Yes, Dems have racist past, but what's in GOP's eye? [View all]
By Sid Schwab / Herald columnist
On Monday, the chairman of Snohomish County Republicans treated us to a letter to the editor, in which he unburdened himself of some deprecatory opinions, along with selected facts well-known to everyone with knowledge of American history. The Democratic Party, he reminded us, once included a bunch of Southern racists (“Democrats have long history of racism,” The Herald, May 25). Which, until several decades ago, it most surely did.
Reaching back almost 200 years, he wrote of times when his party didn’t. Name-checking Abraham Lincoln, he expressed pride in his party’s “rich history,” as he put it, “of supporting African-Americans.” Other than the current, dominant southern faction of the chairman’s party, who doesn’t like what Abe did? Since then, though, along with science, equal access to voting, and preference for leaders who don’t lie about elections and pandemics, his party’s support stopped cold as a polar vortex.
The chairman’s lesson took a recess somewhere around 1965; which all but begs us to provide proper, less-selective updating. Key terms to keep in mind as we try: Southern strategy; “welfare queens”; LBJ; Voting Rights Act; Civil Rights Act; Shelby County vs. Holder.
Our lesson could be condensed, simply by pointing out it’s to the Republican Party those racist Democrats fled after LBJ powered the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts into existence; and that they were welcomed the way Democrats (not Republicans, weirdly) are welcoming vaccines. Understanding he’d be causing Democrats to lose the South, LBJ did it anyway. That kind of doing right for Americans, no matter the impact on party, has gone sadly missing from Republican leaders; especially in, but not limited to, the past thirteen years (MSNBC: tinyurl.com/honestMitch).
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/schwab-yes-dems-have-racist-past-but-whats-in-gops-eye/
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