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quarterbacks are here with you and hybrid the most amazing thing today it
just
it just a every now and then you read something that just
you know the penny drops you go oh my god I'd I knew that
sorta but I didn't know that I knew that and
as ako camp wrote this brilliant piece over at the Center for American Progress
his blog Think Progress
the title of it is how racism caused the shutdown it's a fairly long pease
because a he lays out a really really brilliant argument and I i just was so
blown away i
immediately oMG online with Sean Louise are
are executive producers and said I you know I want to talk about this was axo
Zack
is with us a sack welcome to the program I found it thanks for that really nice
introduction
well it's true it I i Ugur you know I consistently i read your stuff all the
time and and you are one the most consistently
the brilliant writers and and and this piece
was just outta the park armed lay out the
promise for our viewers listeners sure
so the basic argument I'm making the peace
is that the radicalization of the republican party that we're seeing today
that's caused the shutdown and not
crisis over the debt ceiling an unprecedented default potentially
to really get there %uh that it was caused by long-term trends that began
in the nineteen thirties and had to do and everything to do with race and at
that point
not that much yet to do with economics brought our competitors
is following %uh the the democratic party for very long time had been the
party of Southern
racist whites and relatively few northerner since before the Civil War
I'll and then right after the depression swept in FDR and a bunch of northern
democrats would very liberal economic deals a Southern drawl senate Minority
and is the deal that the southern democrats and northern democrats as the
northerners would get their new deal
if the southerners got essentially racist exclusions and other racial
policy
inserted into the New Deal or No things like anyone she doesn't songs
northern democrats than like this FDR went along with that because it was
necessary for the implementation at the New Deal southern democrats but you
troll
in doing that however the New Deal brought black people
into the democratic coalition because it benefited them substantially this led
northern democrats to become more and more supportive race-based legislation
as a bunch of data that we get into that supports and shows this claim and that
started making
southern democrats feel more and more comfortable eventually
with the rise of the modern conservative movement they found a way to make
arguments
against the type activist economic policy that led to
integration and up live traffic Americans economically
in race-neutral language when they started losing really losing a civil
rights fight
so they can make arguments like it's not the government's role
forcibly in a great business that be so much more attractive it shouldn't be
it's home was in the republican party by
this barry goldwater started wrong drayton crystallized at
and that led I conservatives to
default to leave the democratic party on mast and student nurse other ones first
and then join the republican party now as southern whites as new converts from
credibly incredibly
dedicated economic conservatives and this made the party as a whole for a
variety of different mechanisms
more and more conservative driving out moderates two primaries into sending
signals that the republican party was not a party
for moderates as a consequence you had fairly conservative
republicans driving out moderates and over the course of time
you ended up with the car Republican Party we see today that so radicalized
so happily southern
were really the most conservative used a lot %uh still lay
that you end up with the that kind of controversy the basic legitimacy crisis
but to what extent you QC is the word conservative
up to what extent are you actually mean racist I i'm not since the the central
part of the
or a central part of the argument is that you don't need to say that the
republicans in office and I don't think there's a lot of evidence for
the fact that republicans in office today are participating in a mass racist
backlash against president that they themselves
really hate there's a black eye in the office rather
it's that conservatism in the birth of modern
there's a little bit that's right just that not that much %uh the birth of
modern conservatism
began partly at least politically other reaction to racial progress
and so it's very hard to separate in the long run in American history
a modern conservative movement and stuff backlash the race that question the New
Deal
and two things like the civil rights act of 1964 right
on you you so that the starter didn't in know the nineteen thirties
a Thomas Jefferson writing about slavery he he wrote
um a and and can the liberties of a nation
be thought secure when we have removed their only fern
firm basis a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the
gift of God
that they are not to be violated but with his wrath indeed I tremble for my
country when I reflect that God is just
that his justice cannot sleep forever considering numbers nature and natural
means only a revolution the wheel of fortune and Exchange have situation
is among possible events and that may become pop probable by supernatural
interference exclamation mark
the Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us
in such a contest he's talking about race each time I slavery
and a you know in his later years I me was you
well actually I'm in the first piece of legislation thomas jefferson proposal
news now has a purchase is a *** it was to end slavery in Virginia
and arm it a lot of flak for that
%uh throughout his career this
really you reading your piece I got the sense
then correct me if I'm wrong that had slavery
never existed on the North American continent
that we would be having a very different kind of argument and debate right now
that's correct and and crazily enough political scientist quantify test
there's a study done recently that found that I'm
white people who grew up in Delta political identity
in heavy slain noting slave owning districts and counties even today
are far more politically conservative in a unique way and Americans who live
anywhere else
in other words that part of the reason you can trace directly
I a correlation between slave owning in the past
and hard-line conservatism that it's a very very
it I R you can see continuous in a certain sense because the ideas and
yards
or making are very different from point A to point B but you can say that
slavery has created a political divide between the north and the south of
in this country that's persisted throughout its existence and probably
even created the united states only it was
a circle gather back to buy a hundred years at least
yeah are ill with there are those both
reflecting the values the north and after the blue states a choice a and the
values the southern red states
who have suggested various times i'm talking about. in a serious historians
and thoughtful
commentators observers bed maybe Abraham Lincoln made a mistake
and he shoulda just said okay see you guys later
all any thoughts on yet but probably would have been a terrible idea
a and iris and reasons to fall the first is that slavery was terrible
and slavery was but it was a disintegrating I mean it was it was on
its way out the hot engine
at the front I think that's largely been exaggerated the southern
economic system was heavily dependent on slave labor and the reason to continue
to be dependent slightly productive work
is that it was the most efficient model most likely to be for an extended period
of time if you
created a political system in which black said
systematically no power and white slave owners
essentially controlled the political apparatus the country we've been very
long time
I suspect up before the Civil War
I'm sure before slavery one away if it's very hard to predict a history would
look like me nots
thats a counterfactual he had begin to predict but I can say
early concretely that slavery was a moral evil so great that the cost to be
paid in the Civil War
%uh was no doubt we're other is the kind of institution you simply
cannot permit to exist yeah that is that is an argument much like the
you know the Holocaust is happening we've got to stop Hitler argument
home with that is pretty hard to refute that
it's pretty solid are you that's all about that's all comes down to it for me
here you know was terrible I would not disagree with that but
a and yet here we are because %uh this horrible mistake that was made
or whatever you wanna call it I decision that was made
by the early occupants
European occupant and if you know occupiers
up This Is Khan to have slavery in the United States that
it today Tom this this this political battles going on I
who is just a brilliant piece Zack pocampus get over to think progress that
organ read this piece how racism
caused the shutdown it splits act thanks for the first plane out closer
with yourself for talk will be