Wednesday, August 15, 2007

How the Democrats paid dearly for doing what was right while the GOP profited from evil

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Richard Nixon is associated with Southern Strategy as well as his enemies list, the secret bombing of Cambodia or the burglary of Democratic Headquarters at Watergate --the cover up, the hearings, the lies and, eventually, the threat of impeachment. Nixon's Southern Strategy turned a solid Democratic South into GOP occupied territory. It was not a simple appeal to bigotry that did it. It required the Democrats do what was right while Nixon strategists plotted what was wrong. They succeeded. GOP appeals to bigotry and hatred are now well-practiced.

It is appalling to find in the US a level of hatefulness that one hoped had been laid to rest in the battlefields of the Civil War. From the ashes of the "Old South" rose a mean and prejudiced spirit, just as from the ashes of Watergate rose a radicalized and reactionary GOP.

In Monroe, LA I found, in the only large bookstore in town, a huge section devoted to various Civil War books. That is to be expected. Bothersome was the fact that most of them dealt with the 'betrayal of the South'. Across town, just a stone's throw by big city standards is the Civil War Cemetery, a more sobering reminder of tragedy.

Farther afield, down the road is Vicksburg, MS, where the forces of Ulysses S. Grant had approached by way of the Mississippi River from Memphis only to learn that Vicksburg could never be taken by a direct assault. Grant's Vickburg seige came to symbolize the ideological stand-off as well. Having grown up in the far reaches of Commanche country, I was not prepared to learn that, in the South, to this day, there is still found a lingering resentment that can only be felt by those who had been occupied by a foreign power.

It was among those disaffected descendants of the Civil War south that the GOP found manna, a strategy often falsely attributed to Kevin Phillips its most articulate voice.
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.

--Kevin Phillips
It must be remembered that this "Negro vote" had been the GOP's to lose. They were, after all, the party of Lincoln. It was "Radical Republicans" --not Lincoln --who had imposed upon southern states a reconstruction that turned the South into occupied territory which at the time fared little better than Iraq. The era of "reconstruction" is best known for the terrorist organization it spawned: the Ku Klux Klan.

The raison d'etre of the KKK was to keep 'negroes' from voting for Republicans. The ranks of the KKK were filled by angry southern Democrats! As recently as the early 1960's, one could find in Louisiana (and presumably other southern states as well) large political billboards promising 'Continued Segregation"! The billboards were posted by Democratic --not GOP --candidates.

While it is true that the economies of the 11 states making up the confederacy were dependent upon slavery to produce and harvest the crops (most famously, cotton), it is a mistake to ascribe to the North some vague, mythical moral superiority. Slavery, to be sure, was illegal in the north but only a handful of 'yankees' actively opposed it. Martin Scorsese got it right; Lincoln was as widely despised in New York as he had been in the deep south.

Not every division in America is traced directly to the civil war, although you will find die hards and throwbacks who will --to this day --defend the institution of slavery. Still others resent the harsh reconstruction. It was Nixon's evil genius that his campaign did not merely overcome the natural resentment of his party's role in "reconstructing" the South --it exploited it! That the Democrats would pay dearly for having done the right thing explains the party's timidity today. Democrats have historically paid high prices for being or doing right. The GOP, by contrast, is rewarded handsomely for making a Faustian bargain with bigotry and prejudice. As he signed the Voting Rights Act, LBJ famously said that he was, in fact, forever ceding the South to the GOP.

A long story is, of necessity, made short. Nixon's legacy is that of a GOP benefiting from George Wallace's politics of hate but as well from LBJ's signature on the Voting Rights Act. The GOP found votes wherever there was resentment or prejudice. Clearly --but for the GOP exploitation of hate, distrust and lingering prejudice, our various peoples throughout the nation might have put the Civil War behind them and moved forward.

But for the GOP's war on labor as well as "the nattering nabobs of negativity", Spiro Agnew's code word for academics and free thinkers, the Civil War might have been transcended! Alas, no! It was not to be! The Civil War looms like a ghost upon the body politic. It was only a few years ago that, in Jaspar, Texas bigots dragged a black man at high speeds over back country roads until very nearly nothing was left of his body.

Not so long ago, lynchings and public burnings of black people were not merely tolerated but celebrated like county fairs. Photographs of the events were mailed as post cards. It made of civic murder a macabre celebration, literally, a barbecue.

Thus --American History is of two chapters --pre Civil War and post Civil war. American History cannot be understood without understanding the economics of the Antebellum South and the institution of slavery upon which it depended. The "rise of the South", as we have seen, cannot be understood outside that context. It is one of the great ironies of history that the 'south' that hated Lincoln became Nixon's "Solid South".
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

--Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863

I fell in love with Ashokan Farewell during Ken Burns' famous "Civil War" series on PBS. Hearing Jay Unger's story of its creation helps me appreciate it the more. I like his description of it as a "Scottish Lament".

Ken Burns was wise to allow this piece to set the mood for what has been --until now --America's most profound tragedy --the loss, perhaps forever, of our freedoms. And, again, as then, that tragic loss has come not from abroad but from the cancer within.

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10 comments:

Unknown said...

Great, Len. A very elegant analysis of the Old South and the GOP coming from someone who not only was raised in the South, but has enough brains and wisdom to study the roots of the issues the South has brought to all Americans in the present day.

This is the eternal temptation of politics: it always seems to increase their political power and wealth to harm other citizens, to destroy human rights, to demonize and slaughter other humans. This always seems like the fast track to wealth and power, when in fact it is the fast track only to economic ruin, social misery, and a return to old class structures that have been proven over and over again to not work for society.

But people love their mythologies, no matter how wrong they turn out to be. As the saying goes, "being wrong never felt so right!"

After Nixon and Co ruined the Republicans, they were back just a short four years later, partly because the Democrats could not solidly seize the reigns.

There is a strong, decisive way to do the right thing, and the Dems need to learn this. As much as I have written all over the web on blogs about the problems with Hillary, at least she shows up as having strength.

It has also been noted that the Neocons are actively seeking allies from among the Democrats since they see the unlikelihood of a GOP return to either the White House or a Congressional majority in 2008. Hillary has been willing, to some degree, to court them. This is going to make things very interesting. She is certainly the only one who has a lot of experience. I may end up having to trust that she will be a better President than any of the GOP candidates (at least that much seems obvious when you consider the likes of Guiliani, McCain, and Romney).

She may take the White House in 2008 merely because she's the only Dem candidate that AIPAC can even talk to.

Let's not forget that the Dems balanced the budget and were in power during the 90's economic boom.

The problem with Hillary is that she's a war hawk, although not nearly to the degree that AIPAC and the Neocons are. And I remeber her pressing for more Presidential power even under Bill's reign. So I have a funny feeling she is going to drag her feet on releasing all that Presidential executive authority that Cheney stole during the Bush years. But she does have a sense of social responsibility.

And whether you like Bill Clinton, or not, the fact is he makes a very savvy political adviser.

No matter how bad a sin against God and the universe itself you think getting an extramarital BJ was (I happen not to think it was as bad, as say, causing the wrongful death of 3000 American soldiers, but hey, that's just my opinion!), he is very sharp on matters political and on foreign affairs.

A second round of Clinton White house may not be such a bad thing for America.

Whether Americans will be able to see it, instead gullibly falling for the hate-and-war-mongering pundits as they have so much in the recent past, remains to be seen.

Unfortunately, a lot will depend on what kind of judgment Rupert Murdoch will have upon Hillary as President.

If Rupert sends word out through FOX and WSJ to destroy her, we will likely see a return of the GOP in 2012.

The WSJ, of course, will become Murdoch's premier political tool in printed media. Anyone thinking otherwise is seriously fooling themselves.

That may be Rupert's plan. We'll have to see.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the kind words, Yogi.

The GOP should have learned from the Nixon experience. But like all crooks, the GOP learned all the wrong lessons from Watergate. They learned "not to get caught". They licked their wounds and plotted a comeback, a dictatorship which would resurrect all the old discredited crap that we associate with Nixon --imperial Presidency, endless war, executive privilege, so-called "strict construction" of the constitution, surveillance, enemies lists, invasions of privacy, abuse of agencies: FBI, IRS and a criminal partnership with the MIC.

As for NEOCONS courting Hilary, the Hawk. They are courting her because she is, in spirit, another NEOCON. She was only demonized by the Gingrich crowd as "liberal" because that was the epithet du jour from a party long on criminality, short on brains.

For some weird reason, Americans tend to equate intelligence with evil. As far as I can tell there is no comparable mind set in the rest of the world where "wisdom" is revered and, according to Immanuel Kant (I believe), there is moral imperative to be intelligent. In American movies the villain is most often well-educated, suave, and well-spoken. The hero, by contrast, is simple, a hulk, if not a hunk. His many sentences of only two words are evidence of simplicity if not purity of spirit. American heroes are innocents abroad --and at home. If they should win over villains it's because of their noble hearts and motives --not because they are ever outsmarted anyone.

That's why the GOP thought that they had found in GWB, a rube whose cornball accent would guarantee the image of rustic purity so coveted by the Machiavellian handlers of the GOP.

It didn't work out that way. As a Texan, I can tell you that Bush's accent is as phony as three dollar bill. He is stupid, to be sure, but he is hardly "pure of heart". No Jim Dandy to the rescue, he!

hizzoner said...

A couple of observations:

First, I too was raised in the South and because until I was old enough to know better, accepted bigotry and segregation as a fact of life..

In the South where I was raised in the 60s and 70s I saw the Klan in action.

I had history teachers in Jr High and again in High School who referred to the Civil War as "The War of Northern Aggression".

When I became involved in politics in the late 60s, the GOP paid great lip service to the civil rights movement but the number of Democrats defecting to the party were an ominous sign that something was happening below the surface....and indeed it was...it was almost a subterrainian movement I think.

I read some interviews with Richard Viguere, the god-father of GOP direct mail fundraising. Viguere and his cohorts started working on rebuilding the GOP right after the Goldwater defeat and they continued in spite of Nixon and in spite of Watergate. In fact, by the time that Reagan showed up on the national scene the infrastructure was already in place and the jaggernaut was setting sail. KKKarl Rove, and all the other dirty tricksters were already well embedded and they started taking over power as party regulars in 1972.

I can't therefore completely agree that the Democrats failed to fully capitalize on the victories after Watergate because the infrastructure of the modern crime synidcate that is now the GOP was already in place and functioning by that time....

Worse yet, Delay and the his crew institutionalized the infrasturcture and it will take years to dismantle and rebuild.

We've got a lot of work to do.

Hizzhoner

Unknown said...

hizzoner said...

When I became involved in politics in the late 60s, the GOP paid great lip service to the civil rights movement but the number of Democrats defecting to the party were an ominous sign that something was happening below the surface....and indeed it was...it was almost a subterrainian movement I think.

Indeed, and, to this day, the GOP communicates with its base in "code words". You may have seen my article about it: Bush is on a mission from God. It was a stealth takeover.

Indeed, most of the apparatus was in place in anticipation of the apotheosis of Ronald Reagan. My theory has been that THAT was the revolution. Bill Clinton was so utterly reviled because his administration was not supposed to have happened. It was not in the script. Someone screwed up. They would have tried to impeach him had he been caught jaywalking. In fact, the the actual articles of impeachment against him are all rhetoric. There is not a single allegation of real crimes in any of it.

Worse yet, Delay and the his crew institutionalized the infrasturcture and it will take years to dismantle and rebuild.

I was very close to this at the time and knew DeLay personally as well as the original "swift boat" gang --Bob Perry (of Perry Homes, Houston)et al. This cabal is still intact and, as we saw, they did a number on John Kerry.

Anonymous said...

Fuzzflash sez...

Superb essay, Len. The sweep of history and the poignancy of your proxity to its passing parade hit the spot like cerebral Pepsi.
Was likewise sickened to the core at the news of Mr. Roy Byrd Jr.'s brutal murder by racial bigots on a Texas gravel backroad. Southern enlightenment, unfortunately, remains forever elusive for some folk.

Part of the tragedy here, Len,

"the lynchings and public burnings of black people was not merely tolerated, they were celebrated like county fairs. Photographs of the events were mailed as post cards. It made of civic murder a macabre celebration, literally, a barbecue."

is that kids don't grow up to do this naturally. The racial bigotry is seamlessly passed down at apron string and campfire, then later harvested by scythes of GOP scribes.

Yogi, I’m not sure that HRC is the answer. She’s Beltway to the thong-straps and a warmonger to boot. She’s part of the problem, mate. She sleeps(metaphorically) with Orcs. The War Goddess is happy to have permanent bases in Iraq and is OK about whacking Iran.
Civilised folk usually like to try a little diplomacy first. Establishment functionaries do what they are told.
Here’s an insightful bit by Chris Floyd author of ‘Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium’:

“Most people persist in believing that the Bush Administration has “mishandled” or “bungled” the war in Iraq, when in fact they have achieved almost all of their goals. They have vastly enriched their cronies. They have installed a U.S. military presence in Iraq. They have expanded the size, power and scope of the armed forces and the intelligence services (which now have their own secret armies) beyond the wildest dreams of the most hawkish Cold War militarist. They have not only gutted the Constitution but proved that you can get away with it — an invaluable lesson for dictators to come. And, as noted, they have committed the American Establishment to continuing the radical course they have set in motion — because the Establishment will never allow the election of any candidate who would seek to institute the rollback of the empire and the restoration of genuine constitutional government. Especially as the latter would entail bringing justice to the war makers and the war profiteers, all of them honored stalwarts of the Establishment.”
(from: The Bipartisan Guarantee of More War in Iraq: No Light, Just Tunnel By Chris Floyd
08/15/07 posted at Information Clearing House)

hizzoner said...

To Yogi, Fuzzflash, and especially Len....

Wow....

On what other blog on the web can you find this kind of intelligent discussion?

Thanks for a great blog len.

Hizzhoner

Unknown said...

Fuzzflash sez...

Here’s an insightful bit by Chris Floyd author of ‘Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium’:

“Most people persist in believing that the Bush Administration has “mishandled” or “bungled” the war in Iraq, when in fact they have achieved almost all of their goals.


That's closer to what's really happened that I care to admit. I still think, however, that Bush has screwed up even by Neocon standards, that is to say, he wasn't supposed to have gotten "smoked out" himself. I suppose that we'll have to wait this one out. As Sir Thomas More said, our duty lies in "escaping". In this case "escaping" Bush!

hizzoner said...

On what other blog on the web can you find this kind of intelligent discussion?

All due to the good, well-meaning folk who post here. I love to read these comments! What a gang! Or, as Fuzzflash once likened unto a "Baghdad Cafe".

Cheers, mate!

Christopher said...

Len - It was a pleasure to read your educational piece on the genesis of the contemporary Republican Party.

Referring to your phrase: “……..In American movies the villain is most often well-educated, suave, and well-spoken. The hero, by contrast, is simple, a hulk, if not a hunk. His many sentences of only two words are evidence of simplicity if not purity of spirit. American heroes are innocents abroad --and at home. If they should win over villains it's because of their noble hearts and motives --not because they are ever outsmarted anyone……….”.

This paragraph touches on the question which puzzles most people outside the shores of America: Why did George Bush have such an extraordinary hold on the American people for so long, at least until relatively recently?

If I might take the liberty of quoting from a piece I wrote on my own site a year or so ago “………If you don’t know, and you’re a red-blooded, two-fisted, regular guy, think when you last saw Clint Eastwood in a Dirty Harry movie, or saw a James Bond movie. Didn’t you emerge from the theatre feeling omnipotent, invulnerable, that you could beat anyone up, that there wasn’t a crisis you couldn’t handle? Didn’t you feel wonderfully divorced from the milquetoast henpecked nonentity you ordinarily are, living in daily terror of your boss, crushed by the weight of your domestic responsibilities and enervated by mind-numbing boredom? How exciting, then, to be Dirty Harry or James Bond, if only for the short while it took you to drive home.

And when, on your TVs, you saw George Bush saying he wanted Bin Laden or Saddam dead or alive, and saying you are either for us or against us, and you saw George W landing, fighter-pilot-suited, on that aircraft carrier with the banner “Mission Accomplished”, did you not feel, in your identification with heroic George W, the same invulnerability and omnipotence as when you saw Dirty Harry or James Bond at the movies?

The lone cowboy riding into town to single-handedly rid it of the desperadoes terrorising its decent law-abiding citizens, is a powerful archetype that George Bush - strutting about in his jeans and cowboy hat, and uttering the terse tough simple words that he'll smoke Bin Laden out of his cave and that America will strike at evil-doers everywhere, words that cause a frisson in the gutty-wutzes of all the plain ordinary folks out there in the Great American Heartland - tapped into, and it paid off for him handsomely……….”

The self-educated longshoreman, Eric Hoffer, remarked many times on the pervasive anti-intellectualism in American life, and this was long before the advent of George Bush, the quintessential anti-intellectual.

Why this fear of intellectuals? A continuing visceral reaction to the intellectual-dominated Europe, from which the many millions fled to America’s shores, vowing to rid themselves of the presence of intellectuals for ever?

Unknown said...

Christopher I said ...

“………If you don’t know, and you’re a red-blooded, two-fisted, regular guy, think when you last saw Clint Eastwood in a Dirty Harry movie, or saw a James Bond movie. Didn’t you emerge from the theatre feeling omnipotent, invulnerable, that you could beat anyone up, that there wasn’t a crisis you couldn’t handle? Didn’t you feel wonderfully divorced from the milquetoast henpecked nonentity you ordinarily are, living in daily terror of your boss, crushed by the weight of your domestic responsibilities and enervated by mind-numbing boredom? How exciting, then, to be Dirty Harry or James Bond, if only for the short while it took you to drive home.

And when, on your TVs, you saw George Bush saying he wanted Bin Laden or Saddam dead or alive, and saying you are either for us or against us, and you saw George W landing, fighter-pilot-suited, on that aircraft carrier with the banner “Mission Accomplished”, did you not feel, in your identification with heroic George W, the same invulnerability and omnipotence as when you saw Dirty Harry or James Bond at the movies?


You hit the nail on the head and summed it all up precisely. If i saw through Bush in those days, it was only because I lived "here", and knew what a lousy job he had done as governor. But that doesn't explain why so many other Texans were fooled. Still --you have articulated what must surely be an American obsession summed up by Bush himself who said that he didn't "do nuance".

I still can't figure out how "not doing nuance" became a such an admirable trait. There are, after all, deadly snakes that look very much like harmless ones. "Doing nuance" just might save your life.

The worst snakes are spelled GOP and they have learned how to hide their scales in public. "Doing nuance" is a survival skill.

You are correct about anti-intellectualism being an American trait. But, for the life of me, I don't know why it has to be that way.

I wrote an article in either October or Novemember about J.Frank Dobie, a real cowboy scholar, a professor at UT. His better known books include "Coronado's Children" and "A Texan in England". Dobie was brilliant. I've called him the first "Existentialist Cowboy". At the invitation of Henry Steele Commager, Dobie taught American History at Cambridge during World War II. He was impressed by English life. Asked about life at Cambridge, he summed it up thus: "Three thousand young men --all of whom would rather lose a game than win it unfairly!"

Where is that attitude to be found in America? It is, of course, anathema to the GOP who would rather win a game by cheating than winning it fairly.

SadButTrue said...

"The GOP should have learned from the Nixon experience."

That's just the problem, as you point out in the body of your post. They never learn from their mistakes because they never acknowledge them. No matter how impugned, refuted, discredited and reviled an idea is they will continue to cling to it with pride. Even the institution of slavery.