Just Words
by digby
Chris Kromm at the institute of Southern Studies takes up the issue of whether or not violent rhetoric in this must read piece. He notes this is not a new discussion and that there’s fairly recent evidence to look at:
After a failed run for governor as a liberal, Wallace resuscitated his career by becoming a staunch opponent of integration and the “integratin’, scalawaggin’, carpetbaggin’ liars” that favored change. His message: When it came to the federal government, “resist them to the hilt” in defending the Southern way of life.
As Howell Raines of The New York Times wrote after Wallace’s death, many believe his demagoguery had deadly consequences:
On the stump, Mr. Wallace always had a ready answer for the murder epidemic that hit Alabama after his election. He personally did not condone violence. But as civil rights leaders pointed out, that begged the question of the impact Mr. Wallace’s rhetorical violence had on the gross and simple minds of back-alley racists.
[…]
The evidence seems to support King and others who argue there was a connection: As Raines notes, 12 people were killed in civil rights-related slayings during Wallace’s first term between 1963 and 1966 — a product not only of Wallace’s escalating rhetoric, but also his famous unwillingness to prosecute the murder suspects.
That wasn’t that long ago. And this was the message:
Several commentators have noted the similarity of today’s Tea Party to the Wallace campaigns. Indeed, the principles of Wallace’s American Independent Party in 1968 read remarkably like a Tea Party manifesto:
A new party is urgently needed today because the leaders of the two existing parties, Democrat and Republican, have deserted the principles and traditions of our nation’s founding fathers. Both of the existing parties have become the proponents of big government, crushing taxation, dictatorial federal power, waste and fiscal irresponsibility, unwholesome and disastrous internationalism, compromise with our nation’s enemies, and authoritarian regimentation of the citizens of this Republic. Control of the government, under the domination of these two existing parties, has left the hands of the people our government was created to serve.
Even George Wallace’s son — a candidate for Alabama state treasurer in 2010 — said of the Tea Party, “It does remind me of my dad’s campaigns … They are conservative, they want less government and they will make their voice known in November.”
The Tea Party is only implicitly racist. Times have changed. But then that message wasn’t explicitly racist either, was it?
I urge you to read the whole post. This is an old story in American life and it’s foolish to pretend that it hasn’t resulted in violence in the past. We fought a war over this. In recent years its been co-opted by very powerful wealthy interests who use it to advance their interests, which is a little bit new. (Economics always played a part, but it’s only since the Big Business party launched the Southern Strategy that we’ve seen a true coalition.)
Read that manifesto for the American Independent party and tell me that it isn’t pretty much a straight line from then to now. This is an All American ideology which has always been ready to take up arms. It’s what they do.
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