Richard Jernigan -> RE: A church is burning (Apr. 24 2019 0:00:26)
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ORIGINAL: flyeogh Bill there surely must be a trade-off. There has always been a trade-off. And there always will be. If not, we wouldn't advance. Each generation will want change. The good ideas of the past will get battered but survive. The stupid ideas, especially those that were in existence merely to maintain some power group, will be cast aside. New ideas, both great ones and stupid ones will represent the then current generation and equally get sifted in the future. In the past there was a lot more control over the masses. Organised religions and rich land-owning upper classes ran the roost. The symbols that represented that power were rejected by my generation (e.g. top hats, bowlers, flat caps). And some things, like baseball caps in reverse became a symbol of revolt and change. My family rebelled against class domination in 1775, and took up arms to throw it off. Many in the second generation after mine are now young adults, and vote for progressive candidates. However, I don't remember seeing any of them wearing their baseball caps backward.[;)] With perhaps a longer personal perspective than yours, I agree that I would rather live in the present day than in the times of my childhood and youth. We are indeed less overtly racist now in the USA than we were in 1950. But but as you observe, innovation can result in both progress and regression. For example, in "Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America," by John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck, the political scientist authors publish data showing that the fraction of the electorate who expressed racist views in surveys remained the same from 2006 to 2016: about 30%. However, two factors were decisive in the election of 2016. In 2006 the racists were about evenly distributed between the Democrat and Republican parties. By 2016 they had almost all identified as Republican. The second factor was that in earlier elections the candidates had spoken in much the same way about race. The racists split between the two parties. In 2016 the racists were given an opportunity by one of the candidates to express their attitudes. The authors of the cited book conclude, based on statistical studies, that both white identity and racism were decisive factors in the composition of the small number of votes in a few key states which gave the presidential winner a substantial majority in the Electoral College. There was a great deal of innovation in techniques of political communication, and an unprecedented transgression of the racial campaigning norms in place since the defeat of George Wallace in the 1964 Democrat presidential primaries. These innovations were successful, and remain in use. It remains to be seen when, or whether, these innovations may be cast aside. I remain hopeful that they will be. RNJ
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