The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-16-2020, 06:18 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Yep, that is what it may have meant back then during the civil war and what it meant until the end of Jim Crow or racism's political death. As I recall, the northern Democrats didn't get what the wanted to get following the civil  war. The northern Democrats basically wanted the south (spoils of war) for themselves. The civil war was actually fought over state rights pertaining to future American states. Why are you waging a purely political war that clearly ended nearly 60 years ago and punishing/trashing a bunch of American people who live in the south today who pretty much have/had nothing to do with either of them. Do you want to know what that American flag also represents to other Americans these days? The flag represents good old fashioned American defiance that Americans value/honor/respect that you and every other liberal fool who either reads liberal posts and posts themselves clearly hate about America and diabolically oppose these days. To a liberal of any stripe these days, there is nothing worse on this earth to contend with than a good old American rebel. 

I'm an American northerner Bob. I'm not some wimpy white southerner/rural person that someone on your side can identify and can pick on, scare, manipulate and turn into a supporter or whip saw into shape and keep in line like Sean Love. I bet he's voting for Trump. I bet every old poster like him who attacked me for doing nothing and not seeming to care about economic issues and conditions directly related to foreign trade are voting for Trump. So, who are the real baby killers these days and which party is associate doing it these days? Hint...the Democratic party lost both civil wars over slavery and lost one of the two wars that it ran under UN guide lines during the 50's and the 60's and has had no economic identity since the Soviet Union collapsed.

Hmm.  Different groups had different goals.  The Robber Barons wanted political power to go with their industrial wealth, and to get that they wanted to  cut out the southern landowners as political players.  They also wanted to open up the West to their free economy.  The South wanted to resist that as it would give the the free economy more votes.  I would say the Robber Barons got what they wanted. The Robber Barrons let industrialization proceed unhindered.

The abolitionists wanted to end slavery.  They got that. technically.

The slaves wanted to be free.  They got that to some degree during the Reconstruction, only to see that fail in the Jim Crow era.  This would count as a fail.  It was not until the times of Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King that they took a few steps forward.  Not enough.  In Trump’s time, it is becoming clear that there are more steps to be taken.  Racism is set deep enough in US culture that it cannot all be erased in one wave of some magic wand.  At certain times, you can only get rid of a few of the worst and most blatant aspects.  We may be moving into such a time.

The South wanted to preserve slavery and expand in Mexico and the Caribbean. They lost that, but their recovery of white supremacy in the Jim Crow era was hardly much better. Saying the South won is probably not accurate given the pain inflicted during the aftermath of the war, but fixing the way the blacks were treated took many small steps. With the Black Republican movement and the abolitionists fading with the technical victory, we got Jim Crow.

And, yes, there were carpetbaggers who wanted the spoils after the Civil War.  You can say bad things about them if you wish, but not say all northerners were carpetbaggers.  Many had very different motivations and goals. It is sorta like the aftermath of WW I. If you treat the losers badly enough you get in trouble.

Today there are still those with prejudice, and still tribal thinkers that think if you are a white male evangelical you have a privileged place.  I would try to discourage that mode of thinking.

The Democratic Party was once the party of the South and slavery.  With the Southern Strategy, the Republicans became the party of the South and racism.  I will say bad things about both all you like. The switchover was LBJ siding with the blacks and MLK to win the black vote, and Nixon replying with the Southern Strategy. Democrats lost their conservative wing of the party and Republicans their progressive wing about that time, simplifying US politics.

And I think America had to refine their resistance to Communism.  The idea of having to fight a hot war to prop up a corrupt regime that the locals disliked was a bad one, but grew out of the beginnings of World War II.  The notion of having to fight a hot war every time the communists tried to expand was questionable.  It did take until after Vietnam for the Domino Theory to be moderated to something reasonable.

I do agree our foreign policy since the Soviet Union collapsed is quite questionable.  We were into the see saw by then, and had alternating foreign policies depending on who was in the White House.  The Republicans had a combination of the world’s most potent armed forces eager to prove themselves after Vietnam, and oil money controlling the party to a great degree.  The result was an attempt to take the Middle East oil by force.  This resulted in a policy that was essentially Neo colonialism.  The world reacted against this, contained the US expansionism, but the Middle East became destabilized as a result.  The Middle East was a mess before Trump made it worse.

The Democrats are more interested in doing what is best for the locals, but their good intentions get messed up badly when a Republican gets in the White House. The world has learned they cannot trust the US to hold a steady foreign policy when the White House periodically changes hands.

And it is rather hard to have an economic identity when Trump is trying to undo everything that Obama did.

Rambling a lot.  Each paragraph could be expanded to an essay.  However, I am only responding by giving my perspective.