Democrats and Civil Rights

I haven't said anything about the sophistry in the recent ad put out by the National Black Republican Association, but it's nice to see that even Michael Steele is denouncing it, no doubt figuring that the "I don't hate puppies" ads will work better for him in the end. I, for one, still demand proof he doesn't hate puppies :-)

I won't bother to refute the old Republican slander that Democrats today are racist because Democrats a hundred years ago were racist -- Mike Raia, among others, has already done that -- but it may worth musing about why it is that Democrats became the party of civil rights, and not the Republicans. Steve Gilliard recounts some of the relevant history here, but the leftward drift of the Democratic Party was going on long before that, going back to FDR and even to William Jennings Bryan. In a sense, this may have been inevitable. Political parties in the US have always been disparate and evolving entities, but still have certain traits written into their DNA. And the Democratic Party, even in its nascent Jeffersonian form, has had a streak of economic populism that the Federalist/Whig/Republican coalition have never quite matched. Of course, populism in this country has tended to be associated with racism and sexism -- the New Deal, it has been said, was built on a foundation of white supremacy, since FDR needed the support of southern Democrats for his programs. But perhaps the Democrats' reliance on the urban ethnic vote in the North helped pave the way for a more inclusive party in 1964 and afterwards.

UPDATE: I know Wonkette is, by nature, superficial, but this is just horrible.

Tags: md-sen michael steele republicans democrats racism civil rights