SUMMARY: There is a through line of white supremacy, racism, and pro-slavery views connecting the three-fifths compromise, the Civil War, Jim Crow, and Trump. This post uses the third episode of Rachel Maddow Presents and a study on the geography of culture to make the connections between past efforts to oppress Black and Hispanic Americans to our current installment of the ascendance of white supremacy.
Mad as Hell: Unmasking a Sixty-Year Scheme of Voter Suppression
I am mad as hell right now.
Angry.
This anger has an interesting story to it, so I’ll tell it to you if you’ll let me.
Let me know in the comments if it makes you angry, too, okay?
Deep breath.
The Deja News Podcast and Operation Evil Eagle Eye
Deja News is a podcast that comes from Rachel Maddow as part of her “retirement” from her evening TV show, so you know it is made with her signature eye for detail, love of history, and eye for connecting seemingly disparate unrelated things together. Not in a conspiracy theory way, but in a way that is hidden unless you have the resources of time, money, and inclination that she seems to have. So far, not too angry, right?
The shtick is that she and her partner in crime, Isaac-Davy Aronson, take a significant current news story and find a very similar thing that happened in the past, figuring that we could learn something from it that might help us today. Pretty smart, hunh? Well that Maddow is a pretty smart cookie.
In her third episode, The Meanest, Dirtiest, Low-Down Stuff, they tell us the story of Republicans rat-fucking the Black and Hispanic vote using something they called Operation Evil Eagle Eye. You might recall this particular episode of dirty tricks because it resulted in the consent decree that barred the party from engaging in so-called “ballot safety” measures. It went into effect in 1982 and was lifted in 2018 with enough time for them to organize OEE.2.
The Origins and Tactics of Operation Eagle Eye
Operation Evil Eye started in 1964 with the Goldwater campaign against LBJ because the Republicans claimed that the 1960 election of JFK was rigged. It had been stolen from them, and they were going to have to secure the polls to stop people who didn’t seem like they had the refined tastes and education that would cause them to vote Republican from voting, you know the Blacks, the Browns, the youth, and other communist-sympathizing riff-raff that would vote for Democrats and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts that JFK and LBJ were promising.
They ran ads in all of the big city newspapers that were supposedly from “negro” friendly organizations warning that if they voted they might be called to account for any irregularities they might have before the law. They also put poll watchers at every polling station in Democratic districts. These people were given explicit instructions on how to intimidate voters — openly take pictures of them, question them aggressively — to delay the voting process in anyway they could, and to target people who looked like they didn’t belong… in the Republican Party, they didn’t add, but they didn’t need to.
Turns out when they nominated Goldwater, he knew just what to do because it was what he was doing in Arizona to rat-fuck their elections. When he went national, he brought his pack of rat-fuckers with him.
William H. Rehnquist, John Roberts, and the Supreme Court
Who do you think was one of his fuckingest rat-fuckers? Who do you think was like the biggest rat fucker of them all? Well, the once and future Chief Justice of the Supremes, William H. Rehnquist. That’s right. Rehnquist.
William Rehnquist’s Confirmation: Making Nice with White Supremacists Screws Us AGAIN
When he was nominated to the Supreme Court, his activity at Arizona polling places was noted. He was so aggressive in his treatment of likely Democratic voters, dog whistle for people of color, that the FBI and a US attorney were called out. That US attorney testified as his confirmation hearing stating that he saw him harassing voters, some witnesses even said he was giving literacy tests!
We all know what happened next, right? Nixon, who won a squeaker in 1968, appointed him to the Supreme Court in part due to his role in suppressing Democratic votes in Black and Brown precincts. Ronald Reagan who worked as a recruiter for Operation Eagle Eye nominated him for Chief Supreme Court Justice in 1986. Joe Biden was a sharp questioner of him during his Senate hearing.
John Roberts and Entrenchment of White Supremacy in the Judiciary
So far, all of this angering, but it isn’t the thing that really pissed me off.
Do you know who his cleric and protege was? John Roberts! John Fucking Roberts!
It pisses me off because I feel like my education and general knowledge was lacking. I didn’t know any of this. I take it personally. I take it as a personal failure and as a failure of all of the courses, news reports, and books that these dots weren’t connected. And, that pisses me off.
When the consent decree was lifted in 2018, it was the first I had heard of it, but I was focused on the 2018 election and defending us from Short-Fingered Vulgarian. I didn’t know there was a through line from Richard Nixon in 1960 to Trump in 2023 of racist Republican tactics.
We were always taught through the media and courses that there were only isolated incidents. Nixon and Watergate were exceptions, not the rule. Dead people voting for Kennedy-Johnson in Texas and Nixon in Illinois was always related as a joke, an amusing anecdote. Never as a threat to our democracy. Never as a racist on-going anti-democratic effort by the Republican Party.
Essentially, in 1964, the Republican Party went all in on authoritarian racist voter suppression as their only way to win. It pisses me off that this isn’t more widely know or appreciated.
Tell me about your understanding of this history in the comments. I’d love to hear it.
Now, I want to do Maddow and Aronson one better and place this sixty year long scheme to engineer a permanent Republican majority in a larger context.
The Larger Context: The Confederate Diaspora and its Influence
After the Civil War, there was a Confederate Diaspora in which ex-slavers and pro-slavers moved out West. These folks were more likely to take on public-facing jobs of authority like police officers and teachers and work in government, according to a report on NBCNews on a working paper to be published in the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The Confederacy Infects the Country with White Supremacy
These people did not shift their identity to those of the territories and states they moved to becoming Californians or Arizonans. They retained and stubbornly clung to their identity as slavers. They passed on their slavery-loving culture and norms to their children. They influenced the points-of-view of their neighbors. They instituted pro-slavery norms and culture in the institutions they worked, which, remember were public facing and influential of the ways the state worked.
They were instrumental in the spread of the KKK and sundowner towns, which allowed for a nationalization of pro-slavery views in 1915 during the Wilson administration and a revival of the KKK.
In short, these folks spread their white nationalist anti-democratic virus throughout the country.
John Roberts, White Supremacist Tool Rolls Back Civil Rights
We see its direct outcome in the life and legacy of William Rehnquist and John Roberts. The white conservative jurists — Yes, I’m counting Clarence Thomas among the white folk — believe we live in a color-blind society! Have they gone anywhere except to billionaire’s resorts on private jets?
John Roberts is the instrument of white supremacy. He is the poster child of the Federalists Society’s plan to subvert our judicial system and continue promoting pro-slavery norms and culture.
We’ve had three instances of backlash against civil rights in our country:
- JIM CROW laws were passed after Reconstruction ended and culminated with the election of Woodrow Wilson.
- OPERATION EVIL EYE and other voter suppression measures after the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.
- MAGA rose after the election of Barrack Obama.
This diaspora explains why white people across the country are so easily seduced by the Pied Piper call of racist dog whistles. Changing our national culture will take as much conscious effort as these people have put into preserving it.
If you HATE the state of racism in America today, please do one of the following:
- SHARE this post on your social media, re-blog it to your blog, or email it to your contacts.
- LIKE or RATE this post to let me know you’ve been here and give me a wee bit of encouragement.
- COMMENT on this post, telling me about your understanding of the role Rehnquist and Roberts have played in furthering our racist authoritarian moment.
- FOLLW the blog or join our email list so you never miss a post!
Image Attribution
“Bronze group of the monument to the North Carolina Women of the Confederacy” by Government & Heritage Library, State Library of NC is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
The Psy of Life 
I am surprised that the right wing propaganda experts haven’t hit on the idea of adding blinding and hypnotic high powered lights, drums, marching music, jack boots, etc., to their operative techniques yet– they already have their version of the early Nuremberg rallies —maybe the rest will come at some time in the future.
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Howdy John!
I don’t think they need to. Our modern social media with its persuasive design activating the liking and wanting systems of the brain probably serve that purpose. They may even do it better.
A couple of other ideas come to mind:
(1) I wrote a post a couple of years ago on the dopamine of Trump rallies (https://wp.me/p7vabV-79Z).
(2) The side that has more people out protesting usually wins. Protesting activated dopamine and signals commitment (https://wp.me/p7vabV-aeP).
(3) With victory comes a relaxation for the victor and a firing up of the loser. A future blog post, no doubt.
And (4) people don’t like it when you change the status quo. It’s an actual bias and everything. The question is do the changes that the GOP and SCOTUS have recently wrought become the status quo by 2024 (https://wp.me/p7vabV-aoL).
I have some confidence in 2024 and Joe Biden. It scares me that I do, though.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Joe Biden is the best under the circumstances but I believe that he is a ticking time bomb of potential personal difficulties with his health, etc. that could cause serious problems in a second term…
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Howdy John!
People have always underestimated Joe Biden, including Joe Biden. It is why he plagiarized Neil Kinnock’s speech in 1988 and knocked himself out of the nomination for the presidency. He wasn’t going to win that time round anyway, though.
He may be old and frail, but he has the experience, vision, and dedication that we need right now. I don’t see another person in the political sphere who does. Certainly not Kamala Harris. If Biden had any belief in Harris, he’d be making plans to hand her the presidency in 2024. They are desperately trying to get her the experience and training, but she probably is a slow study or otherwise resistant.
There are a number of other exciting interesting possible candidates out there, but none that really project the kind of qualities we need to rise to the challenge of our age. Being president takes tremendous organization and concentration, but also the telegenic presence to connect with voters. Without the experience and ability and the political chops, that person’s presidency will be more Jimmy Carter (who I think was a pretty terrific president, but most people don’t) or LBJ or W’s or Poppy’s or Trump’s.
We simply cannot afford that right now.
What is clear is that there are people in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, including Biden, who have come to similar conclusions. Those people are trying to create a map to the future that saves our democracy without destroying it.
Our part to play is to help get the vote out for every election. Every blog post no matter how few people read it has to be directed at understanding the gravity of our situation and the solution to it. All of our spare time has to be spent helping register voters and getting them to the polls in one way or another.
If we lose Biden, we just have to work all the harder towards another unity candidate, but what we can’t do is spend time criticizing Biden. It is a coalition of the pro-democracy anti-autocracy forces. That is the only idea that should bind us together.
Huzzah!
Jack
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You are right of course.
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I was raised in the South and there was never a time when racism was not present….it was not as prevalent as it is today but there none the less……chuq
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Howdy Chuq!
I’ve got deep roots into the South. My daddy’s people are from Appalachia and I’ve lived in Mississippi for a short ugly spell.
At least in the 60’s and 70’s when I was there, racism was not well hidden and very much out in the open. It did become less openly talked about, but people would still talk of the South rising again and insist that the Civil War was fought over much more than just slavery, although exactly what other than state’s rights (to own slaves) they couldn’t say.
I am still amazed by the tenaciousness of these beliefs and how they can be passed on through institutional norms formed by the people who work in the institutions. It guts me, but the evidence is very supportive.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Those voices are getting so much louder these days….I have written about the lunacy of their beliefs many times….and to this day they still cannot see the error of their ways….as I always say ‘can’t fix stupid…..have a great 4th my friend chuq
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We’re doing our best, but Cambodia doesn’t put on much of a show for the Fourth. I’ll have to enjoy it vicariously.
Enjoy your fireworks and cookout!
Huzzah!
Jack
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Thanx Jack….I hate fireworks and it will be bison burgers on the grill…..chuq
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Jack I am writing a series about the Mississippi voter watch for it it does not explain much bout looks at the voting habits. chuq
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It will take a few decades yet, but eventually, because of the browning and of the diversification of The United States, political karma will overtake and defeat the racists and their white supremacist agendas. It is going to be an evolutionary fact and there is no stopping it without a complete implosion of our social order.
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Howdy John!
They are working to implode our social order. It is clear to me that there has always been a segment of the US population that were anti-democratic from the beginning and just will not change. We will forever have to be on guard against them. It pisses me off that in our civics classes this wasn’t taught.
Over the past seven years, I’ve taken a closer look at our history and social science findings — I’ve done my own research, but I’ve used credible sources — and the evidence is strong and the conclusion undeniable.
They will set up an apartheid state to control the Black and Brown majority if we let them.
Huzzah!
Jack
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They are in the process right now and I am afraid that voter apathy will let it happen.
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Fortunately, we have the issues of abortion, affirmative action, and student debt forgiveness and the twisted judicial reasoning used for each to spur the electorate on. We’ve seen how the turn out has gone in 2018, 2020, and 2022. With a presidential election in 2024, we should be able to do it again.
Unfortunately, we should never underestimate the Democrats ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Reblogged this on cabbagesandkings524 and commented:
Calico Jack is angry. History matters.
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I read somewhere that those rights-snatching SCROTUS actions are being accepted as correct by the great number of Americans for some reason and that they will not have a great impact on the 2024 elections.
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Howdy John!
That may be, but we still have some months to go before the election, so with the blessing some Democratic messenger will get the point across that we have licensed discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. Granted support is weak given how recently marriage equality came about, but seeing signs in windows saying “No LGBTQ+ allowed” will be sobering and disconcerting. We all know and care about people who are out. It will strike home. The modern conservative can be relied upon to overreach so far as to grab hubris.
Affirmative action suffered from not feeling fair, but it given the fake athletics scandal that recently saw some prominent white people jailed and popularization of legacy admissions, we might could see a change of heart there, too.
Both issues pale in comparison to abortion, though. And, the Dems should be running on a vote for a Dem is a vote for democracy, for a Repube, autocracy. The GOP is relying on the inner racist of white people to come through for them again. Hopefully, it won’t.
Huzzah!
Jack
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The poll numbers vary a lot depending on which particular right is asked about. So far, the issue that has the biggest effect against the court decision and resulting state actions is abortion.
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I am cringing at the thought of seeing signs in windows that say, “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.” I used to see a lot of those signs when I was a young man and when Jim Crow was king… what those signs really meant was “No N****rs”, No Spanish, No Indian, Nobody that is not white and nobody that dares to come in here with a person of the equal gender….
It has only been a couple of years since my friend Jim and I — we are not gay — dared to go into “Donna’s Restaurant” in Irvine, Kentucky. The waitress set us up with coffee and a menu and an hour later we were still waiting for our food….and we were the only ones in the place ….so…. we politely left because we knew what they were thinking… or at least we thought we knew ….”Eyebrows raised at the sight of two middle-aged men sitting in a restaurant together in the middle of the Bible Belt….yeah, it was pretty obvious.
I remember being ignored at an upscale department store once before I got lucky in finances …I got ignored all over the place in regular everyday inexpensive clothing ….And there were sales clerks standing around gossiping and laughing among themselves …then later, once my ship came in, I revisited that same store in my Perry Ellis suit and I was thronged by clerks virtually urinating themselves for the privilege of serving me …
So yes, I believe a new Trump era will bring back the good old boy values of the anti-bellum south…
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Howdy John!
We’ve lived similar lives, and history is about to repeat. We cannot do what is necessary fast enough. SCOTUS is stacked against us, and those justices are now delivering for their pay masters. It is make or break time for all of us. Either they usher in the apartheid oligarchy or they are all going to jail (figuratively). It is as simple as that.
The future is going to be bleaker than either of us have ever imagined or experienced.
I’ve been studying on our situation since I started this blog in 2015. I’ve been somewhat accurately predicting the immediate future using what I know, but I feel like I’m still one step behind. I’m sorting it out but just not able to believe the only logical conclusion that I can come to: The monied interests mean to take us all back to the 1600’s before the advent of democracy and the Enlightenment.
Some people said they wanted to take us back to the 1950’s, before the Civil Rights movement, but I knew that was wrong. Others said before FDR and the New Deal, but I knew that was wrong too. I thought it was the Gilded Age and the boom and bust economy of monopoly, but I was wrong, too.
They literally want to return to an age where money buys might and might makes right. Where no one has a right to anything they can’t buy. It is the oligarchs plan for dealing with climate change. Let the planet burn, and they’ll set up their fiefdoms.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Sounds to me like some of the old prophecies are coming to pass…..”
27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
32Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
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We definitely are living in a time of proud, boastful, spiteful backbiters who are without natural affection, implacable, and unmerciful.
Other than that, it sounds pretty homophobic, which as we know, LGBTQ+ folks were created by God in God’s image, and God don’t make no mistakes. Writers of books make mistakes, but not God.
Another thing that don’t make no mistakes, evolution. That homosexuality exists across species and has throughout the existence of human kind strongly suggests that it at the very least does no harm to the survival of the species and whatever genetic code is necessary for it to occur has not be removed from the gene pool.
I don’t know what else to tell you.
Huzzah!
Jack
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All we have to do is remember that when God was finished creating all the things that He had created, He looked at them all and declared them to be Good.
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We are all god’s children. Unfortunately, we treat each other as all siblings do.
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I think Jack got it right. The real architects of the agenda don’t want to go back just to the 1950s or 1890s, but back to before 1649, the execution of Charles I of England by Parlament led by Oliver Cromwell, the real end in the English system of the Divine Right of Kings. As one historian has noted, the plantation class of the American south was large formed by “Cavaliers”, the side loyal to Charles in the English Civil War.
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That’s right! That’s exactly right. The freaking Cavaliers. All of that was happening as the British colonies were being settled. Sometimes, the dots just are not findable in my mind or memory, but you’ve connected them.
I’ve got Heather Cox Richardson’s book on how the South won the Civil War. It is next on my summer reading list.
Jack
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I got the piece about the Cavaliers from this book review. https://www.salon.com/2023/07/02/a-short-history-of-civilizational-collapse-are-we-next–and-how-can-we-prevent-it/
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I’ve added Tuchins’ new book to my summer reading list. I’ll be reading through December at this rate.
Jack
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The perennial problem for the dedicated reader; so many books, so little time.
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At least with my Kindle, I can carry them all with me. I find it a blessing even though I miss having an actual physical book.
One of the overlooked advantages of being a teacher is access to the school library and being able to make book order recommendations.
Huzzah!
Jack
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In the part about the school library, you also have the advantage of being out of the reach of Moms For Liberty.
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Thank goodness for that. That all just seems like madness.
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It is madness, mass psychosis in action.
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I was thinking about needing to see behind the veil of the propaganda, and remembered this quote:
“That’s libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.”
― Kim Stanley Robinson
The thing is, that the people funding it all, the candidates, the think tanks, the vacations for SCOTUS justices, etc. don’t actually give a dam about abortion, gay people, trans people, black people, or any of the things used to keep people stirred up. They care about not having to pay taxes, not being subject to government regulations about pollution, wages, working conditions, and consumer protections. They care about keeping people in debt from cradle to grave, keeping us renters (mortgage interest is rent) of housing, education, media (don’t buy a CD, use a streaming service), and medical care. They want us like the Jim Crow tenant farmers, as close to indentured servitude as they can get us. And all the while, they want us to think we’re “free”.
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Howdy Bob!
That is exactly right. The issues don’t matter, the stress and agitation from them do because mass psychosis is a necessary ingredient for people to accept such horrific conditions for their lives. Indentured servitude or serfdom are probably the models that best fit their desired goals. You can’t have empathy for the serfs if you’re going to run a fief.
One of the most disturbing things in the whole mess is the existence of useful idiots like Moms for Liberty. A turfed organization that recruits rank and vile members to work as agitators against their own best interests, ultimately.
The really damning part is that we all know, including the billionaires, that the climate is going to collapse, but they want to become 500 billionaires if not trillionaires before it does.
I guess you could amend the saying, With great power, comes great responsibility to being with great wealth, comes great responsibility, but these people do not accept their responsibility to make the world a better place. The wealth to make the changes we need to stop climate change already exists, the people who have the wealth just aren’t willing to spend it.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Exactly, and taxing them sufficiently won’t be easy, but is necessary, taxing both income and estates.
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If we can get majorities in Congress, we can probably get the tax rate up. The money bills that Biden got passed in his first year should start issuing some dividends just in time for election season to get rolling. Hopefully, Biden and other Democrats can go to all the infrastructure openings and say that they did that and the Republicans voted against it.
Huzzah!
Jack
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The Biden administration does seem to be ramping up exactly that kind of full court press. They are making a point of it when Republicans try to take credit for projects they voted against.
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Much has been made of what Biden learned from Obama’s administration of dealing with the Party of No. Some of those lessons are working. I’m glad to see it.
Huzzah!
Jack
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This is what they mean when they say they want to “Take America Back” again… back to the dark ages.
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The right is targeting trans kids and drag queens because they know that widespread support for them is weakest among liberals. I don’t think trans panic will be strong enough to shake the folks that want safe and legal abortion and the rule of law. I think conservatives are overreaching and are dooming themselves. That is the only way I can sleep at night.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I think that DeSantis and those following in his wake are overplaying their hand on the trans kids, and the courts appear so far to be listening to the scientists, doctors, and parents. We will see if that lasts. The fury about the abortion bans will only increase as the horror stories, the very personal stories continue to pile up. But, there will also be more personal stories from the trans community of what happens when that form of medical care is banned. That cause may benefit from sharing that theme of banned medical care with the abortion and reproductive rights issue.
I recently heard of a Republican somewhere trying to blame mass shootings (boy, has it been a busy holiday weekend for that) on anti-depressants. Of course, a lot of people who are on those meds are also on Medicare or Medicaid, which the GOP wants to end.
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Howdy Bob!
In general, I feel like the Republicans and conservatives are overreaching. I was listening to the #SistersInLaw podcast who were discussing when the government can limit individual rights. The government can limit a right if and only if it can be demonstrated that there is a vested interest and if the law doing so does it in a very narrow way. The ban on medical care for trans children violates that principle in many ways. It also explains why forced birthers have been couching their objections to abortion in terms of a child’s rights. They are trying to do the same with medical care for trans children saying they are protecting children from making far reaching medical decisions before they’re mature enough to do so, but the medical protocols are way ahead of them. They already have protections in place. It is one reason the courts, even very conservative courts, keep striking the laws down.
I don’t know that any independent voters will be voting Republican because they hate trans kids and drag queens. I just don’t think that that issue is going to be the single issue that drives voting. Whereas, voters will turn out based just on the abortion decision. Whether or not any white voter cares enough to go to the polls simply because of the decision on affirmative action or religious freedom is immaterial. Many are realizing the importance of the Court for the first time and understanding the connection between the court and their vote for president.
One of Hitler’s propaganda maxims was to keep the base stirred up and agitated, well, these Court decisions are keeping the pro-democracy anti-Trump anti-authoritarian voters stirred up and agitated. It will drive them to the polls.
One thing to look for is who is protesting what in the run up to the 2024 election. If people are willing to turn out for protests, they are willing to vote.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Yes, and once the election fraud indictments start coming down and, by the time the party primaries get going, maybe even some convictions, GOP candidates are going to have to ponder their own legal jeopardy if they make the stolen election claim a major part of their campaign, and loosing the MAGA vote if they don’t. I might be sad for them, but not much. And in the general election, the closer they tie themselves to Trump, the more they will share in his unpopularity outside of that base.
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I’m hoping that there is a huge anti-Trump pro-democracy pro-rule of law vote in 2024. Right now, we are living through a Constitutional crisis since the highest court in the land is making judgments based on political beliefs and not law. Consequently, we don’t have rule of law, and without rule of law, we don’t have a democracy.
Huzzah!
Jack
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We hope and work.
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Gee, how do folks suppose that the Stars&Bars flag became the banner of “rebels” everywhere?
Then, there is this item, that hate speech organically rewires the brain: https://neurosciencenews.com/lies-hate-neuroscience-psychology-23549/
I’ll submit that that applies to the 60 year history of various iterations of “Democrats can only win by cheating.”. That framing and narrative is the fraud that trained a significant portion of our electorate to find Trump’s claim of the the stolen election easily credible, even obviously true. He didn’t invent that Big Lie. He just magnified it all the way to insurrection and sedition.
Those who forget history have to accept some responsibility for the consequences.
Those who have been kept ignorant of history have cause to be enormously pissed off.
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Howdy Bob!
I had a pretty good education at both the secondary and university levels. I had gotten bits and pieces of this history, but never the big picture, which is what is needed to really understand what is happening to us and why. While podcasts and other media outlets can be instrumental in making this information available, it won’t reach the casual low-information voter where it could do some good in motivating us to the polls.
It seems like there should be an educative part of the Democratic Party whose mission it is to popularize this history. Push it into the media. Make sure it is available on a variety of platforms.
I really appreciate the article. It will, of course, be featured in a blog post this week. I immediately bought the book it was based on even though the Kindle edition was $60.00. I’m looking forward to reading it.
Huzzah!
Jack
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In terms of education, this situation is very similar to that about systemic racism, trickle down economic theory and policy, and LGBTQ issues, and even climate change. Real understanding is impossible without the big picture and long term process. This is exactly why the operators on the right work so hard to prevent that education. After all, it is that kind of understanding that is the essence of “woke”.
One of the important take aways of the article is that the cognitive effects of hate speech are not from initial belief, but from exposure. The more you hear it, the more it worms its way into your unconscious world view. Counteracting that influence requires exposure to opposite speech and deliberate attention to it.
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Howdy Bob!
I bought that book and am reading it now. It sounds a lot like research that supports the idea of mass psychosis. The concerning thing to me is that the wiring of the brain may become reified towards hate, making it difficult to undo once it gets going. If that’s true, then the right really has set us back to the 19th century. It took us fifty plus years of steady unrelenting work to make discrimination and bias “bad” things and send them underground. Now, they’re back out in the open. It will take another fifty years just to get back to where we were.
The thing that I keep coming back to is the absolute deliberateness with which this is happening. Someone on the right is engineering this. They’ve had a sixty year campaign with this goal in mind.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Yes, they have. I’ve been thinking about the relationship between hate speech and the legal concept of “fighting words” as an exception to free speech, similar to the often sited example of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire.
Whether you share or reject a given idea or sentiment expressed in hate speech, it is a trigger of fight-or-flight response. for example, if someone says that gay people are evil pedophiles, I take it as a threat even though I am not gay. I have friends and people I care deeply about who are LGTBQ, people I love as members of my tribe. If you threaten my tribe, you threaten me. When I hear statements like that, my amygdala wants me to reach out and smack that character and make them stop, punish them, correct them. In short, them’s fighting words.
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Howdy Bob!
Hate speech is often used to provoke a response in the target, especially online. It is the province of trolls and everyday sadists. They are cynically taking advantage of the social norms that say it isn’t polite to hit someone or to fight back under such circumstances.
The whole “groomer” thing is using a metaphor to trigger and reify hatred and suspicion towards an identifiable class of people. It is the part and parcel of the use of lies by the right. The only real way to fight it is to try to rescue those who have not had their hatred hardwired into them, to prevent its spread to others, and to create conditions that will drive the hate underground in those it is hardwired in, so it isn’t so explicitly expressed. Understanding this principle will guide our reactions, but getting the two-thirds of the population who should be organized against it to resist is a difficult but doable fight.
Huzzah!
Jack
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We can but try, and not give in to fatigue or discouragement.
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Fatigue and discouragement, the things that every fledgling autocrat hopes to instill in their opponents.
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“To seek, to strive, and not to yield” — Alfred Lord Tenneyson – “Ulysses”
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I heard this in a reading of his “What is the Fourth of July to a slave?” speech:
“Pessimism is a tool of white oppression.” – Fredrick Douglass
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That’s why Juneteenth has become such a popular celebration in the Black community. It is the counter-point to July 4th. In some ways it is the real birth of the nation when we gave ourselves the chance at creating a more perfect union.
Jack
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Yes. It must drive the Confederates crazy.
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The former Confederates didn’t all go out West; some of them came up North, especially those of them who had business contacts with Northerners or family up North. And remember that there were Northerners who were sympathetic to the Confederate cause; naturally this is not taught in school, but it’s the truth, as it is true that there were people living in the South who were never on the Confederate side, although they suffered the same fate as every other Confederate.
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Howdy Silver!
All of that is true, but what is telling is that you can predict the levels of discrimination and bias by county based on two things: the ratio of slaves to free people or the number of Confederates that immigrated there after the war… to this day. What this is telling you is that the racist Confederates clung to their identity and norms and transmitted them to others through the institutions of the place where they lived.
When someone moves to one of these extremely racist counties in the Deep South, they become more prejudice, they don’t make the place less prejudice. When a Confederate moved to a less prejudice county, they made the county more prejudice, and they didn’t become less prejudice. It bears out statistically when you evaluate the numbers.
Huzzah!
Jack
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