Or progressive, for that matter.
https://www.google.com/search?q=define+progressive&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
https://www.google.com/search?q=define+liberal&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Maybe you have your own definition of those words?
They may have been creations by some Democrats of that day, but you’re being anachronistic if you contend they were “liberals” in the sense commonly understood and used in current US political discourse.
The Democratic party of the 1850s and '60’s…especially the southern wing were the staunch conservatives of their day doing their utmost to defend and fight off challenges to their cherished status quo: the “right” to buy, own, and have one’s slaves treated as property with the requisite protections from the state and Federal governments(i.e. insistence on northern states assisting in capturing and repatriating “fugitive slaves” back to their owners).
At least on the issue of slavery, the Republicans…especially the northern Radical Republicans and some abolitionists* were not only the liberals of their day…but radical progressives which even many northerners…including some abolitionists of the day had issue with.
The quoted posted statement above also completely ignores US political history. Especially what happened during the '50s and '60s when large numbers of conservative southern Democrats like Strom Thurmond decamped en masse from the Democratic party to the GOP due in large part because the Democratic party started to become more dominated by pro-Civil Rights and anti-segregation politicians. And this trend was completed by Richard Nixon’s '68 election campaign efforts to play to the fears and resentments of many southern Whites known famously among historians and political scientists studying US politics as Nixon’s “southern strategy”.
This is one good reason why if Lincoln somehow came back to life he wouldn’t recognize or likely approve of what the Republican party has become in the present and likewise…practically all the Southern Democratic politicians of 1860 and before wouldn’t recognize or approve of what the Democratic party has become in the present.
Understandable as in many ways, both parties ended up flipping in the respective positions on many issues from the 1850’s and 60s to the mid-late 1960’s to the present. Especially ones pertaining to racial issues, race relations and Civil Rights.
Most people with a cursory understanding of US political history would have known this as this is commonly covered in the better US history/government classes at the HS level and is emphasized in most US history/politics/government survey courses. [Takes off US political history specialist hat].
- Oberlin College was not only a stop on the underground railroad in the antebellum and during the Civil War...the college admins, students, and sympathetic townspeople took active part in resisting and yes...fighting slave catchers and their law enforcement partners to free fugitive slaves caught nearby in order to prevent repatriation back south. http://www.oberlin.edu/archive/wellington_rescue/rescue.html
** White and Black townspeople and students. Oberlin College has admitted Black students since the 1830’s…not too long after its founding. A reference was made to this in the 1980’s Civil War TV series “North and South” when in the antebellum period a southern upper-class cadet at West Point was hazing a plebe from Ohio by among asking him disdainfully whether he agrees it’s right that one of his state’s colleges, Oberlin, admits and allows White and Black students to study together as equals.
Hahahaha! KKK and Jim Crow were liberal creations? Because the Southern confederate veterans who created the KKK were liberals? Tell us another joke.
@awcntb I bet you have some trouble handling the truth in regards to President George W Bush, Donald Trump and Ben Carson You should be thankful for the New York Times to help with the facts. Where does your DS go to school?
I agree that @awcntdb is likely talking about the Democratic party, and presupposing it to mean “liberal.”
Just to expand on some of the points @cobrat makes:
That’s generally accurate now, but historically wasn’t always so. The Democratic Party was, until the 1960s, primarily a Southern party (and yes, mostly white). The Republicans, after the Progressive era, moved increasingly in that direction, even as the Democrats became more supportive of civil rights. With the signing of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act by a Democratic president, the South began to vote more Republican with every passing election, a trend that’s largely continued ever since.
If you look at the regional allegiances of those who’ve opposed expanded rights for African Americans, and those who’ve supported that same end, there’s very little in the way of a shift. 130 years ago, the drive to roll back Reconstruction was led by Democrats, who were almost all Southern. 50 years ago, the Democratic and Republican parties were both divided on the question of civil rights, with Southern Democrats and Southern Republicans opposing most of Johnson’s legislation.
The final roll call shows that in Northern states like Ohio, California, or Michigan, virtually all members - members split, I might add, between the two parties - supported the Civil Rights Act, while opposition was virtually unanimous in Southern states such as Alabama or North Carolina.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/89-1965/h87
Now, Republicans - with near-complete control of the South - oppose affirmative action and seek cuts to welfare, two policies that would disproportionately affect African Americans. The shift the two parties began more than a century ago is largely complete.
Two men who may be representative of this change are Lyndon Johnson (since @awcntdb mentions him) and yes, cobrat is right that Strom Thurmond is a good example. Johnson moved his party left on civil rights with his landmark legislation, his crackdown on the Ku Klux Klan, and his willingness to use federal authority to enforce existing laws (as in the case of Selma). That’s why the only states he lost in 1964 were Arizona (Barry Goldwater’s home state) and some states formerly of the Confederacy. Thurmond, for his part, tried to hold the line for the Democrats’ historic stance of opposition to civil rights, but failed. In time, the party left him, and he left the party to become a Republican - then went on to serve for nearly 4 decades years as a Republican senator of South Carolina.
Pretending that “Democratic” and “Republican” identify similar voters and regional blocs today to those they would denote 150 years ago is showing the same ignorance of history that @awcntdb sees in others.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the most famous civil rights legislation in American history. It was approved in what very clearly NOT a party-line vote, but a regional vote. The roll call by region, given here, shows how divided the country was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
All of the Southern Republicans (there weren’t many) and 95% of Southern Democrats voted against. Senators and Representatives from the rest of the country, in both parties, overwhelmingly approved the legislation.
Note that it is also the case that the Democrats and Republicans were not as ideologically distinct and partisan in the past as they are now. See http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-1-growing-ideological-consistency/ (surveys of voters) and http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0123507 (US representatives).
@awcntdb
“Until recently the South was a liberal/progressive stronghold”
You’ve got to be kidding me! Anyone with a basic knowledge of US History knows that’s bs. Yes the South was dominated by the Democratic Party but that party was very different incarnation in the North.
The Dixie Democrats WERE NOT LIBERAL OR PROGRESSIVES!
That’s not to say there weren’t folks in the South who espoused liberal and progressive ideologies but THEY WERE NOT IN POSITIONS OF POWER AND AUTHORITY.
Oh, sorry, I must have missed that in my education.
I get it now - the Northern liberals and progressives were part of the Democrat Party, but not part of the Democrat Party that was in the South. The real liberals and progressives were all in the North.
However, it does beg the question if the Northern liberals and progressives were so different a Democrat Party, how come they all (North and South libs) voted for the outright segregationist Woodrow Wilson, voted for the union laws that were meant to discriminate directly against blacks, backed segregation of schools, and whole slew of similar policies?
And if the Northern liberals and progressives were obviously so different, how is it that their esteemed liberal New York Times endorsed Wilson 2X for president even though his racist and segregationist policies were well-known? And right on cue, these enlightened Northern liberals and progressives voted twice for Wilson with no problem.
It was also common knowledge Wilson openly screened the silent film supporting the KKK and called the KKK a great organization that would save the South country. Yet, the NYT endorsed him a couple years later for a second time. Gees, stupid me, they must not have known he screened it and publicly talked about it. Their reporters were just not in the know or else they would have not endorsed him. Yeah, that’s it.
And that weird little blip of forced busing on liberal progressive Boston (that wonderful enlightened Kennedy state) was because conservatives wanted segregated schools - busing must have been caused by 25% of the population and the 75% of liberals and progressives had nothing to do with it. Never mind that MA was controlled by enlightened liberals and progressives, so the forced federal busing was in error, as the libs and progressives wanted integrated schools. Oh, well, I missed that in my education as well.
I think I get the overall meme for any issue libs and progressives want to talk about - for example, the Northern libs and progressives were different and were not really supporting Wilson’s policies, even though they twice voted for him. Like the NYT reporters, these northern liberals and progressives must have also ignorant and dumb to his policies like so many are today and they would never have voted for him if they just knew. Yeah, they get a nuanced pass based on ignorance, even though they are supposedly the smartest and most enlightened.
Same for supporting anti-black employment laws and segregated schools etc. northern liberals and progressives really did not mean too because their intentions were really the opposite - they just showed their concern by doing the reverse of their true beliefs. And I have bridge for sale cheap.
Basically, the problem that liberals and progressives, from both the North and South, have is they cannot change the fact the voting history of the North and South in terms of the Democrat Party and support in the White House were not that different until just in recent history. And repeating that they were vastly different is not going to rewrite history.
…Not to mention the actual policies promoted by FDR, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Cecil Rhodes, William Fulbright and other heralded liberal and progressive figures. Keep up this nonsense and liberals and progressives are going to find their largest heroes erased.
No wonder these students at Princeton et al are so lost, the adults they talk to and learn from are lost as well.
There is no question that Republicans were the more pro-black of the two parties up until the FDR administration. By FDR’s time, northern AA’s had started to vote Democrat. By LBJ’s time, there was no question that Democrats were the more pro-black party. This isn’t rocket science.
I’m not sure what point @awcntdb is trying to make off of this.
Apparently AA’s should start flocking to Ted Cruz because Lincoln freed the slaves? This is absurdity.
Boston was neither liberal nor progressive in the 70’s btw. Trust me, I was born then and there.
Anthony Comstock or “Banned in Boston(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banned_in_Boston)”, anyone?
In some aspects and areas…Boston still wasn’t very liberal or progressive in the '00s.
For instance, racial tensions from White ethnic neighborhoods like Southie or certain sections of Dorchester from the '70s era busing/racial disputes were still present as I encountered firsthand when a White local who yelled racist epithets towards our mostly non-White group while we were serving as census enumerators.
Also, liquor sales laws were so strict one had to buy alcoholic beverages from licensed liquor stores and bars. Probably due to remnants of old Blue laws probably dating from the Puritan era.
Can’t get them in the local supermarkets which was a contrast to what was the case in NYC or my midwest college town. It was a surprise when I went back to Boston in the late '00s and found they had just changed the laws to allow alcohol sales in the local Shaws & Stop and Shops in the Boston area…a major contrast to just a few years before.
How on earth did Cecil Rhodes make his way into this dispute? And has anyone else ever called him a heralded liberal?
@awcntdb Not sure what points you are trying to make except maybe protests by blacks are bad. Dont you feel a little bad yourself when you see black teenagers murdered by the Chicago police? Where does your DS that you tallked about above go to school??
@sorghum - Cecil Rhodes most famous quote was:
In acknowledging his white privilege, Cecil Rhodes was well ahead of this time. :-bd
The entire discussion about whether @mdorbust should use the current student unrest as a Common App essay topic was off-topic for this thread. All posts were moved to the College Essay forum.
University students of the 1960s fought for civil rights and an end to the Vietnam War.
I wish I could say that I’m proud of my generation for continuing that legacy. Instead, I’m cringing at what these clowns say. This is honestly just pathetic.
Being chosen as a Rhodes Scholar is among the top academic awards on the planet, American colleges and universities included.
Therefore, if going after Wilson is fair game, why not go after ALL the academic scholarships and institutions, which are supported by the financial backing of worldwide famous segregationists? Why are American universities, such as Princeton, supporting such bigoted-endowed scholarships?
Additionally, I do not recall black american Rhode Scholars or white liberal Rhodes Scholars in the past complaining that their scholarship was the result of money provided by an international segregationist and one of the people who made South Africa the apartheid country that it was. They were proud of the academic prize and happily went to Oxford to study. How many of the winners refused it or gave the prize and money back? Or did they take the racist money and run all the way to the bank? I am guessing the bank won that round.
Same for being a Fulbright Scholar - named after a devout American segregationist. Why are American universities, like Princeton (and Yale too), supporting this segregationist-inspired scholarship?
My point - many of the awards and endowments that liberal and progressive academics tout are also subject to the issues as Wilson, so why not get rid of those too?
My larger point - it is asinine to think one can pick and choose who are the worst racists and who are acceptable racists and who should be erased from history and who is OK to keep honoring.
What needs to be done is to learn history, learn from their successes, learn from their mistakes, do not repeat their mistakes, and move forward. What is the silliest thing to do is act like they are directly affecting society today, as they are not. We are long past Wilson and such others, whether Democrat or Republican.
The dumbest thing about the Princeton students is they are living in the past fighting ghosts that are long gone. And worse, they are asking for separate but equal, the same concept the Civil Rights Act 1965 was founded to end. These people are intellectually lost and do not even know their history, as they are truly repeating and trying to reconstruct the worst parts of it.
Their high schools and Princeton sure failed them, spectacularly.
This is delusional, similar to the nonsense many of the Princeton students are saying. This truly made up out of whole cloth.
The above quote by Cecil Rhodes was not an acknowledgment of white privilege; it was an acknowledgment of his English privilege, as he was EXCLUDING white men from other countries. And to support this, Rhodes said this:
And who the heck said the above is his most famous quote? That is only but one quote of his of which there are many. For example:
Note that Rhodes considered the white anglo-saxons a separate race from even other white people, and thus also superior to other white people. Thus, what he says is not any acknowledgment of white privilege - it is an acknowledgment of strictly Anglo-Saxon (who happened to be white as well) supremacy from the get go.
Rhodes excluded whites who were not considered Anglo-Saxon with equal fervor. In as much, the white Vikings and white Danish were not and are not considered to be Anglo-Saxons, and were looked down upon by the Anglo-Saxons; therefore, none of his quotes could be referring to white privilege, as being used by the Princeton students, so rather silly to pretend that he was ahead of his time.
You missed the point - the black kids had no clue that it was the Democrat Party that was in charge. They actually tried to debate my DS and a couple other members of the class that it was the Republican Party that was the driving force of the KKK, Jim crow etc. It was a political science seminar, so they were discussing issues in terms of political parties and the exercise of political power.
None had a clue the Republican Party was founded on the premise of ending slavery. The joke my DS made was all they seemed to know about the Republican Party was Jesse Helms and David Duke, as if the Republican Party started in 1964 with Barry Goldwater.
The Princeton video pretty much proves this “drive-by history” approach - the student revolve around talking snippets of history and they just pick out what they think is the most negative.
And the kids also did not know that most blacks after Reconstruction were republicans, not democrats. Once my DS realized that basic fact was not even in their knowledge base, he was like OK I am dealing with the clueless. And thus, the Princeton video and the ridiculousness of the whole scenario does not surprise him in the least.
excuse my ignorance, but what does DS mean?