President Orders National Garden of Heroes, With List Mostly of White Men
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Orders National Garden of Heroes, With List Mostly of White Men
The executive order includes John Adams, Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King Jr. among those who would be honored. So would Billy Graham, Antonin Scalia and Ronald Reagan.
President Trump ordered the federal government late Friday to design and construct a statuary park honoring "American heroes," his latest embrace of American heritage in opposition to what he has described as a revolutionary leftist movement that would "erase our values."
The White House issued the executive order shortly after Mr. Trump delivered a combatively political speech at Mount Rushmore denouncing recent acts by anti-racism protesters who destroyed or defaced national monuments. The order declares that he will "not abide an assault on our collective national memory."
Mr. Trump directed the creation of a task force, chaired by the secretary of the interior, to "expeditiously" open a "National Garden of American Heroes" at a site to be determined. His order specifies 31 Americans whom the garden must memorialize, a group of mostly white men that includes former presidents, pioneers and explorers, abolitionists and civil rights heroes.
Mr. Trump's list of those to be memorialized also singled out two recently deceased conservative icons: former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the evangelist Billy Graham, as well as former President Ronald Reagan. The lineup includes no equivalent contemporary liberals or Democrats. It does include the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman and Jackie Robinson, the first African-American player in modern major league baseball.
The list also includes John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Douglas MacArthur, Christa McAuliffe, George S. Patton, Jr., Betsy Ross, Booker T. Washington, George Washington, and the Wright brothers.
Mr. Trump's order, which does not put a price tag on the project, says only that it should be located near a population center "on a site of natural beauty that enables visitors to enjoy nature, walk among the statues, and be inspired to learn about great figures of America's history." It also notes that all statues in the garden "be lifelike or realistic representations of the persons they depict, not abstract or modernist representations," echoing prior efforts within the Trump administration to reject modernist designs for federal projects.
"Presidents certainly have a role in shaping national conversations about the meaning of our history. But this comes off as a desperate act of political grandstanding to his base," said Kevin K. Gaines, a professor of social justice and civil rights at the University of Virginia. "Washington D.C. is already full of national monuments to some of the revered figures on Trump's roll call of heroes."
Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of political history at Princeton University, agreed that Mr. Trump's order appeared highly political.
"I can't imagine this would not be used as a way not to honor American history but to put forth a very particular version of American history," he said.
The order says the task force will consist of several federal officials, including the administrator of the General Services Administration and the chairpersons of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. It directs the task force to submit a report within 60 days with proposed locations and other options for creating the site.
The order indicates that the future garden would feature more Americans than the ones Mr. Trump specifically named, offering mostly conventional categories for inclusion such as military heroes, entrepreneurs, astronauts, recipients of the Medal of Honor or Presidential Medal of Freedom, religious and labor leaders, "advocates for the poor and disadvantaged," and "authors, intellectuals, artists, and teachers."
The order also identifies as "historically significant" Americans "opponents of national socialism or international socialism" as well as "police officers and firefighters killed or injured in the line of duty." "
"None will have lived perfect lives, but all will be worth honoring, remembering, and studying," Mr. Trump's order says.
Mr. Trump issued his order after speaking at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, where he warned that he would be "deploying federal law enforcement" to protect national monuments and prosecute protesters who seek to deface or topple them.
Since the start of mass protests over the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, protesters have toppled several statues to confederate generals and leaders, but in some instances have also spray painted or otherwise vandalized monuments to national icons like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. Trump angrily denounced such actions on Friday night, issuing a broader defense of American heritage against what he called "angry mobs" directed by radical leftists "trying to tear down statues of our Founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities."
"Their goal is not a better America, their goal is to end America," Mr. Trump said.
His executive order added that "America owes its present greatness to its past sacrifices. Because the past is always at risk of being forgotten, monuments will always be needed to honor those who came before."
Mr. Gaines said the order "proposes a redundant trial balloon with just enough examples of notable African-Americans and women to promote a mythic, racist authoritarian view of the past that glorifies white settler violence.
"What most people of conscience would acknowledge as tragic aspects of the past -- the stolen lands of Indian nations and the stolen lives and labor of enslaved Africans -- Trump evidently wants us to celebrate," he added.
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I dont agree with this material, but I think it presents a point of view that needs to be addressed.
=========================================================
Trump gives America a history lesson at Mount Rushmore
Even though political speeches are not my thing, I watched Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore last night (you can find a video and transcript at American Digest ).
It was a well-crafted story of America’s past and a pledge about America’s future. As I watched and listened, I felt split. A small part of me – a part that represents the child I was in the 50s and early 60s, growing up and being educated in an America which still taught its children patriotism and a heroic vision of American exceptionalism, and where both parties agreed on that history and even on the basic outlines of a desirable future. That part of me listened and felt that almost no one could disagree with the sentiments Trump expressed, they were so noncontroversial.
But a larger part of me – more cerebral, aware, and older – knew that the speech would be excoriated with almost one voice by the press and the Democrats. I even knew what the approach would be, because we’ve heard it before about Trump’s speeches: “dark,” divisive, jingoistic, combative.
And so it went. What was a soaring vision of American accomplishment and aspiration is now seen as an angry lie – that is, to the angry liars that now abound in our press, the Democratic Party, and so many other American institutions.
I wish it weren’t so. But that’s the way it is. And they lie with impunity because they know that they hold a lot of sway, and that the bulk of their followers and listeners will never watch or read the actual speech, but will instead take their word for it, and talk within their personal circles about how awful the speech was, reinforcing the opinion.
I was particularly struck by the parts of the speech describing each of the men whose faces are carved into Mount Rushmore. I also took special note of Trump’s recitation of the things Americans stand for (go to 27:17 in the transcript).
These words resonated as well:
And note these words in particular, in which Trump directly addressed the issue of slavery:
In that paragraph, Trump makes several points that I and others have been making lately. No, I don’t think that Trump or his researchers read my blog (although hey, it’s always possible). But he fastened on exactly the quote from the Battle Hymn of the Republic that I highlighted and discussed about a week ago in this post , and for the same reason: it proves that one of the main reasons the North fought the Civil War was to free the slaves, and the men who did so were fully willing to die for that cause if necessary. It is a deep insult to their names and to their lives to say otherwise.
A second point Trump made, that I and others have talked about recently, is that the present radical movements are antithetical to the goals and words of Martin Luther King. And still another is the fact that slavery was not some unique American institution; it had been part and parcel of the world for thousands of years and was not some unique activity of the white race.
The following part of Trump’s speech struck me as especially important. Would that all of America could hear it and understand it:
Happy Fourth of July, Independence Day!
Trump has Anton Scalia, the far right Supreme Court justice who passed away a few years ago (Trump posted twitter comments suggesting Scalia had been murdered) on his list of "heroes" to be memorialized in a national garden of heroes.
So we can see where Trump is coming from.
He has Booker T Washington on his list, but not W. E. B. Du Bois, who was to Booker T Washington roughly what Malcom X was to ML King, a more radical version of the same yearning. Why isnt Du Bois on the list?
Trump wants people who opposed socialism on the list of heroes, so I guess Joe McCarthy may make the cut but J Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant scientist who led the technological creation of the atomic bomb which ended WW2 will not, because Oppenheimer had flirtations with communism.
The entire idea of a "garden of heroes" is silly. There are monuments and testimonials to historic American figures, including all the names on Trump's list, all over the country. There is zero need for more.
But the real problem is Trump's attempt to deny and ignore real true American history in order to give us the goody goody version.
How much do you want to bet that he will nominate himself to be in the National Garden of Heroes, before this is over???
I have a few names that are not on Trumps list
MUHAMMAD ALI
EUGENE DEBS
CLARENCE DARROW
JAMES BALDWIN
JACK JOHNSON
CAESAR CHAVEZ
PAUL WELLSTONE
MARK TWAIN
GEORGE MCGOVERN
THOMAS PAINE
SUSAN B ANTHONY
IDA B WELLS
SINCLAIR LEWIS
WALT WHITMAN
ETC.
yes, there have been literally millions and millions of Americans. Everyone can come up with a few names THEY think should be included. But why waste YOUR time on something you don't want in the first place?
Ali? Seriously? I guess Trump should have a fellow draft dodger.
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The whole thing is ridiculous. It is a farce to take eyes off of what is happening. There is no need for this bullshit.
With the national debt, middle of a pandemic, him being silent on the Russian bounty, all the civil unrest.
I wonder which branch of the military he would try to steal the money from.
He just wants something like this that would forever have his name attached to it, for his ego. And his supporters are dumb enough to let him have it.
The idea belongs in the trash heap.
So a park honoring Americans is bullshit to you? Interesting take on things. What is happening that is being ignored?
If Trump cured cancer, I swear some yahoos would bleat that it was a deflection for one thing or another.
Yeah, but for four long years?
It is an obsession.
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Good--no--make that GREAT--job at missing the point.
[Deleted]
Did I suggest Trump be honored there?
[deleted]
Okay, we'll chalk you up as one against honoring Americans with a garden and statues.
yeah, but I am good at multi-tasking!
I mean, you see the irony in that right? We literally have a party dedicating it's time to tearing down statues and changing the names of sports teams in the middle of a pandemic and a recession.
I bet a grand the correct answer is no.
i would love to hear how stating accurately one's position on something is taunting.
do you realize how inept you sound, as you cannot even grasp the gravity, as you accept any ands all from hands down mind too small, while ignoring r.t.b s', words that say, say so much more ,in so many ways, as "All sans any meaningful leadership willing to address the reality and only comfortable in fomenting division through symbolism" U cannot face the complete task whence forth ewe and the flock never met a 4,that wasn't moor than what you and what peers, a pier to be capable of docking the ship that went up 4 sails, three White Sheets to the wind up pull the string Toy of a Boy, Put ins' place by peep holes to blind too C, the puppet master, playing with a POS Present President as his liter ship sinks US ALL to a country that used to have it all, courting the ignorant minority, and blaming the illegal majority, that KNOW WHAT IT IS WE SEE, and it ain't pretty, but it's a hell of a lot MORE, than r.t.b, 23, and Me, remember to forget words matter, learn to differentiate and comprehend the agenda they had you meant to spray, as you don't get it, evident in so many a way, maybe try a solid, and roll on your perfume, as you mask what you've woven, and weaven like a ripe Fruit of the Loom
i disagree about any irony, as they complain about the Lefts deflection, as the Fox and the White Power House, have completed their non objection, as to confronting the reality of the White House infection. They blame the Left for not concentrating on the PANDEMIC, and little silly trivial things, like Russian bounties placed and paid , on our OWN SONS and DAUGHTERS HEADS, as they lost their lives, cause, according to Trump, something he didn't have time for to be Red, as he is, as his actions and words said, show US, will be better off, when he's, better more hugely READ, as his one way street is Dead End
TDS = Trump Dick Sucking
yup...
what's up with your fascination with Trump's dick??
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actually, what you wrote earlier is singular. it is right there in post 5.1.20.
bad form to try and change it now.
so, what is up with your fascination with Trump's dick (singular)?
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so it is a voyeur thing for you,?
you see....
no. apparently HE sees
Exactly. I think that it’s a great idea to expand the scope of great Americans being honored. I also nominate my hometown, Redding, Ca. as the site for it. Right near our Sundial Bridge and Turtle Bay center either next to our botanical gardens on one side of the river or next to the arboretum and river trail on the other side. It would be perfect and would be right under the fireworks from the next door convention center every year. And we are on I-5 half way between San Diego and Seattle.
Agreed!
It was the wrong opinion to have and strongly state.
I wonder which branch of the military he would try to steal the money from.
All of them to get money for his wall by slashing their funding. Luckily that got shot down in court.
Actually, no, the monies coming from the Major Construction Projects for housing was taken for one year - 2020. Trump has not asked for additional funding for 2021 - yet - and he probably won't.
Is it your opinion that someone like Daniel Boone hasnt been sufficiently honored over the past 200 years?
He won't because he knows he will get shot down in court if he tries. He has since gone looking for other pockets to pick.
It is your opinion that honoring him again is a travesty?
So have the others on the list; those that didn't make the list; and those that don't deserve to be on any list. Americans love heroes and we have an endless supply.
Stop bitching I am sure the leftist brown shirts will get ample opportunity to protest it while it is being built; and destroy it once it is done.
Historians question Trump’s choice of ‘heroes’ for national garden monument
JULY 04, 2020Among the combative and unusual way President Trump chose to celebrate Independence Day, some historians were particularly puzzled Saturday by his announcement for a new monument called the “National Garden of American Heroes” populated by a grab bag of historical figures chosen by his administration.
The garden, Trump explained in a Friday night speech at Mount Rushmore , was part of his response to the movement to remove Confederate statues and racially charged iconography across the country.
“Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities,” Trump said. “This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped.”
In response, Trump said he plans to build “a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live.” Among the statues to be erected in the garden — spelled out in an executive order — are evangelical leader Billy Graham, 19th century politician Henry Clay, frontiersman Davy Crockett, first lady Dolley Madison and conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.
“The choices vary from odd to probably inappropriate to provocative,” said James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association.
“It’s just so random. It’s like they threw a bunch of stuff on the wall and just went with whatever stuck,” said Karen Cox, a history professor at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, after struggling for several minutes to describe the order outlining the proposed monument. “Nothing about this suggests it’s thoughtful.”
Perhaps worse than the scattershot nature of the selected heroes is the apparent political motivations behind the monument, said Cox, who is writing a book on Confederate monuments. “It doesn’t address the reality on the ground, the real debate and turmoil going on in this country,” she said, including the anger and ongoing protests about systemic racism and inequality.
In his executive order , Trump rails against those who have pulled down or vandalized some statues as well as localities that have removed others. Several cities and states have decided not to honor the Confederate leaders who fought against the United States to preserve slavery.
“My administration will not abide an assault on our collective national memory,” Trump says in the order that stipulates that the garden should include “historically significant Americans.” Among them would be presidents, Founding Fathers, religious leaders and “opponents of national socialism or international socialism.”
“It seems like a pretty naked attempt to seize on a cultural conflict to distract from other issues,” said Grossman. He noted Trump’s executive order establishes a task force and gives it 60 days to submit a report detailing locations and options for building the new garden monument.
“There’s no rush here. The only real emergency is that there’s an election coming up,” Grossman said.
To hurry such work defeats the whole purpose of erecting statues, he said. Monuments are exercises in reflection, he said, a chance to plumb our collective memory and reflect on who we are as a country, what we value most and want to honor and pass down to future generations.
“For starters, you might want to consult different communities about who their heroes are and not just choose your own,” Grossman said. “You might also want to consult professionals, like actual historians.”
Trump’s list of “heroes” includes five African Americans, but no Latino and Hispanic figures such as labor leader and civil rights activist César Chávez.
While Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — well represented by existing monuments — and Republican heroes Ronald Reagan and Scalia made the cut, the list doesn’t include a single Democratic president such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy or Lyndon B. Johnson.
Adam Domby, a historian at the College of Charleston, noted the lack of any Native Americans on Trump’s list, even noncontroversial ones such as Sitting Bull or Sacagawea. The oversight is particularly galling, Domby said, given Trump announced it at Mount Rushmore — a monument that sits on land considered sacred to Native Americans and found by the Supreme Court to have been taken illegally from them.
One hero who made it onto Trump’s hero list, however, was frontiersman Daniel Boone, who fought Native Americans in wars and skirmishes throughout his life.
“This list they put together, it raises so many odd historical questions,” Domby said. “Why did they choose Gen. [George S.] Patton but not [Dwight D.] Eisenhower — because of the movie ‘Patton’? They include some African Americans, but only ones that might be considered ‘safe’ or ‘comfortable’ like Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr. Where’s W.E.B. Dubois? Where’s Malcolm X?”
One of the more puzzling selections is Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a Union officer in the Civil War. Domby suspects Chamberlain was included because his character appears in the 1993 movie “Gettysburg,” or maybe perhaps because Chamberlain ordered his Union soldiers to come to attention and show respect to Confederate soldiers as they surrendered.
Other figures named in the executive order include: John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, Douglas MacArthur, James Madison, Christa McAuliffe, Audie Murphy, Betsy Ross, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington and Orville and Wilbur Wright.
The proposed monument drew derision from critics, who saw it as an attempt to capitalize politically on the divisive cultural debate over Confederate monuments.
“Trump, your Garden of Heroes is sleight of hand. You want to focus on monuments, but your policies have undermined voting rights, health care, immigrant justice & protections for the American people, esp poor & low wealth,” William Barber, a reverend, political activist and member of the NAACP, said in a tweet .
If Trump believes so strongly in history, “how about a national monument to opponents of southern secession? And to abolitionists?” Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Douglas Blackmon said on Twitter . “There are no Asian American heroes. Like Sadao Munemori who attacked two machine gun emplacements in Italy, then gave his life diving on a grenade to save his unit. He’s not a hero? Wrong color?”
“The tragedy is an undertaking like this could actually be a good idea if serious,” said Sean Wilentz, a history professor at Princeton University. “You could engage artists who are hurting for work right now. You could be innovative and really rethink the idea of what it means to memorialize things and how we do that. You could even break out of the whole classical/neoclassical forms we’ve been stuck in when it come statues. But I don’t think that’s what Trump has in mind.”
In the executive order, Trump says all statues will be lifelike or realistic, “not abstract or modernist representations.”
But that misunderstands the nature and function of such statues, said Cox, the historian in North Carolina. “Monuments are much more a reflection of those who put them up. They aren’t so much about the past as they are a reflection of our values and ideals in the present,” she said. “That’s why they’re often so problematic.”
I would not mind a garden with statues of our MOH winners.
Well, Trump suggested it, so no matter what, the left will balk at it and try to shit all over the idea.
Of course some folks will be excluded, doubtful if we could include every single American deserving.
Open your eyes.
they're open.
And what I see is just the usual bashing of anything Trump.
Yawn, must be another day ending in a "y".
Are you opposed to the idea of a national park full of statues of great Americans, or just bitching because it came from Trump?
If you aren't opposed to the mere idea of such a park, then we can talk about your preferred list of people to place there. It is like an all-time list of greatest baseball players--many excellent players with legitimate stats will be excluded. Them's the breaks.
Yep.
Good for you.
I have a different opinion.
I think it is a great idea. Make sure to have plenty of land around it so we can continue to add to it.
i would also make where not a one can ever be removed without an act of Congress.
Weird shit.
You don't want any park with statues to great Americans, but then you turn around and bitch about who is on the list? WHY?
well represented by existing monuments
At this rate, not for long.
Franklin D. Roosevelt- The racist that started Japanese internment camps? Or does the D behind his name completely block that criminal act?
John F. Kennedy- He of the Vietnam War and Bay of Pigs. Complete and utter womanizer. The left loves to complain about Trump- he has nothing on Kennedy.
Lyndon B. Johnson- Also of the Vietnam War, and one of the biggest racists around
Common John you can do whole lot better that that lame list.
Race, race, race, race,,..
sometimes it’s hard to tell if it’s 2020 or 1936. The obsession is the same,
...and so are the white conservative Christians still trying to preserve their fantasy "white culture". Back then they called themselves Southern Democrats, but today they are all die hard Republicans who continue to defend the confederacy, defend monuments to traitors and refuse to admit there is still wide spread systemic racism. Trumps speech was nothing but a blatant appeal to those conservatives who yearn for the days when segregation was legal and they could just be openly racist. He kept claiming he's protecting the monuments of abolitionists and true American heroes but the real monuments his base knew he was talking about protecting were the monuments to the worthless scum confederates and traitors that continue to proclaim to every black American that they are still not free, they are still not equal, they are still considered second class citizens by the sick racist white conservative Christians who have been persecuting them, discriminating against them and refusing to acknowledge it from our founding.
An obvious lie. Just because you repeat it often doesn't make it true.
Imagine believing northern democrats weren't racist...
For instance, was it a bunch of "Republicans" who invaded the democratic stronghold of Chicago and almost stoned MLK to death in 1966 for marching to end segregation in white democratic neighborhoods ? You really need to read up on your history. your simplistic belief of "southerners bad, Republicans bad, Democrats good" seems to have come from a daily Kos blog and lacks any real relationship to reality..
Open your mind.
That's it in a nutshell.
I doubt that list is worth the paper it is printed on.
Back in 1964 Congress voted on the Civil Rights Act. Almost all of the northern senators and representatives voted for equal rights for all races, and almost all of the southern senators and representatives voted against equal rights for all races.
The idea that the parties somehow "switched ideologies" in 1964 is just preposterous. Do they think FDR would be a Republican if he were alive today?
No, it is history...
Odd that some want to deny what happened...
Essie Mae had an agreement of silence with her family and with her father.
When he passed in 2003, he was 100, she was 78.
In 2004 she applied for membership in the "United Daughters of the Confederacy" and in 2005 Essie Mae published her memoir, Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond, a book nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
She died in 2013, still waiting for admittance into the UDC...
The south didn't switch to the Republican until 30 years later, the exact opposite of what LBJ predicted. Even more than that, I'd hope your understanding of history goes a little deeper than alleged off hand statement by LBJ. If Donald Trump says something about the Democratic Party to Jared Kushner, does that define reality?
Really, this isn't that hard to look up.
Oh.. not only was LBJ wrong, but the quote is fake too.
Liberal history in a nutshell, not only making up quotes, but making up history.
Reality is the switch did happen. Just because it did not happen in one fell swoop over night does not discount that fact.
Take it up with the History channel then.
Do you not even understand what the fake quote means? The meaning of the fake quote was the act itself would immediately turn the South republican for a generation. The reality is that the south didn't even become majority Republican for a generation (30 years!) and still supported Democrats nationally after that.
It's like saying "It's going to rain in an hour" and then claiming you were right because it rained a week later.
e it up with the History channel then
. I took it up with you, because you are the one spreading fake quotes on this board. Are you not a sentient human capable of independent thought? Or are you just. a passive vessel who accepts whatever cable tv channels tell you as the gospel truth and don't bother thinking for yourself ?
When the history channel comes on this site and tells lies, I'll take it up with them.
That is only your interpretation.
The quote does not name a timeline...
If it is fake, then why are you so upset about it?
Mad that I proved the narrative you all are pushing as false?
The parties did switch, no matter how much you complain about a quote or timeline.
man, how did Democrats keep control of the south for decades after the big "switch"??
No, even this version of the fake quote (most versions of the fake quote claim it will be for a generation) can only be interpreted to mean the very passage of the act turned the south republican immediately and the South will remain Republican for "a long time to come." There's no other interpretation of the fake quote that is consistent with the English language.
Words matter.
Yes they do, a generation is not a day...
And the south is solid republican.
Ask the republicans in control now...
Another sterling non-answer
yes the south, after decades of Democratic rule, came to its collective senses and kicked the racist Democrats to the curb. how horrible for America!
So you actually think the south did not switch from Democrat to republican?
Because spreading made up, partisan propaganda on a discussion site in order to mislead people bothers me . You seem okay with it. That speaks volumes,.
that I proved the narrative you all are pushing as false?
, if you think that's what has happened here,I guess that explains alot. Your "proof" consists of a fake quote that bears no relationship to the reality of what happened.
The parties did switch
No one is denying the South has become more Republican over the decades. But claiming the 1964 act was the cause of South's movement towards the Republican party, which began well before 1964, is historically illiterate. That's why your argument has to be premised on an imaginary quote rather than reality.
the south very slowly turned red and actual facts back it up.
Yep, all the right wing groups, the dixiecrats, the kkk supporters, even the modern day Hawaiian shirt wearing bigots never vote...
Oh that's right, they do. I wonder what party they joined....
did you read my post9.4.28?
they were democrats for the most part and probably died Democrats.
The only thing you have said from your last several posts is a quote is bad...
The parties never switched
Yes they did
That quote is wrong
The parties still switched
You are lying because of a quote
The parities still switched
You are pushing a false narrative because of a quote
Has been the gist of our conversation.
What is historically illiterate is acting like the change didn't happen and acting like race and civil rights had nothing to do with it.
does it still bother you that racist Democrats were kicked to the curb?
"But claiming the 1964 act was the cause of South's movement towards the Republican party"
Where did I claim that? Did you even read my whole link?
Obviously doesn't bother you that they became republicans.
This is a new one...the great southern migration...
nope, because I know what happened and am not silly enough to believe made up bs
What strawman are you arguing against now? When did I, or anyone else, claim that the South hasn't become more Republican? Go right back to the top of the thread and see what MUVA wrote:
The less racist the south has become the more republican it has become you are stuck in a time warp
That's been the basis of this whole thread. How often does it need to be restated?
The most truthful statement I have heard.
Because that premise that it is somehow less racist is just that.
As one that actually lives in the south I know what is going on.
What he stated was only an opinion, not a fact.
yep, I never get upset at the truth, which I pointed out to you.
you seem upset the south turned red slowly over decades. is that because you wanted democratic Jim crow laws to stand?
And you are talking about recent events. Car manufacturing also went to Mexico.
And believe me, there was no bunch of migrating Northerners coming to snatch up $15 an hour jobs.
Of course not. I'm not going to waste my team reading a link that starts with a made up quote that ignores reality
a faction walked out.
And how many of that faction remained Democrats and voted for LBJ's crowning liberal achievement, the "Great Society" legislation, almost 20 years later?
Acting like it is not is putting ones head in the sand.
Oh that's right, all these protests lately are nothing...
What? The south is as racist as it was in 1964? If that's the hill you are going to die on....
I figured. The article lists timelines and events.
I don't even get what you are arguing as you basically admit that it did indeed go from solid Democrat to solid Republican.
Not in my southern state...
I don't know where you get your info.
perhaps he has never heard of the rust belt?
what state do you live in?
You actually think it died a death? You think racist people did not teach their children?
Just because civil rights laws were past doesn't automatically mean racism is a thing of the past.
yeah, them diehard southern Democrats were sure pesky critters to get rid of!
do you honestly see as much racism today as you did in 1964?
Still didn't happen in my state until this century...
Couldn't say as I wasn't born in 1964.
I do know what I have seen my entire life.
Bob Fuller, 56, was a middle school principal in nearby Starkville, Mississippi, when he had an epiphany. Two black teachers there had the last name Coleman – the same name as his slave-owning ancestor. “My ancestors owned their ancestors,” the white academic thought to himself with horror.
Five generations of Fuller’s family had worked the land in rural Winston county in east central Mississippi, where he and his wife and children still live. Most were yeoman farmers and loggers, but the Coleman ancestors owned slaves.
“People in Iowa don’t have this dynamic,” he says, sitting on a leather sofa in a sprawling farmhouse he built on family land, surrounded by Mississippi history books, folk art and a string of small Tibetan flags. His wife, the Rev Allison Stacey Parvin, is an ordained United Methodist elder and pastor of their nearby church.
“I grew up white supremacist,” he admits. “We thought we were better than black people.” When Fuller was in third grade, the US supreme court forced recalcitrant public schools to integrate, but buses remained segregated for several years; his would pass black kids waiting for a pickup. In his Mississippi history class in 1976, he heard no mention of the freedom fighters who had transformed the state a dozen years earlier. “We never discussed the civil rights movement,” he says.
It took relationships with teachers and families of color to remake him, he says. He soon threw off his blinders and faced the south’s full history.
“The civil war really was over slavery; they tried to sugarcoat it,” he says, adding that it was a “rich man’s war, a poor man’s fight”. A year into the war, the Confederacy voted to allow men who owned 20 or more slaves to stay home.
“It’s the same thing today,” Fuller says, pointing to “a concerted effort” to keep working-class black and white people separate politically despite common interests. “It’s called the southern strategy .”
Fuller is referring to a 1960s partisan realignment in which wealthy Republicans began using racist dog-whistling about black crime and “welfare mothers” to push white southerners to the right.
“They don’t want us to get together,” Fuller says of working-class whites and blacks.
As a principal, Fuller decided to quietly fly the US instead of the state flag – which incorporates the Confederate battle – at his middle school. It was fine until a father, a Virginia native, noticed. “Why ain’t you flyin’ the Mississippi flag?” he asked Fuller. “Ain’t it the state law?”
The man reported Fuller to the district’s central office, which affirmed that the state flag had to go up. Fuller refused, saying district staff would have to hoist it daily, which they did.
so you don't know but think it is the same anyways?
How old were you in 1964?
This state still lagged behind the rest of the country. There was no big migration of northern workers that came here.
Most of our migration has come from the military.
6
As were the majority of southern state governors from the mid to late 1870's till the mid 90's early 2000's with the exception of a few.
I think he knows that but wants to confine the argument to his state because he can't make the argument for the south in general or as a whole
It is absolute incontrovertible fact no matter how much those in the South try to twist and contort history and reality. One thing some conservatives seem to be very good at is lying and obfuscating the truth which is why they are such low life cowards. They defend the confederacy, defend the confederate flag, defend the confederate monuments and then say "I'm not racist, no, I just want to preserve the history of the confederacy" without ever mentioning slavery, racism and the real reason why the South committed treason and attacked American soldiers.
The proof is in the pudding as they say. Those same white conservative Christians who have been in control of the South are still in control of the South, if you're too stupid or too invested in those racist roots that you refuse to admit it I can only feel sorry for you. I have many relatives who still live in the South and expressing their prejudices and then claiming they're not racist comes as easy to them as breathing. It's what I see here all fucking day. "Nah, we aint racist! We fly the confederate flag, want to protect the confederate monuments and we'd throw a fit if we found out our daughters were dating a black man, but nah, we aint racist!...". Yeah sure, sure, you keep telling yourselves that and who knows, maybe some day it'll actually come true, but I won't hold my breath.
yes, but since you don't worship at the altar of The Perpetually Offended, some won't consider you really black.
I just wonder why the democrats are trying to take the south and how that will square up with most white southerners being racists
I wasn't speaking about white Americans in general of which I myself am one. I was speaking specifically of those white Americans who continue to defend the confederacy, the white conservative Christians who hide behind their so-called "southern hospitality" while turning a blind eye to the white nationalists, white supremacists, KKK members and Nazi's marching in their streets flying confederate flags and swastikas while chanting racist hate. We see them often yet conservatives here act as if they either don't exist or are in such small numbers that they don't really matter, downplaying the very real threat of right wing extremism simply because it aligns with their prejudices. I'm glad you've had a good experience with your wife and family, I hope you never have to go through the kinds of discrimination so many of your fellow black Americans do go through. But just because you have apparently had it easy and don't face racial discrimination doesn't mean others are always as lucky or aren't offended by the monuments to blatant racists and traitors.
" On June 3, 2020, federal authorities arrested three individuals allegedly associated with the “boogaloo” movement, a loosely-organized group of extremists preparing for a civil war, for conspiring to cause violence in Las Vegas and possessing an improvised incendiary device"
" Right-wing attacks and plots account for the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994, and the total number of right-wing attacks and plots has grown significantly during the past six years. Right-wing extremists perpetrated two thirds of the attacks and plots in the United States in 2019 and over 90 percent between January 1 and May 8, 2020"
The VAST majority of those protesting in recent weeks have been PEACEFUL.
The handfuls of opportunists, anarchists, right wing infil'traitors' and their Boogaloo brethren were the ones responsible for the majority of the vandalism and violence. Conservative Republicans got played, they got fooled by their own into believing the peaceful protests should be blamed because that was the plan of these right wing instigators.
Another lie. There is no left wing movement set on looting and destruction, this is a bullshit narrative manufactured by vile right wing extremists.
Differentiate? Between what? Having it hard and the systemic racism that you had to have grown up in if you grew up in the US? It's been with us for centuries, trying to deny it and reject your fellow Americans who are crying out for justice, crying out for relief from the knee of prejudice on their necks? And just because you've apparently found a safe space to live free of systemic racism, does that mean every other black American should adopt your opinions on race in America?
And yet many are still choosing to defend the monuments and statues to those traitors today, and it's no coincidence that those defending the confederacy and the confederate flags are often descendants of those traitors continuing their legacy of prejudice and racism well into this century as they did the last. Sure, the war had been over for a hundred years when Northern Democrats finally wrote and passed the 1964 civil rights act and the 1965 voting rights act. Up till then segregation was the law of the South and many are still alive from those times or were direct descendants of those Southern white Christian conservatives who fought tooth and nail against the civil rights act.
To claim systemic racism doesn't exist in America one either has to be blind & deaf or mentally deficient. There will always be the anecdotal stories of black Americans who rise above and find wealth and justice for themselves and family, but that does not describe the expressed experience of most black Americans, many of whom can only shake their heads in disbelief when they are faced with a fellow black American claiming there is no systemic racism, as if their fellow black Americans who are suffering and expressing themselves don't exist.
And once again, though I know most on the right aren't honest enough to admit the facts, it was the Southern Democrats that started the KKK and created an apartheid south during reconstruction after the civil war. But I get it, those with very small brains or deep indoctrination in lies aren't able to understand the fact that there were two parties that both shared the same word meaning " an advocate or supporter of democracy" but had very different ideologies from before the civil war till 1964 when the white conservative Christian Southern Democrats started slowly melting into the white conservative Republican party. The Southern strategy took over 30 years to complete, but by the early 2000's the South was deep red, not because of any influx of Northern Republicans, but because disillusioned Southern Democrats shifted parties to one that continued to support their policies of old like defending the confederacy and putting up nearly all white Christian conservatives as candidates for elected positions.
"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act . The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are." - Republican strategist Kevin Phillips describing the Southern strategy back in 1970.
We don't call them "negrophobes" anymore and simply use the term xenophobe, which aptly described many Trump supporters who happily accepted the label of deplorable during the 2016 campaign.
" They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic – Islamophobic – you name it."
Yes, yes they are and they proudly wore their "I'm a Deplorable" T-shirts to Trumps rally's.
Apparently, for some people, the only qualification to be a hero is was the person nice to blacks. Nothing else matters
Some people just have to look for a reason to be unhappy. This is a nice idea. It's a proposal. A framework. The list of subjects is obviously not meant to be exhaustive. Have an idea for other people? I think they plan to accept suggestions.
And sorry if a bunch of white people offends you, but the country has been mostly white for most of its history. Before 1776, they were English colonies, after all. The cultures doing the most trans-ocean sailing were white cultures, so guess who settled here in the biggest numbers for the longest times? It's not that weird that our history is full of white people. It's not a fucking conspiracy. It's just what those cultures happened to look like. Get over it.
Its not that white people were here, its what those white people did.
No it's not. The whiny headline is that the list is "mostly" white people. Who gives a shit if it's mostly white? Like I pointed out, the country has been mostly white for most of its history.
As for what they did, they founded and built the best country in the history of the world. That's worth a statue or two.
those mostly white people who founded the greatest nation on earth-- those are the ones you choose to complain about?