It has been said and rightly so, history has a way of repeating itself. The British philosopher Edmund Burk said, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”
This Tuesday Nov. 2 as Americans go to the polls they face a real challenge. They must make an intelligent informed decision amidst all of this partisan, ideological, rhetoric. Many attribute this dissension and rancor to the election of President Obama, the rise of the Tea Party, and the refusal of most Republicans to work with the president on anything that would result in positive policy output for the country. It’s much, much deeper than that.
When you take a step back and look at our political landscape from a broader historical perspective what you see is that our current dysfunctional situation is not a recent development but the culmination of a conservative backlash that can be traced back to 1948 and the rise of the States’ Rights Democratic Party, which eventually became known as the Dixiecrats
The Dixiecrat party was formed after thirty-five Democratic delegates from Mississippi and Alabama walked out of the 1948 Democratic National Convention. These delegates were protesting the adoption of Senator Hubert Humphrey’s (D-MN) proposal of a civil rights plank calling for racial integration and the reversal of Jim Crow laws in the party platform.
They met in Birmingham, Ala., and nominated Gov. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina for president. They opposed abolition of the poll tax while endorsing segregation and the “racial integrity” of each race. Their campaign slogan was “Segregation Forever!” and their platform also included the call for “states’ rights.” Like the modern day Tea Party, the Dixiecrats called for freedom from governmental interference in an individual’s or organization’s prerogative to do business with whomever they wanted. Thurmond received more than one million votes in the 1948 election, won four states and 39 electoral votes.
In the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights Tea Party Nationalism: A Critical Examination of the Tea Party Movement and the Size, Scope, and Function of Its National Factions it says from the outset, “the majority of Movement supporters are people of good will.” But, integrated into their calls for a reduction of the budget deficit and smaller government are concerns about race, sexual orientation, national identity, national birth rights, and who qualifies to be an American. As the Tea Party Movement has taken shape amidst this fiscal rhetoric; racist, white-nationalist, anti-immigrant, homophobic, and anti-Semitic elements have found their way into the “movement”.
Tea Party’s keynote Sarah Palin calls for “states rights” and say’s “it’s pretty simple. It’s a smaller, smarter government, not growing government to control more of our lives and our businesses and make decisions for us.” This sounds a lot like a page taken right from the Dixiecrat playbook.
The Tea Party like the Dixiecrats is not for as much as it is against. In his book and the Silent Majority, the “forgotten middle-class” of the 1970’s, the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition and from there the latest manifestation is the Tea Party Movement.
This Tuesday Nov. 2 as Americans go to the polls they face a real challenge. History does have a way of repeating itself and unfortunately, too many people don’t know their history.