“A Black Person Voting for Trump is Like a Slave Fighting for the Confederacy”

Trump

This is a wonderful complement to the previous post on the politics of the black Confederate myth. Today in the Hartford Courant Frank Harris III makes the case that a black man voting for Trump is as unlikely as black men fighting for the Confederacy in March 1865. This certainly plays loose with some of the relevant history, but it is a nice example of how the black Confederate myth still resonates politically.

Listening to Donald Trump make his pitch for African-Americans to support his presidential candidacy lit a fuse that shot me like a cannonball to 1865 in the waning weeks of the Civil War. I landed in the South, where the Confederacy was getting its butt kicked. I shook my head with my black brethren as we heard Confederate leaders had signed a bill on March 13, 1865, authorizing the use of slaves to serve in the Confederate Army as soldiers bearing arms.

Imagine that. Asking slaves to defend the people and institution that kept them in bondage. Asking slaves to kill the people who were coming to set them free. Asking slaves to do this with no promise of freedom.

Ah, the sales pitch those Southern rebels made:

Slaveowner: “I know I done held y’all in bondage, whupped y’all, sold y’all children, outraged y’all mamas, wives, daughters and said some mean things and for those things I said and done, well, I regret any discomfort I may have caused y’all. But see those Yankees comin’ over yonder to free y’all — they don’t see y’all as human beings. They just see y’all as votes. So stick with us! Fight for the Confederacy! Let’s make the South great agin! What y’all got to lose?”

Their faces didn’t show it, but deep inside those slaves were muttering about the gall he had. For sure, a good many white Yankees didn’t like the notion of fighting to end slavery, but the slaves knew their future was brighter on the other side. If they were around today listening to Trump make his pitch to blacks, they’d say, “I declare if that Colonel Trump don’t sound like them desperate Southern rebels.”

I have to agree. Seriously Colonel, after putting your racism and bigotry on display for the world to see, you now want to proclaim you are against racism and bigotry? That it is Hillary Clinton and the Democrats who are the racists and bigots?

There is a reason blacks have not supported the Republican Party. That party has made clear its feelings about us. During the civil rights movement, it was Democratic presidential candidate John Kennedy who helped get Martin Luther King out of jail while Republican candidate Richard Nixon did nothing. It was Republicans who opposed the civil rights movement and most other rights that affect blacks.

Yes, the Democrats have not lived up to all their promises, but the Republicans have never offered any serious options — and Trump certainly is not a serious option. All he is saying is give Trump a try?

Well, first let’s do some extreme vetting on Trump’s racial views and experience.

Although the child does not always follow the parent’s path, please share with us, Colonel Trump, what you think of your late dad’s being arrested during a Ku Klux Klan rally in New York? Tell us also why it took so long to disavow the support you received from KKK leader David Duke.

Share with us the 1970s federal lawsuit you settled for not renting to blacks. Tell us what you did during the civil rights movement. Did you join with whites who marched with blacks, or were you part of the screaming crowd? On the night that Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, did you cheer or cry? Have you ever used the n-word?

Lastly, if I or any other blacks not named Ben Carson had attended your recent Connecticut rally, would your supporters have treated us in a way that would make us not fear for our safety? What have African-Americans got to lose voting for you?

Everything.

A black person voting for Trump is like a slave fighting for the Confederacy. Like Harriet Tubman turning the Underground Railroad around. Like Joe Louis boxing for Hitler. Like Medgar Evers rising from the grave to support the hate that put him in the grave.

There will always be a foolish few to support those who mean them harm.

But 99 percent of us know better.

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53 comments… add one
  • Stan Sep 20, 2016 @ 10:06

    Thanks for the lecture.

    I hardly know where to begin but, to be generous here, you are certainly correct that the black community would be far better off, politically, if both parties competed for our vote.

    Where I think you really go off the rails is in somehow thinking that the initiative to correct this problem lies within the black community. To generalize (and again I am being very generous here) the democratic party, beginning tentatively in the 1930s and much more since the 1960s, has worked to gain black support. Most black electeds are democrats. The republicans, despite their birth as the party seeking to limit and then destroy slavery, has since the 1960s decided it can live without my vote. In fact it wants the democratic party to live without my vote too, because almost everywhere the republicans are in power, they seek to stop people of color from voting. I don’t think you know how mobilizing that is.

    This is obvious to any person of color. This is a major part of why you see 90+ % of the black vote favoring Hillary Clinton. There are other factors, of course.

    The major point I would like to leave you with, though is this: either your reasoning is wrong or nine-and-a-half out of ten black voters are wrong. Think carefully about that. Not looking for a response here, just look within.

    • Spartacus Sep 20, 2016 @ 10:36

      Stan: “Initiative,” or the lack thereof, explains most of the power structure in any relationship. Take boxing, for example, where the most aggressive boxer nearly always reflects the dominance of the winner. Contrast the status of an initiator with passive followers and we find the same outcome. In dramatic stage productions the lead actor initiates actions, supporting lesser character roles respond. Attitude differences lead to a great deal of racial, artistic, and social divisions.
      If 80 % of black older voters favor Hillary Clinton today as President, the percentage is almost 50 % less favoring her for younger black voters.
      Do you want a leader asking you to “stand with her”? Or do you want one asking to “stand with you”? During the 1960s Civil Rights Black Protests, black militants had the initiative leading actions against racially segregated buses, restaurants, and public facilities, so sympathetic whites asked to join the black protests as supporters, not as leaders. When the Mississippi Freedom caucus threatened to walk out of the Democratic Party then if the Party seated an all-white state delegation, the caucus had the initiative. And they won.
      If only 10-20 % of black voters of all ages threatened to stay at home or vote for another candidate, blacks could demand non-negotiable concessions from Mrs. Clinton. Instead, white Clinton supporters and donors have the initiative, much to their chagrin this time next year if she is elected. By then, the Obamas will have disappeared from the front news page unless they are involved in a scandal or disaster.

      • Kevin Levin Sep 20, 2016 @ 10:38

        Dear Stan and Spartacus,

        Thanks for your interest in this post, but I think it is time to shut this comment thread down. It has moved way beyond the focus of this post. Thanks for your understanding.

        • Spartacus Sep 20, 2016 @ 10:41

          Thanks Kevin. It’s your site, you have the initiative.

  • Spartacus Sep 20, 2016 @ 6:46

    Stan: Respectfully, daily developments change interests. New facts about the past half-century of white elected Democratic leaders, at all levels of government, show that the path to the good expectations of black voters are disappointed time and again by organized white Democratic interests.. Only black voters don’t understand, much know, how their expectations of youth career paths, expanded government health insurance for the poor, and neighborhood safety seem always unachievable in their lifetimes. When Pres. Bill Clinton and before him Pres. Carter decided to cut our military budget, they also cut career channels that black and other minority youth chose as did most of the highest ranking black military commanders, from General Colin Powell down. We need more black youth benefiting from veterans preference benefits to financially support the mothers of their kids, to provide leadership of our mostly white local police forces and local municipal governments, and to enjoy the benefits of black taxes that support the benefits of mostly white veterans. As you may know, one of the great injustices of white segregation laws was to deprive black citizens of their tax contributions to state and local government programs on an equal basis. See how black citizens in Ferguson, MO, were actually targeted by white city officials, many of them Democrats, to pay for white city benefits at the expense of black youth like Michael Brown. That kind of subtle discrimination by local white governments reflects the way business across the country’s towns and cities with substantial black communities is conducted. And it has to stop.
    When the once-racially integrated Republican Party for over a century lost black voters in the 1930s, it was when followers of Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois tried to negotiate with white first and second generation immigrants in control of the Democratic Party. Northern white Democratic leaders of the early 20th century were in bed politically with Southern white Democratic segregationists. There was no way then that a black separatist like Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL)’s fraudulent Black Star shipping scheme, or a charity like the black integrationist National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, (NAACP), could offer any where near the large electoral prospects or financial support of white Southern Democrats, who also controlled or suppressed state black franchise.
    Between WWI and WWII, the main engine of black middle-class growth in employment through government, and military pensions to black vets were a large part of that growth. The decline in black vet pension contributions to black community economic growth accelerated with the election of a liberal Princeton University President, Woodrow Wilson who purged high-ranking black officials in Washington D.C. White Southerners insisted on Wilson re-segregating D.C. It was not until WWII opened up federal employment in both civilian sectors and the military that black middle-class growth once again spiked. Democratic Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt leading the war effort needed enormous sources of workers to replace white manpower drained by world war needs. Not only blacks benefited financially, but they were able to negotiate new federal anti-segregation laws. Women, Mexican immigrants and even rural teenagers suddenly found many job openings where few had been open to them before the wars.
    The present GOP needs black votes to win national elections. And black voters need to understand the social and political dynamics, historically, that have worked to lift them out of poverty and free them from white racial discrimination. Black leaders have to work with both major parties. This is not about voting for Clinton or Trump. It’s about getting the best deal for a black community from whichever candidate the leaders support. And the old adage applies, look at what the candidates do and have done, before choosing one to support. Weigh the intentions of each candidate.
    If one promises to increase opportunities through the military for black youths to enter tuition-free medical or law school after serving, great. If one promises to hire more police in cities, opening up police jobs for black youths, good. If one promises to fund higher education programs at rural state colleges, including black ones, good. If one promises to protect the Constitutional Bill of Rights for all citizens, good. If one promises to negotiate with states to end the prison industrial complex, reducing our state number of prisons and prisoners —- collectively, the highest percentage to population in the world —– good.
    My argument is that blacks need both parties seeking black votes. Too many white and other groups in the Democratic Party have agendas that are competing with black political and economic interests. And most of the whites in the Democratic coalitions do not know that their cause is antagonistic to the primacy of black interests. Examples abound but look what Hillary Clinton did when Senator Barack Obama announced he was seeking the Presidency. As the symbol of the advancement of white female aspirations, Hillary opposed fellow Democrat and his black (and white) supporters. She may cavil about Trump attempting to “de-legitimize” Obama with rumors about his nationality, but she actually campaigned against black interests in his election to advance the interests of majority white female interests. To see further confirmation of this phenomenon, see the scholarly literature on who benefited most from affirmative action programs in education and business employment, immigrant issues vs. black issues, gay rights and black issues, city union interests vs. black youth employment.
    In no way do I mean to endorse either major political party candidate in the 2016 Presidential election. My purpose is to advance the argument, regardless of the election outcome, that blacks need to renegotiate their support of the GOP, in order to effectively command attention from either party to advance their interests. And if as Pres. Obama has said this week, it’s a personal insult for anyone to not knee-jerk support Hillary Clinton’s election,I gladly insult him. Like General Powell when asked last week on “CBS-This Morning,” which candidate, Trump or Clinton, he supported, he declined to answer. And he said he was still undecided, because he wanted to see what either one had to say in the forthcoming debates. So am I. I am not giving my vote to anyone just because to do so would insult some one. What they feel about what I do is their problem.

  • Stan Sep 20, 2016 @ 3:31

    Spartacus, the vast, vast majority of black Americans disagree with you. Something on the order of 90+ percent.

    Do you imagine you know better where our interests lie?

  • Spartacus Sep 18, 2016 @ 2:38

    Democracy needs a strong 2-party system that reflects all Americans. The small percentage of African Americans in the GOP is not in the interest of blacks. It needs to be corrected. The GOP needs black participation, and blacks need desperately an alternative to the Democratic Party.
    It is a bogus analogy that electing as President Hillary Clinton will improve the lives of black Americans when you consider the record of the Clintons both in Arkansas and the White House. The 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill that President Bill Clinton signed led to mass incarceration for minor drug offenses, the rise of the private prison industry, and the disappearance in the prisons of over 2 million young African American men in their prime to families, loved ones and children. The Clintons tried to stop the election of our first African American President in Hillary’s 1st primary campaign.
    Did the Clintons care what Obama’s election meant to black Americans, to Americans generally? No, Bill and Hillary thought they could play the same slick con game with national black voters that they played in Arkansas. They gave some high profile jobs to several blacks, played the sax, but reduced support for families of dependent children under welfare “as we know it” reforms, including a reduction in food supplements, ended subsidized housing for any family headed by a convicted offender, first time or not, increased onerous tuition loans to poor students, and, most hurtful to poor blacks and Latino youths, sided with unions in requiring expensive apprentice blue collar training programs, as well as cutting opportunities for military recruitment and training of minority youth.
    Clinton also supported New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Police Commissioner William Bratton’s “Broken Windows” mass “Stop and Frisk” violations of young minority constitutional rights (violating our 4th Amendment right not to be stopped and searched for no reason other than race). The Clinton policy nationwide has led to numerous police shootings of innocent blacks. Mrs. Clinton has apologized for her husband’s policing policies, but has never offered a police to reverse their effects or to end them.
    Pres. Bill Clinton also reduced aid to black colleges and universities and forced them to 1) no longer call themselves “black” but 2) to change their institutional name to “Historical Black Colleges and Universities,” admitting white foreign students from Russia. The result is that previously some black institutions like Alcorn U. today have a majority white student body and white faculty.
    But the worst offense of the Clintons was to continue our all-volunteer force at a time when our poorest minority youth needed a government opportunity to learn basic skills, self-discipline, get good free health benefits, and find a work career through the veterans preference programs.
    The GOP has many faults, because it reflects a coalition of group economic interests at the state level, mostly all-white. But it supports a large military, appointed our first black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and will respond to state black coalitions of economic interests. The GOP also supports a reduction in our prison populations, and the restoration of offenders’ Bill of Rights.
    Most importantly, however, to make the GOP work for black interests, blacks have to organize as coalitions, not join the party just as individuals, but join as state groups to negotiate along with the white groups for programs benefiting their interests.
    Neither Trump nor Clinton are Simon Legrees, and blacks are no longer slaves. Vote freedom, prosperity and safety at the neighborhood and state level. Study the candidates’ record before pulling the voting lever.

  • Shoshana Bee Aug 26, 2016 @ 23:47

    I found this article to be an excellent addition to what I had already been looking at: Then and Now – 1866 vs. 2016 elections. I have never been one to loiter in the halls of the Reconstruction quagmire; however, suddenly the past is making more sense than the present. More to the point: the past is helping to explain the senselessness of the present. The reeking, pandering insincere “outreach” to African American voters by Trump in 2016 is as stunningly pathetic as the desperate attempt to recruit slaves for the CSA approximately 10 days before the CV war ended. My current reading had been the “Swing Around the Circle” speeches given by Johnson, (if I close my eyes, I can scare myself by inserting Trump’s voice for Johnson’s when reading the text. Don’t try this at home) There is a lot to glean from 150 years ago – tomorrow – as Johnson revealed himself for all his inner vitriol, the Congress had over radicalized, and voters became disaffected and defected. Everything old is new again.

    • Kevin Levin Aug 27, 2016 @ 2:08

      Finally someone who is addressing the post. Thanks.

      • Shoshana Bee Aug 27, 2016 @ 16:18

        These parallels between the CW/Reconstruction and the present are quite powerful. I am hoping that historians will continue to point them out, so that I can run them down. It is bringing a whole new relevance and interest in history for me 🙂

        • Kevin Levin Aug 27, 2016 @ 16:26

          You might find the recently released edited collection, Charleston Syllabus, to be quite helpful on this score. The book brings together a wide range of short articles that draw a number of interesting connections between the Civil War/Reconstruction/Jim Crow and the present. Wish I was teaching it right now.

          • Shoshana Bee Aug 27, 2016 @ 16:36

            Thank you! I just ordered the book, and I am really looking forward to its arrival.

            • Kevin Levin Aug 27, 2016 @ 16:41

              Glad to hear it.

              • Shoshana Bee Sep 8, 2016 @ 17:51

                Update: Charlston Syllabus arrived today and I cannot put the book down. It is an in-the-moment-here-and-now treasury of essays, commentaries, poems, and reflections on all things reflecting on race. Period. This one might be a game changer in how I approach this topic going forward. I cannot express my appreciation for this book recommendation. I may even do a book review on one of the forums (something I never do). The impact of the material is THAT profound.

  • BPS Aug 25, 2016 @ 6:54

    One thing Mr. Harris wrote that was historically untrue:
    “It was Republicans who opposed the civil rights movement and most other rights that affect blacks.”
    The Civil Rights Act of 1965 would not have passed without the 138 Republican congressmen and 27 Republican senators who voted for it. Barry Goldwater, who did NOT vote for the 1965 Act (for individual rights reasons), had supported all the previous federal civil rights acts, and had desegregated the department stores his family owned in Arizona, and as governor of Arizona, had desegregated the national guard and state civil service.
    Richard Nixon, in 1971 by his Philadelphia plan, instituted the first affirmative action plan to benefit blacks in the Federal government for hiring and contracting goals.
    Ronald Reagan, by his statement that he supported states rights in Philadelphia Mississippi, is often accused of having given a “dog-whistle” to segregationist. But apart from the phrase being used by anti-civil rights southern politicians, it is a legitimate expression of Federalism. It’s founder, John Randolph of Roanoke, freed all 400+ of his slaves in his will in the 1830s, gave them land in Ohio, and wrote “I’m sorry I owned a single slave”. In 1980, when Reagan made that statement, Mississippi had the highest number of black elected officials in the U.S. On a lighter note about Reagan–the first movie made about the Tuskegee Airman, was “Wings for This Man”, made in 1945, which Reagan narrated.

    • Margaret D. Blough Aug 25, 2016 @ 8:25

      Unfortunately, the Republican Party of the period up to 1968 or so no longer exists, except in title. It’s been replaced by a far more right wing identity. Neither the Civil Rights Act of 1964 nor the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would have existed but for the drive and legislative mastery of President Lyndon Johnson. Also, this was before white Southern senators and US representatives switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party en masse. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was a leader in upholding civil rights legislation largely because of the influence of Eisenhower Republicans.

      • BPS Aug 25, 2016 @ 9:54

        Margaret wrote:
        “this was before white Southern senators and US representatives switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party en masse.”
        Beside Strom Thurmond, which democrat senator or representative switched to the republican party? And it could be said of Thurmond that he grew, and accepted the natural rights/law philosophy of the republican party, as espoused by Lincoln. In support of this, he avidly supported the appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, even though Thomas was married to a white woman.

      • Mark Snell Aug 26, 2016 @ 11:11

        Margaret,
        Nor does the Democratic party of JFK exist, except in title. Both parties, for the most part, have gone off the deep end, hijacked by the extremes of the Left and Right. Civility in DC has not existed since Tip O’Neil and Ronald Reagan participated in their daily happy hours. At least congressmen no longer carry Bowie knives, sword canes and derringers into the House of Representatives.

        • Jimmy Dick Aug 26, 2016 @ 15:11

          Not so fast. Here in Missouri the Teabaggers insist on carrying their Glocks into the chambers as they might be assaulted by hordes of armed criminals as they try to figure out ways to pass more unconstitutional laws.

          What do you expect when the GOP candidate for governor’s main ad is nothing but him firing a machine gun? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grCqHJ8meqQ

          • Mark Snell Aug 27, 2016 @ 3:27

            Ah yes, those old border states. Reminds me of when Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), blew away a ream of gun legislation with his high-powered hunting rifle for a TV commercial a few years ago. That’s when he was running for the late Senator Robert Byrd’s vacant seat. And we all know about Byrd’s past . . . . Personally, I prefer a strong cup of coffee over tea.

            • Ken Noe Aug 27, 2016 @ 4:07

              I see Manchin’s daughter is in trouble again. First the WVU grad degree scandal and now the Epipen. Nice folks.

              • Mark Snell Aug 27, 2016 @ 4:51

                “Almost Heaven, West Virginia. . . .” Good to hear from you, Ken. I entertained your old PhD student and her husband at my farm this summer. I’ll bet your ears were ringing (in a good way). We decided that Gettysburg is really the “Perryville of the East.” I know, Kevin. Way off topic again. Sorry.

            • msb Aug 28, 2016 @ 11:52

              Yes, we do know about Byrd’s past, and his apology for it and the years of amends he made. It’s so tiring when people harp on the first and conveniently forget about the second and third.

              • Mark Snell Aug 28, 2016 @ 15:41

                @msb: Some (most) politicians will say/do anything to get re-elected. I know he apologized, but I doubt his sincerity. Let’s discuss his “amends,” as you call it. I was employed by the state of WV for 20 years. There is nothing you can tell me about the late senator that I don’t already know. He was the ultimate politician, nicknamed the “king of pork.” When he funneled federal funds–US taxpayer dollars–to my campus for a new facility, we were told that if we ever expected to get more funds, the name “Byrd” had better be somewhere on the building. In WV, there are more than 60 buildings, bridges, highways or other structures named after him, or in some cases, his wife–all paid for by the American taxpayer. And then there is the “highway to nowhere,” costing billions. But that’s another story in its own right. (Look it up if you are interested.) Despicable, regardless of his political affiliation. And let’s not forget that “Sixty Minutes” interview in 2001. But he apologized for that, too, so it’s OK.

  • bob carey Aug 24, 2016 @ 12:52

    Patrick,
    I was actually referring to Trumps’ asinine and disrespectful stance on the Presidents’ birthplace.
    BTW the Democratic Party was also responsible for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but if you think that Trump is an outstanding example of the Party of Lincoln then more power to you.
    I carry 3 picture ID”S in my wallet (drivers license, retired military ID and an ID card for my employ) and none of them prove that I am a citizen.

  • Patrick Aug 24, 2016 @ 9:26

    Bob…same tired disinformation. You sound like a Neo-Confederate
    in reverse. Just mindlessly repeating the party line, without question. Confederate ‘heritage’, and the KKK were creations of the Democratic Party. What exactly is wrong with voter ID? Why should non-citizens have voting rights ?

    • Ken Noe Aug 24, 2016 @ 11:47

      Non-citizens don’t have voting rights. The actual scandal is in state legislatures like North Carolina’s, where elected officials now have been caught red-handed discussing how to deny voting rights to tens of thousands of real citizens, as if it were the 1890s. Not to mention the case of a foreign power apparently trying to sway our elections with money and a corps of hackers.

      • Kevin Levin Aug 24, 2016 @ 12:06

        Non-citizens don’t have voting rights.

        In frustration my wife reminds me of this every evening.

    • Margaret D. Blough Aug 25, 2016 @ 5:12

      Patrick: What is wrong with voter ID? Well, you might read the 4th Circuit’s decision on the North Carolina law that it overturned (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/29/us/document-Aaaacarolina.html). But the short form answer is (1) it is a solution in search of a problem. No state trying to impose this requirement has been able to show that in-person voter impersonation exists to any significant degree (in fact, during the Bush administration, some of the US attorneys fired met that fate because they refused to charge voter fraud without significant evidence to back it up) and (2) as the 4th Circuit put it, the N.C. legislature [MDB Note: a pattern seen in the other cases from other states] chose with almost “surgical precision” to require forms of photo ID that blacks disproportionately lacked. It’s also seen that forms of photo IDs that blacks and other disfavored groups DO have are not accepted (even when the issuer goes to pains to meet the statutes’ requirements) and one’s that favor whites (Texas, IIRR, allowed the use of concealed carry permits). This reeks of the days of grandfather clauses (the right to vote dependent on one’s grandfather being able to vote, a favorite of post-Reconstruction white supremacist governments since no black, whether their grandfather was enslaved or free(d) could meet it) and literacy tests-devices that are facially neutral but designed, in their application, to deny the franchise to eligible voters based on race.

      • BPS Aug 25, 2016 @ 7:00

        Actually Margaret, fraud has been proven to be very easy.
        http://www.nationalreview.com/article/368234/voter-fraud-weve-got-proof-its-easy-john-fund

        Courts that begin with a viewpoint and then search for evidence to prove that point and then disregard evidence which doesn’t fit is as old as the Taney Court and the Dred Scott decision.

        • Margaret D. Blough Aug 25, 2016 @ 8:10

          Ah yes, that icon of objectivity, the National Review. I’m not relying on courts’ interpretations of anything. I’m relying on what states defending their own statutes were unable to produce and what US attorneys, mostly appointed by George W. Bush, were unable to find, even when under threat of losing their jobs. For in-person fraud to make a difference, it would have to be on a massive scale unless it is done with the knowledge of or even with the instigation of the governmental entity involved.

          However, even if it were a significant problem, the solutions imposed by Republican governors and Republican dominated legislators have been found by a wide range of courts to fail to meet constitutional muster. Even the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, uniformly considered to be THE most conservative of the Circuits (Whole Woman’s Health, which the Supreme Court just ruled on, was the only case in which the Appeals court UPHELD the TRAP statutes being challenged) found that Texas’s Voter ID law violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 through having a disparate impact on minorities. The opinion can be found at https://static.texastribune.org/media/documents/VoterID5thCircuit.pdf.

          Another thing that makes the Voter ID laws reek is that one never seems to see anything directed at absentee voting which is considered to be far more at risk for ID fraud. Absentee voting is generally considered to be most likely to be used by Republican voters.

          In the last 40 years, Democratic presidents have been in office for 20 (Carter 1977-1981; Bill Clinton 1993-2001; Obama 2013-2017). Clinton and, especially Obama, have faced significant obstruction by Republicans in getting their nominees to the various federal courts confirmed . The federal bench is totally unlikely to be dominated by anyone other than conservatives.

          • BPS Aug 25, 2016 @ 10:09

            “Ah yes, that icon of objectivity, the National Review.”
            One could say the same about the NY Times. But can you refute anything he wrote in the article?
            “found that Texas’s Voter ID law violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 through having a disparate impact on minorities.”
            The state actually showed that minority voting went up or had no effect in states with the most strict voter ID laws (the court disregarded this fact, the same way Chief Justice Taney disregarded the fact that blacks voted in several states since the Revolution, in the Dred Scott Decision):
            http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jul/17/jason-riley/black-voter-turnout-exceed-white-voter-turnout-eve/

      • Msb Aug 25, 2016 @ 13:34

        Well said, Margaret. For example, the state of Texas offered no evidence whatever of any voter fraud when defending its voter suppression law (the one that was recently struck down).

  • Patrick Aug 24, 2016 @ 7:10

    Hmmmm. I’m not a racist, I despise the Confederacy and everything it stood for, and I support Trump. This article is nothing more than the usual disinformation, and race baiting, the Democratic Party is famous for. Next.

    • bob carey Aug 24, 2016 @ 8:13

      I watched as Trump gave his “what do you have to lose” line. I thought this guy has a lot of gall asking Blacks for their support and to join his coalition of support which includes the Klan, Flaggers and other White Supremacist groups. I suppose they can join his coalition provided that they produce their birth certificates to prove that they are eligible to vote.

      • Andy Hall Aug 24, 2016 @ 9:34

        Trump’s speech wasn’t about convincing African-American voters of anything. It was about convincing uneasy Republican voters that he is Very Concerned About Black People, and the dystopian world they obviously live in. He made it sound like Stalingrad in 1943, except with crack instead of Nazis.

        If Donald Trump actually gave two shits about what African-Americans believe, or what they’re looking for in a president, he would be listening to them, not lecturing them.

        • Kevin Levin Aug 24, 2016 @ 9:37

          It was about convincing uneasy Republican voters that he is Very Concerned About Black People, and the dystopian world they obviously live in.

          That is exactly right. Trump is doing his best to broaden his base among white voters.

          • Bryan Cheeseboro Aug 24, 2016 @ 13:35

            I recall after he won South Carolina that he said things about Black people (again, while speaking to White people) and unemployment… something about people in their 30s, 40s and 50s and being unemployed and what a disgrace it was.

            I don’t remember the way he actually said it but at that moment, I could see he was not speaking to African-Americans about sincerely addressing problems and wanting to listen to people and build towards mutual respect and relationship. I believe he was speaking to those people who see the problems of violence, crime, irresponsibility and broken families as problems that only Black people have. He was speaking to the kind of people who can’t seem to see non-celebrity African-American success, talent, achievement and intelligence.

            • Kevin Levin Aug 24, 2016 @ 13:41

              Notice that Trump’s tone is much more sympathetic when he is referencing opiate addiction in white communities compared to when he is talking about black unemployment and crime. It has the affect of reinforcing the racial divide.

        • Margaret D. Blough Aug 25, 2016 @ 3:30

          Andy- If he actually gave two shits about what African-Americans believe or what they’re looking for in a president he’d also have given his speech in an area and to an audience that actually contained a significant percentage of people who are African-American.

          • Andy Hall Aug 25, 2016 @ 4:18

            He held a rally last evening in Jackson, Mississippi, a city with one of the highest African American populations in the country. His star guest there was Nigel Farage, because Brexit gives them hope. Wait, wut?

        • Msb Aug 25, 2016 @ 13:30

          Bingo, Andy.

    • Mark Snell Aug 24, 2016 @ 16:35

      I’m with you, Patrick. Not a big fan of the Donald but look at the alternative. She is the most polarizing and dishonest politician since Nixon, and even Tricky Dick didn’t use his office to line his pockets. HRC is the modern-day Andrew Johnson (or maybe Grant? Sorry, Brooks). It’s too bad the Democrats didn’t get behind Jim Webb. He would have gotten my vote. That said, this site is becoming a little to politicized, and now I reluctantly have been sucked into it. I’ll get off my soap box, now. No further comments.

      • Kevin Levin Aug 24, 2016 @ 17:18

        That said, this site is becoming a little to politicized…

        Compared to some of the other sites you read and comment on? 🙂 November can’t come soon enough.

        • Mark Snell Aug 24, 2016 @ 17:48

          Because I know you so well, I hold you to the highest standard. And you know I am your biggest defender. 😉

          • Kevin Levin Aug 25, 2016 @ 2:05

            And because of that you get to say whatever you want on this site. Hope all is well.

      • Msb Aug 25, 2016 @ 13:31

        You saying things doesn’t make them true. Feel free to provide evidence, in addition to you opinion.

        • Mark Snell Aug 25, 2016 @ 16:43

          @Msb: I normally do not respond to people who hide behind pseudonyms or initials. But here’s some friendly advice: if you want evidence, watch the nightly news, your choice of networks. Better yet, read a newspaper. I used to tell my students, I refuse to do your homework for you.

          • msb Aug 26, 2016 @ 2:43

            Kind of you to break your rule. I remain unconvinced by unsupported allegations. Thanks for your time.

  • Forester Aug 24, 2016 @ 6:16

    This article isn’t about the Black Confederate myth, though. It’s referencing the actual attempt to arm black soldiers in the last six weeks of the war. Those black Confederates literally existed, but they never actually fought.

  • Bryan Cheeseboro Aug 24, 2016 @ 4:40

    H.K Edgerton, Karen Cooper, Nelson Winbush and Andrew Duncomb are all Black Confederates who will be voting for Trump.

    • Andy Hall Aug 24, 2016 @ 6:22

      Not one of those four has ever made a new or novel argument about Confederate history; they simply repeat the same hoary clichés and tropes that others have said for years. Their celebrity rests entirely on the fact that they provide cover for the rest of the Confederate heritage movement against charges of bigotry. They’re beards.

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