George Wallace, Republican
…Not.
And so, Chris Hayes of MSNBC was right to apologize after referring to Wallace as a Republican. He said his statement had been “a “stupid, inexcusable, historically illiterate mistake.”
But it was a lot more. This was no random tongue-slip. It might not have been excusable, but it is most definitely explainable, because the left and many liberals have been engaged in historic revisionism for a long time with the purpose of branding the Republican Party as the racist one, and to obliterate the actual history of the Democratic Party.
Why should it be any surprise that their efforts have borne fruit? The surprise isn’t that Hayes said it; the surprise is that many people noticed and that he actually corrected it, because his “mistake” has become more common as time goes on and the propaganda campaign has worked its magic on the population.
I don’t ordinarily watch MSNBC; I’m not that much of a glutton for punishment. But even before I looked Hayes up on Wiki to see how old he was, I figured he had to be young. Sure enough: 34 years old. Of course, there are people that age who know something about history, but I don’t think such knowledge is very common.
You might think that a journalist whose specialty is politics and who has a gig on MSNBC might know something about history, or at the very least political history. But if you thought that you might be wrong. Hayes’ apology is ambiguous about whether his error was a mere slip of the tongue or a lack of the relevant factual knowledge in the first place (“I should have caught it”), but I cast my vote for “lack of the relevant factual knowledge in the first place.”
There’s a third possibility, of course: purposeful “error” for the sake of propaganda, knowing it will probably go unnoticed because most people are ignorant of history, and that it will feed into their wealth of misinformation and further demonize the Republican Party. This is an excellent possibility, but since Hayes’ resume is singularly devoid of anything that smacks of knowledge or training in history (he is a writer who majored in philosophy at Brown, a university which, to the best of my recollection, has no generally required courses), my strongest guess is that he knows rather little about it and has swallowed the propaganda whole himself. But here he is, shaping the minds of many.
[NOTE: For those are interested in history—journalistic history, that is—please read this discussion of ground zero of the “Republicans are racist” meme, the famous Lee Atwater interview.]
I certainly wouldn’t put it past ‘purposeful error’, it is MSNBC after all but simple ignorance is at least as probable. Newscasters and commentators on TV are appallingly ignorant. The sole qualification appears to be a telegenic appearance, an ability to read a script without too many stumbles and the ability to sound certain in their pronouncements.
This was forcefully brought home to me the morning of 9/11. In the early hours after the World Towers were struck, there was little hard information and editors were uncertain as to what to put on the air.
The anchors and various contributors had to wing it and to call their performance woefully inadequate would be unjustifiably generous. They were appalling and completely over their heads. No ability to speak extemporaneously whatsoever.
Much like Obama when his teleprompter has failed.
After watching “Lincoln” at the theater I was praising the movie to an acquaintance at work.
The guy is black and I was talking about how it highlighted Lincoln’s efforts to override the Democrat Party efforts to retain slavery.
He thought I was mistaken.
Didn’t believe me about MLK being a Republican until I insisted he look it up himself.
The portrayal of Wallace et.al. as Republicans is particularly galling to me, not because I love the Republican party but because I am partial to the truth and hate slander. I grew up in still-segregated Alabama and was a teenager at the time of the civil rights movement. The whole apparatus was designed, built, owned, and operated by Democrats, and it was obvious, because there hardly *were* any Republicans. But the idea that Republicans invented and perpetuated racism is now propagated even by Southern liberals, who know better. Unless they’re young, in which case they may just be, as I suspect this journalist is, abysmally ignorant.
And if people want to argue that all the racists left the Democrats and became Republicans, go ahead. Let that argument stand or fall on its merits, or lack of. But don’t try to rewrite history.
Mac:
The best antidote to this is The Myth of the Racist Republicans. I’m sure Neo has cited this article before. Among other things, the article points out that the inroads of the Republican Party into the formerly Solid South began with Eisenhower’s election in 1952, when he won four states of the eleven states that had comprised the Confederacy: Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, and Florida. These were not deep South, but on the periphery of the old Confederacy. Republican voters tended to be younger and more likely to be migrants from other parts of the country.
In 1952, Eisenhower took 48.1% of the votes of the eleven states of the former Confederacy, which shows that the Solid [Democrat] South was even then disappearing.
From the article:
It is ironic that Nixon, the architect of Affirmative Action and whose Attorney General pushed school desegregation [“Watch what we do, not what we say.”], is seen as reverting to racism to win votes in the South. Rather Machiavellian, that Richard Milhous. As the article points out, Nixon didn’t have to do much to appeal to Southern votes- they had little choice.
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=1952&datatype=national&def=1&f=0&off=0&elect=0
I vote for purposeful error. Which reminds me of the old story LBJ told about someone running for county sheriff. He accused his opponent of doing unmentionable things with hogs. “But you know your opponent doesn’t do unmentionable things with hogs.”
The reply came back, “I know he doesn’t. But I love to hear him deny it.”
So it goes with calling George Wallace a Republican. As George Wallace later asked forgiveness of blacks, I would think that Democrats would have been proud to have claimed him. While George Wallace and Strom Thurmond differed from each other in retaining or changing party affiliation, they had much more in common than many realize.
At one time, both were racial moderates who later became loud and ardent segregationists when it appeared that would gain them votes. When blacks gained the vote, and race bating would no longer gain them votes, they changed their tunes. Strom was the first Senator from the Deep South to hire a black staffer, and later became the first Senator from the Deep South to nominate a black for the federal judiciary . [Matthew Perry to the Military Court of Appeals]
[Note how Wiki is not a good source for politically controversial material: it does not mention that Strom nominated Matthew Perry for Military Court of Appeals position.]
The Left’s power does not rest in drone bombs, NSA wire taps, Bush foreign wars, or anything else of that nature.
The Left’s power, its true nature, is something else entirely.
Which is why even now, when people “think” they know what’s going on, I still think they know no more than 10% of what’s “really going on”.
I vote for ‘deliberate ignorance’.
The Left’s power, its true nature, rests upon the low-information voter. Without the left’s millions of “useful idiots”, it’s political shock troops that blindly vote to support the left, their power is a facade.
I explained The Left’s power years ago.
There’s a sucker born every minute.
I was in a conversation around year-2000 or so with a dyed-in-the-wool New York Jewish liberal who was very surprised when I noted that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was supported by proportionally more Republicans than Democrats. I explained the disconnect by mentioning southern Democrats, which is where George Wallace fits in.
Now:
Only slightly off-topic, sez me, but . . .
I’m reminded of when the USSR was crumbling.
The old guard ossified communists were routinely described in the mainstream media (MSM) as — ready? — the conservatives, and those throwing off the yoke of communism were “reformers” or some such good-sounding adjective.
It’s pretty easy. Bad = conservative or even right-wing.
No-brainer.
(I can swear [can someone help me on this?] the establishment old guard in the USSR were even considered by the MSM right-wing during the USSR crumbling era.)
So of course, George Wallace was one of those eeeevil Republicans. As was Jackie Robinson [–GASP!–]. Etc.
“the establishment old guard in the USSR were even considered by the MSM [as] right-wing during the USSR crumbling era.”
It’s quite probable that you did read “right-wing” inaccurately applied to the Soviet old guard. Rather than ‘right-wing’, a more accurate descriptive would be ‘reactionary’. Both seek to preserve the prior status quo but the right-wing is based in allegiance to principle (whatever individual mix of Constitutional, economic and religious principle applies), whereas reactionary makes no such distinction.
There’s no inherent distinction between a communist reactionary and a reactionary from a democracy, in that loyalty to the prior societal status quo is the sole consideration.
Whereas a ‘right-winger’ seeks to preserve societal allegiance to principle while communists have no principles, only an ideological agenda.
The left wing tends to conflate the two terms in order to advance their agenda. Accurate terminology hasn’t been a concern for the MSM since the Vietnam war.
The new lib-progressives remind me in some ways of the the People’s Crusade with Peter the Hermit.
Geoffrey Britain, 9:57 pm — “It’s quite probable that you did read ‘right-wing’ inaccurately applied to the Soviet old guard. Rather than ‘right-wing’, a more accurate descriptive would be ‘reactionary’.
By George, you’ve nailed it!
“Reactionary” was the word the MSM insisted on applying to the encrusted, hoary old communists. And when it comes to political “wings”, “reactionary” is almost inevitably linked to the right wing.
So that was the source of my conflated recollection. (Well, that and a slowly failing memory.)
Thanks for clearing that up. Yes, “reactionary makes no such distinction”, as you point out in your post. And double yes, “The left wing tends to conflate the two terms in order to advance their agenda. Accurate terminology hasn’t been a concern for the MSM since the Vietnam war.”
And *that* conflation is quite deliberate.
The Left, in a very old format of perhaps just a single member, the Democrat party, once held power over Southerners in the US.
They were the old version of the LIV or Low Information Voter. At least the ones that owned property and could vote.
They started losing millions of such voters. But their power did not fade as Southerners threw off the shackles of Democrat slavery and control. In fact when the Leftist alliance grew bigger and bigger with the central member being the Democrat party, the Democrat had almost entirely lost the South.
The way the Leftist alliance makes new slaves is what is unique and noticeable. All organizations derive their power through control of human cogs and slaves: manpower and limited resources. But few organizations can burn off a few million souls they previously control, and automatically get 100 million more in return. But the Left does that, and more.
They don’t need the low information voters. They can kill all of them. And still they would have more slaves to utilize.
Brown University has not had a core curriculum since Ira Magaziner and Elliot Maxwell convinced the University governing body to allow students to form their own curricula. This allows students to be at the center of their educaion, rather than having professors impart facts. How very 1960’s, students educate themselves. No wonder we are in such trouble.
“There’s a third possibility, of course: purposeful “error” for the sake of propaganda, knowing it will probably go unnoticed because most people are ignorant of history, ….”
A great example of purposeful revisionism is the adjustments to weather-related datasets. When the data does not support the global warming narrative, change the data. Junk science.
The meme of the racist Republican started long, long before Lee Atwater.
“They don’t need the low information voters. They can kill all of them. And still they would have more slaves to utilize.” Ymarsakar
Please be specific. If the left killed off ALL the low information voters, where would they procure “more slaves to utilize” from? As all that would be left is committed leftists and those on the right…
It is perhaps a pity that the focus here is on Hayes, that his echo, through two generations now, of condemnation of Wallace (whether Dem or Repub) is allowed to stand.
In these times of Federal bureaucratic monsters like the IRS, perhaps a reminder that Wallace argued and campaigned against “Pointy-headed bureaucrats” is worthwhile. There is a whole lot more to the man than the racist tag.
stan: not long long before. That Atwater interview is from 1981. I would date the “racist Republican” meme as starting with a “racist conservative” meme from the fact that Goldwater, for example, voted against some of the early civil rights legislation for reasons of federalism in the 60s (although he capitulated later and voted for it, I believe).
At any rate, not long long ago that the party was branded racist. Perhaps are you thinking of the New Deal? If I recall correctly until then, black voters were predominantly Republican.
At any rate, whenever it began, it is the Atwater interview that the left and liberals tend to use as “proof” that the GOP is racist and with a racist agenda. You will find it cited over and over and over as though it is self-explanatorily racist.
“As all that would be left is committed leftists and those on the right…”
Islamic jihad would still be left. Immigrants would still be left. The cultural and educational and intellectual elite would still be left. There are plenty of ready man power resources even if they lose a couple of inner city ghettoes.
Btw, Nation of Islam joined the Leftist alliance was a pseudo new member awhile ago, but their first allegiance was actually to Islam in a fashion.
This is why I emphasize that the GOP and the Right cannot settle for criticizing Obama and the Democrats. They need to advance their own affirmative narrative and grow their popular/populist movement in order to present a superior alternative to the Democrats. Relative value is what counts.
The key is to rehabilitate Bush’s legacy, preferably in a Bush v Obama frame.
Note that Obama’s defense of the NSA surveillance and his Syria decision is based on a contrast with the reliable Bush straw man on surveillance and Iraq.
Take away the Bush straw man from the Democrats by rehabilitating Bush’s legacy, and Obama and the Democrats will be exposed.