Dear Shawn, I hope you’re right that Herman Cain will make another presidential run! Reporters everywhere will rejoice, especially since they will no longer have Michele Bachmann around to entertain them. But I think we both agree that Republicans will continue to have immense difficulty attracting minority votes whether their presidential nominee is Cain or almost any other of the likely candidates. I’m going to dodge your question about how to define a moderate, at least for the moment. I’d like to go back to the Republican National Committee post-2012 “autopsy” I mentioned in my previous post. The RNC view is that the Republican Party isn’t winning the votes of minority groups because it hasn’t done a good job of reaching out to them. That’s true, even by the standards of the party’s past performance. The GOP’s outreach efforts to Asian-Americans, for example, were much more extensive and successful during…
In ‘Rule and Ruin’, Geoff Kabaservice, explores the history of the Republican Party, shining light on what some consider now an endangered species: the Republican ‘moderate’. Geoff is an invaluable resource in our understanding of the inner-workings of party politics and the strange calculus that leads a party to appeal to one group at the neglect or even offense of another. Geoff and I have spoken on several occasions about the disconnect between African Americans and the Republican Party, often with an eye on the past. However, in this discussion or ‘diablog’ as I’ll call it we will turn our eye to the future. Geoff begins our discussion. I hope you enjoy. [hr] Dear Shawn, How quickly we forget. I was being interviewed last week and completely blanked on the name of the person associated with the 9-9-9 tax plan. It was my own personal Rick Perry “oops” moment. Once…
http://newbooksnetwork.com/henry-wiencek-master-of-the-mountain-thomas-jefferson-and-his-slaves-gsf-2012/ The Louisiana Purchase was a perfect illustration of the challenges, yet seemingly boundless opportunities that slavery presented statesmen like Thomas Jefferson. Napoleon Bonaparte had been dealt a significant military defeat at the hands of a slave revolt in Haiti, forcing him to reconsider his interests in the Americas and the Caribbean. So, when Jefferson’s emissaries began negotiating to buy the port city of New Orleans, Napoleon instead offered them the entire Louisiana Territory: a deal that essentially doubled the size of the United States at 3 cents an acre and expanded slavery into new regions. Decades earlier Jefferson had argued for ending the slave trade and enfranchising blacks. As a young lawyer he had taken the case of a black indentured servant pro-bono and fought for his freedom. He had included language in the Declaration of Independence denouncing the slave trade. Jefferson wrote the Ordinance of 1784 which would…
http://newbooksinpublicpolicy.com/2013/05/02/paul-barrett-glock-the-rise-of-americas-gun-broadway-2013/ History is in many respects the story of humanity’s quest for transcendence: to control life and death, time and space, loss and memory. When inventors or companies effectively tap into these needs products emerge that help define their times. The Kodak ‘Brownie’ allowed average consumers – without the knowledge of chemistry or math of a Matthew Brady – to capture powerful images. Ford’s Model T gave the ‘working man’ the ability to travel further and faster than wealthy aristocrats of previous generations. The Timex watch made time accessible to anyone with a few bucks, whether they had interest in philosophical debates about the meaning of time or not. The Glock handgun is on this list of iconic products and while it did not democratize deadly force like the AK-47 it has made its own mark on the American psyche. The Glock has become the standard bearer for American handguns,…
The moral arguments in defense of slavery hinged on the claim that it was the best arrangement for all parties involved, especially the slaves. Thomas Jefferson, for example, argued that the differences between black slaves and white masters were ‘fixed in nature‘, with blacks being condemned to an existence driven more by ‘sensation than reflection’, thus making them incapable of comprehending the full weight of their predicament, let alone improving it. Freedom, according to John C. Calhoun, was the enemy of the black slave and would condemn him or her to the miserable life of a ‘pauper in the poor house’, rather than the ‘superintending’ care of masters and mistresses. When Jefferson returned from long trips, according to some biographers, he would have to wade through a throng of slaves eager to touch him, to thank him, to celebrate their master’s return. The minstrel, to many African Americans, is the…
German military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz observed that many of the important variables in war exist in ‘clouds of great uncertainty’ which create disconnects and confusion that persist even after the fighting has ended. The conflict between the Black Panther Party and the United States government is in ways illustrative of this phenomenon–or ‘the fog of war’ as it has come to be called–and helps explain why the Party is so well known yet misunderstood. For many, the Black Panther Party exists in image fragments: bullet-pocked storefronts, raised fists, drawings of mutant-pig policemen, Huey P. Newton on a wicker throne. For others, it exists in biographies of its leaders: Revolutionary Suicide, Seize the Time, This Side of Glory, A Taste of Power, just to name a few. Historians and political theorists have weighed in as well exploring the excesses of COINTELPRO, the failures of party leaders, gender inequity, missed opportunities,…
I’m partnering with the guys over at New Books Network. Here’s a link to an interview with author Vladimir Alexandrov about his book “The Black Russian”. The Black Russian (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013) tells the epic and often tragic story of Fredrick Bruce Thomas, an African-American born to recently freed slaves, who would go on to make a fortune in Russia as a club owner and entrepreneur. Mr. Thomas was a pioneer in many respects. He migrated North in search of opportunity decades before the Great Migration. He fled the states in pursuit of greater prospects in Europe before it was fashionable for blacks to do so. He confronted and combated many of the forces that would shape the 20th century – racism, classism, and nativism – yet his story was little known until now. I hope you enjoy.
While the ignorant are condemned to merely repeat history, the historian suffers a kind of dual condemnation. Not only must he repeat history along with the rest of us, but he must do so with full knowledge of the implications of our mistakes – sort of like being a character in a movie for which one knows the plot. The historian knows that we will need a ‘bigger boat’ before we go out on the small one. He knows that the idyllic campsite is actually the hunting ground of a sadistic killer before the weekend romp begins. The historian knows that the monster will break its leash and turn on its creator whether that monster be Frankenstein or infected zombies or the Tea Party, which brings me to Mr. Kabaservice and his book ‘Rule and Ruin’. “Rule and Ruin” chronicles the far right conservative takeover of the Republican Party and…
The highest paid individual in the federal government is not the President of the United States or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the head of the FDA or the person who authenticates the launch codes in case of nuclear war. No. The highest paid person in the federal government is the coach of the Army football team. This hints at the importance of sports to the American people, especially college sports. The NCAA was founded in 1905 to establish safety guidelines and scheduling for college football, but over the years has evolved into a behemoth with the noble sounding goal of “promoting excellence in both sports and academics” and billions of dollars of revenue of which athletes get a very tiny fraction. The secrecy and the size of the NCAA intimidates or confuses many pundits and journalists, but to economists like Brian Goff, the NCAA’s behavior…
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/duelinginterests/2013/02/03/race-and-reaction-a-conversation-with-corey-robin Every week or so an author or pundit posits a new theory to explain the ‘crack up’ on the Right. Some attribute it to opportunism run amok; others to stupidity. Some argue that through a brilliant sleight of hand the Right has convinced many Americans to vote against their own interests by emphasizing social issues (abortion, gay marriage), while mostly promoting economic ones. There is truth to all of these arguments in my opinion, but the people who make them are bit like the blind man and the elephant: feeling the parts but not understanding the whole. Corey Robin’s book “The Reactionary Mind” does an excellent job of explaining the whole and allowing conservatism to speak for itself through some of its most influential thinkers. So, rather than rely on the Hannity’s, Limbaugh’s and O’Reilley’s of the world, Corey Robin explores the arguments and ideas of conservatism’s patron saints:…