulary? As many times as Jonathan has dropped the words “Southern Strategy” lately, one wonders if he is really in touch with what words are in everyone’s vocabulary. Distrust of Washington elites is primarily what is driving support for Trump. His supporters are mostly working class folks who… Read more »
“Why does Trump associate with that network so closely, and why does it appear to win him more votes than it loses?”
Because that demographic is bigger than any ‘fassionable’ person wants to admit?
Let’s see, I think it was long abouts February 17, 1890 to November 12, 1987. Somewhere in there.
If this question and the rest of your post weren’t so filled with Liberal tripe, I might stop to wonder what in the world you were even talking about. I was speaking of cultural issues, which has nothing to do with race…and you asked me when I thought the “Southern Strategy” stopped working? I might think I was missing something if it wasn’t so obvious that you missed the whole point.
Your answer doesn’t even make sense. The “Southern Strategy” wasn’t even formed until the early 1960s. And the RNC’s own admission was that it continued through at least the 1990s….and they admitted that before “Birthers” became a phenomenon in the Obama administration and Trump appealed to the strategy repeatedly to sweep the South and win the nomination in 2016. As for what my question had to do with your comment, you claimed, “from my POV, true racism hardly exists anymore”. Yet the Southern Strategy is only effective if racism exists on a fairly substantial level. And for the Southern Strategy… Read more »
“while the people calling you a “race traitor” are on the extreme right.”
NO, they are not “the extreme right” … they are another branch of the left; they are leftist both in their anthropology/sociology and in their economics.
“If ice cream for breakfast is so bad for children, why don’t they stop eating it?”
Because they’re children. This analogy might not be very helpful.
The analogy is helpful if we understand that we are dealing with widespread cultural immaturity, spanning all races. The solution is repentance. The immature don’t often repent by an appeal to reason. Opening the eyes and heart usually requires punishment or judgment of some form, either parental, social, or Providential. Since God so loved the world, He will bring the storm to test the house built on the Rock, and the house built on sand. He will shake heaven and earth, so that what cannot be shaken will remain, and the immature will come to His feet to find mercy… Read more »
OK, in this reckoning who is culturally immature, who isn’t, and what are the criteria for determining this?
Douglas, I myself never thought you were implying that slavery had nothing to do with the state of the black family. The retraction that you still need to be make is for saying: “The black family was better off under slavery.” Just try reading those words as a black individual. Or even as another white individual. Or pick any color you please. You cannot make that statement work, under any conceivable context.
Why do you believe it’s false?
It’s not that it’s false, it’s that it is beyond evaluations of “true or false”, like if someone said that the Jews were better off under Nazi Germany because the divorce rate was lower.
That’s actually a pretty fair analogy, Matt.
“Beyond true or false”. Deep, man.
Wasn’t “Beyond True Or False” a book by Nietzsche? (Or maybe Bill Clinton, I can’t remember.)
Are you saying “The black family was better off under slavery.” is the same as “slavery was(is) good for the black family”?
Would Jack Bradley find it more acceptable if Wilson had said that “the black family was stronger before, during, and immediately after the end of U.S. slavery than it is today?” In other words, Wilson is attempting to credit earlier black generations with a higher sense of family integrity, in spite of the added burden of wicked slavery (not because of it). Wilson has nowhere said that their greater sense of familial duty was because of slavery, but that it survived more vigorously than today, even while under it. Wilson acknowledges that Southern slavery ripped apart many families, wickedly. What… Read more »
Ah, the pleasure of meeting yourself!
Jqck, you are still wrong. You are a Christian brother but you are wrong.
You’re being generous to your opponents marking this under retractions when your clarification spells out what many of us thought you were saying all along.
“… what many of us thought you were saying all along.”
Or, as I’d put it: “what many of us understood you to be saying, all along.”
You really believe slavery set the ground for an attempt at restitution? A flawed attempt you admit, but an attempt none the less. I simply don’t buy it. Slavery, at the very foundation of our country set the groundwork for a continual racist ideal that lives of people of color simply aren’t as valuable as white lives (see abortion and the founding racist roots for an example). The attempts by the majority culture in power, whether liberal (Great Society nonsense) or conservative (practice of red lining), was built on the foundational belief of white supremacy rooted in our evil history… Read more »
“… with followers of Jesus being on the side of oppression and racist behaviors ourselves.” Sorry, that’s wholly inaccurate. The Abolitionist movement was a thoroughly Christian movement. Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence contained a lengthy anti-slavery paragraph against King George III. It was cut, but the phrase “all men are created equal” and the concept that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights remained in that document and had world-wide repercussions. The concept of basing a country on freedom and liberty was radical at the time, Christian in origin, and a huge reason… Read more »
Hi, Cap’n –
I like your many comments, but this needs to be looked at closer. Just two quibbles:
The (A)boltionist movement was captured by the deists and then by the Unitarians, and was only ‘christian’ in appearance. Also, racial manstealing is a Moslem activity, and is still ‘legal’ in those countries.
Keep up the good posts!
One quibble in response. There are something like 50 “Muslim” countries in the world today. How many of those are you referring to when you claim that racial manstealing is legal by some definition that wouldn’t make it also legal in similar “Christian” countries?
Those who practice sharia law (a perversion of biblical law). In the past 2-500 years, most Moslem countries allowed kidnapping for the slave trade. All the American slaves originated from Moslem sharia law areas (a point many liberals want to ignore).
Thank you for the kind comments, wisdumb. From what I can see of the history of abolitionism, I don’t think it’s fair to say the movement was “captured” by deists and Unitarians. Jefferson certainly appears to have been a deist, but the origins of his stance against slavery originate with John Locke (yes, the “Father of Liberalism”) who derived the concept of human equality from Genesis 1:26-28 in that he reasoned that since all human beings are created in the image of God, we all have equal rights. Certainly the great champion of abolitionism, William Wilberforce, was a Christian who… Read more »
Cap’n –
My original post should have ended in “those countries which practice sharia law”. A resurgent sharia law is justifying chattel slavery, again.
I would agree that God uses all those factors for His progress, and history is never a clear black line. Christians with anti-slavery sentiments were stymied when the 3/5 compromise was subverted by the Merchantilists, and failed to eliminate slavery. The frustration from this failure caused the abolitionist movement to become a bigger force in the Unitarian North. Many Christians still enjoy “the Battle Hymn of the Republic” – a thoroughly Unitarian hymn.
Thank you again, wisdumb. You obviously have a greater knowledge of the topic than I do, so thank you. Had I written that the abolitionist movement was Christian in its origins, that probably would have been more correct and I should have used those words. Nonetheless, God still gets the glory.
As for sharia law and slavery, I see many nations claim to use sharia, but still outlaw slavery.
Cap’n –
Disagree on first point, agree on second, agree about glory(!), and I’d compromise by using ‘allow’ rather than ‘legalize’ slavery.
We are of one accord.
Sather wrote: And, by the way, given the history in our country from slavery until today, I think the “black FAMILY” is a miracle. The “white FAMILY” under socialism is also a miracle. Wilson’s point was about the devastating affects of white socialist do-goodery and false-guilt. Wilson is effectively saying that Southern slavery, as bad as it was, still left the black family measurably stronger than socialism has left it today. This is essentially a credit to the strength of black families during slavery, but they, along with whites, have met their match in socialism. Black and white families are… Read more »
Katecho, my only quarrel with that (and I am ready to be persuaded) is this: how can the strength of the black family be accurately measured if it was strong due to compulsion rather than choice? I remember Doug’s essay SSAIW saying that adultery was punished by the owner. If blacks were compelled under threat of punishment to remain together in family units, how can we deduce anything about what they would have done as free people?
An obvious way to examine that question would be to look at adultery/illegitimacy rates after U.S. slavery was ended, and compare that with rates today. The same moral decline has hit whites and blacks today, and we can’t blame slavery for the recent decline. White and black families were stronger in the past.
To sweep widespread sharecropping under the rug as great “labor participation rate” is a bit disingenuous. In those wonderful generations you speak of, Black men in the South often had to sneak away in the dead of night if they wanted to participate somewhere else. Also, there were a lot of extremely damaging factors against the Black family that actually picked up after the 1940s which you are ignoring. * In many Southern states, the law enforcement-endorsed beating, bombing, and killing of Black men picked up heavily in the 1950s and 1960s as some Black people began stepping outside of… Read more »
Since he has spoken about them elsewhere, I’m sure Wilson would be happy to include segregation and the “War on Drugs” prison system as further examples of unintended wicked consequences of big government socialist do-goodery.
Yet he seems to always ignore those issues comes to listing race-related sins, specifically White conservative sins. And both of those policies had their strongholds on the left, but gained far more support from people currently aligned with the Republicans and the Conservative Right than from anyone who would call themselves “socialists”, admit to big government, or be named leftists.
And the anti-Civil Rights movement and Southern Strategy are fairly large elephants in the room that I’ve never, ever seen him admit to the need for corporate repentance for.
“To sweep widespread sharecropping under the rug …”
My *father* was raised as a sharecropper — and at the age of 16, he was able to buy his own land.
“* After losing that war, the Republican party took up the “Southern Strategy” of wooing racist Whites a high degree.”
Ah! I get it: you’re a lying leftist.
From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don’t need any more than that…but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats. That’s Kevin Phillips, Nixon’s political strategist, speaking in 1970. I guess he’s a… Read more »
Jonathan, You do realize that Kevin Phillips wasn’t Nixon’s only political strategist, right? If you’ll recall, Phillips switched parties and became anti-GOP. So much for his credibility. Here’s a quote from Nixon’s other strategist, Pat Buchanan, in a column condemning the so-called “Southern Strategy”: Now, as a co-architect of the Nixon strategy that gave the GOP a lock on the White House for a quarter century, let me say that Kristol’s opportunism is matched only by his ignorance. Richard Nixon kicked off his historic comeback in 1966 with a column on the South (by this writer) that declared we would… Read more »