Posted on 06/23/2020 8:51:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Civil War ended in 1865. From the end of Reconstruction in 1877 until around 1960, there was an unofficial truce between the North and South. Each side saluted the other’s courage. Americans agreed that the North had fought to preserve the Union and because Old Glory had been fired upon, and the South had fought for independence and liberty. Even prominent Northern professor Dr. James McPherson of Princeton University—no great friend of the South—agreed on the latter point. For eighty decades the two great heroes of the war were Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. And though they may not have been willing to admit the full extent of its cruelty, Southerners did concede that slavery was wrong.
All of this changed with the rise of a brilliant politician named Lyndon B. Johnson. He was not a good man, but he was a brilliant politician: in 1960, when he was running simultaneously for Vice President of the United States and for Senator from Texas, he advocated for integration in the national race, but segregation when he campaigned in Texas. Johnson was responsible for the invention of identity politics. He believed that he could appeal to African American voters and attract them into the Democratic Party en masse by advocating for rights. He was right. In 1956, 75 percent of African Americans voted for Eisenhower, the Republican candidate for President. But in 1964 more than 90 percent of black Americans voted Democrat—even as Johnson was still referring to them by the N-word when the cameras were not rolling.
And so things continued until Donald Trump pointed out that the Democrats’ policies had failed African Americans and asked them, “What have you got to lose?” Many black people answered: “Not much.”
It appears that President Trump’s strategy is working. Recent polls show black support for Trump at 36, 38, and 40 percent. If these numbers hold up in the election in November, it will fundamentally change American politics. No wonder there is panic among certain leftist groups. Could this be the real cause behind the riots?
George Floyd’s horrific death was wrong, but it is the pretext for, rather than the cause of, the current mob violence.
The leftists are attempting to apply the policy of divide and conquer. They are acting out of desperation. They realize that they are finished if they lose the African American vote, and they are smart enough to know that their grip on that vote is weakening. Their attack on Confederate monuments and Southern heritage is a last-ditch effort to hold on to the votes of blacks by stoking entirely understandable fears and resentments arising from the historical injustices of slavery and Jim Crow. But it is not just about Confederate monuments. Leftist thugs and their myrmidons have destroyed an impressive number of historical monuments that have nothing to do with the Confederacy: statues of Columbus across the country have been vandalized and defaced; a monument commemorating World War II in Albany, Georgia; the Los Angeles Vietnam War memorial; a Michigan monument to Troy Nealey, a lance corporal killed in the Iraq War; a World War I memorial in Adams County, Massachusetts; across the country, statues of Columbus have been vandalized and defaced; someone painted “Tear It Down” on a St. Joan of Arc statue in New Orleans.
The simple true is that the Left wants no heroes except its own. So they have converted Robert E. Lee, who opposed both slavery and secession, into the symbol for both. Franklin D. Roosevelt called Lee the most Christ-like American who ever lived. Winston Churchill said he was the most noble man to ever speak the English language. Yet suddenly he is evil incarnate.
Some people aver that you cannot change history. I suppose that depends on how you define history. When I was a freshman in college (back when Moses was a sophomore) one of my professors defined history as “the study of the past with interpretation.” By that definition, if you change the interpretation you change the history—not the actual past, but the history. And that is exactly what is going on today.
Churchill is credited with saying that a lie can go halfway around the world before the truth gets its trousers on in the morning. When the truth about the moment that we are living through finally comes out, I predict that it will be vastly different than the current leftist media narrative. I just hope that when it does, we still have something of our American heritage—and some of our cities—left.
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Dr. Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr. is a retired professor and the author of forty books, including "It Wasn’t About Slavery: Exposing the Great Lie of the Civil War and Bust Hell Wide Open: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest." A former army helicopter pilot and company commander, he lives in Louisiana.
That is why they had to implement this plan.
They weren’t losing the black vote. Trump would have been lucky to break 10%; now, he will probably be lucky to get the 8% he got last time. This fantasy of the turning the black vote Republican has been going on for decades. Any progress? The data suggests not.
Privileged, white, tattooed snowflakes burning black neighborhoods to the ground in the name of anti-racism?
What’s not to like?
Nothing has changed with who Blacks support, everything has changed as far as getting the younger Dem Blacks to the polls.
I see all this rioting BS as costing the Dems even more black votes. The Dems will keep the “black trash” vote (”if” they actually vote). SANE blacks will back law and order, because THEY are the real victims of the violence.
You are pretty lazy then when it comes to paying attention to data :-) black men only voted 78% for Hillary. That is a low not seen in a long long time..
And I still think it will be even lower this time. All we see on this site is black mob violence. That’s a lot of blacks out there. Not all of them are down with the movement
Black women are a lost cause. You are correct. The federal government is their baby daddy and their husband. That will never change
The real black community - the voiceless one - isn’t impressed with their self appointed ‘community shakedown leaders’...
This latest democrat stunt will backfire.
https://i.imgur.com/1XKM4Zj.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/j2c0EGR.jpg
Biden will pick a black woman as his VP. That will him with this demographic group. But it will hurt him with others. Not too many normal people want to consider Stacy Abrams or Kamala Harris as President.
Excuse me. You are wrong. Trump had eaten into the Black vote where he was closer to 25% than your 10%. The Dems were panicking over that and they have used every racist smear they could think of since then to bring the sheep back into the fold. The Floyd incident, Covid - 19 (Unemployment) and the demonstrations may have worked to accomplish that. We’ll see.
they are now talking about the Atlanta mayor as a refreshing option. (CNN not me)
Media will protect her - and she does not have Kamala’s baggage.
Thoughts?
1921: the lat year angry white Democrats burned down a black community.
2020: the year angry white Democrats returned to helping burn down black communities.
99 years of Progress
Trump needs to point out how Antifa is using the BLM. If young blacks riot alongside them it handcuffs the police and leaves the rest of us thinking it’s all about police brutality. What it’s all about is their need for power through the issues of voter suppression, income inequality and what else? Remember ‘comparable worth’?
My Face book shows a different story. Its a movement. Albeit slow. But many are waking up. Mostly men.
“They weren’t losing the black vote. Trump would have been lucky to break 10%; now, he will probably be lucky to get the 8% he got last time. This fantasy of the turning the black vote Republican has been going on for decades. Any progress? The data suggests not.”
Actually the data suggests completely the opposite. Trump was consistently raising his approval ratings among the black population which is why the Democrats were and are terrified because they are completely dependent on getting 90% plus of the black vote. The fact that you want to ignore the numbers is on you.
I have a slightly different interpretation. All these events — including the riots — are more or less being controlled by Nancy Pelosi at a strategic-level. She may not be giving marching orders to ANTIFA and BLM, but she doesn’t have to. The infantry foot-soldiers are engaged and need no orders to do what they do. Her job is to reconcile their activities with the overall Democrat game-plan for November and beyond. Central to that strategy is retaining a death-grip on 90% of Black voters. If they lose that the party goes into minority status for 12 years, minimum. Perhaps longer as the Republicans will tie the Democrats to ANTIFA worse than the Democrats tied Republicans to Richard Nixon after Watergate.
“black men only voted 78% for Hillary”
Only 78%? Black men basically don’t vote. They came out in droves for Obama, but there’s not an Obama every time. I’ve been hearing DR3 and “blacks are about to start voting GOP” my whole life.
Ford 16% in 1976
Reagan 14% in 1980
Reagan 9% in 1984
Bush 11% in 1988
Bush 10% in 1992
Dole 12% in 1996
Bush 9% in 2000
Bush 11% in 2004
McCain 4% in 2008
Romney 6% in 2012
Trump 8% in 2016
Trump would do well to equal Bush’s percentage from 1992. His best hope is low black and Latino turnout. I mean, they do have to vote for Biden which is not an exciting prospect.
I think that prior to COVID and the BLM Riots that many blacks favorably disposed toward the Trump economy would have sat out the election. Some would vote for Trump, not doubt. But in the game of electoral politics, if you can’t get somebody to vote for you the second best thing is that they don’t vote at all.
“The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the Revolution.”
— Saul Alinsky
I would be surprised if it is true that Eisenhower received 75% of the black vote in 1956. Of course in 1956 it was hard for blacks to vote in a number of states. But it is usually thought that the major shift from Republican to Democrat took place because of the New Deal—despite FDR’s unwillingness to do much for blacks because he needed the support of segregationist Southern Democrats, blacks felt that they were benefiting from the New Deal programs, and the blacks living in Northern cities where they could vote behaved like immigrant groups had behaved—seeing the Democrats as the ones who would help them.
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