If modern-day Democrats were like they used to be would you vote Democrat?

[Failzero]

There were barely any differences between the parties back then. A 1950's democrat is probably what i am today in 2023. Im not religious and i love the 1st Amendment.en

Except then in more than half the States you needed the Blessing of The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to get anywhere in Democrat Politics .

 

[Doug1943]

Except then in more than half the States you needed the Blessing of The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to get anywhere in Democrat Politics .

Well, that's not really true. I grew up in Texas in the 1950s, a solidly Democratic state, and the fight between liberals and conservatives was within the Democratic Party. Sometimes the liberals won. For example we (I was a liberal then) elected Ralph Yarborough Senator in 1957 and he served for 20 years. (Ralph Yarborough - Wikipedia). The Klan wasn't really significant in Texas.

As for the other Southern states, what you're saying was true for periods before WWII. But after WWII, the 'third Klan' was not a mass organization. They existed, and committed murders, but didn't have the influence they had had earlier. [Ku Klux Klan - Wikipedia]

And, when American ruling elite decided that their activities were just too embarrassing, as we were competing with the Soviets for influence in the (non-white) Third World, the FBI was sent against them in the 1960s, and was quite effective at reducing their numbers and influence, such as they had, dramatically.

Anyone wanting to know more about this period should start with the life of Tommy Tarrants, their master bomb-maker. It's rather inspiring, actually. [ I Was a Violent Klansman Who Deserved to Die ]

What is true is that in the South at that time, you had to be in favor of segregation of the races in order to win an election. (And in the South, there was only the Democratic Party. Where I lived and went to school, in Houston, there was a rumor that there was a Republican in Dallas, but no one took it seriously.)

 

[Failzero]

Well, that's not really true. I grew up in Texas in the 1950s, a solidly Democratic state, and the fight between liberals and conservatives was within the Democratic Party. Sometimes the liberals won. For example we (I was a liberal then) elected Ralph Yarborough Senator in 1957 and he served for 20 years. (Ralph Yarborough - Wikipedia). The Klan wasn't really significant in Texas.

As for the other Southern states, what you're saying was true for periods before WWII. But after WWII, the 'third Klan' was not a mass organization. They existed, and committed murders, but didn't have the influence they had had earlier. [Ku Klux Klan - Wikipedia]

And, when American ruling elite decided that their activities were just too embarrassing, as we were competing with the Soviets for influence in the (non-white) Third World, the FBI was sent against them in the 1960s, and was quite effective at reducing their numbers and influence, such as they had, dramatically.

Anyone wanting to know more about this period should start with the life of Tommy Tarrants, their master bomb-maker. It's rather inspiring, actually. [ I Was a Violent Klansman Who Deserved to Die ]

What is true is that in the South at that time, you had to be in favor of segregation of the races in order to win an election. (And in the South, there was only the Democratic Party. Where I lived and went to school, in Houston, there was a rumor that there was a Republican in Dallas, but no one took it seriously.). The Klan was still a political force after WW2 , I did not say they had Klan Bake era power ( in 24 & 31 Klan Bakes Texas had top 3 Contingents in Marchers & Delegates )

 

[Andrew_Jackson_FTW]

Except then in more than half the States you needed the Blessing of The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to get anywhere in Democrat Politics .

Don’t you think those kind of views are popular misconceptions these days among some Republicans?

 

[Andrew_Jackson_FTW]

Well, that's not really true. I grew up in Texas in the 1950s, a solidly Democratic state, and the fight between liberals and conservatives was within the Democratic Party. Sometimes the liberals won. For example we (I was a liberal then) elected Ralph Yarborough Senator in 1957 and he served for 20 years. (Ralph Yarborough - Wikipedia). The Klan wasn't really significant in Texas.

As for the other Southern states, what you're saying was true for periods before WWII. But after WWII, the 'third Klan' was not a mass organization. They existed, and committed murders, but didn't have the influence they had had earlier. [Ku Klux Klan - Wikipedia]

And, when American ruling elite decided that their activities were just too embarrassing, as we were competing with the Soviets for influence in the (non-white) Third World, the FBI was sent against them in the 1960s, and was quite effective at reducing their numbers and influence, such as they had, dramatically.

Anyone wanting to know more about this period should start with the life of Tommy Tarrants, their master bomb-maker. It's rather inspiring, actually. [ I Was a Violent Klansman Who Deserved to Die ]

What is true is that in the South at that time, you had to be in favor of segregation of the races in order to win an election. (And in the South, there was only the Democratic Party. Where I lived and went to school, in Houston, there was a rumor that there was a Republican in Dallas, but no one took it seriously.)

Well you have quite a bit of life experience. If I could ask growing up in Texas in the 50s and 60s did you see a lot of white on black racism? Do you recall any white friends or associates back then telling you “you know what if a black person wants to apply for a job at my place I’m not going to give them a job.” Or something along that line

And how would you say the level of racism is today in America compared to in the past ….whether it’s white against blacks or blacks against whites?

 

[Batcat]

I would like to believe that I would have mostly voted Democrat in the 20th century. ..At any time period In that 100 year history but mostly because of the 40s 50s and 60s with people like Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. The way I saw that era was back in those days it was about the workingman. The Democrats were proud of America. We did not have leading Democratic politicians calling for the destruction of historical statues or rioting in our country.

Maybe some people might disagree but the way I see it is that the blue collar Man of the 1950s the steel worker was the ideal representation of the American of that time. It would have been a man with perhaps a family of 4-8 people able to send one or all of his kids to college ..We have changed so significantly here in 2022 we don’t have nearly as many steel jobs as we used to. And frankly the dynamic has changed the image and representation of the American family man has changed. The image of the Democrat and Republican has changed. The way I see it I Democrats and Republicans looked better and acted better in the 20th century then they do today.

Since 2020 I have voted for pretty much all Republicans. But I’m going to change I wanna see the Democratic Party go back to talk about helping the working class, universal healthcare raising the middle wage, supporting the police supporting the firefighters supporting the military. Opposing BLM opposing the view that America is systemically racist. I hope the Democratic Party goes this way but I don’t know what the future is.

I was a registered Democrat for half a century.

I come from a long line of Democrats. I didn’t vote straight Democrat but I often did vote for one.

The Democratic Party left me.

At this point Hell will have to freeze over before I vote for another Democrat for anything except dog catcher Considering glial warming I doubt Hell is going to freeze.

 

[Godboy]

Except then in more than half the States you needed the Blessing of The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to get anywhere in Democrat Politics .

Actually, great point. Im more like a 1980's democrat.

 

[Flopper]

No, by 'woke' I don't mean 'appealing to minorities'. The Democrats have always done that, because the minorities they appeal to are on the bottom of the economic heap.

The key fact about 'wokeness' -- the fact that will play the greatest role in bringing us down -- is a comprehensive disdain for the country and its history, and for traditions in general. [Let's agree that just because something is 'traditional' doesn't mean it's good. And let's agree that, like all other human tribes, the white American tribe has a nasty history -- not quite as brutally violent toward Native Americans as they were to each other, but bad enough. Acknowledging these facts is not what I'm talking about.]

As for the future of globalism, yes ... in an ideal future, the backward nations would advance economically and socially until they reached the economic and cultural level of the more advanced ones. The new generations would all share a common world language, the language of the dominant worldpower -- (although hopefully its written form would be pinyin instead of ideograms).

All the warring tribes would produce generations of young people who found that they shared a culture that united them -- and not just drugs 'n sex 'n rock-and-roll.

We would have extensive inter-marriages, lots of migration, a thorough mixing of the peoples, as we all advanced economically and technically. The old nation-states would recede in importance to the level of American states, or even counties.

Our colony on Mars would include Azeris and Armenians, Sinhalese and Tamils, Jews and Arabs, Han Chinese and Uyghurs, Ukrainians and Russians, Shias and Sunnis , Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs, Igbo and Fulani, Zulu and Xhosa , Kikuyu and Luhya, Tigrayans and Amahris ... and not because of some 'Affirmative Action' Diktat but simply because the computer picked the people most suited to colonize that planet, and the mix occurred naturally.

Right now these people kill each other, have killed each other, or will kill each other. But maybe it will stop someday. It's a noble ideal, and those who hope to see it are no doubt good people.

However, there is no supernatural being watching over us and guiding us towards a radiant future. Various European tribes have managed to merge with each other on the rich North American continent, whose nation dominated the world for 75 years. It would be provincial in the extreme to assume that this process will just automatically occur everywhere else.

The European tribes have stopped making war on each other, under American domination that is, leadership. We'll see what happens when the Americans finally go home.

Please note: I'm not happy about describing this reality. It's awful. But it's the way things are now. And there is not much America can do about it, especially since we're probably going to be having our own existential crisis not long from now.

I'm really confused by term woke. By definition it is alert to racial prejudice and discrimination. However, common usage seems to go far beyond race. I've heard it used in relation LGBTQ, illegal immigrants, abused of women and children, and social welfare in general and even global warming.

 

[Doug1943]

I'm really confused by term woke. By definition it is alert to racial prejudice and discrimination. However, common usage seems to go far beyond race. I've heard it used in relation LGBTQ, illegal immigrants, abused of women and children, and social welfare in general and even global warming.

When we're dealing with words, the right way to start is to first look at the reality they're supposedly referring to ... rather than arguing about the 'correct definition'.

In the US, but not only the US, we've had the growth, over the last couple of decades, of a certain attitude towards society. This attitude has something in common with the view of the traditional Left, but is really something new. It's a bit hard to define, so I'll fall back on what a Supreme Court justice once said about 'pornography': hard to define but you know it when you see it.

So let's look at an example: traditionally, both Left and Right recognized that humankind is divided into many different societies, AND, that some of them, judged by things we all consider good, such as the extension of the human life span, are in advance of others. Some societies are 'advanced' and some are 'backward'.

Read the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, and you'll see Marx and Engels praising capitalism for dragging the 'barbarian' and 'semi-barbarian' nations into modernity. Those are their exact words (in English translation). [Of course, the idea that economic/technical/scientific progress simply causes social progress is wrong. They are loosely coupled, but no more than that.]

Now, suppose I was a college professor in the US, teaching about 'imperialism'. And suppose I agreed with Marx and Engels, and said that not everything the imperialists did in the backward countries was bad, and that their getting their independence from the colonialists was not all good.

For instance, I might refer to the fact that when the British colonialists ruled Jamaica, it had one of the lowest murder rates in the world (3.9 per 100 000). They left, and now it has one of the highest (62 per 100 000 in 2009). [Jamaica - Wikipedia]

Now, if I had said that, say, 25 years ago, I could have expected someone to attempt a refutation. Perhaps something similar happened when the Americans became independent. Perhaps it's due to some economic reason -- maybe Jamaica enjoyed some special status under the British empire which it lost when it left, causing economic disruption, etc. It would be an argument. You would be able to decide which side, if either, was correct.

But now ... 'woke' mobs would demand that I be fired. (If I wanted to be smarter, I would refer to Jamaica's backward attitude to homosexuality -- male homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment, and there are mob attacks against gays. But even then, I suspect, the 'woke' mob would want my head.)

So that's 'woke': the attempt to suppress views that they don't like, including by violence. The 'anti-racism' stuff is superficial -- those attitudes are shared by all civilized people.

This won't get better. And it's why conservatives/patriots had better wake up, and start preparing for what's coming. Societies whose intelligentsia despise them, and who are in the grip of what is, in effect, fascist attitudes to speech and thought they don't like, are not going to last.

 

[JWBooth]

I would like to believe that I would have mostly voted Democrat in the 20th century.

Grover Cleveland was the last Democrat I could see myself voting for. I could hang out with Wilbur Mills though.

 

[Lakhota]

Modern-day Democrats used to be Republicans. They switched parties. Google it...

 

[Doug1943]

Modern-day Democrats used to be Republicans. They switched parties. Google it...

What's interesting is that ordinary Leftists tend to be against America's wars abroad, like Iraq and Afghanistan. They often quote President Eisenhower's warning about the power of the 'military-industrial complex'. And ... they're not wrong! But then... they go off and support the Democrats. Now it's true the Republicans are not much different, but the reality is, most anti-war Congressmen are in the Republican Party.

Here's a good article from the leftwing Tom Dispatch which discusses this: Imperial Dominance Disguised as Democratic Deterrence (Read down to the bottom, where the 'Freedom Caucus' is mentioned.)

 

[Flopper]

When we're dealing with words, the right way to start is to first look at the reality they're supposedly referring to ... rather than arguing about the 'correct definition'.

In the US, but not only the US, we've had the growth, over the last couple of decades, of a certain attitude towards society. This attitude has something in common with the view of the traditional Left, but is really something new. It's a bit hard to define, so I'll fall back on what a Supreme Court justice once said about 'pornography': hard to define but you know it when you see it.

So let's look at an example: traditionally, both Left and Right recognized that humankind is divided into many different societies, AND, that some of them, judged by things we all consider good, such as the extension of the human life span, are in advance of others. Some societies are 'advanced' and some are 'backward'.

Read the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, and you'll see Marx and Engels praising capitalism for dragging the 'barbarian' and 'semi-barbarian' nations into modernity. Those are their exact words (in English translation). [Of course, the idea that economic/technical/scientific progress simply causes social progress is wrong. They are loosely coupled, but no more than that.]

Now, suppose I was a college professor in the US, teaching about 'imperialism'. And suppose I agreed with Marx and Engels, and said that not everything the imperialists did in the backward countries was bad, and that their getting their independence from the colonialists was not all good.

For instance, I might refer to the fact that when the British colonialists ruled Jamaica, it had one of the lowest murder rates in the world (3.9 per 100 000). They left, and now it has one of the highest (62 per 100 000 in 2009). [Jamaica - Wikipedia]

Now, if I had said that, say, 25 years ago, I could have expected someone to attempt a refutation. Perhaps something similar happened when the Americans became independent. Perhaps it's due to some economic reason -- maybe Jamaica enjoyed some special status under the British empire which it lost when it left, causing economic disruption, etc. It would be an argument. You would be able to decide which side, if either, was correct.

But now ... 'woke' mobs would demand that I be fired. (If I wanted to be smarter, I would refer to Jamaica's backward attitude to homosexuality -- male homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment, and there are mob attacks against gays. But even then, I suspect, the 'woke' mob would want my head.)

So that's 'woke': the attempt to suppress views that they don't like, including by violence. The 'anti-racism' stuff is superficial -- those attitudes are shared by all civilized people.

This won't get better. And it's why conservatives/patriots had better wake up, and start preparing for what's coming. Societies whose intelligentsia despise them, and who are in the grip of what is, in effect, fascist attitudes to speech and thought they don't like, are not going to last.

I agree with your last paragraph. It's amazing how many people on the right claim to be anti-fascism yet support fascist policies and candidates.

In regard to language, I am not in favor of creating catch all definitions using words that are well defined or creating acronyms spontaneously. I think people who do this are trying to show they are knowledgeable of the subject by using words and acronyms that the reader is not likely to understand. When the reader does not understand the writer, it defeats the purpose of the writing.

 

[Doug1943]

I agree with your last paragraph. It's amazing how many people on the right claim to be anti-fascism yet support fascist policies and candidates.

In regard to language, I am not in favor of creating catch all definitions using words that are well defined or creating acronyms spontaneously. I think people who do this are trying to show they are knowledgeable of the subject by using words and acronyms that the reader is not likely to understand. When the reader does not understand the writer, it defeats the purpose of the writing.

Well, in that last paragraph, I was referring to 'woke' leftists who have adopted the attitudes of fascism. BUT ... we could have a discussion about anti-democratic attitudes on the Right, as well. For example, I often see people on the Right post something along the lines of "Biden is a traitor and should be executed for treason" -- besides revealing a total ignorance of what the Constitution actually says, it also reveals a non-conservative attitude towards the rule of law. I'm sure it makes the person who says this sort of crap feel real rough and tough, but it's completely against the conservative commitment to the rule of law.

However, as America comes apart, we're going to see the truth of the old Roman saying, Inter arma enim silent leges, "In war, the laws are silent," and on both sides.

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