>>I get it , Victor. You believe that anyone who is conservative is a bigoted money grubbing racist who wants to push granny over a cliff and keep minorities from voting. I just don't happen to agree with you.
>
>As Harry Truman liked to say, let's look at the record.
>
>Before the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights legislation by a Democratic president, the south had been virtually solidly Democratic since the civil war, in response to the actions of Lincoln and other Republicans who supported abolition.
>
>Before Johnson passed that legislation, it had been the Republicans, not the Democrats who were at the forefront of the civil rights movement.
>The Jim Crow laws that Johnson's bills outlawed had been passed by Democrats, not Republicans.
>(PS ... many of them were onerous requirements for voter qualification)
>Earl Warren, whose court ordered school desegregation, was a Republican.
>When Democratic southern governors refused to comply with court orders, president Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, sent federal marshalls into the schools to enforce the court's ruling.
>
>Everything flipped when Johnson passed that legislation.
>The Republicans, led by Richard Nixon, courted the racists in the south who felt betrayed by the Democrats and the racists gladly switched.
>
>After fewer than twenty years after the passage of the Civil Rights legislation, the south had almost completely switched party affiliation and is now almost as solidly Republican as it had been Democratic.
>
>Those racists who were once Democrats have strong influence in the Republican party, as they once did in the Democratic party.
>Without them Nixon, Reagan and both Bushes would probably not have been elected and there would be no Republican majority in the Senate or the House.
>Without those racists, the conservatives on the court like Scalia (RIP), Alito and Thomas would never have been appointed, since there would have been no Republican presidents.
>
>Of course all conservatives are not racists. On the contrary, much of the forward progress during the 1960's came from conservatives like William F. Buckley Jr and people like him who understood that the essence of the American idea lies in equal opportunity for everyone.
>
>However, the current governing coalition used by the Republicans - including conservatives- depends on those racists.
>
>But it has a price.
>
>
>In his inaugural, JFK said:
>
>"those who foolishly sought power by
>riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.”
Bravo, Bill. And beyond racism, David Brooks yesterday hit on what I think is the key to understanding what's happening this year and left me more concerned than I had been about the future of this country:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/opinion/the-governing-cancer-of-our-time.amp.htmlI blame Reagan for starting this with his "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
Tamar
