A Voter’s Guide to Greedy, Racist, Fascist Republicans

I guess this is partisan argument is fair as a corrective to the more ridiculous leftist propaganda.  The idea that Fascists were socialists is overdrawn, but then again so is the idea that Republicans are Nazis.  It is amusing to see the inept, consensus-based Occupy movement portrayed as violent revolutionaries.  They would probably point ten fingers down and wiggle them at this as a sign of their disapproval.

The one part of this that is entirely disingenuous is the racial bit.  It is true that the Democrats were dominant party in the south during the civil rights era.  It is also true that those Democrats by and large became Republicans in response to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which conservative Republicans along with southern Democrats opposed. Several overtly racist politicians- Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond come to mind- switched partiess because they thought the Republicans were more amenable to their philosophy.  The video is careful to chose politicians who stayed Democrats- Wallace, Bull Connor and Lester Maddox.  But the tangled lines of racial politics are illustrated by Maddox’s chief of staff, Zell Miller, the Democratic Senator who endorsed George Bush and now is co-chair of Newt Gingrich’s campaign. The states rights issues that Southern Democrats endorsed are now Republican bedrock.

This does not make the Republican party racist.  Ideas and attitudes have shifted over the past 40 years.  The most famous racist of the bunch, George Wallace, changed his tune and got reelected with strong African American support.  Politicians are no better, or worse, than the people they are trying to impress. 

Neither Republicans nor Democrats are Nazis.  Neither party is racist.  Neither party consists of traitors trying to ruin the republic. Politics is a form of public theater, often bad theater, but it doesn’t have to be misleading as well.

Wait, maybe it does.