What George Wallace Can Teach Us in the Era of #BlackLivesMatter

What George Wallace Can Teach Us in the Era of #BlackLivesMatter

Of all the supporters of segregation in history, there are few so loud and perhaps none so memorable as 4-time Alabama Governor George Wallace. Best known for declaring “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” he also declared the Civil Rights Act to be “a fraud, a sham, and a hoax.”

In his 1968 presidential campaign, he became the last non-major-party candidate to win any pledged electoral votes. Running as an American Independent, he earned 46 electoral votes in the Deep South: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina. Despite running on a platform that explicitly derided Civil Rights legislation and intended to halt desegregation in its tracks, Wallace was known for staunchly rejecting any accusation of racism. His speeches are filled with platitudes about seeing all people as God’s children, and not discriminating on race, color, or creed. In an interview with Face the Nation in 1968, Wallace made a claim that should sound eerily familiar to modern Americans:

“I don’t regard myself as a racist, and I think the biggest racists in the world are those that call other folks racist...I think the biggest bigots in the world are those who call other folks bigots.”

It’s fairly easy for us to look back on such a claim made by a man who proudly drew a line in the sand to oppose desegregation and consider it ridiculous, even moreso when we realize that his claim was made barely 3 months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., a man he had previously accused of leading a band of “pro-communist” agitators. Even with Wallace’s public repentance in his later years, his storied career in the maintenance of racist systems can give us insight into how opponents of racial equality can mask their opposition in patriotic rhetoric.

In his 1963 inaugural address, he does not once suggest the superiority of any white race, nor the inferiority of a black one. Quite the contrary: his rhetoric towards the races is arguably conciliatory at points, claiming to “respect the separateness of others”, and in “invit[ing] the negro citizens of Alabama to work with [them]” in their endeavour to maintain a segregationist state.

Wallace’s July 4th address a little over a year later was an unhinged tirade against the SCOTUS rulings on the Civil Rights Act, in which he referred to them as “black-robed despots” and accused the Civil Rights Act of threatening freedom of speech, assembly, and association. Just as in his famous inaugural, this speech speaks not against members of any race, but against “liberal left-wingers” and a law that he claimed would “destroy individual freedom and liberty” in the United States.

This trend is evident throughout Wallace’s public remarks; while he has many quotes on race that are abhorrent in a modern perspective, most of his rhetorical work in maintaining racist systems was very carefully crafted as criticism of the political left, international Communism, and of Big Government. Reading through most of his work, a solid 90% of his argumentation would not be offensive to most people by even modern standards...at least not until the conclusions of his claims are reached.

Governor Wallace gives us an important window into the ways that bad actors usurp patriotic rhetoric to advance bigoted goals...and to shut down movements that agitate for the fulfillment of American promises. As Wallace accused Civil Rights protestors of being servants of an anti-white agenda in the 60s, so now are BlackLivesMatter protestors accused of being anti-white. As Dr. King and other movement leaders were accused of using black issues as a smokescreen to advance communism because of their left-leaning connections, so now is BlackLivesMatter accused of being a Marxist front.

Is the BlackLivesMatter movement a Marxist facade behind which the downfall of the American way of life is being plotted? In judging the merits of that accusation, we should consider that it has been leveled against almost every liberation movement in U.S. history, including the feminist and LGBT movements.

This is obviously not to say that criticism of Big Government makes one a bad-faith actor. This country was founded in exactly that kind of criticism. That said, Wallace’s example reminds us that those who wish to prevent social change will co-opt patriotic rhetoric and small-government causes to do so. Examples of the ways good liberty-minded people are betrayed, conned, or co-opted by such racist voices include recent backlash against Jo Jorgenson, the discovery that Tucker Carlson’s lead writer is a vocal and virulent racist, and Ron Paul’s entire career.

When black lives are on the line, as they have been so many times in American history, we should remember to check and double-check any criticism of activists that advances a narrative of protest as un-American or anti-white. Wallace’s words should inspire hope within the young people of this country who are determined to agitate for a better world; they deserve to know how ineffective their critics’ words will be in the eyes of history.

The Dangerous Ambiguity of Trumpian Rhetoric

"[If Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Let's break this down for anyone who really feels like Donald Trump is discussing the power of voting and political action.

You can't vote or use political action of any kind to unseat Justices or overturn their rulings. Trump clearly implies here that should that happen, the only way to solve the problem of Justices with whom we have ideological differences is the use of 2nd Amendment arm-bearing.

This isn't mis-speaking, and it's not a matter of semantic interpretation. He is either suggesting or joking about the coercion or shooting of either Clinton or the Justices she chooses.

This is possibly one of the best examples to-date of the way Donald Trump uses cleverly-worded and seemingly ambiguous rhetoric and offhanded comments to bolster his candidacy. Trump supporters who are horrified at the thought of political violence will defend him and insist that he was not suggesting violence...Trump supporters who are advocates of violence against the state or their political enemies will feel like he is the candidate for whom they've been waiting all their lives.

It's the Megyn Kelly "blood coming out of her wherever" comment on an even more dangerous scale. Every misogynist in the country knew exactly what Trump meant when he implied that his examination by a journalist was made more hostile by her menstruating. Every Trump supporter who wants to willfully believe that they don't intend to vote for a womanizer can hide behind the fact that he didn't explicitly say she was on her period.

There's a phrase for this. "Dog Whistle Politics." This is Richard Nixon's promise to restore "Law and Order" to Southerners who were fearful of social change, this was Ronald Reagan's use of "Welfare Queen" to stigmatize blacks on social assistance. This is each and every use of the word "thug" to describe a young black man whose political beliefs convince him to take to the street in protest. It's the use of an innocuous phrase to resonate with what is worst and most prejudiced in people without their realizing it.

Needless to say, black people aren't strangers to Dog Whistle Politics. We see (and see through) Trump's nonsense. It's just a slightly less artful and more broadly applied version of the same bile we've been on the receiving end of ever since the Federal Government decided once and for all that States didn't have the right to block our vote.

We're just wondering why it's taking the rest of you so painfully long to figure it out.

Mitt Romney was right, and that's why we should have elected Hillary Clinton

Here are the facts:
1) NSA director Admiral Michael Rogers has made it clear: a foreign government hacked the campaign of a particular candidate in a foreign election - OUR election - with the intent of giving an advantage to Donald Trump.

2) Donald Trump has refused to speak ill of Russia in his entire time on the campaign trail, instead preferring to stoke resentment against our NATO allies...ones that currently and justly fear Russian invasion.
3) Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has publicly stated that the Russian government through embassy staff had contacts with the Trump campaign, later confirmed by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Here is the context:
1) In the 2012 election Mitt Romney rightly declared Russia to be the US's "#1 geopolitical foe." For the last 4 years, Republicans (and later even Democrats) accepted this assessment, until Donald Trump won the Republican party's nomination, at which point the entire party went dark on anti-Russian rhetoric.
2) Though President Putin himself has been carefully neutral Russian (government controlled) media has been overwhelmingly pro-Trump.
3) Anyone even remotely familiar with the practices of intelligence agencies knows that intelligence chiefs are typically housed in embassies with more innocuous titles and jobs as covers for their actual work. If Trump was going to be meeting with a foreign spy, "meeting with embassy staff" is how it would be spun.
4) Before the election, Donald Trump was reported to have repeatedly refused to accept the assessment of intelligence personnel in briefings when they told him that Russian agencies were responsible for the DNC hacks.
5) The Russian government is known to carry out cyber-attacks against neighbors, usually to further Russian goals in one way or another. Georgia in 2008 and the Ukraine in 2014 are obvious examples.

Here is my assessment:

1) There is a clear linking of interests and priorities between the expansionist autocratic dictator Vladimir Putin and President-elect Donald Trump.
2) Foreign dictatorial influence is bigger than "emails" and bigger than the run-of-the-mill corruption that was inevitable under Hillary Clinton.
3) In our attempt to avoid electing a corrupt candidate, we have instead elected the preferred candidate of the most dangerous man since Adolf Hitler.

Contrary to Popular Belief, Donald Trump May Actually be Helping Republicans

Let's face it, almost no one expects Donald Trump to become the Republican party's nominee, and even fewer people expect him to win the Presidency.  Despite Trump's current high polling numbers, the "conventional wisdom" seems accurate; no one ever became President of the United States by controlling 30% of a single political party while being almost universally detested by everyone else.

It has also been oft-joked and seriously postulated that Donald Trump is in some way helping the Democrats (whether intentionally or otherwise) by making a Democratic nominee look more reasonable than voting Republican in 2016.

Let's entertain the possibility that thinking Donald Trump is more helpful to Democrats than Republicans is catastrophically wrong; or at least short-sighted.

A lot of this conventional thinking is born from the assumption that if Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, his history of racism and elitism will hand the election on a silver platter to whomever the Democrats nominate.  This early in the election season, it's understandable to see such a variable spread of Republican candidates and assume he can make it that far, but that fear sounds too reminiscent of the terror so many experienced when Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll four years ago.

More of this thinking is born from the idea that Trump's comments are so nativist, so racist, so fascist, so reprehensible, that he will do lasting damage to the Republican brand.  This hearkens back to the 2012 GOP primary, where every single candidate got dragged through the muck in what was affectionately called a "clown car" and more accurately dubbed a "circular firing squad."  Still, the Republican philosophies of tax cuts and deregulation for all doesn't seem to be threatened here, the only thing voters seem to universally revile is Donald Trump himself.

Rather than speculate on Trump's motives, it's worth asking the question, "what kind of environment will the inevitable post-Trump primary landscape look like?" His existence in the primary race so far has helped or hindered candidates on a person-by-person basis.  The assumed safe bets of the Bush and Walker campaigns were all but obliterated once the debate schedule started running...Walker's campaign was high on cash but short on substance, while Jeb's decision to engage in back-and-forth bickering with Donald has been a colossal failure.

This is not the case for some other Republican candidates. Thanks to the excess of media attention given to Donald Trump and his increasingly bombastic rhetoric, almost no one noticed the soft-spoken incompetence of Ben Carson for months. People have all but forgotten how universally reviled Ted Cruz was two years ago coming off his self-indulgent crusade to de-fund the Affordable Care Act, or how malleable Marco Rubio's positions have been since being elected to the Senate.  With all the attention on Trump, Carly Fiorina has more or less been given carte blanche to treat every debate stage as a fact-free zone.

Not only do these other candidates benefit from such a lack of scrutiny, Trump's objectively bigoted remarks provide them with the opportunity to legitimize their own candidacies by comparison.  Compared to Donald Trump, Marco Rubio has all the appearance of reason that Bill Clinton's "Third-Way" centrism was so famous for...despite standing to the right of even Ronald Reagan on most policy issues.

When the Trump bubble bursts, and burst it will, the Republican primary will likely be decided quickly, among candidates that the media and public have not fully vetted.  It's entirely possible that the Republican nominee will emerge from the primary race almost unscathed and without having been thoroughly scrutinized.  Whether that's good for the Democrats is too soon to say, but it's definitely good for the current Republican candidates.

The ones whose campaigns Trump hasn't personally destroyed already, that is.

"Republican Civil War?"

There's a phrase going around in political circles these days. "Republican Civil War."

    Is it accurate?  Yes and no. It's really only accurate depending on how you define the Republican Party. If the Republican party we're talking about is the pre-1980 party of monopoly busting, civil rights pushing, battling-for-the-everyman party that supported a strong preventative military, compromise that best served both majority and minority, and governmental intervention wherever it saw the rights of other citizens threatened by threats either domestic or foreign...then yeah. Sure.

    This description of the party war doesn't exactly speak to the changes that came with President Reagan, though. Considered by many to be the founder of the modern Republican Party (and He whose name is invoked whenever reciting a core principle of the new Party, whether in context or not) he seems to be the latest figure that Republicans can agree on: the moderates because of his moderate stances and bipartisan victories, and the radicals because his rhetoric birthed their movement.  The right-wing populist movement known as the Tea Party may not have gained a name or national notoriety until President Obama came into office in the most brutal months of the Great Recession, but the seeds of the movement were planted in the 1980 election, when we were told that government itself was the cause of our problems, and that the solution would have to come from elsewhere.

    Every party has radical elements within it, though usually they are marginalized into obscurity after brief moments in the spotlight. This has not been the case with the Tea Party. Armed with divisive but catchy rhetoric, backed by myriad affluent donors, and given the spotlight time and again by various news organizations, Tea Party candidates ascended rapidly while moderate establishment Republicans were toppled left and right, from offices both local and national.

    For the last couple years, we've seen a very curious dance being played out on the national stage. Many Republicans have been lifted high on the shoulders of the Tea Party only to be brought down just as quickly at any perceived betrayal. Radical conservatism is a jealous goddess, one who seems to have tried many aspiring heroes only to cast them aside in favor of the next figure who talks a little louder and seems to hate government just a little more.

    Establishment Republicans seem to be riding on little more than the loyalty of their home districts in the face of their own party's disillusionment. Men who were once considered champions of the party have been all but ostracized for their existing views that are considered too moderate, too lukewarm, not aggressive enough against the mutually despised Democrats. A few names come to mind: John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, George Bush (Sr and Jr), John Boehner, Eric Cantor and even Paul Ryan and John Coryn.  Really?  John Coryn, one of the most conservative Senators in the nation?

    Other than three relatively new senators, (Paul, Cruz, and Rubio) each having difficulty proving themselves as capable leaders to the national party, there isn't yet a figure for the Tea Party to rally around...at least not a living one, and the less said about how the historical Reagan is being twisted into a caricature of himself by the modern Party, the better.

    So what does it say when all the establishment leaders of a party are being derided by their base? The current Republican landscape seems to have much more in common with France in revolution than it does with the American Civil War.

    In this new Republican Party, the Speaker of the House is considered spineless by those on his right for his initial refusal to take the government hostage. In this Party, a former vice presidential candidate is considered collaborating with the enemy for forging a budget compromise with Democrats.  In this Party, the name of John McCain can barely be spoken without a hint of either amusement, ire, or disgust...yet had he won the election in 2008, it’s entirely possible he would still be our president today.  

    (Perhaps the greatest oddity of all is that McCain's vice presidential candidate was arguably the least intellectually qualified person ever to run on a presidential ticket, but having stayed true to her more manic stances she is still oft-lauded and frequently consulted in conservative and Republican-friendly media.)

    So going forward: is the Republican Party going to find a leader? Will someone arise from the radical wings to drag the establishment leaders to the political guillotine? Or will a more moderate establishment leader stand strong against the Tea Party and somehow manage to force them into obscurity?

    Historically, the Democrats are the ones who seem divided on the issues. The joke reads: "I am not a member of any organized political party, I am a Democrat.”  That the Republican party is now so fractious as to make the Democrats appear united on most issues should be enough to raise anyone's eyebrow.

    This isn't to say that any one group of ideals in the party should win out against any other. The Tea Party is just as legitimate in its fervor against government bloat and corruption as the establishment is in its desire to work out mutually beneficial compromise with the Democrats.  That said, a gridlocked Republican Party means a gridlocked government, and a government that does not function cannot uphold the Constitution and advocate for its citizens.  Until the Republican Party can figure out what it stands for on an issue-by-issue basis, all negotiations are effectively tabled, and it’s the American people who will suffer for it.

The real reason immigration reform will not happen this year

Not to play the pessimist here, but none of us should hold our breath for immigration reform this year.

Why should it be so hard to reform our standing immigration laws and offer the hope for fulfillment of the American dream to all those who live outside our borders? Why, when all standing economic predictions claim that it would be better for our country, can we not fix a clearly broken system and give the gift of opportunity to the tired, poor, huddled masses who seek a safe haven where they can achieve according to their own merits free from oppression?  Why would we cling to such clearly immoral and dated laws...especially when the influx of minds and talents from countries near and far has proven time and time again in the past to be good for the United States?

Simple: it's bad for the Republican party. Bear with me on this one, because it would be a blatantly partisan and downright cruel thing to say if it weren't so obviously true.

It's long been politically expedient for the party out of power to make the case for their election by accusing the party in power of being ineffectual, incompetent, and corrupt.  A little obstruction is implied, and both Democrats and Republicans quite shamelessly play this part, depending on who is in the Oval Office. However, in the past five years, the Republicans have learned an even more potent lesson: it is easier to blame someone for a bad situation that already exists than it is to take credit for a good situation that you only helped to create.

There are plenty of examples of good situations that they had an equal (or greater) hand in creating.  The ACA is, at heart, a Republican fix for one of the most complicated problems the Unites States has ever faced. (The "free market has failed the medical and health insurance industry and good care can only be provided to the affluent or mildly affluent" problem) Rather than take credit for the recent successes that the law has brought, Republicans are now forced to cling to the party rhetoric and reiterate talking points so dirty they need to be washed every night.

Our rapidly falling deficits are another example of a good situation Republicans have helped create. While there will always be arguments between Keynesians, austerians, supply-siders, and the rest, we have record low deficits...that the President is now getting credit for.

Republican strategists know what happens if immigration is reformed: it turns into one more item on Barack Obama's résumé, just after falling deficits, health care reform, and the recovery act. There is no glory for the party that "finally relented and did the right thing" when national pressure was strong enough. No one recognized the courage it took for Speaker Boehner to bring the vote for a clean debt ceiling hike earlier this year. No one patted any Congressmen on the back when they finally voted to open the government in full after the shutdown last October.

Even if there was recognition to be had on the national level for a unified push toward immigration reform, that would leave Republican congressmen to return to their home districts at the midterms and ask their constituencies to send them back to Washington. Border state residents and other southerners - often frustrated by the increasing amount of Spanish they hear spoken day to day - are disinclined to vote someone back in office who can be primaried on the grounds that they are "pro-amnesty" or "soft on illegals." Even if it were good for the party to look pro-immigration (and it would be) it would be effectively a death sentence to congressmen in more xenophobic districts.

Quite the opposite, the Republican party stands to gain a lot from our broken immigration system. It costs them nothing politically to claim they "want reform, but not this way," or "are willing to compromise, but have little faith in the President to enforce the law." Talking points like these allow Republicans to look tough on amnesty while still looking reasonable to the casual observer...meanwhile, progressive groups across the nation continue to hammer the President for enforcing the existing law...with inhumane (and historic) mass deportations. It's the best of both worlds...for the Republicans, anyway.

This does create a situation where what is good for the Republican party is directly at odds with what is good for the United States and her citizenry. Considering how strongly the conservative media sites and congressman rail against such an obviously good idea as immigration reform, it's worth asking ourselves how many other issues in US politics today would be so clear-cut if not for a deluge of blatantly false propaganda.

So...sorry. Sorry, all you tired poor and huddled masses. Sorry, all you who dream of overcoming the circumstances of your birth to rise to the greatness you know is within you. Sorry, all those who hope to partake in a meritocracy where the country of their birth is not considered more important than their drive to succeed.  Sorry, everyone who would like to come into our country legally and lawfully. Maybe once the Republicans get one of their own in the Oval Office, they won't have to have their arms twisted in order to do the right thing.