He’s trying to keep the liberal Slate reader along for the ride while he makes the case that liberals screwed up, big time.
Yes, his opening ripping of Republicans and conservatives is meant to suck the Slate libs into his following trashing of forced integration so loved by the libs who want to control everyone’s life.
Hang in there. Once you get past that opening salvo, he tells us all the things those of us who lived through that era already know. But coming from a Slate lib, the readers might actually start to see the truth in his arguments.