Does Anyone Know History?

[louis c]

I keep hearing on radio and seeing on TV this asinine assertion that African-Americans should not vote for Democrats because we're the party of slavery and Jim Crow. That all the segregationists were Democratic office holders.

No shitting. That was prior to 1964. Between 1964 and 1968 we threw all the fucking bigots out of our party. Lyndon Johnson signed the civil rights and voting rights acts in 1964 and 1965. Goldwater carried the 4 deep south states in 1964 and George Wallace took all the bigots into his third party in 1968 and he carried all the deep south states. Nixon even called it the "Southern Strategy" in 1972.

The bigots now vote nearly exclusively for Republicans. Look at the Congressional seats and where their districts are. Come on, what the fuck, doesn't anybody know history anymore. Do you think that David Duke and Steve Bannon are attracted to Donald Trump because the Republicans are still the party of Lincoln?

Give me a break, please.

[63splitwindow]

1. The RW scum-sleaze has SELECTIVE recall as well as SELECTIVE morality enforcement practices.

[brush]

2. They figure they'll fool some morons with that argument.

The trouble for them though is there aren't enough stupid racists to win a national election nowadays (I know the term "stupid racist" is somewhat redundant but I just like to say it.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. The Democrats split into a Southern and a Northern faction before the war ...

A faction of Northern ("War&quot Democrats eventually joined a coalition with Lincoln Republicans to form the Union Party, which nominated the incumbent Lincoln to his second term. The Republican Party abandoned Lincoln to nominate John C. Fremont, who later withdrew and supported Lincoln. Republicans and the Union Party eventually coalesced and kept the Republican name. So, technically, the Republicans are not the "party of Lincoln", but the party that dumped Lincoln, a sitting President, not just in wartime, but in the middle of a civil war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1864_National_Union_National_Convention#Background

After the war, Southerners who served in the Confederate gov't were initially barred from regaining political office, allowing an uneasy reunion between Southern and Northern Democrats. With the Republican Party quickly evolving into the party of Big Business under the casually corrupt Grant administration, Democrats hung together out of common interest. Only with the loss of the civil rights battles did the old Confederate-style Dixiecrats -- now outnumbered by Northern Democrats -- jump ship to join the Repugs, leaving a relieved Democratic Party behind.

Of course, I left out a *lot* of interesting details.

[Augiedog]

4. The "party of Lincoln" is really the party of Jim Crow. Their denial of their own reality is

evidence of their intellectual dishonesty. When your whole existence is based on lies and maintaining the lies, you find your energies going into a void that has no valued return. The Republican Party has, in cahoots with faux news and attendant blowhards, spent so much effort in deceiving their right wing constituency in pursuit of cash and power that they now find themselves in a hall of mirrors which they cannot escape. The notion that the right wing lunes always try to foist on the rest of the intellectually lazy media is this meme of "we are the party of Lincoln", suggesting that they are somehow above the allegation of intolerance and could not be racist by definition, because Lincoln ya know. Well Republican Party, as many educated people have said before and will say innumerable times in the future, FUCK YOU!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Remember the Party of Lincoln

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. The Democratic Party originally got it's name based on the idea of Majority Rule.....

This was in the days when the majority that was allowed to vote was rich white MALE landowners.

Now it's come to mean the party that includes EVERYONE.

[LeftyMom]

8. Bye.

[Journeyman]

10. When the slaves were freed, Mr Lincoln was not a Republican - he was in the National Union Party...

When Mr Lincoln was a Republican, in 1861, representatives of the Republican Party -- specifically Representative Thomas Corwin (R-OH) and Senator William Seward (R-NY) -- introduced a proposed amendment to the Constitution, the so-called Corwin Amendment (what would have been the 13th Amendment), which would have shielded "domestic institutions" of the States from abolition or interference by Congress, either through legislation or the Constitutional amendment process. This would have included slavery; it was specifically addressed to the issue of slavery. It was one of several measures considered by Congress in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to attract the seceding states back into the Union and entice the border states to stay.

Mr Lincoln addressed the issue of the Corwin Amendment on taking office in March 1861 in his First Inaugural Address:

I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution — which amendment, however, I have not seen — has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable. (emphasis added)

We are all well-served when we retain the wisdom E.L. Doctorow espoused in explanation of our history, that the world composes and recomposes itself constantly in an endless process of dissatisfaction. Therefore, to attribute any given belief from one era to another is both fruitless and ultimately folly.

[kentuck]

11. Well said !

[LWolf]

12. Yes, I know history.

And history tells me that political parties, like politicians, evolve. Knowing that, I'm also very aware that the Democratic Party of 2016 is NOT the Democratic Party of the 1960s.