The Democrats, The Klan, and Racism Today

[Tom Paine 1949]

I wrote this originally as a reply to a comment, seemingly now removed, which highlighted the following Federalist Papers article, which blames the Democratic Party for being the historical party of racism and the KKK:

Liberals Aren’t Going To Like This Newly-Discovered Photo Of 1924 Dem Convention…

The TRUE history of the Democratic Party

thefederalistpapers.org

The KKK was and always will represent the extreme racist fringe of U.S. politics. After the Civil War, along with soft core “Lost Cause” nostalgia for the slave Confederacy, it was the Klan that always most clearly symbolized the “original sin” of white supremacist thinking and reactionary terror. Of course in the North ethnic competition and racism had its own dynamic, which rarely dressed up in white robes or flew Confederate flags, since Klan regalia represented resistance and treason to the nation.

There were many other more modern forms of repression, embodied for instance in anti-labor industrial union busting and imperialist oppression overseas, that the Klan was not centrally involved in. The growing power in society of banks, industrialists, monopolies, imperialists, these did not at all depend on the Klan, and their interests were represented mostly by ... the Republican Party.

The Klan had a new rebirth after Woodrow Wilson brought a fake Southern-gilded Democratic liberal progressivism to D.C., and the KKK reached its greatest influence after WWI in Congress and the country as a whole. That was when union-busting, race riots against returning “uppity” black soldiers, the first anti-Bolshevik scare, and competition for jobs in the North followed black migration from the South. At the same time unresolved interimperialist and national rivalries put fascist movements in Europe on the march. The backward Jim Crow South was completely run by the Democratic Party in those days.

The stage for the Civil Rights Movement was set slowly and only possible after the fight and victory against fascism by a unique U.S. immigrant “melting pot” and New Deal “democratic culture.” It also required the economic progress of the post-WWII “American Century.” Even then, the victory over Jim Crow and legal racism was won only grudgingly, and it was partly due to U.S. competition with communism in Africa and the emerging colonial world.

Of course the economic and social effects of centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, and white supremacy could hardly be overcome in one or two generations. The fact that today the old Republican Party of Lincoln serves as Donald Trump’s party and attracts aggrieved and often openly racist whites, while the old party of the KKK and the New Deal wins most African-American support and elected our first “half black” President — all this shows that issues of race in society are still deeply entrenched and alive.

We should all work to see to it that the final struggles against racism and white supremacy are peaceful, but it is clear that there are elements in our society that want violence, that find encouraging division and even armed confrontations serve their interests. Opportunist politicians and demagogues, including our present President, have played a horrible role in enflaming these divisions.

Of course today such divisions are stirred up without resorting to wearing Klan regalia. It is easy for political opportunists to serve the powers that be and ignore desperate economic and social inequality. Men like Trump appeal to backwardness one moment and use inclusive rhetoric the next, demanding only “law and order,” and that everyone rally around supposedly traditional “American values.” But those traditional values are captured in part in the photos of the KKK marching down D.C. streets in 1924.

Backwardness is also captured in the cheering for an underage vigilante armed illegally with an AR-15 out after curfew in a neighborhood 22 miles from home, bringing anything but “peace” to the people he shot, to himself, and to our nation.

 

[Augustine_]

I wrote this originally as a reply to a comment, seemingly now removed, which highlighted the following Federalist Papers article, which blamed the Democratic Party for being the historical party of racism and the KKK:

Liberals Aren’t Going To Like This Newly-Discovered Photo Of 1924 Dem Convention…

The TRUE history of the Democratic Party

thefederalistpapers.org

The KKK was and always will represent the extreme racist fringe of U.S. politics. After the Civil War, along with soft core “Lost Cause” nostalgia for the slave Confederacy, it was the Klan that always most clearly symbolized the “original sin” of white supremacist thinking and reactionary terror. Of course in the North ethnic competition and racism had its own dynamic, which rarely dressed up in white robes or flew Confederate flags, since Klan regalia represented resistance and treason to the nation.

There were many other more modern forms of reaction, embodied for instance in anti-labor union busting and imperialist oppression overseas, things that the Klan was mostly uninvolved in. The growing power in society of banks, industrialists, monopolies, imperialists, these did not at all depend on the Klan, and their interests were represented mostly by ... the Republican Party.

The Klan had a new rebirth after Woodrow Wilson brought a fake Southern-gilded Democratic liberal progressivism to D.C., and the KKK reached its greatest influence after WWI in Congress and the country as a whole. That was when union-busting, race riots against returning “uppity” black soldiers, the first anti-Bolshevik scare, and competition for jobs in the North followed black migration from the South. At the same time unresolved interimperialist and national rivalries put fascist movements in Europe on the march. The backward Jim Crow South was completely run by the Democratic Party in those days.

The stage for the Civil Rights Movement was set slowly and only possible after the fight and victory against fascism by a unique U.S. immigrant “melting pot” and New Deal “democratic culture.” It also required the economic progress of the post-WWII “American Century.” Even then, the victory over Jim Crow and legal racism was won only grudgingly, and it was partly due to U.S. competition with communism in Africa and the emerging colonial world.

Of course the economic and social effects of centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, and white supremacy could hardly be overcome in one or two generations. The fact that today the old Republican Party of Lincoln serves as Donald Trump’s party and attracts aggrieved and often openly racist whites, while the old party of the KKK and the New Deal wins most African-American support and elected our first “half black” President — all this shows that issues of race in society are still deeply entrenched and alive.

We should all work to see to it that the final struggles against racism and white supremacy are peaceful, but it is clear that there are elements in our society that want violence, that find encouraging division and even armed confrontations serve their interests. Opportunist politicians and demagogues, including our present President, have played a horrible role in enflaming these divisions.

Of course today such divisions are stirred up without resorting to wearing Klan regalia. It is easy for political opportunists to serve the powers that be and ignore desperate economic and social inequality. Men like Trump appeal to backwardness one moment and use inclusive rhetoric the next, demanding only “law and order,” and that everyone rally around supposedly traditional “American values.” But those traditional values are captured in part in the photos of the KKK marching down D.C. streets in 1924.

Backwardness is also captured in the cheering for an underage vigilante armed illegally with an AR-15 out after curfew in a neighborhood 22 miles from home, bringing anything but “peace” to the people he shot, to himself, and to our nation.

Why does your party currently worship those old Democrats that you're talking about, defending their statues and flags that honor them religiously?

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Why does your party currently worship those old Democrats that you're talking about, defending their statues and flags that honor them religiously?

My party? I don’t really have a party.

I think it is Republicans that mostly have been defending “those old Democrats ... defending their statues and flags that honor them religiously.”

If that is your point, I think it is a good one!

 

[Tumblin Tumbleweed]

I wrote this originally as a reply to a comment, seemingly now removed, which highlighted the following Federalist Papers article, which blamed the Democratic Party for being the historical party of racism and the KKK:

Liberals Aren’t Going To Like This Newly-Discovered Photo Of 1924 Dem Convention…

The TRUE history of the Democratic Party

thefederalistpapers.org

The KKK was and always will represent the extreme racist fringe of U.S. politics. After the Civil War, along with soft core “Lost Cause” nostalgia for the slave Confederacy, it was the Klan that always most clearly symbolized the “original sin” of white supremacist thinking and reactionary terror. Of course in the North ethnic competition and racism had its own dynamic, which rarely dressed up in white robes or flew Confederate flags, since Klan regalia represented resistance and treason to the nation.

There were many other more modern forms of reaction, embodied for instance in anti-labor union busting and imperialist oppression overseas, things that the Klan was mostly uninvolved in. The growing power in society of banks, industrialists, monopolies, imperialists, these did not at all depend on the Klan, and their interests were represented mostly by ... the Republican Party.

The Klan had a new rebirth after Woodrow Wilson brought a fake Southern-gilded Democratic liberal progressivism to D.C., and the KKK reached its greatest influence after WWI in Congress and the country as a whole. That was when union-busting, race riots against returning “uppity” black soldiers, the first anti-Bolshevik scare, and competition for jobs in the North followed black migration from the South. At the same time unresolved interimperialist and national rivalries put fascist movements in Europe on the march. The backward Jim Crow South was completely run by the Democratic Party in those days.

The stage for the Civil Rights Movement was set slowly and only possible after the fight and victory against fascism by a unique U.S. immigrant “melting pot” and New Deal “democratic culture.” It also required the economic progress of the post-WWII “American Century.” Even then, the victory over Jim Crow and legal racism was won only grudgingly, and it was partly due to U.S. competition with communism in Africa and the emerging colonial world.

Of course the economic and social effects of centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, and white supremacy could hardly be overcome in one or two generations. The fact that today the old Republican Party of Lincoln serves as Donald Trump’s party and attracts aggrieved and often openly racist whites, while the old party of the KKK and the New Deal wins most African-American support and elected our first “half black” President — all this shows that issues of race in society are still deeply entrenched and alive.

We should all work to see to it that the final struggles against racism and white supremacy are peaceful, but it is clear that there are elements in our society that want violence, that find encouraging division and even armed confrontations serve their interests. Opportunist politicians and demagogues, including our present President, have played a horrible role in enflaming these divisions.

Of course today such divisions are stirred up without resorting to wearing Klan regalia. It is easy for political opportunists to serve the powers that be and ignore desperate economic and social inequality. Men like Trump appeal to backwardness one moment and use inclusive rhetoric the next, demanding only “law and order,” and that everyone rally around supposedly traditional “American values.” But those traditional values are captured in part in the photos of the KKK marching down D.C. streets in 1924.

Backwardness is also captured in the cheering for an underage vigilante armed illegally with an AR-15 out after curfew in a neighborhood 22 miles from home, bringing anything but “peace” to the people he shot, to himself, and to our nation.

Why does your party currently worship those old Democrats that you're talking about, defending their statues and flags that honor them religiously?

I'm not sure you comprehend what you read.

 

[flacaltenn]

Backwardness is also captured in the cheering for an underage vigilante armed illegally with an AR-15 out after curfew in a neighborhood 22 miles from home, bringing anything but “peace” to the people he shot, to himself, and to our nation.

And why bring this kid into a "history of racism and the KKK"??? Is that what made you consider reposting this?

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

And why bring this kid into a "history of racism and the KKK"??? Is that what made you consider reposting this?

Good question. The original (off topic) and removed comment I was responding to was in a Clean Debate Zone discussion about “Peaceful Protests.”

But the real appropriateness of appending a word about this kid arises because this youngster’s passion for “helping” defend “law and order,” “property” and “American values,” as a wannabe policeman / actual vigilante was very much in keeping, ceteris paribus, with the once “wholesome” America traditions of white militias putting down Indian attacks, feared slave rebellion, hunting down runaway slave property, even attending Klan rallies or lynchings. All these were central to American history. Nowhere else in the developed world are there such traditions, which neatly evolved into our present militarist policies policing third world “shithole countries” on behalf of our “Empire of Liberty.”

I never argue against the 2nd Amendment (I was once an IRA member and have a concealed carry license) or for anarchy in the streets, but we are now seeing young idiot vigilantes inserting themselves into demonstrations of poor, mostly angry and unemployed white and black protesters — with quite predictable results. Just a day before this event I wrote (almost prophetically) about 50 years of guns and politics in America as follows:

If there is a lesson to be taken from this history ... it should be that profound care should be exercised when mixing guns and politics. Self defense is one thing. Collective self defense is another. Taking weapons openly (where legal) into a government building is yet another. Carrying weapons to demonstrations of opponent groups or engaging in armed vigilantism ... is something else entirely.

Portland truck attack suspect arrested

 

[AzogtheDefiler]

And why bring this kid into a "history of racism and the KKK"??? Is that what made you consider reposting this?

Good question. The original (off topic) and removed comment I was responding to was in a Clean Debate Zone discussion about “Peaceful Protests.”

But the real appropriateness of appending a word about this kid arises because this youngster’s passion for “helping” defend “law and order,” “property” and “American values,” as a wannabe policeman / actual vigilante was very much in keeping, ceteris paribus, with the once “wholesome” America traditions of white militias putting down Indian attacks, feared slave rebellion, hunting down runaway slave property, even attending Klan lynchings. All these were central to American history. Nowhere else in the developed world are there such traditions, which neatly evolved into our present militarist policies policIng third world “shithole countries” on behalf of our “Empire of Liberty.”

I never argue against the 2nd Amendment (I was once an IRA member and have a concealed carry license) or for anarchy in the streets, but we are now seeing young idiot vigilantes inserting themselves into demonstrations of poor, mostly angry and unemployed white and black protesters — with quite predictable results. Just a day before this event I wrote (almost prophetically) about 50 years of guns and politics in America as follows:

If there is a lesson to be taken from this history ... it should be that profound care should be exercised when mixing guns and politics. Self defense is one thing. Collective self defense is another. Taking weapons openly (where legal) into a government building is yet another. Carrying weapons to demonstrations of opponent groups or engaging in armed vigilantism ... is something else entirely.

Portland truck attack suspect arrested

Your posts cured my insomnia. Thank you.

 

[Biff_Poindexter]

Good post and I agree with you....

But tribalism is a helluva drug -- and there will be no real populist movement as long as we have this type of tribalism....

Fred Hampton said it best....you don't fight racism with racism, you fight it with solidarity....

 

[Olde Europe]

The fact that today the old Republican Party of Lincoln serves as Donald Trump’s party and attracts aggrieved and often openly racist whites, while the old party of the KKK and the New Deal wins most African-American support and elected our first “half black” President — all this shows that issues of race in society are still deeply entrenched and alive.

"All this"? Really? Democrats (and Democratic-leaning independents) electing the first "half-black" President shows that "issues of race in society are still deeply entrenched and alive"? Methinks not.

Backwardness is also captured in the cheering for an underage vigilante armed illegally with an AR-15 out after curfew in a neighborhood 22 miles from home, bringing anything but “peace” to the people he shot, to himself, and to our nation.

Yep. But that's not "Backwardness", that's pretty common practice up to this very day. If you can find the time, here's an eye-opening read on that issue.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The fact that today the old Republican Party of Lincoln serves as Donald Trump’s party and attracts aggrieved and often openly racist whites, while the old party of the KKK and the New Deal wins most African-American support and elected our first “half black” President — all this shows that issues of race in society are still deeply entrenched and alive.

"All this"? Really? Democrats (and Democratic-leaning independents) electing the first "half-black" President shows that "issues of race in society are still deeply entrenched and alive"? Methinks not.

Backwardness is also captured in the cheering for an underage vigilante armed illegally with an AR-15 out after curfew in a neighborhood 22 miles from home, bringing anything but “peace” to the people he shot, to himself, and to our nation.

Yep. But that's not "Backwardness", that's pretty common practice up to this very day. If you can find the time, here's an eye-opening read on that issue.

The article you linked to seems very informative. I certainly agree that there are deep links today and historically between many racist cops and white nationalist type organizations.

My point about Obama being elected was not meant as a criticism of either him or his supporters (leave his policies for another day) but was meant merely to acknowledge the fact that the Democrats were indeed once the party of the Klan, and that partisan roles have reversed, while “the color line” unfortunately remains very important in society.

 

[Olde Europe]

My point about Obama being elected was not meant as a criticism of either him or his supporters (leave his policies for another day) but was meant merely to acknowledge the fact that the Democrats were indeed once the party of the Klan, and that partisan roles have reversed, while “the color line” unfortunately remains very important in society.

I think we basically agree on that issue. Just for clarity's sake, Obama's election does most emphatically not demonstrate that "issues of race in society are still deeply entrenched and alive" - it demonstrates that, after a long history of racist terror (predominantly in the South, and predominantly by southern Democrats but also by southern Republicans) that ailment can be, if not overcome, at least curtailed. Whereas the GOP has been digging that racist hole since Nixon, and they are at it with renewed vigor during the last four years. This distinction, I think, merits being pointed out, while the job ahead remains formidable - for all.

If the linked article has a flaw, it's that there is very little made explicit about what black communities are facing throughout, and you have to deduce that sordid story from every single paragraph detailing the racism (and misogyny) among the police forces all over the country.

 

[flacaltenn]

But the real appropriateness of appending a word about this kid arises because this youngster’s passion for “helping” defend “law and order,” “property” and “American values,” as a wannabe policeman / actual vigilante was very much in keeping, ceteris paribus, with the once “wholesome” America traditions of white militias putting down Indian attacks, feared slave rebellion, hunting down runaway slave property, even attending Klan rallies or lynchings. All these were central to American history. Nowhere else in the developed world are there such traditions, which neatly evolved into our present militarist policies policing third world “shithole countries” on behalf of our “Empire of Liberty.”

Oh PLEASE - no.. Those comparisons are SO botched and stretched, they have no substance. You've already canceled the "Boy Scouts" -- should we cancel "Police Cadet" programs, civilian ride alongs, neighborhood watch, Police Auxillaries because of Indians, slave rebellions and the OTHER SPAM you just cooked up??

 

[harmonica]

I wrote this originally as a reply to a comment, seemingly now removed, which highlighted the following Federalist Papers article, which blames the Democratic Party for being the historical party of racism and the KKK:

Liberals Aren’t Going To Like This Newly-Discovered Photo Of 1924 Dem Convention…

The TRUE history of the Democratic Party

thefederalistpapers.org

The KKK was and always will represent the extreme racist fringe of U.S. politics. After the Civil War, along with soft core “Lost Cause” nostalgia for the slave Confederacy, it was the Klan that always most clearly symbolized the “original sin” of white supremacist thinking and reactionary terror. Of course in the North ethnic competition and racism had its own dynamic, which rarely dressed up in white robes or flew Confederate flags, since Klan regalia represented resistance and treason to the nation.

There were many other more modern forms of repression, embodied for instance in anti-labor industrial union busting and imperialist oppression overseas, that the Klan was not centrally involved in. The growing power in society of banks, industrialists, monopolies, imperialists, these did not at all depend on the Klan, and their interests were represented mostly by ... the Republican Party.

The Klan had a new rebirth after Woodrow Wilson brought a fake Southern-gilded Democratic liberal progressivism to D.C., and the KKK reached its greatest influence after WWI in Congress and the country as a whole. That was when union-busting, race riots against returning “uppity” black soldiers, the first anti-Bolshevik scare, and competition for jobs in the North followed black migration from the South. At the same time unresolved interimperialist and national rivalries put fascist movements in Europe on the march. The backward Jim Crow South was completely run by the Democratic Party in those days.

The stage for the Civil Rights Movement was set slowly and only possible after the fight and victory against fascism by a unique U.S. immigrant “melting pot” and New Deal “democratic culture.” It also required the economic progress of the post-WWII “American Century.” Even then, the victory over Jim Crow and legal racism was won only grudgingly, and it was partly due to U.S. competition with communism in Africa and the emerging colonial world.

Of course the economic and social effects of centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, and white supremacy could hardly be overcome in one or two generations. The fact that today the old Republican Party of Lincoln serves as Donald Trump’s party and attracts aggrieved and often openly racist whites, while the old party of the KKK and the New Deal wins most African-American support and elected our first “half black” President — all this shows that issues of race in society are still deeply entrenched and alive.

We should all work to see to it that the final struggles against racism and white supremacy are peaceful, but it is clear that there are elements in our society that want violence, that find encouraging division and even armed confrontations serve their interests. Opportunist politicians and demagogues, including our present President, have played a horrible role in enflaming these divisions.

Of course today such divisions are stirred up without resorting to wearing Klan regalia. It is easy for political opportunists to serve the powers that be and ignore desperate economic and social inequality. Men like Trump appeal to backwardness one moment and use inclusive rhetoric the next, demanding only “law and order,” and that everyone rally around supposedly traditional “American values.” But those traditional values are captured in part in the photos of the KKK marching down D.C. streets in 1924.

Backwardness is also captured in the cheering for an underage vigilante armed illegally with an AR-15 out after curfew in a neighborhood 22 miles from home, bringing anything but “peace” to the people he shot, to himself, and to our nation.

that's all nothing but babble crap
1. there is no problem of racism
2. if anyone is racist--it's the blacks
3. BLM is worse than the KKK or the nazis

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

But the real appropriateness of appending a word about this kid arises because this youngster’s passion for “helping” defend “law and order,” “property” and “American values,” as a wannabe policeman / actual vigilante was very much in keeping, ceteris paribus, with the once “wholesome” America traditions of white militias putting down Indian attacks, feared slave rebellion, hunting down runaway slave property, even attending Klan rallies or lynchings. All these were central to American history. Nowhere else in the developed world are there such traditions, which neatly evolved into our present militarist policies policing third world “shithole countries” on behalf of our “Empire of Liberty.”

Oh PLEASE - no.. Those comparisons are SO botched and stretched, they have no substance. You've already canceled the "Boy Scouts" -- should we cancel "Police Cadet" programs, civilian ride alongs, neighborhood watch, Police Auxillaries because of Indians, slave rebellions and the OTHER SPAM you just cooked up??

I didn’t call for any of the things you mention, and in fact was a “Star” Boy Scout and in the “Order of the Arrow” ... : ) !

I am in fact an advocate of MORE “community policing” measures, more minority police, better policing. Do you doubt there are terrible cops as well as decent ones? That blacks have legitimate grievances in this country? That there is historically rooted racism against them? I don’t deny there is a problem with black crime, especially in tough minority neighborhoods. There are some places best avoided by white kids with guns!

Your attack on my alleged “botched and stretched” historical observations conveniently omits any reference whatever to history, as if it were irrelevant to our nation’s present plight.

In short you have nothing to say about the topic of this OP, which by the way is in our History forum.

I made my position clear — against looting, against chaotic violence. For self defense. I even wrote about the modern history of the exercise of the 2nd Amendment rights in politics, carefully defending the right to armed self defense. I do not speak of that young 17 year old as a Klansman or conscious race terrorist, as some do.

On the contrary. What is terrifying to me is that, encouraged by his mother and his President, this pro-Trump white man-child traveled 22 miles from home with his AR-15 to act illegally as a vigilante.

He no doubt thought he was doing a public service “protectIng private property.” Acting as a good cop. Or maybe a good Boy Scout? That kid surely thought he was a good Republican and citizen. And he almost died. And he killed two men who didn’t have to die. Who were not “looting.” All in response to a call ... on the internet.

That’s how fucked up our country is. Oh, and the National Guard had already been called out, and were nearby. And the cops gave him drinks ... and let him leave the scene. And now he’s a hero, and others, including real white nationalists, may next time come from further afield, to invite a punch so they can “stand their ground” and kill fellow citizens. It may be becoming the new ... “American Way.”

 

[Olde Europe]

I didn’t call for any of the things you mention, and in fact was a “Star” Boy Scout and in the “Order of the Arrow” ... : ) !

I am in fact an advocate of MORE “community policing” measures, more minority police, better policing. Do you doubt there are terrible cops as well as decent ones? That blacks have legitimate grievances in this country? That there is historically rooted racism against them? I don’t deny there is a problem with black crime, especially in tough minority neighborhoods. There are some places best avoided by white kids with guns!

Your attack on my alleged “botched and stretched” historical observations conveniently omits any reference whatever to history, as if it were irrelevant to our nation’s present plight.

In short you have nothing to say about the topic of this OP, which by the way is in our History forum.

I made my position clear — against looting, against chaotic violence. For self defense. I even wrote about the modern history of the exercise of the 2nd Amendment rights in politics, carefully defending the right to armed self defense. I do not speak of that young 17 year old as a Klansman or conscious race terrorist, as some do.

On the contrary. What is terrifying to me is that, encouraged by his mother and his President, this pro-Trump white man-child traveled 22 miles from home with his AR-15 to act illegally as a vigilante.

He no doubt thought he was doing a public service “protectIng private property.” Acting as a good cop. Or maybe a good Boy Scout? That kid surely thought he was a good Republican and citizen. And he almost died. And he killed two men who didn’t have to die. Who were not “looting.” All in response to a call ... on the internet.

That’s how fucked up our country is. Oh, and the National Guard had already been called out, and were nearby. And the cops gave him drinks ... and let him leave the scene. And now he’s a hero, and others, including real white nationalists, may next time come from further afield, to invite a punch so they can “stand their ground” and kill fellow citizens. It may be becoming the new ... “American Way.”

That ranks up there with the best defenses I have read on here in all these years. Not that I'd agree with every aspect, but it's at least plausible, defensible positions supported by a well-construed argument. Well done.

I disagree, vigorously, that this is how fcked up the country is. Rather, it is how fcked up a small portion of the country is, comprising gun nuts, rightarded nitwits, self-aggrandizing White nationalist losers and submissive authoritarians of the pathological variety, acting on the orders of Trump and his conspiracy blather in conjunction with his doomsday vision of "American carnage", who seem to derive their world-view from Rambo flicks. There ain't a problem they aren't confident they could shoot it dead. They all are the victims of ... something - blacks, "Commies", the Deep State, the globalists, Jews, earth-spanning conspiracies or whatever bullshit their handlers are cooking up - and thus they have a justification ready for lashing out, shooting back, or whatever delusional remedies they decide to set in motion. At least they fantasize about it. That's most assuredly not where the country stands - most of it anyway.

The country, really, is fcked up in another way: Eight years after having survived an intellectually incurious and lazy incompetent, they resolve to elect an even worse case, and they might even re-elect him - because expertise, respect for science, governance based on facts and the best available advice are seriously overrated, and their feelz and ardently held beliefs trump expertise every day. This is really, seriously fcked up, and that's what really might bring this 250-years experiment in enlightened (!) self-government to an abrupt end.

 

[bdtex]

I wrote this originally as a reply to a comment, seemingly now removed, which highlighted the following Federalist Papers article, which blames the Democratic Party for being the historical party of racism and the KKK:

Liberals Aren’t Going To Like This Newly-Discovered Photo Of 1924 Dem Convention…

The TRUE history of the Democratic Party

thefederalistpapers.org

The KKK was and always will represent the extreme racist fringe of U.S. politics. After the Civil War, along with soft core “Lost Cause” nostalgia for the slave Confederacy, it was the Klan that always most clearly symbolized the “original sin” of white supremacist thinking and reactionary terror. Of course in the North ethnic competition and racism had its own dynamic, which rarely dressed up in white robes or flew Confederate flags, since Klan regalia represented resistance and treason to the nation.

There were many other more modern forms of repression, embodied for instance in anti-labor industrial union busting and imperialist oppression overseas, that the Klan was not centrally involved in. The growing power in society of banks, industrialists, monopolies, imperialists, these did not at all depend on the Klan, and their interests were represented mostly by ... the Republican Party.

The Klan had a new rebirth after Woodrow Wilson brought a fake Southern-gilded Democratic liberal progressivism to D.C., and the KKK reached its greatest influence after WWI in Congress and the country as a whole. That was when union-busting, race riots against returning “uppity” black soldiers, the first anti-Bolshevik scare, and competition for jobs in the North followed black migration from the South. At the same time unresolved interimperialist and national rivalries put fascist movements in Europe on the march. The backward Jim Crow South was completely run by the Democratic Party in those days.

The stage for the Civil Rights Movement was set slowly and only possible after the fight and victory against fascism by a unique U.S. immigrant “melting pot” and New Deal “democratic culture.” It also required the economic progress of the post-WWII “American Century.” Even then, the victory over Jim Crow and legal racism was won only grudgingly, and it was partly due to U.S. competition with communism in Africa and the emerging colonial world.

Of course the economic and social effects of centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, and white supremacy could hardly be overcome in one or two generations. The fact that today the old Republican Party of Lincoln serves as Donald Trump’s party and attracts aggrieved and often openly racist whites, while the old party of the KKK and the New Deal wins most African-American support and elected our first “half black” President — all this shows that issues of race in society are still deeply entrenched and alive.

We should all work to see to it that the final struggles against racism and white supremacy are peaceful, but it is clear that there are elements in our society that want violence, that find encouraging division and even armed confrontations serve their interests. Opportunist politicians and demagogues, including our present President, have played a horrible role in enflaming these divisions.

Of course today such divisions are stirred up without resorting to wearing Klan regalia. It is easy for political opportunists to serve the powers that be and ignore desperate economic and social inequality. Men like Trump appeal to backwardness one moment and use inclusive rhetoric the next, demanding only “law and order,” and that everyone rally around supposedly traditional “American values.” But those traditional values are captured in part in the photos of the KKK marching down D.C. streets in 1924.

Backwardness is also captured in the cheering for an underage vigilante armed illegally with an AR-15 out after curfew in a neighborhood 22 miles from home, bringing anything but “peace” to the people he shot, to himself, and to our nation.

History is what it is and the parties have switched sides on the issue of the KKK/racism. Some folks on both sides don't wanna admit that. Some folks only wanna talk about history when the subject is current events. There is a reason why the South is still mostly the red "Solid South" and a reason why Virginia flipped to blue and Florida is purple.