Andrew Sullivan: If Romney Wins Virginia And Florida, It’s The Return Of The Confederacy
Equating opposition to the President with racism is absurd.
Andrew Sullivan had what I can only call an extreme over-reaction on today’s edition of This Week Without David Brinkley:
During this Sunday’s edition of ABC’s This Week, Daily Beast writer Andrew Sullivan claimed that if Republican nominee Mitt Romney wins back Florida and Virginia in the upcoming 2012 presidential election, especially due to the white vote, then the South’s electoral map will look exactly like the pro-slavery United States Confederacy during the Civil War.
This observation came in response to host George Stephanopoulos noting that the latest polls show that six out of ten white Americans intend to vote for Romney.
PBS reporter Gwen Ifill said that “we can’t ignore” the possible factor racial animus may play in deciding the election, noting that the poll indicates that, on some level, people are still willing to admit “racial bias.”
Sullivan then added: “If Virginia and Florida go back to the Republicans, it’s the Confederacy. Entirely. You put a map of the Civil War over this electoral map, you’ve got the Civil War.”
Conservative panelist George Will rolled his eyes.
Here’s the video:
I understand that Sullivan is an Obama supporter and even though I disagree with him I don’t deny him that, but this kind of reaction strikes me as being just as silly as the rhetoric I hear from the right. As Dave Schuler points out over at his own place, if this is all about “the Confederacy” then how does Sullivan explain the fact that Romney is also going to win Indiana, another traditionally Republican state that Obama managed to win in his 2008 run? Last I checked, Indiana was part of the Union during the Civil War. Of course, mentioning Indiana wouldn’t fit in with the meme that Sullivan is clearly trying to push here, which seems to be that the idea that these Southern states would dare reject Barack Obama this time around is somehow evidence of racism.
Now, I’m not going to deny that there are some opponents of the President who are motivated by his race, to do so would be naive. Of course, it’s also obvious that there are some supporters of the President who are motivated by his race. Personally, I find both groups to be incomprehensible because they’re basing their decision to support someone based on what I consider to be a completely irrelevant characteristic, the color of his skin. What I can’t tolerate, though, are efforts by people like Sullivan to paint anyone who opposes the President as somehow motivated by race by essentially equating them with the Confederate States of America. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose Barack Obama that have absolutely nothing to do with the color of his skin, the fact that you or Sully may disagree with them or the reasons they oppose Obama doesn’t mean that they are racist, and it is the height of political arrogance to equate your political opponents with bigotry in a manner as callous and absurd as this.
I oppose the President. I oppose his economic policies, which I consider to have been largely a failure. I oppose his health care plan, which clearly seems to me to be destined to increase health care costs, lower the quality care, and not really solve the problem of the uninsured. I oppose the fact that he has continued his predecessor’s polices with regard to the War On Terror. I oppose the fact that he is running an unrestricted Drone Warfare campaign with essentially no review by any outside authorities. I oppose the fact that he ordered the assassination of an American citizen without due process of law and that he maintains a “Kill List.” I oppose the fact that he wants to institutionalize the War On Terror and essentially make it a permanent part of American foreign policy. Does that make me a racist? Under the logic Sullivan was using this morning, it would seem that it does.
I disagree with Sullivan on this however, I would say that I would have no problem some states in the Old Confereacy decided to secede from the Union. This time we should avoid a conflict and let them leave. It’s not personal with me.
Yes, Sullivan has lost his shit. This much has been obvious to people on both sides for at least 4 years running now.
However …
You have to admit Doug, that you are not the standard Obama opposition. Most republicans that have seen fit to make public their views on Obama and this election did not do so in any sort of nuanced, policy-driven way. Instead, they explode into diatribes laced with extreme apocalyptic hyperbole and barely-hidden racist dog-whistle buzzwords. Most of the pro-Obama rhetoric I’ve read has had very little of that sort of hyperbole or dog-whistle-style buzzword cramming. I attribute quite a bit of that hysterical squawking to either conscious or unconscious racism or (more-generally) other-ism.
Sully pushed this in 2008, too, saying the electoral map was exactly like the civil war map. It was ridiculous then and it’s ridiculous now. The northern rockies are heavily Republican. New Hampshire, Ohio, Wisconsin are battleground states. Maryland and Delaware are solid Democrats and were slave states (although they didn’t rebel). Missouri went for Obama and was a non-rebelling slave state.
(And the idea that racism was confined to the South is insane and ahistorical. The KKK, at their peak, had huge followings in the midwest. Lewis Grizzard wrote about blacks moving back to the South because of less visible but equally vicious racism in the North. Hell, liberal Boston didn’t integrate their schools until … what … 1974?!)
Moreover, as someone who grew up in the South, I can tell you that those states were almost entirely Democrat until the 1990’s. And it was partially the influx of northerners who moved the electoral needle.
Yes, technically if Romney wins Florida and Virginia, that means that all the states that rebelled will be in Romney’s column (although NC, Virginia and Florida went Obama last time). This is not really meaningful. Sorry, Andrew. This isn’t 1968.
Good lord, it’s taken this long for you people to realize that Sullivan lost his capacity for reason? Most of us knew that at least four or five years ago.
It was only his political connections that kept him from being deported after his pot bust. This is just part of the payback for that favor.
The Confederate states have served as the main obstacle to social progress in the US for close to 150 years and counting. Whether the subject be slavery, Jim Crow, evolution, global warming, or Birtherism, the ignorant, regressive side of the debate has always and will always play better in the South.
@Geek, Esq.:
A case can be made that Lincoln made a mistake when he did not let the South go its own way.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Sullivan used to be great. And he can still bring it on occasion. He’s certainly the most prolific blogger out there and is driving a lot of the discussion. But when it comes to the current GOP, he just loses it. It’s sad.
Sullivan is demonstrating that he, in fact, is racist by perpetuating the left’s nonstop preoccupation with race. The left, it seems, cannot see a person divorced from his skin color unless, of course, his name is Walter Williams or Thomas Sowell..
@Bil Danielson:
So, asserting that race is a factor when it comes to attitudes toward Obama, is in fact racist?
Doug, I agree with you to a certain extent, but I have to tell you that we have a lot of Confederate flags around here. I can not imagine any of their owners voting for Obama, but I have not yet heard a Republican disavow the flying of it. When one makes common cause with an avowed racist, well…. Let us just say that to protest about getting painted with a broad brush sounds a little hollow when one has not bothered to condemn the dog-whistle racial attacks coming from one’s allies.
So don’t ask me to pity those so unjustly labeled. Lying down with dogs and all that.
Makes about as much sense as, ‘If Obama wins its a move toward Sharia law.’
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Jenos,
when are you going to realize that you never had the capacity for reason? Oh… Wait a minute… One wo….Whoopps, be nice tom, don’t say it…..
I’ve long thought that Lincoln should have let the South secede. It would have prevented the most destructive war in our history. Slavery would have ended eventually, as it did elsewhere, but on the South’s own terms. Jim Crow and the Klan might never have developed. Texas might have merged with Mexico, thus solving the Hispanic immigration “problem”. An America absent the bellicose South might have been far less expansionist abroad.
I don’t think the North would have turned into some equal rights paradise, but I suspect that opposition to The Confederacy would have pushed the North further and faster in that direction.
Doug: I agree with some of your objections to Obama (the drones, expansion of the anti-terror State) but think Romney would be as bad or worse. I disagree strongly re health care and economic policies. And I think Johnson is a flake who is even less prepared to be President than Romney, which is saying a lot. If you want to waste a vote in a battleground state, that’s your business. But don’t complain if the guy you realllly don’t want in the White House wins because of 3rd-party votes like yours.
Finally, Doug, the Republican Party has been racist since Nixon. LBJ was right when he said passing the Civil Rights Act woud deliver the South into Republican hands. If you can’t see that, you really are blind. That doesn’t mean all Republicans are racist or that all Southerners are racist, but the legs that hold up the Republican Party are racism and greed (the fact that nobody likes to pay taxes).
@al-Ameda: Who gets the nukes?
I started reading Sullivan in 2004, and have yet to figure out why he still considers himself conservative. Some refer to him as Excitable Andy and as being shrill. I caught this morning’s roundtable and I didn’t see either of those Sullivan’s in evidence. Instead, he sounded like he was about to cry. It was really weird.
1. People are surprised that Andrew Sullivan has a tendency to lose perspective?
2. Given Indiana’s history with the KKK, I’m not sure you can point to it as disproving racism.
3. Let me get this straight. The GOP and conservatism has spent the last 50 years making it clear to anyone unhappy with the advances of the Civil Rights Movement that their natural home is the Republican Party…and we’ re supposed to get all prissy on the subject of race in politics. Is ALL opposition to Obama race-based? Of course not. Is there a racial element to the opposition to Obama which cannot be separated out? Uh, yeah. You’d have to be an idiot not to see that.
MIke
“Does that make me a racist?”
Opposing Obama does not make you a racist.
It does make you someone who’s standing shoulder-to-shoulder with racists.
Mike
@LC:
Exactly right. The North “won” the Civil War, slavery was abolished and we lapsed into 100 years of apartheid and segregation. It begs the question, would it have been any worse if Lincoln had let the South go and avoided the carnage?
This
is because Doug doesn’t actually work in or understand the health care delivery system in this country. It may not be an ideal bill but it is a significant improvement in all those areas from the status quo.
In point of fact, there are major aspects of PPACA that address, and improve, each of those areas. It raises the bar on quality (or hospitals and providers face payment cuts). It greatly expands coverage for the uninsured. and it is projected, over time, to decrease costs. In short, EVERYTHING that Doug is worried about is better under PPACA than current state. As a hospital administrator, and one who is specifically charged with strategic planning for our system, it boggles my mind how wrong he is.
@James in LA:
Both sides – we need to resurrect the concept of Mutally Assured Destruction, although I have to admit, a new “Southern Nation” comprised of religious evangelicals and fundamentalists might actually use those weapons against the rest of the America, right?
oh, I guess I should add that, of course, Sullivan was wretchedly over-dramatic. That is his shtick. Did you miss the ashes and sackcloth after the first debate?
MELT THEIR PHONES DOWN until they cover #Benghazi NBC Phone: 212-664-3720 ABC Phone: 212-456-7777 CBS Phone: (212) 975-3247
Not all or even most Republicans are racists. But most racists are Republicans. And the Republican Party deliberately appeals to and offers excuses for, racists. The Republican Party cannot win a national election without relying on racists.
All of the above are facts.
Doug wrote: “There are plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose Barack Obama that have absolutely nothing to do with the color of his skin, the fact that you or Sully may disagree with them or the reasons they oppose Obama doesn’t mean that they are racist . . . ”
This line of argument would be much more persuasive if those who oppose Obama’s election could cite legitimate reasons to believe Romney would be better on the issues that they care about. That, however, would be next to impossible for everyone except social conservatives.
Is Sully hyperbolic? Of course but with good reason. It’s not really important since he has no power; unlike the Sharia Law Bachmanns, the legit rape Akins and the granny starving Ryans.
All Democrats are idiots and racists! All of them!!!!
@G.A.:
Now you’re asserting that Benghazi is NOT being covered?
Hahahahahahaha
From an AP poll just a couple days old:
Across the board, Republicans are more racist than Democrats. It costs Obama about two points — this is a two point race. And as OTB has chronicled probably 50 times, the race-baiting all comes from the GOP side.
No, of course Obama’s fluff girl propaganda apparatus is neck deep into his lies and this ridiculous cover up.
@michael reynolds:
…. and, as Republicans would have us believe, one is a racist for merely making that observation. The current conservative talking points are: (1) one is a racist for asserting that (traditional) racism is still a factor, and (2) reverse racism is a bigger problem than ‘regular’ racism.
@al-Ameda:
Well, except we then would have left the slaves to the tender mercies of their racist Southern masters. That would have been a moral catastrophe.
@LC:
The “South’s own terms” would have been permanent underclass status for African-Americans. It would have been like apartheid South Africa, but in North America. Try to imagine what the US would be like today if it had spent 150 years as neighbor to a violent, racist, apartheid state — it would have been a permanent cold war — at best — right on our border.
@G.A.:
There you go again. What did Obama cover up? Thus far there is no evidence of a “cover-up.” This purely an election talking point of the right wing media.
Sounds like a lot of those commenting here have drunk deeply from the same cup as Sullivan.
Very disappointing.
@Rafer Janders:
I understand that, yet we countenanced a system of apartheid, segregation and Jim Crow laws for nearly 100 years following the Civil War – that was a big moral catastrophe.
@KRM:
So you disagree with the idea that race is still a factor when it comes to this election and President Obama?
@James in LA:
The country which developed and owns them — the United States of America.
@al-Ameda:
Yes, but it would have been unimaginably worse for the blacks held as slaves in the South. It’s one thing to live under discrimination. It’s another thing entirely to be a slave.
Good lord, I’ve barely paid attention to Sully since the 2008 campaign, with his reflexive Hillary bashing, which led into his unhinged koo-koo bananas ranting about Sarah Palin.
(I’m a hardcore liberal and think President Palin would be an unmitigated disaster, but my god, no one should have to put up with Sully’s looney tunes conspiracy theories about the provenance of Trig’s birth. I would like to believe that his obsession with this is some kind of performance art commentary on the right’s obsession with Obama’s birth certificate, but I don’t think he’s that clever.)
@Spartacus:
I am a person who opposes Obama and does not support Romney. Let your brain deal with that for a few minutes.
@Rafer Janders:
Unfortunately, although slavery ended in the South, African-Americans stayed an under-class, Jim Crow, the KKK and apartheid did, indeed, replace it. The effects remain visible today.
We have no way of knowing how long it would have taken the South to end slavery on its own, but Brazil did so in 1888. Would that have been followed by a permanent apartheid? Perhaps, but it is hard to imagine a post-slavery situation worse for African-Americans than the one which existed after the end of the Civil War and well into the 20th century.
That’s quite amusing considering that most of the people who think of the President as not being born in this country, as the other, as the Kenyan Socialist, are on the right…
Traitorous racist scum should not have been allowed to split this country in two simply because they thought that their barbaric practice was threatened…
@michael reynolds: Across the board, Republicans are more racist than Democrats. It costs Obama about two points — this is a two point race. And as OTB has chronicled probably 50 times, the race-baiting all comes from the GOP side. (emphasis added.)
They’re probably too polite to tell you to kiss their asses, so I’ll say it to you on behalf of Mia Love, Allen West, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, J. C. Watts, Janice Rogers Brown, Herman Cain, Michael Steele, Ward Connerly, Lynn Swann, Stacy Dash, Allen Keyes, Armstrong Williams, Jack E. Robinson, and a host of other black conservatives. Mia Love and Stacy Dash have recently been subjected to vile racist attacks, and it’s been pretty common against most of the rest.
Shall we move on to Hispanics and Asians?
Dude, I have been watching the cover up for weeks….grrr, I am not an idiot liberal and it is plan for every one to have seen unless you are one…I guess…
OK slowly, he and his clowns lied about it being a spontaneous mob event for weeks:lies.
As they blamed it on a video clip preview:LIES.
Some of the truth has come out about it every day since they started lying about it, every day, Ssince it happened.
And they are still lying about it BECAUSE WE KNOW THEY ARE BECASUE OF WHAT HAS COME EVERY DAY SINCE IT HAPPEND AND THEY SATRTED LYING ABOUT IT AND IT LOOKS WORSE EVERY TIME THE MORE WE LEARN AND THE MORE THEY LIE AND THEIR PROPAGADA APARATUS COVERS FOR THEM AND INGNORES IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAKE THE**** UP!!!!!
If you want to blame a single individual for what followed the Civil war in the south you might start with John Wilkes Booth, who murdered the man who would have had a much softer occupation and re-integration of the south.
But comparisons between our slavery and that in other countries don’t usually hold up. Our slavery was based on a theory of inherent racial inferiority, backed up by Christian theology. Many other slaveries were nothing more complicated than., “My general beat your general.” In a sense ours was a more modern slavery, larded up with ideology and pseudo-science and rendered particularly intractable by religion. It more closely resembles Nazi anti-Semitism than it does something like Roman-on-Greek slavery, for example.
Note the Ballon Juice hate-logic in Mbunge’s post: “If you don’t support Obama you are helping racists. Vote for my guy or you’re evil.”
Who says only Republicans try to bully voters?
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Your remark is perfectly irrelevant. Yes, there are a small (very small) number of African-American Republicans. Which proves nothing.
How does it in any way alter the results of numerous polls showing that Republicans are more racist? There are also some gay Republicans. So what?
@Doug Mataconis: I am a person who opposes Obama and does not support Romney.
So you (actively) “oppose” Obama, yet (passively) “do not support” Romney. Interesting turns-of-phrase there.
@Ben Wolf:
Let’s take it out of race, just to examine the issue. The GOP is quite clearly anti-gay. If we vote GOP aren’t we helping the forces opposed to gay rights? Not quite sure I get your point.
LOL…H/T, Being Liberal means Being a Hypocrite, from Facebook….
@LC:
Oh, I can imagine it. Slavery lasting into the late 1890s/early 1900s, and then, who knows? Apartheid, concentration camps, genocide? Would the white Southerners have turned on the former slaves the way the Germans turned on the Jews?
However bad Jim Crow was, it was held back in its full effects by the fact that the South was part of the US and ultimately had to answer to the federal government. If the CSA had survived and had a free hand, I can easily imagine a much, much worse for African-Americans than what they got.
@G.A.:
I’m so happy for you. You’ve found your intellectual soul mate.
And remember, bad as it got in the South, African-Americans could always leave and move to cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Detroit, etc. It was their ability to move north and west that enabled them to build free lives. That would never have been possible if we’d been two different countries.
I think people are forgetting the history here. The North-South tension was not as much about slavery where it existed, as it was the South’s need to expand slavery into territory stolen by conquest from Mexico. The South was terrified that we’d make California and what became Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and part of Colorado free states. That would have tipped the balance of power in Congress decisively against the slave power. They didn’t want to be “left alone,” they wanted to expand.
People should also know that the South required the North to be complicit in slavery. They required Northerners to return run-away slaves. They further attempted in numerous ways to block free speech, for example by intercepting mail that included anti-slavery material.
This was not the South minding its own business. This was the South pushing to expand into former Mexican territories and looking as well to seize still more territory south of the border in order to solidify the power of the slaveholders.
Oh, and I should add to the above, additional free states in the great plains, mountains and Pacific north west. Follow the line of the Missouri compromise and you see the issue. California did not wish to be split in two and in those days IIRC the CA population was larger north of the MO line. That would have given the slave states just NM and AZ, with what eventually became a dozen states to the North. That’s why the Civil War did not begin at Fort Sumter but in bleeding Kansas.
When we are talking about the resistance of the south to social change, let’s not forget about Rutherford B. Hayes and James A. Garfield, who gave up on reconstruction because it was hard and things always work out better when the government stays out of the way and lets events take their own course.
@michael reynolds: You made an absolute statement — that ALL the race-baiting comes from Republicans. That is, to be blunt, complete and utter bullshit.
Actress Stacey Dash (whose pictorial in Playboy was exceptionally attractive) came out for Romney, and was subjected to truly vile racist attacks.
And Mia Love was sent pictures of Klansmen (probably good Democrats) and aborted fetuses (probably the would-be offspring of Democrats).
Why can’t you just admit you’re a liberal hate-monger? It’s obvious to anyone who’s read more than, say, five of your comments.
Gee thanks Harry, and I didn’t get you ****….
Dudes got you guys pegged and all but mine was simpler with a hint of exaggeration..I am sure there are a few that ain’t racist or idiot and perhaps one or two that ain’t both.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
So you equate racist statements from Republican politicians, party officials and major media personalities with unidentified people on Twitter.
Always good to see your thought processes at work, Jay. Revealing.
This is a topic — and a thread — that’s already too heated to go anywhere good.
That said, I will offer this, when one compares how Obama did in the Appalachia in 2008 to how previous democrats had done in the same areas, signs suggest that the racial issues (in particular that of resentment) might go deeper than simply Republicans.
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/05/obama-and-appalachia-it-aint-quiteabout-that-southern-thing/
As the AP poll that Michael Reynolds posted points out, overall there are implicit racial tensions within both parties and the level of those tensions has apparently remained largely stable over the last four years:
lol, what apartment?Food stamp? Chicago? Dude I have heard the goofy *** VP say more racist statements then any Republicans, wait I ain’t heard them say any…
@michael reynolds:
I got that sucker bookmarked. And the current tally is 44 thumbs-up, 8 thumbs-down.
Awful nice of you to show your venomous hatred.
@mattb:
The polling does nevertheless show that Republicans are much more racist (overtly) and significantly more racist (covertly.) That said, we are all sinners. But we don’t all support political parties that pander to our basest instincts.
@Hal 10000:
Reposted because it’s true.
The actual narrative of racism in this country is far more complex than most people understand. For example, while visible racism existed in the south, there was also a higher degree of inter-generational upward mobility among African Americans thanks, in large part, to home ownership.
Blacks who migrated to northern cities, on the other hand, tended to end up in rentals. So while their jobs might have been “better”, they didn’t necessarily build up the same level of inter-generational savings. Additionally their jobs tended to be less stable.
Unfortunately, the entire North/South civil war divide becomes an easy way of papering over deep historical racial issues that continue to this day.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
I’m glad you did. I rather like the rhythm of it.
I dislike racists. I dislike liars. I dislike people who attack science. I dislike people who think government should control women’s wombs. I dislike people who think government should deprive American citizens of their right to pursue happiness just because they don’t like their sexual identity. I dislike people who labor to deprive Americans of their right to vote. I dislike the celebration of stupidity.
This isn’t a game. This is real people being really hurt by people like you. I don’t like it. I don’t like you.
Happy to have you link to it. Any time.
@michael reynolds:
While I agree on overt racism (42% is a HUGE gap), we’ll have to disagree about covert. 9% isn’t all that much, and the fact that respondents from both parties were over 50% is something no one should be proud of. And, from my perspective, implicit racism is far more insidious. As a good friend of mine (Native American) has reminded me numerous times, it’s far better to have people curse you to your face than screw you behind your back (or out of ‘compassion’ start to make decisions for you).
I do find it troubling that some percentage of the ‘overt’ group is probably not actually racist, but simply doesn’t have a problem with using racist language/thinking/etc as a way to attack a political enemy or rouse support.
Is this G. A. person a joke? Nobody could think like that and be serious.
@mattb:
And yet they moved north.
@bk:
I understand he was actually on Mitt Romney’s short list for Veep. But I’ll have to check my source on that. . .
Andrew Sullivan has been ignored by me as a hyperbolic idiot who is willing to slander unapologetically whichever side he opposes ever since in the aftermath of 9/11, he said that liberals may act as a fifth column in support of al-Qu’eda. So if he’s gone too far in the other direction, I am hardly surprised.
The mock documentary CSA (Confederate States of America) did a pretty good job of demonstrating the implications of the continued existance of the South.
Its not true that contemporary conservatism is EXACTLY mapped to the old South; but it is true that the Confederate States form the political and moral backbone of the Republican Party.
Northeast Republicans are extinct, and wherever you find Republicans- for instance in California’s Central Valley, you find the culture of the Confederacy.
Pro-tip: Going to the trouble of actually using a troll as an avatar might be too obvious.
(Though not obvious enough for everyone, apparently.)
@Jenos Idanian #13:
I tend to speak a bit more mildly than Michael, but I would agree with every word of his post- I probably gave it a thumbs up in fact.
Contemporary conservatism is based on the moral calculus that raising someone’s taxes by 10% is worse than leaving indigent people to be pushed into the gutter and left to crawl.
Its based on the idea that a 13 year old rape victim should be forced to carry the pregnancy to term;
Its based on the idea that unemployed people are like stray dogs, who should not be fed lest they become a nuisance.
I’m sorry if this seems hateful, that we point this out. I’m sorry that this hurts your feelings, and makes us seem mean.
But when you support Republicans, you support horrors like this.And as the saying goes, we will “never stop fighting until the children of the poor eat as well as the dogs of the rich.”
@michael reynolds: If I didn’t say so before, then let me say so now: it was a very well-written rant. As you said, it had a rhythm and a flow and a coherent theme — I intended to excerpt it, but it was so tightly woven together that editing it would have been an injustice. And I included a link for the full context.
That being said, it’s ugly as hell. As are you.
And in the further interest of honesty, you really should strike out all those uses of “dislike” and replace them with “hate.” Because, as you’ve shown time and time and time again, you are just filled with hatred, and I wonder if you’re actually capable of something so mild as “dislike” when it comes to politics.
@michael reynolds:
Come on Michael… As with most major migrations in American history, the migration of African Americans northward was mostly about the promise of jobs (especially during the wars).
The issue was that those jobs didn’t necessarily materialize in the way anyone expected. And all too often those individuals were excluded from the prosperity that came to other (lower class) white workers.
I’m not trying to say things were better in the South. I’m just pointing out that the North saw it’s fair share of racism and race riots (often sparked by the pressures of implicit and explicit racism and the poverty that discrimination helped create).
And it’s pretty clear that a stronger Black (lower) middle class emerged in the South — which was a critical factor the fostering of the Civil Rights movement. Yes, institutionalize segregation made the south the front lines of that battle, but in order for that battle to be waged there had to be a strong infrastructure to support it (both economically and in terms of local institutions).
Ok… we’re really off topic here.
@mattb:
Oh, there’s no disagreement on northern racism at all. A big part of northern opposition to slavery was that slavery in effect created a bi-racial society, however unequal. There’s some just astoundingly virulent racist literature from places like Iowa and Minnesota leading into the Civil War. This was never “north good” “south evil.” To this day Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in America, probably inferior in that aspect to Atlanta – which we went to all the trouble of burning down.
@Jenos Idanian #13:
I know you think you’ve created some moral equivalency between race hatred and people who hate people who hate by race. Of course all you’ve done is highlight your own moral blindness.
I hate racists. I’m a Jew. We tend to hate racists. Can you guess why? See if you can figure it out.
I also, FYI, hate intolerant fanatics of all sorts. I hate the Taliban and Al Qaeda. And yes, Jay, I’m putting them all on the same spectrum as people who murder and torture and ruin the lives of other people for no good reason.
So, bookmark this, too, because I’m going to tell you that hating a man for his black skin is the same as hating a man because he worships Jesus and not Mohammed and the same as hating a man because he’s a Jew or because he loves another man. It’s all the same disease. So I can’t just laugh it off when Republicans say stupid racist things because that puts them on the same number line with every insane hater from Hitler to Osama bin Laden.
Race hatred and religious hatred, are as deep an evil as the human race is capable of. We should be better than this. We should have outgrown this, especially in this country. Instead the Republican party made a fateful choice in the late sixties to deliberately embrace this persistent evil for the sake of power. It’s the original sin of the GOP.
@LC:
Brazil is different. There was a large number of mulattos and free Blacks in the society at the time(Francisco Felix de Souza, probably the biggest slave trader of modern times, was a mulatto – a Black if you consider today´s US Standards). Teodoro Sampaio and André Rebouças, two of the biggest engineers of the country in the 1800´s were Black. There were also several respected writers like Machado de Assis and José do Patrocinio, that also happened to be Black or Mulatto.
The elites of the country were comfortable with the presence of Blacks, they only wanted them to be submissive. Racism in Brazil is even more related to class than in the United States(Many Blacks only experience racism when they dress in casual clothes and go to the shopping mall).And there was no large White working class to compete with Blacks for jobs, because at the time almost everyone was either Black, or Amerindian or a mixture of both(At the time it was possible to see people in São Paulo speaking in a dialect that was a mixture of Arabic and Amerindian words).
It´s different than in the US, where the White people thought that Blacks were a different kind of “people” than Whites and where Whites thought that Blacks as a menace. Not that Brazilians Blacks did not face their problems during the time. There was the prohibition against capoeira, for instance( That why the Frevo was developed)
@michael reynolds: OK, we get it. You hate haters and don’t tolerate the intolerant.
But you really said something monumentally stupid at the end. “Original sin?” Over 100 years after the GOP was founded primarily as an anti-slavery party? That’s like you saying your “original sin” was fraudulently taking a Senior Citizens discount.
Which I wouldn’t put past you, if it was at a Chick-Fil-A…
@Jenos Idanian #13:
Actually, the original sin metaphor is apt. According to the Bible man was born without sin. As Lincoln, if you will. But by choosing to listen to the serpent man descended into sin. In this case the serpent would be Richard Nixon.
What’s needed now is confession and repentance. Then, forgiveness, redemption.
The GOP has not confessed (although some of its members have tried) and it has not repented. It cannot therefore be forgiven and redeemed. They care far more about power than they do truth or justice. And thus, to drag the metaphor out all the way to the end, they are damned.
@michael reynolds: You want an apology? Kiss my pasty white ass. I have done NOTHING to apologize for in regards to racism — except, perhaps, not pointing it out enough when practiced by self-righteous bigots on the left.
The covert, patronizing racism on the left has done far, far more to hurt blacks (and race relations in general) over the last 50 years than anything any conservative has done.
And THAT, sir, is a FACT.
Andrew Sullivan is frequently very annoying and hyperbolic; nevertheless, on this particular topic, you should look at the maps he has posted on “the GOP’s Geography and the Confederacy” before you sneer at his suggestion. He could have made it in a more solemn, academic manner, but the concept is not crazy:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/10/the-gops-geography-and-the-confederacy.html
So what’s wrong with a little Jim Crow, especially being denied the right to vote, when one can own a home, eh?
Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eisenhower would be turning over in their graves if they saw today’s GOP…
So you’re saying that black people are totally stupid? I mean, after all, most black people overwhelmingly support the supposed racist party…
Wow, damn, crap….
I don’t have to think to make fools out of the libs here, nor to crush their little psycologist indoctro babble as they project their racism and guilt onto others.
@michael reynolds: Don’t forget atonement.
@Janis Gore: After repentance, before forgiveness.
@elizajane: But, as Will pointed out, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia voted for Obama in 2008. As an aside, so did Indiana. Now, all of these states seem to be headed in Romney’s direction. Did they suddenly become more racist in the past four years?
The South (and I am a Southerner, born and bread) is more conservative than much of the country. We are also more religious. Those two things alone have much to do with the way the Southern states go in national elections. Clinton won much of the South, not because he was a Democrat, but in spite of it. It was a point of pride in the South to have a President (and Vice President) from the South and many that would have typically voted Republican pulled the lever for him. After Clinton left office, more traditional voting patterns returned.
I just love history lessons on race, racism, and racists from Democrat/liberal writers…
Same goes for the Bible lessons and the how things should be lessons….
Thanks Harry…
It’s noteworthy that in these little discussions Jenos constantly references the Republican party of 160 years ago, and the Democratic Party of 65 years ago. It’s not hard to see why this is preferable to discussing where both parties are on race in the year 2012.
Actually, there is evidence that racism has been on the rise since 2008.
Another Obama failure? Race baiting? Or did that blow up in his face too lol…..
@G.A.: Godammit, G.A. Obama didn’t have to “race-bait”. He’s half black. That was plenty.
That’s about it. The poor darkies on the Democratic plantation are too ignorant to know where there own best interests lie.
These saps actually believe this stuff.
@ Moderate Mom
Virginia, BTW, is swinging back towards Obama…
It would be easier if they simply added leftism into the DSM as a defined mental disorder.
That aside, this sort of tripe from Sullivan is nothing. Wait until next week. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet…..
Dudes half white devil and my white brother is a thousand times more “black” then him… hell I can act like a brother better then he poses as one.
lol, do you ever listen to his teleprompter readings? He is all some kind of bait…Dudes a classically trained leftist radical from Chicago who went to a racist’s black separatist church for twenty years……
Did you not know this?
You at least have some opinions about it.
You don’t think he’s a Kenyan-Muslim usurper sent to shoot the American Eagle.
And get your finger out of your nose. That’s just rude, son.
No, lol, I think he is a fool, wait, I know he is a fool.And I don’t care where he is from…
🙂 sorry I can only afford gas, bills and smokes because of Obama and Walker cut of my food stamps cause I have a job now so……
@Tsar Nicholas: “It would be easier if they simply added leftism into the DSM as a defined mental disorder. ”
Yes, let’s call disagreeing with an anonymous internet troll who pretends to be a lawyer and an oil executive a mental disorder. Nothing wrong with that logic.
In other news, THE GIANTS WIN IT ALL!
There is obviously some racial animus that causes some white people to explicitly not vote for Obama. This is an undeniable fact. There are obviously black people that will vote for Obama purely based on the fact that he is half black. This too is an undeniable fact. However, people that vote purely on race most likely have IQs lower than 100, so it isn’t like any of us are going to have a logical discussion over Platonic ideals and convince those kinds of people one way or another.
Also, there is clearly a lot of political friction because there is no longer stable employment for the kinds of people that Marx would call the proletariat, as well as lumpen proletariat. Both the Republicans and Democrats have no clearly laid out and coherent plans to bring back that kind of employment. Basically the pie isn’t growing so we all get vicious and try to make sure my group (“tribe”, “kind”, whatever) gets as large a slice as possible.
While all this is happening to the lower class and under class people, we also have roughly 12 million illegal immigrants (undocumented workers, whatever) that basically compete in the same labor markets. This doesn’t necessarily lower employment (don’t you dare try and tag me with the “lump of labor fallacy”). However, keeping demand constant or decreasing for that labor plus increased supply means their wages go down (unless those sectors are unionized…this is 2012…there are basically no private sector unions).
@anjin-san:
I happened to see it and thought of you no doubt cavorting very happily. Congratulations.
It’s nice the Giants won for 3 reasons:
1) It’s a great team.
2) The last time they won it was 2010, a very good political year.
3) Giants winning was further proof that Obama puts a cloud over those he backs — be it ‘investments,’ other politicians, or athletic competitions.
…..regarding #3 — Obama supported the Detroit Tigers.
And Rosebud was the name of his sled!
Clearly you don’t understand Giants baseball. Negative BS is not part of it. Fun, teamwork and positive energy is.
BTW, in case you have not heard, the DOW is up about 70% under Obama. You know, the INVESTMENTS of countless millions of Americans.
Umm. Who are the Giants? I don’t keep up with baseball?
@ Janis Gore
Just Google “World Series Champions” 🙂
@Rafer Janders:
The conditions that Black Americans in the South lived under in the century between the end of the civil war and the civil rights movement was much more than “discrimination.” It was a reign of terror for blacks, every single day. Black people lived in constant fear for their lives, especially black men — and black women had to live in constant fear of being raped by white men. Black Americans in the South between 1865 and the mid-1960s had no rights at all — literally. And I use that word correctly. They had no. rights. at. all. They were humiliated, degraded, oppressed, subjugated, assaulted or murdered, every single day, literally. If a black person did not address white men as “sir,” or if a black person failed to step off the sidewalk when a white person passed by, or if a black person did not look down, looked into a white man’s eyes, acted like or in any way implied by word or deed that he or she was not completely inferior and subject to white authority, that person could find themselves surrounded by a mob of whites, beaten, lynched, and/or tortured.
Economically, too, blacks were little more than slaves in practice if not in law anymore. Many blacks in the post-Civil War South were sharecroppers, and the way that system was practiced in the South, it kept blacks de facto enslaved through debt.
Read The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson. It’s very eye-opening.
@Kathy Kattenburg:
Um, yes. Thank you for stating the completely blindingly obvious that everyone knows. My point is that as bad as it was, it was still better than living in ACTUAL SLAVERY.
Again, it was bad for them, but not as bad as ACTUAL SLAVERY. Slavery was the situation where they had no rights at all — literally.
I mean, seriously, are you actually contesting the fact that life was better for African-Americans AFTER slavery was abolished? Are you that tendentious?
Doug and others seem to act as if there wasn’t a ” Southern Strategy” that Nixon and the Republicans explicitly adopted and that Lee Atwater explained. It’s why the South moved from being solid for Democrats to being solid for Replublicans in the last generation. Even a glance at any electoral map could tell you what happened.
Now Doug like many conservatives are embarrassed that the conservative party has now become the natural home of white racists and they continually argue that Republican antipathy to Obama has to do with ” traditional values”, economic arguments, and whatnot. But the polling and the map is pretty clear about why many Republicans are opposed to Obama. Michael is exactly right on the issue. The 2008 election actually proves the point. In a wave election for the Democrats, Obama was barey able to pull away borderline Southern states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana. The Deep South was solidly Republican. (Indiana is an anamoly, until you understand it borders on the South and that many Southerners moved there after the Civil War.) Recent settlement patterns also explain why Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida are now competitive for Democrats- they are all states of large scale recent Yankee immigration.
The result of population movements means that Confederate sentiment doesn’t map exactly to the map of the old Confederacy, but it’s still pretty close.
@anjin-san: Oh. Ryan Theriot is from LSU.
“old times there are not forgotten”
@Catfish:
Kook away, kook away, kook away, Dixie Land.
@rodney dill: Very funny, Rodney.
when the left cannot deal with actually issues they always go back to the old standby… They charge racism. This is simply more of the same on steroids.
It’s called desperation.
@G.A.:
I stopped commenting on, voting on, or even reading anything from Jenos a couple months ago. Paying attention would just be a waste of time. This crack from G.A. put him on the same list. This is a policy I recommend to others. Ignoring them is more productive than a flame war, which seems to be their goal.
Let me add that racism is not a binary thing, it’s a matter of degree. I’ve met a number of people who were racist to some significant degree. I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone who considered himself a racist.
By the way, I noted another thing: how simplistic that Andrew Sullivan sounds when he is paired to talk with real grown ups. This roundtable is instructive.
@michael reynolds:
If you want to see a racist take a look in the mirror. Every liberal is a racist. You can’t believe in equality and identity politics at the same time.
@Liberty60: I think the movie Idiocracy is also a good example of what would happen in a Southern dominated USA.
I missed all the fun yesterday but here are my two cents. Basically, Sullivan is right. I’m old enough to remember the rise of George Wallace. The same impulses that drove his popularity in the South (then Democratic Party dominated) drive the Tea Party and the Republican party. Nixon’s Southern Strategy worked brilliantly. The Republican Party coopted Wallace supporters after he was shot. His American Independent Party is essentially the core of today’s Republican Party.
Having actually read Andrew Sullivan’s post, its more nuanced than Doug represents. Sullivan never says ” Anyone who opposes the President as somehow motivated by race by essentially equating them with the Confederate States of America.” What he said was ‘I made the following claim: that if Virginia and Florida and North Carolina flip back to the GOP from Obama this November, as now looks likely, Romney will have won every state in the Confederacy. ”
He goes on to say:
A couple more more points: “Southern” and “Southern culture” doesn’t and never did map to the borders of the Confederacy. The South would include pro-Union Southern states like Kentucky and West Virginia, plus areas of heavy Southern settlement, like southeast Ohio, Indiana, Eastern Shore Maryland, and central and southern Missouri(the Missoura” part of Missouri).
“Southern culture” too is more than just white racism. It has good parts like great music, strong familiy ties, great food. It also has bad parts- its more inward looking, xenophobic, violent, homophobic, gun-loving, and narrowly religious than “Northern” culture. Those who want to do do a deep dive in the different regional cultures in the USA should try the book “Albion’s Seed”.
Barack Obama presses a lot of Southern buttons. He is not only black-he is the product of what traditional Southerners would call miscegenation (he’s been called a “half breed”). He is cosmopolitan in outlook and upbringing. He is not overtly religious and doesn’t pretend to be a gun lover. He is pro-abortion rights and pro-gay rights. He is pro-science and technology and an environmentalist.While his economic policies are moderate and centrist, they come attached to a package that makes it look much more liberal than it really is . He really is kind of is the “anti-Southerner” , so its not surprising that the South deep down hates him.
@bandit:
I don’t believe in identity politics.
Which leaves you. . . nowhere as usual?
@stonetools: That “pro-abortion rights” rights phrase turns me right off. I wish people would use “pro-choice” and “anti-abortion” so we could begin to have a decent conversation about that topic.
On topic, Obama does push a lot of buttons.
@Janis Gore:
Of course anti-abortion folks think ” pro life” is how they prefer to be called.
@Stonetools: Have it your way.
@stonetools: “He really is kind of is the “anti-Southerner” , so its not surprising that the South deep down hates him.”
Here’s the important point, though. While there is animus toward the South, neither the Democratic Party nor the liberal political movement preaches institutionalizes that animus. The GOP largely fans the flames of all those negative qualities in Southern culture.
Mike
@stonetools:
1-) Maybe it´s because I´m come from a miscegenated background(Asian with White, I have cousins that would be considered Black in the United States and I´m attracted to Black Women), but I find that to be extremely racist.
2-) That´s the biggest difference with Brazil. The most notorious FASCIST group in Brazil was based in the idea that miscegenation was the biggest strength of the country.
I saw several Brazilian people, mostly from a White Background, complaining that when they go to the US they see Black people staring at them. I once saw a very, very liberal woman(One that would make Michael Reynolds sounds like Pat Buchanan) saying that she took the wrong bus in Washington DC and then she all the Black people around her staring, mildly angry.
I´m not saying that Brazil is a Racial Democracy. I´m also not saying that Brazilian Blacks have an easy life. But there is a Elephant in the Room when you talk about race in the United States.
@Andre Kenji:
Although race relations in Brazil are considerably better than the USA. Afro-Brazilians are economically and politically worse off comparably than African Americans, The long legacy of slavery hangs over both societies.
I was surprised to hear recently that in Brazil there are virtually no black models featured in fashion magazines, black newscasters on TVs or black movie stars. I think there needs to be some consciousness raising in Brazil too.
Full disclosure: I have visited Brazil, read the novels of Jorge Amado, and have taken an interest in Afro Brazilian and Afro Caribbean culture ( I myself am Jamaican).
This one gVOR08 lol,I was one upping Harry, geez…
Some of you guys are slow…
Barack Obama from his book…
also
hmmm me thinks some of you don’t know as much about this narrative about racism that you preach by way of indoctrination as you think you do….
@stonetools:
No, it´s more complicated. Poor Brazilians(That includes Blacks, people of Indian and White descent) are economically worse off than poor Americans. But the proportion of Blacks that went to jail is smaller, the racial disparities are less blatant. I´m not saying that Brazil is a racial model, but that the only way to really end racism is to integrate the races. There are Blacks and Whites that are opposed to that, and that´s the big Elephant in the Room in the US.
@MBunge:
Sorry dude… gotta call BS on this.
There’s a lot of implicit and explicit institutionalized animus against “the South” in the liberal political movement — usually expressed through jokes or mass stereotyping.
One needs to look no further than comments within this thread to see it’s expression. This is in part due to civil rights issues, it’s in part due to the fact that the modern Democratic party’s stronghold is in the North, and it’s in part due to a reaction to the Southern strategy and the loss of the South, not to mention the rise of Dixie pride.
For many liberals “the South” (note the scare quotes) represents everything that’s wrong with the country (see the many jokes about letting the secede) and, as a wrote above, a way of papering over a lot of the racial inequality issues of the North.
(Note that I am writing all of this as a life long northerner.)
@stonetools: There is some progress. I´m seeing more and more Black people on telenovelas. This actress is astonishingly beautiful, and she starred a recent telenovela.
https://www.google.com.br/search?hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1C1PRFB_enBR499BR499&q=isabel%20filardis&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&authuser=0&ei=l7OOUMa3OIyE8QSJvYCAAg&biw=1309&bih=704&sei=qbOOUISQN87O0QG764C4BA
Besides that, the most popular Brazilian movie of all time(City of God) had Black actors.
@Janis Gore:
See, that’s why I can’t be a Catholic. I forgot atonement. Closest I came was Lutheran church as a child. Kind of like Catholics but with cheaper churches.
@michael reynolds:
Er, Yom Kippur, Michael ?
@mattb: “There’s a lot of implicit and explicit institutionalized animus against “the South” in the liberal political movement — usually expressed through jokes or mass stereotyping.”
Have you ever heard Texas or any Southern state openly mocked and derided by elected Democrats the way you have heard elected Republicans slam places like Massachusetts? How many times have you heard a liberal pundit talk or write about Alabama the way right wingers talk about California?
As I wrote, there is an animus against the South. But Democrats and liberals are in no way as anti-South like the GOP and conservatives have become anti-everywhere-except-the-South.
Mike
@Doug Mataconis:
Doug wrote: “I am a person who opposes Obama and does not support Romney. Let your brain deal with that for a few minutes.”
You, however, are not one of the voters that is responsible for Romney’s rise in the polls. Both Sully’s comments and this post are directed at those voters who oppose Obama and are supporting Romney. Except for social conservatives, there’s no reason for large numbers of voters to prefer Romney over Obama.
I will also point out that your opposition is also poorly reasoned as well. You continue to act as if you have a third option in this election, which you clearly do not. There are only two possible outcomes of every single person’s conduct this election: (1) take a step that makes Obama’s election more likely, or (2) take a step that makes Romney’s election more likely. On all of the issues that you’ve cited over the past several months as being important to you, Obama is clearly better on every single one of them.
The fact that you continue to believe you’re advancing the issues you care about by supporting a third party candidate demonstrates churlishness and a lack of discipline in your thinking.
Doug (or anyone with a brain) can list the reasons why they will or won’t vote for someone. But just because you’ve done that doesn’t mean you might not be biased. It might mean you’ve found a way to justify your position. No one knows but that person him or herself. And in many cases they aren’t even aware of their biases, but construct a world view to confirm those biases (yes, the oft-discussed confirmation bias).
My personal opinion is Doug is a partisan who wouldn’t have voted for Obama no matter what.
@MBunge: I intentionally didn’t mention politicians — as I can’t speak to that. But in terms of Liberal pundits and media types, there is a pretty consistent “what’s wrong with the South?” thread. The best example that immediately comes to hand was the Alexandra Pelosi Mississippi video from earlier this year.
Pelosi could have found people like that anywhere in the country*. Hell it wouldn’t take me much time to find them here in New York State. But, for a whole host of reasons, the work was done in Mississippi, standing in as a proxy for the deep south. And if you look at the way the Liberal media types talked about that video at the time, it’s pretty obvious about how “the South” is seen as a proxy for everything that progressives see wrong with this country (in the same way that California — or in particular San Francisco — is seen as a proxy for what many movement conservatives see is wrong with this country).
* – btw, it’s telling that the counter-film was made in Chicago. Again, it would have been easy to find counter examples in Mississippi, but that wouldn’t have had the same level of implicit attack along party lines.
@MBunge: BTW, I went back to what you were responding to and realized that I had used “Liberal Movement” which implies politicians. I intended pundits, media figures and the base.
is he chris matthews companion or something? nearly any given election ill have close to a 60/40 split among “whites”, i won’t bother noting how “blacks” vote as well all know. he failed to mention that the population rise in the “south” is vastly from ex-northerners looking to escape the rust belt, cold and despair. and no, we don’t turn into rednecks when we get here- i knew more in the northeast.
So to all you “liberals are the real racists” buffoons, when was the last time a Democrat gave a speech at Bob Jones University or Philadelphia Mississippi like Ronald Reagan did after accepting the nomination in 1980?
I often wondered as a kid, as I watched Civil War movies, how the hatred could have developed to the point of Americans killing Americans over a difference of opinion.
After reading Jenos and GA, I now realize how easy it must have been to shove a bayonet down the throat of Johnny Reb since the insanity of their “opinions” had to be crushed.
There is a passage in Tocqueville’s America where he describes the scene along the banks of the Ohio River and muses how resourceful, industrious and ambitious are the “northerners” while those along the southern bank were mired in a socially moribund society where an ossified caste system and slavery rendered the culture to be backward, and uninspiring.
The fact that idiots on here can think that the south is anything other than a bunch of backward looking racist morons who cling to their past with pride and boastfulness is beyond me.
Of course not all southerners are racists, just as not all Germans were Nazis, but tell that to the victims in Dachau and Malthausen.
As for Doug, I am sure that most Americans hated Stalin, but we hated Hitler more and realized we would destroy one monster at a time.
Doug fails to heed this historical lesson. Romney, if elected, will be a worse President than Bush 2 and thats saying something. At least Duh-bya had a core set of values, Mitt the twit is a worthless POS politician.
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