Ha ha ha LMFAO

[Plane]

  I assume you have never heard of setting your sails to the prevailing winds.

    There is an intresting point.


     Do you really think that there was a prevailing wind contrary to racism , or do you think there was none?

[Michael Tee]

<<Do you really think that there was a prevailing wind contrary to racism , or do you think there was none?>>

I think Thurmond realized his pursuit of racist ideological goals was a dead end and he needed to present himself as a more tolerant man or face political oblivion.

[Plane]

<<Do you really think that there was a prevailing wind contrary to racism , or do you think there was none?>>

I think Thurmond realized his pursuit of racist ideological goals was a dead end and he needed to present himself as a more tolerant man or face political oblivion.

A political dead end you say?

Isn't this admitting to a hole in your theroys?

[Michael Tee]

<<A political dead end you say?

<<Isn't this admitting to a hole in your theroys?>>

My theory is that racism is in a slow and steady decline and has reached the point where it cannot be openly advocated.  However there is still plenty of it around, and the way to reach those racist hearts and minds is through coded messages, that won't alienate the majority but will still resonate with the racism that remains. 

Strom's old way of expressing his racism was at a dead end; he had to find new ways of being a racist in an era when it was no longer permissible to express one's racism directly and openly.  So he joined the Republican Party.

[BT]

So he joined the Republican Party.

And the GOP gave him what in exchange?

[sirs]

A platform to spew his now non-racist rants?  Oh wait, they're cloaked in code words, that only racists can connect with.  Damn

[Plane]

<<A political dead end you say?

<<Isn't this admitting to a hole in your theroys?>>

My theory is that racism is in a slow and steady decline ...

I posit that this decline began sooner than you realise and has been in process since the early 1700's.

William Wilberforce was not the first abolitionist , he was just the most effective of his time.

[Michael Tee]

<<And the GOP gave him what in exchange?>>

A refuge, I guess.  Status.  He'd been thrashed in his own party, made to look like a God-damn leper.  He represented the OLD Democratic Party, in which the Solid South played an important role.  He and his ilk were the Dirty Secret of the Party, the kind of man that the blacks and Jews who toiled for the party and provided crucial support in key areas had to hold their noses for if they were going to be in the Party at all, and now some kind of shift had occurred, and certain key lifetime Democrats had to hold their noses any more.  Suddenly, Strom and his ilk were the skunks at their own Party's garden party.  Any deference and respect that they might have been once able to expect as Democratic stalwarts suddenly weren't in the cards any more.  Now the Party was run by a new breed, one that wouldn't compromise with the evil that Strom represented, and the skunks had to find a new nest.

What did the GOP provide?  Not a hell of a lot, but then refugees don't demand a hell of a lot.  They want a new home, often only because the old one has suddenly become intolerable.  Basically, the GOP put up with Strom.  They sure as hell weren't going to hand him the keys to the Kingdom, but they put up with him, and suddenly, because of him and other racist scum just like him, millions of Southern racists who could no longer vote for the "race-mixin" "nigger-lovin" Democratic Party would either vote GOP for the first time in their miserable stinking lives or stay home on election night, knowing that even a GOP victory wouldn't give the "Yankees" total freedom to poison their lives, not as long as good ole boys like Strom were on board.

[Plane]

  They sure as hell weren't going to hand him the keys to the Kingdom, but they put up with him, and suddenly, because of him and other racist scum just like him, millions of Southern racists who could no longer vote for the "race-mixin" "nigger-lovin" Democratic Party would either vote GOP for the first time in their miserable stinking lives or stay home on election night, knowing that even a GOP victory wouldn't give the "Yankees" total freedom to poison their lives, not as long as good ole boys like Strom were on board.

I do not know how you make this make sense to yourself.

Did Racism provide an advantage to a politician or a disadvantage?

I can see how it might be one or the other , but I don't see anyone experienceing both at once.

So did a politician need to be a racist to get southern votes in 1870?
"             "        "       "         "         "         "              "    in 1970?
"             "        "       "         "         "         "              "    in 2008?

I am aware of real changes that you may have missed over that span of time.

Are you aware that England converted from a slave tradeing compeditor to the cheif force for Abolition during the political career of William Wilberforce?

How can it be that you do not beleive in change so rapid as a century and a half?

[Amianthus]

What did the GOP provide?  Not a hell of a lot, but then refugees don't demand a hell of a lot.  They want a new home, often only because the old one has suddenly become intolerable.

When Strom ran before he switched parties, he garnered nearly 100% of the vote. After he switched parties, he only garnered about 60% of the vote.

So, switching parties COST him votes.

[sirs]

d'oh     

[Michael Tee]

<<When Strom ran before he switched parties, he garnered nearly 100% of the vote. After he switched parties, he only garnered about 60% of the vote.

<<So, switching parties COST him votes.>>

OF COURSE, it cost him votes, but what choice did the bastard have?  He'd already been dishonoured in his own Party, which was no longer going to let him get away with the shit he'd been getting away with all his life.  He'd have lost some votes anyway even if he stayed - - the votes of the white racists who were going to be swept up in the success of the GOP Southern Strategy.  ANY racist was going to lose votes after the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, because racism was a declining force.  Even among white racists, there would have to be a sizeable contingent that would "hold their nose" and continue to vote Democratic for various reasons, finding better value in the Democratic Party despite its "nigger-lovin, race-mixin" tendencies forced down its throat by the rest of the country.

Strom Thurmond obviously did not leave the Democratic Party in the face of a strong Party campaign to keep him on board.  There must have been plenty of urban liberals and newly-enfranchised blacks in the Party who were delighted to see the back of him.  A huge power shift had just occurred in the Party, with obvious winners and losers.  Strom, fortunately, was not only one of the losers, but one of the ugliest and most prominent among them.  Is anyone here really surprised that he'd quit the Party?  Or, once he'd left, that it would be the GOP where he'd find his new home?  Unfortunately for that racist piece of shit, there wasn't any viable American Nazi Party waiting to receive him or his ilk with open arms.  He picked the only refuge available to him, and he happened to fit in with its Southern Strategy to capture the white racist vote of the South, so there was a match of kinds.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Strom Thurmond was more interested in staying in office than any principled stand on race. One advantage of being a senator from SC is that one does not have to live in SC most of the time, after all. Thurmond was no dogmatic opponent of race mixing, being as he had a Black mistress for a number of years. A truly intolerant Kluxer would either have never had the affair or would have had the mistress killed, after all.

Ol' Strom just wanted to keep that cushy job.

[Michael Tee]

I thought it was more of a one-night stand kind of thing which resulted in a daughter, which, to the bastard's credit, he acknowledged and supported.  (Credit where credit is due)  I believe ol' Strom was about 19 when he became a Daddy, so you can chalk it up to teenage hormones rather than any deliberate disrespect for his pure Aryan bloodline by mixing it with the bloodlines of untermenschen.  Real white men will understand and forgive.  Who among them hasn't had his surreptitious bit of fun with "mud people" before assuming the awesome burden of the white man to rule over them?

[Michael Tee]

<<Did Racism provide an advantage to a politician or a disadvantage?>>

Advantage in the South, disadvantage nationally. 

<<I can see how it might be one or the other , but I don't see anyone experienceing both at once.>>

It gets them local votes but their influence on the national party is diminished.  They can win their position but once they're in it, the influence they used to enjoy has lessened.  Another KIND of racist, with a more subtle appeal, gets an even bigger advantage locally and does not have the national handicap that Strom, as an old-line racist would have had.

<<So did a politician need to be a racist to get southern votes in 1870?>>  Yes.
<<"             "        "       "         "         "         "              "    in 1970?>>    Yes.
<<"             "        "       "         "         "         "              "    in 2008?>>   Yes.

<<I am aware of real changes that you may have missed over that span of time.>>

Sure, racism became "the hate that dared not speak its name."

<<Are you aware that England converted from a slave tradeing compeditor to the cheif force for Abolition during the political career of William Wilberforce?>>

No, I don't know much about Wilberforce and I don't know how long England was for slavery before she turned against it.  But I know Strom Thurmond and I know his early career.  He was  dyed-in-the-wool South Carolina racist.  Simpler than that it don't get.  End of story.

<<How can it be that you do not beleive in change so rapid as a century and a half?>>

Ol' Strom only lived for a century, not a century and a half.  He was old, but not  THAT old.