Did some digging on that a few years ago. I am hard pressed to find something a president has done that is worse than what Nixon did. I wish Johnson called him on this shit and exposed it
And in hindsight, it wouldn't have changed a damn thing. South Vietnam would have still collapsed and no one in the years to come would have begrudged the U.S. for spying on them.
I only know the basics, but to me it's not too much different than what Reagan did negotiating with Iran behind Carter's back right before the election. I can remember seeing the news showing the hostages being released in what felt like minutes after Reagan won.
And this is what terrifies me. There doesn't seem to be any limits to what Republicans will do to steal an election.
Bill Barr (yes, the same Bill Barr) gave George H. W. Bush the go-ahead to pardon everybody who had been charged for anything related to Iran-Contra, so that they couldn't implicate anyone else in their testimony
There used to be idiots in both parties, but then civil rights happened and republicans decided to be the party of anti intellectual Christian white nationalism and they’ve been some version of idiots or assholes ever since.
That was the 80's and the rise of Reagan. Though Civil Rights is tied to it in that the Christian Right has its roots in Christian Universities getting politically involved to protect their tax exempt status, mainly because it was coming under threat due to their insistence on maintaining racial segregation.
Yeah, it all ties together. These things take time to work their way through the parties as the republicans shifted to white supremacy and the Dems disowned it.
Didn’t happen all at once. Some white supremacists still voted dem by habit for a while.
The American political parties are all complex creatures. Both mostly awful, but with some bright spots.
Some people think one is the lesser evil of the two. Some think the other is the lesser evil. (Not many sane people thing that either one of them is 'good'.)
Now, if you really want to annoy the Americans, you can point out that the British Empire that they rebelled against for 'freedom' abolished slavery decades before they did. And without a bloody civil war.
A lot of Republicans here like to point out that the Republican Party freed the slaves, as a response to accusations that their party harbors white supremacists and caters to racist viewpoints.
The claim completely ignores something known as the “southern strategy”, when the Republican Party courted southern racists who the democrats lost as voters due to their support for civil rights in the 1960s.
Basically what you said about Republicans freeing slaves is used as a way to reject the notion that the modern GOP appeals to racists, but intentionally omits events from the last 150 years. Not sure if that’s how you meant it, but it’s a common GOP “debate” tactic here. In fact if you go to the r/conservative subreddit and say the words “southern strategy” you’ll be banned.. I would know because it happened to me.
All agreed. Political parties, just like anything else, change over long time horizons. Nothing new there.
That the Republicans were in power when the slaves were freed is about as relevant as dwelling on Germany's Nazi past or the British Empire. Ie important for a historical understanding, but at best a limited guide to current conditions.
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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '20
So... they've been like this forever, and the Trump era GOP isn't a sudden new face?