Keep preaching of pyrrhic victories from the comfort of your home as – checks notes – not a single Tankie was in Congress who voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, now, did they? So yes, thank a Liberal for actually getting shit done. Don’t have much to list for winning rights for the American people now, do you…?
I just have to jump in here to point out how utterly, completely, cataclysmically wrong you are about this. First, let’s start with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Yes, it’s true that no, “Tankie,” was in Congress to vote for it, but attributing it’s passage to Liberals shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the parties functioned at the time.
Economically, the party positions were mostly the same, with Republicans promoting fiscal conservatism while Democrats supported labor rights and the social safety net. However, in terms of the Civil Rights movement, the divide was centered around geography, not party; Republicans and Democrats from northern states were far more likely to support the Civil Rights movement than southern states. In fact, more Republicans voted for Civil Rights Act than Democrats (a point disingenuous Republicans will bring up without acknowledging the Southern Strategy, but that’s a separate issue), so fiscally, the Civil Rights Act was passed with more conservative than liberal support.
Second, the Civil Rights movement in general was a far-left movement that clashed with Liberal Centrists. Martin Luther King was far more aligned with Socialists and Democrat Socialists than Liberals, and was downright anti-capitalist, saying, “Capitalism has often left a gap of superfluous wealth and abject poverty…[creating] conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few,” and that, "capitalism has outlived its usefulness.”
King also had no patience for moderate Liberals. In a speech in 1960, he said, “There is a pressing need for a liberalism in the North which is truly liberal…[that] rises up with righteous indignation when a Negro is lynched in Mississippi but will be equally incensed when a Negro is denied the right to live in his neighborhood.” Even in his famous 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail he said:
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
So, in summary, attributing the Civil Rights Act to Liberals is patently wrong. Economically, more members of Congress who voted for the Civil Rights Act would identify as conservative than liberal. Socially, the Civil Rights movement was often at odds with Liberal pragmatists who pushed for slower, more moderate action. Finally, given your comments, I’m pretty sure that if Martin Luther King were alive today, you’d think he was a Tankie.
So let me get this straight: You say I’m, “cataclysmically wrong” about this but in the very next breath confirm precisely what I said that not a single leftist / tankie / social democrat / democratic socialist / socialist / commie in Congress actually moved this to a law…? So I guess I’m cataclysmically correct. I had to read your comment twice over to make sure
What you’re discussing is the great ideological-party realignment of the 20th century; a transitioning point beginning in the FDR days and going all the way forward with Goldwater and Nixon’s Southern Strategy. I’m painting broad strokes certainly, but it is abundantly-clear that the liberals of today were largely the Republican of yesterday. Does it seem likely that Southern Democrats would be the advocates of Civil Rights when it was the Northern Abolitionists who fought to end Slavery and the Southern Democrats advocating for slavery and issuing the “Southern Manifesto”? Consider a map of WHERE those votes for the 1964 Civil Rights came from, specifically, where the majority of NAY votes came from. In summary: The exact same people who more greatly supported labor rights and social safety nets were also the ones who voted YAY for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Those were neither socialists nor southern conservatives; those were predominantly northern liberals.
Moreover:
Robert Gordon, a legal historian and law professor at Stanford University, told PolitiFact the post’s claim is misleading and pointed to Democratic support of the bill.
“The nay Democratic votes were all from the Southern bloc of the party. The former Confederate states had been effectively one-party states since Reconstruction,” Gordon said. “The Civil Rights Act was promoted by a former Southern Democrat, President Lyndon Johnson of Texas, and passed with the help of Northern Democrats and 27 Republicans.”
At the end of the day I feel my point remains the same: It was those very liberals who turned his words into law. We can be grateful to the grassroots organization, but at the end of the day there is a coalition that needs to be had to get things actually done at the highest level of law creation.
Man I aced reading-comprehension to the point of scholarships; with that I’ve now read it three times and I’m still no closer to having enough ink to connect those dots.
Isn’t it a bit ironic that you quote MLK in 1963 when those very “white moderates” came to be the ones to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964? I’m really trying to understand you here, so help me.
OK, I’ll try to make this simple enough for you; the kind of Liberal pragmatists that you’re congratulating for Civil Rights Act simply weren’t responsible for passing it. Civil Rights leaders were, by and large, much farther left than Liberals, and they often complained that Liberals were obstructing the movement as much as segregationists. Leaders from Martin Luther King to Malcom X identified Liberals who preached incrementalism as a hindrance to Civil Rights.
However, if you were to trying to attribute passage of Civil Rights Act purely based on the vote totals of Congress, you’d still be wrong. Segregationist southerners from both parties opposed the bill while northerners from both parties supported it, and it passed with a bipartisan coalition that was majority Republican. While these Republicans were anti-segregation, they were still free-market, anti-labor, fiscal conservatives, and you don’t get to retroactively turn them into Liberals because of the Southern Strategy.
So, the Civil Rights Movement was led by leftists, Liberals were an obstacle to the Civil Rights Movement, and when a bipartisan coalition passed the Civil Rights Act, fewer Liberals voted for it than (what we would today call) moderate conservatives. From the decades leading up to the Civil Rights Act to the passage of the Act itself, Liberals were not the driving force.
Anyway man, I didn’t get a, “reading comprehension,” scholarship, but one of my scholarships was a work-study where worked as a writing tutor, and I’m pretty sure I’ve stated this point as clearly as possible. If you still don’t get it, I can’t really help you.
That guy’s entire vibe is r/iamverysmart incarnate, I don’t think it matters if you beamed it straight into their head they’d still find a way to get it wrong
Look I can be very direct and note that I explicitly said that white moderate liberals – not tankies – were the ones who passed the legislation that effectively turned long-time civil rights grievances into redressed law, and that is precisely what happened. But sure I’ll fully acknowledge that without activists across the range from Malcolm X to MLK Jr., (whom Malcolm X basically said he wasn’t leftist and aggressive enough) influenced aforementioned white moderate liberals to action. As I said (and as was deflected and ignored by you), MLK made that statement a year prior to the Civil Rights. Put another way, if anyone thinks MLK would be advocating to let Donald Trump in today by voting 3rd party or not voting, then they are out of their goddamned minds.
Nevertheless good luck getting white southern conservatives to be influenced to such action; and therein lies the difference between the two primary ideologies in America. The point being made is: Progress can still occur via liberals; the same cannot be said should you let Republicans get in office.
Segregationist southerners from both parties opposed the bill while northerners from both parties supported it, and it passed with a bipartisan coalition that was majority Republican. While these Republicans were anti-segregation, they were still free-market, anti-labor, fiscal conservatives, and you don’t get to retroactively turn them into Liberals because of the Southern Strategy.
You prove the point that geography made the difference and as the realignment completed these northern Republicans and Democrats consolidated into a unitary Democratic banner. Also I do not understand what you’re referring to when you write the coalition was majority Republican; it was majority Democrat. - 46 Democrats, and 27 Republicans in the Senate and 152 Dems to 138 Republicans in the House For. This makes the total For 198 Dems 165 Republicans. Nevertheless it almost doesn’t matter, for as we noted these Republicans, the party of Lincoln still in transition of the party realignment as the Dixiecrats abandoned their coalition, effectively became the liberals of the modern Democrats. It really doesn’t matter how one slices it; the overarching premise is that the North of Then voted in favor, and just so happens to split along the Mason-Dixon line just as it does today after the realignment. I sure as shit am not thanking a Southern confederate-adoring conservative, that’s for sure; thus it must be predominantly the Northern Liberal amidst both parties during this transitional period who was more predisposed to abolition, more pro-union/labor, and anti-segregation.
Perhaps you’re writing from a false premise; have you tried entertaining some humility? I’m open to being wrong, but let’s work through this together, shall we?
I’m just in disbelief you’re still parading around like an idiot making heros out of libs for eventually taking a minimum of action after a decade of protests and sit-ins by activists.
I’m just in disbelief that when the wise man points at the moon, you’re still looking at the finger and missing the entire point, which is to say that as much as you complain about those big bad liberals, they’re still the ones who actually end up passing the major laws that set the foundation for progress; and alllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the decades of cute sit-ins and protests by activists against fascist Republicans (of the modern day) would NEVER, EVER achieve a modicum of change.
Look I can be very direct and note that I explicitly said that white moderate liberals – not tankies – were the ones who passed the legislation that effectively turned long-time civil rights grievances into redressed law, and that is precisely what happened.
It really isn’t.
But sure I’ll fully acknowledge that without activists across the range from Malcolm X to MLK Jr., (whom Malcolm X basically said he wasn’t leftist and aggressive enough) influenced aforementioned white moderate liberals to action.
Thank God those poor Civil Rights leaders had such benevolent white saviors to help them.
if anyone thinks MLK would be advocating to let Donald Trump in today by voting 3rd party or not voting, then they are out of their goddamned minds.
No one thinks that, no one said that, you’re just making up people to be mad at.
You prove the point that geography made the difference…
Yeah, this was always my point. It’s in the second paragraph of my original comment. Nice reading comprehension.
…and as the realignment completed these northern Republicans and Democrats consolidated into a unitary Democratic banner.
for as we noted these Republicans, the party of Lincoln still in transition of the party realignment as the Dixiecrats abandoned their coalition, effectively became the liberals of the modern Democrats.
OK, now we’re starting to get into where you actually don’t understand history. You seem to believe that the Republicans said, “actually, we want to do racism now, let’s start the Southern Strategy!” and all the good Republicans that voted for the Civil Rights Act became Liberal Democrats. In reality, the Republican/Democrat party switch took decades and involved very few members actually switching parties (aside from the Dixiecrats). Most Republicans who supported the Civil Rights Act didn’t become Democrats or Liberals, they just saw their party gather more racist members over the years until they retired. They didn’t, “consolidate under a unitary Democratic banner,” they were still Republican and fiscally conservative.
I do not understand what you’re referring to when you write the coalition was majority Republican; it was majority Democrat. - 46 Democrats, and 27 Republicans in the Senate and 152 Dems to 138 Republicans in the House For. This makes the total For 198 Dems 165 Republicans.
OK, I get it. You’re looking at raw numbers without factoring in who controlled the House and Senate and how they voted. Only 153 out of 244 Democrats (63%) supported the Civil Rights Act vs. 136 out of 171 (80%) of Republicans. 46 out of 67 Senate Democrats (69%) vs 27 out of 33 (82%) Republicans. These white Liberals you keep praising weren’t the reason it passed, they were the opposition. The same white Southern Democrats that backed the New Deal also fought tooth and nail against the Civil Rights Act, more than their conservative peers.
You’re taking a modern understanding of Liberals and applying it to the Civil Rights Era. You’re congratulating good white Liberals for passing the Civil Rights Act, when many of the major supporters would be considered conservatives and most of the opponents would be considered Liberals by most metrics. Beyond that, you’re pretending that the Republican conservatives could retroactively be counted as Liberals because you fundamentally don’t understand the party swap.
Besides that, your ranting about how tankies (which, by the way, you’re incorrectly using to mean, “Socialists, Marxists, or other Leftists,” but that’s a whole other issue) didn’t cast any votes in the Civil Rights Act, while ignoring that some of the most prominent voices in the movement where Democratic Socialists, Socialists, or other forms of, “tankie.” Sure, they spent years getting beaten by police, attacked by segregationists, and told to slow down by incrementalisy Liberals, but they weren’t in Congress, so according to you their not as important as white Liberals!
And then, after building this white-savior Liberal fantasy for yourself, you have the audacity to tell me entertain some humility? Sorry buddy, you’re going to have to work through this one on your own.
To pass a civil rights bill in 1964, the Senate proponents of that bill developed a three-part strategy. First, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield maneuvered the bill away from the Judiciary Committee and made it the Senate’s pending business. Second, a bipartisan legislative team of senators and staff, led by Majority Whip Hubert Humphrey and Minority Whip Thomas Kuchel, developed a plan to defeat a well-organized filibuster. Finally, they enlisted the aid of Minority Leader Everett Dirksen. Only Dirksen could provide the Republican votes needed to invoke cloture and bring about passage of the bill. “The bill can’t pass unless you get Ev Dirksen,” President Lyndon Johnson told Hubert Humphrey. “You get in there to see Dirksen. You drink with Dirksen! You talk with Dirksen. You listen to Dirksen.”
In an era when there were many factional divisions within both political parties, the biggest headaches for Democratic leader Mike Mansfield often came not from Republicans but from the conservative bloc of his own party caucus. The filibuster that threatened to derail the civil rights bill in 1964 was not led by the opposition party, but by an opposing faction within the majority party. To invoke cloture on the civil rights bill, Democratic proponents of the bill needed strong Republican support. If the bipartisan team could gain the support of Dirksen, a small-government conservative from Illinois, they might win over other conservatives.
This presented Everett Dirksen with a dilemma. It was a presidential election year and, as one historian commented, Dirksen was asked “to deliver Republican votes in support of a Democratic president who could not bring along enough of his own party to seal the deal.” As the long civil rights debate unfolded, it did so with the backdrop of presidential primaries. The last thing the Senate’s Republican leader should be doing, many argued, was to provide the Democratic administration with a major legislative victory, but Dirksen, a proud Republican from the Land of Lincoln, was determined to preserve the Republican legacy inherited from the Great Emancipator. In addition, there were liberal and moderate Republicans who were deeply committed to the cause of civil rights, and senators such as Jacob Javits of New York urged Dirksen to take immediate action. On the other hand, staunch conservatives like Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa fought Dirksen every step of the way. Dominating the GOP caucus, many conservatives believed the civil rights bill represented an unprecedented intrusion by the state into the daily lives of Americans.
By late February 1964, as the bipartisan team set to work, Dirksen began tinkering with the bill. Over the next three months, the Republican leader, meeting daily with Humphrey or Kuchel but largely avoiding his caucus, suggested a host of amendments divided into categories of technical and substantive. The lesser amendments corrected or clarified language, while substantive amendments brought compromise among competing views. Throughout the negotiations, Dirksen kept his own counsel. “What is Ev Dirksen up to?” asked the Los Angeles Times. Dirksen is “the master of obscure intention,” wrote the Washington Post, which will be “revealed only in his own good time.” While Dirksen worked with the bipartisan team, key staff negotiated with individual Republican senators.
In early April Dirksen attended the Republicans’ weekly policy luncheon and presented a set of 40 draft amendments. Conservatives, suspicious of the leader’s behind-the-scenes deal-making, expressed only reluctant support. The liberals simply rebelled, accusing Dirksen of watering down the House-passed bill. As the meeting broke up, it was clear that the Republican caucus remained divided. Reassuringly, Senator Humphrey expressed optimism. Dirksen’s “not trying to be destructive,” Humphrey commented. “He’s trying to be constructive.”
The debate in the Senate Chamber continued, as Dirksen produced more amendments while constantly testing the waters looking for support. Details were discussed, agreements were made, and deals were struck as Dirksen worked to gain votes for cloture while maintaining the integrity of the House-passed bill. As Kentucky senator John Sherman Cooper saw it, Dirksen’s proposal would not weaken the bill, but would be “a substantial amendment in developing sentiment for the bill, not only here, but throughout the country. It is going to have appeal.”
Lawrence F. O’Brien, President Kennedy’s and later President Johnson’s chief of liaison with the Congress, recalled it this way:
[Y]ou had a battle on two fronts simultaneously. You had a battle with the conservatives on the committee, the southern Democrats, conservative Republicans, but you had just as tough a battle with the liberals. Their position was the old story of the half loaf or three-quarters of a loaf, and [now they were saying] “we’ll settle for nothing less [than the whole loaf.]” . . . We shared their views, and we’d love to do it their way.
We were accused by some of being weak-kneed but, my God, are you going to have meaningful legislation or are you going to sit around for another five or ten years while you play this game? Those liberals sat around saying, “No, we won’t accept anything but the strongest possible civil rights bill, and we won’t vote for anything less than that.” To kill civil rights in that Judiciary Committee was an appalling possibility! And it was not only a possibility, it came darn close to an actuality.
Curse those liberals for demanding a stronger civil rights bill, right!?
Ergo: Liberals supported; conservatives resisted. No tankies in Congress. Thank a liberal. Yes, I’m aware that what is progressive for the time is comparatively conservative by today’s standards; that doesn’t change the point.
Congrats on completely ignoring everything I said about the nuances of Civil Rights Era politics and instead finding sources that only uses, “liberal,” and, “conservative,” as they refer to socal policies of the time. Don’t think too hard about the fact that Dirksen was a staunch fiscal conservative who supported the Vietnam War, or that Strom Thurmond was a New Deal Democrat who supported public spending on the working class. I wouldn’t want you to disrupt the ahistorical dichotomy you’ve created for yourself! Maybe Google, “tankie,” before you use that word again, because you have no idea what it means! Good luck with the scholarships!
I just have to jump in here to point out how utterly, completely, cataclysmically wrong you are about this. First, let’s start with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Yes, it’s true that no, “Tankie,” was in Congress to vote for it, but attributing it’s passage to Liberals shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the parties functioned at the time.
Economically, the party positions were mostly the same, with Republicans promoting fiscal conservatism while Democrats supported labor rights and the social safety net. However, in terms of the Civil Rights movement, the divide was centered around geography, not party; Republicans and Democrats from northern states were far more likely to support the Civil Rights movement than southern states. In fact, more Republicans voted for Civil Rights Act than Democrats (a point disingenuous Republicans will bring up without acknowledging the Southern Strategy, but that’s a separate issue), so fiscally, the Civil Rights Act was passed with more conservative than liberal support.
Second, the Civil Rights movement in general was a far-left movement that clashed with Liberal Centrists. Martin Luther King was far more aligned with Socialists and Democrat Socialists than Liberals, and was downright anti-capitalist, saying, “Capitalism has often left a gap of superfluous wealth and abject poverty…[creating] conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few,” and that, "capitalism has outlived its usefulness.”
King also had no patience for moderate Liberals. In a speech in 1960, he said, “There is a pressing need for a liberalism in the North which is truly liberal…[that] rises up with righteous indignation when a Negro is lynched in Mississippi but will be equally incensed when a Negro is denied the right to live in his neighborhood.” Even in his famous 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail he said:
So, in summary, attributing the Civil Rights Act to Liberals is patently wrong. Economically, more members of Congress who voted for the Civil Rights Act would identify as conservative than liberal. Socially, the Civil Rights movement was often at odds with Liberal pragmatists who pushed for slower, more moderate action. Finally, given your comments, I’m pretty sure that if Martin Luther King were alive today, you’d think he was a Tankie.
So let me get this straight: You say I’m, “cataclysmically wrong” about this but in the very next breath confirm precisely what I said that not a single leftist / tankie / social democrat / democratic socialist / socialist / commie in Congress actually moved this to a law…? So I guess I’m cataclysmically correct. I had to read your comment twice over to make sure
What you’re discussing is the great ideological-party realignment of the 20th century; a transitioning point beginning in the FDR days and going all the way forward with Goldwater and Nixon’s Southern Strategy. I’m painting broad strokes certainly, but it is abundantly-clear that the liberals of today were largely the Republican of yesterday. Does it seem likely that Southern Democrats would be the advocates of Civil Rights when it was the Northern Abolitionists who fought to end Slavery and the Southern Democrats advocating for slavery and issuing the “Southern Manifesto”? Consider a map of WHERE those votes for the 1964 Civil Rights came from, specifically, where the majority of NAY votes came from. In summary: The exact same people who more greatly supported labor rights and social safety nets were also the ones who voted YAY for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Those were neither socialists nor southern conservatives; those were predominantly northern liberals.
Moreover:
At the end of the day I feel my point remains the same: It was those very liberals who turned his words into law. We can be grateful to the grassroots organization, but at the end of the day there is a coalition that needs to be had to get things actually done at the highest level of law creation.
Buddy, you need to reread my comment, and this time go past the second paragraph.
Man I aced reading-comprehension to the point of scholarships; with that I’ve now read it three times and I’m still no closer to having enough ink to connect those dots.
Isn’t it a bit ironic that you quote MLK in 1963 when those very “white moderates” came to be the ones to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964? I’m really trying to understand you here, so help me.
OK, I’ll try to make this simple enough for you; the kind of Liberal pragmatists that you’re congratulating for Civil Rights Act simply weren’t responsible for passing it. Civil Rights leaders were, by and large, much farther left than Liberals, and they often complained that Liberals were obstructing the movement as much as segregationists. Leaders from Martin Luther King to Malcom X identified Liberals who preached incrementalism as a hindrance to Civil Rights.
However, if you were to trying to attribute passage of Civil Rights Act purely based on the vote totals of Congress, you’d still be wrong. Segregationist southerners from both parties opposed the bill while northerners from both parties supported it, and it passed with a bipartisan coalition that was majority Republican. While these Republicans were anti-segregation, they were still free-market, anti-labor, fiscal conservatives, and you don’t get to retroactively turn them into Liberals because of the Southern Strategy.
So, the Civil Rights Movement was led by leftists, Liberals were an obstacle to the Civil Rights Movement, and when a bipartisan coalition passed the Civil Rights Act, fewer Liberals voted for it than (what we would today call) moderate conservatives. From the decades leading up to the Civil Rights Act to the passage of the Act itself, Liberals were not the driving force.
Anyway man, I didn’t get a, “reading comprehension,” scholarship, but one of my scholarships was a work-study where worked as a writing tutor, and I’m pretty sure I’ve stated this point as clearly as possible. If you still don’t get it, I can’t really help you.
That guy’s entire vibe is r/iamverysmart incarnate, I don’t think it matters if you beamed it straight into their head they’d still find a way to get it wrong
I don’t know about that. I mean, they got offered scholarships because of their reading comprehension.
Look I can be very direct and note that I explicitly said that white moderate liberals – not tankies – were the ones who passed the legislation that effectively turned long-time civil rights grievances into redressed law, and that is precisely what happened. But sure I’ll fully acknowledge that without activists across the range from Malcolm X to MLK Jr., (whom Malcolm X basically said he wasn’t leftist and aggressive enough) influenced aforementioned white moderate liberals to action. As I said (and as was deflected and ignored by you), MLK made that statement a year prior to the Civil Rights. Put another way, if anyone thinks MLK would be advocating to let Donald Trump in today by voting 3rd party or not voting, then they are out of their goddamned minds.
Nevertheless good luck getting white southern conservatives to be influenced to such action; and therein lies the difference between the two primary ideologies in America. The point being made is: Progress can still occur via liberals; the same cannot be said should you let Republicans get in office.
You prove the point that geography made the difference and as the realignment completed these northern Republicans and Democrats consolidated into a unitary Democratic banner. Also I do not understand what you’re referring to when you write the coalition was majority Republican; it was majority Democrat. - 46 Democrats, and 27 Republicans in the Senate and 152 Dems to 138 Republicans in the House For. This makes the total For 198 Dems 165 Republicans. Nevertheless it almost doesn’t matter, for as we noted these Republicans, the party of Lincoln still in transition of the party realignment as the Dixiecrats abandoned their coalition, effectively became the liberals of the modern Democrats. It really doesn’t matter how one slices it; the overarching premise is that the North of Then voted in favor, and just so happens to split along the Mason-Dixon line just as it does today after the realignment. I sure as shit am not thanking a Southern confederate-adoring conservative, that’s for sure; thus it must be predominantly the Northern Liberal amidst both parties during this transitional period who was more predisposed to abolition, more pro-union/labor, and anti-segregation.
Perhaps you’re writing from a false premise; have you tried entertaining some humility? I’m open to being wrong, but let’s work through this together, shall we?
I’m just in disbelief you’re still parading around like an idiot making heros out of libs for eventually taking a minimum of action after a decade of protests and sit-ins by activists.
I’m just in disbelief that when the wise man points at the moon, you’re still looking at the finger and missing the entire point, which is to say that as much as you complain about those big bad liberals, they’re still the ones who actually end up passing the major laws that set the foundation for progress; and alllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the decades of cute sit-ins and protests by activists against fascist Republicans (of the modern day) would NEVER, EVER achieve a modicum of change.
Lmao without those libs obstructing progress those ‘cute’ protests and sit-ins wouldn’t have been necessary
It really isn’t.
Thank God those poor Civil Rights leaders had such benevolent white saviors to help them.
No one thinks that, no one said that, you’re just making up people to be mad at.
Yeah, this was always my point. It’s in the second paragraph of my original comment. Nice reading comprehension.
OK, now we’re starting to get into where you actually don’t understand history. You seem to believe that the Republicans said, “actually, we want to do racism now, let’s start the Southern Strategy!” and all the good Republicans that voted for the Civil Rights Act became Liberal Democrats. In reality, the Republican/Democrat party switch took decades and involved very few members actually switching parties (aside from the Dixiecrats). Most Republicans who supported the Civil Rights Act didn’t become Democrats or Liberals, they just saw their party gather more racist members over the years until they retired. They didn’t, “consolidate under a unitary Democratic banner,” they were still Republican and fiscally conservative.
OK, I get it. You’re looking at raw numbers without factoring in who controlled the House and Senate and how they voted. Only 153 out of 244 Democrats (63%) supported the Civil Rights Act vs. 136 out of 171 (80%) of Republicans. 46 out of 67 Senate Democrats (69%) vs 27 out of 33 (82%) Republicans. These white Liberals you keep praising weren’t the reason it passed, they were the opposition. The same white Southern Democrats that backed the New Deal also fought tooth and nail against the Civil Rights Act, more than their conservative peers.
You’re taking a modern understanding of Liberals and applying it to the Civil Rights Era. You’re congratulating good white Liberals for passing the Civil Rights Act, when many of the major supporters would be considered conservatives and most of the opponents would be considered Liberals by most metrics. Beyond that, you’re pretending that the Republican conservatives could retroactively be counted as Liberals because you fundamentally don’t understand the party swap.
Besides that, your ranting about how tankies (which, by the way, you’re incorrectly using to mean, “Socialists, Marxists, or other Leftists,” but that’s a whole other issue) didn’t cast any votes in the Civil Rights Act, while ignoring that some of the most prominent voices in the movement where Democratic Socialists, Socialists, or other forms of, “tankie.” Sure, they spent years getting beaten by police, attacked by segregationists, and told to slow down by incrementalisy Liberals, but they weren’t in Congress, so according to you their not as important as white Liberals!
And then, after building this white-savior Liberal fantasy for yourself, you have the audacity to tell me entertain some humility? Sorry buddy, you’re going to have to work through this one on your own.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/civil_rights/cloture_finalpassage.htm
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/summer/civil-rights-act
Curse those liberals for demanding a stronger civil rights bill, right!?
Ergo: Liberals supported; conservatives resisted. No tankies in Congress. Thank a liberal. Yes, I’m aware that what is progressive for the time is comparatively conservative by today’s standards; that doesn’t change the point.
Congrats on completely ignoring everything I said about the nuances of Civil Rights Era politics and instead finding sources that only uses, “liberal,” and, “conservative,” as they refer to socal policies of the time. Don’t think too hard about the fact that Dirksen was a staunch fiscal conservative who supported the Vietnam War, or that Strom Thurmond was a New Deal Democrat who supported public spending on the working class. I wouldn’t want you to disrupt the ahistorical dichotomy you’ve created for yourself! Maybe Google, “tankie,” before you use that word again, because you have no idea what it means! Good luck with the scholarships!