I can’t believe that we’re really debating the Civil Right Act of 1964, but that’s what we’re forced to do now that Kentucky Republicans nominated a Paulist as their U.S. Senate candidate. Now, Princeton University professor Sean Wilentz is correct to note that the vote on the Civil Rights Act basically defined the future history of the two major parties. But, in defending the Democratic Party, he goes too far. One thing that really annoys me is the tendency of progressives to whitewash the history of racism in the Democratic Party in the years leading up to the vote on the Civil Rights Act. It was the party of Jim Crow, plain and simple. Prior to passage of the bill, a Republican couldn’t get elected as dogcatcher in the South. And why was that? Because they were the Party of Lincoln.
So, despite the Democratic Party being the vehicle for FDR’s New Deal and the post-war national consensus, it had such a detestable record on race that I doubt I could have associated with it or called myself a Democrat. It was only the watershed and courageous decision of Lyndon Johnson, himself a Southern Democrat, to end Jim Crow that made the Democratic Party something worth belonging to. It’s true that northern Democrats like Hubert Humphrey were instrumental to transforming the Democratic Party into something less offensive than South Africa’s Apartheid government, but until they succeeded that’s exactly what the party resembled. It was an absolute blight on the nation and its ideals and a constant source of aid and comfort to the Soviets in our competition for the hearts and minds of the Third World.
Well, the Soviets are gone, and the Northern Democrats won the battle for the heart and soul of their party. But the Republicans have stepped into the breach to make sure that a good part of the world regards us with fear, suspicion, or just outright hatred.
