Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChristianBundy | Hacker News Reader

> Data scientist fired for retweeting study showing non-violent protests are more effective

This is a blatant misrepresentation. The tweet talked about "race riots" and Democrat election results. Many people would argue that the point of direct action is not to sway electoral votes toward the Democratic party.

View on HN

And particularly, that election was in the middle of the southern strategy switch, and the Democratic party didn't define itself as the left wing of acceptable politics in the nation as it does today. Particularly the Southern Democrats hadn't overwhelmingly converted over to Republicans yet. It was only after the Civil Rights Act was passed (which was six days into the race riots mentioned, so real actionable change that came from them) that the Dixiecrats really started switching, and that took time (a few elections worth).

> It was only after the Civil Rights Act was passed (which was six days into the race riots mentioned, so real actionable change that came from them)

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed into law on the second of July 1964, had been in the works since before Mr. Kennedy's (unrelated) assassination in 1963; it passed the House 290–130 and the Senate 73–27: I really doubt that six days' rioting can be credited with passing it.

A lot of bills of all had been in the works for years and were only passed after some swell of public opinion.

For instance the Patriot act didn't come out of nowhere, but it's provisions had been shopped around for years prior. With 9/11, they had the votes necessary to move forward with it.

There was no switch. Go look up members of congress who switched political party during that era. Wikipedia has a list. You'll find two, one in the house and one in the senate.

Had there been an actual switch, you'd expect to see numerous members of congress switching sides.

The "party switch" narrative is a lie. It's to cover for the fact that the republicans kept voting for civil rights until they were finally able to pass it. Today, being the party in opposition to civil rights wouldn't be seen as OK, so a false version of history is pushed to cover up the truth.

A better explanation for the change in voting is that party preferences changed once the issue of civil rights was no longer under consideration. With that gone, other political goals were able to determine party preference.

It wasn't a switch as in politicians jumping ship from party to party in most cases, but instead a high level policy switch of voters, purging politicians from one party, and gaining new ones on the other as Dixiecrat voters felt betrayed and were welcomed into the Republican party as a new policy shift of that party.

Framing this as the civil rights act being solved and now voters focusing on other issues is ahistorical, and essentially just propaganda.

That's what the mean by a party switch.

The "party switch" is ahistorical, and essentially just propaganda.

Republicans, who for years had been fighting to pass civil rights laws, didn't one day suddenly decide to become the party of Jim Crow, KKK, and slavery. That's democrats, who even today (now that the old stuff is unacceptable in public) have low expectations for some races.

Purging politicians from one party would be great. We can start with the Virginia governor who went to a party in blackface, with his fiance in classic KKK garb. We have pictures, matching pictures of him in the same plaid pants, an awkward admission of guilt, and still he remains in office. This is 2020. He is in office.

Next up would be Biden. There is plenty of video of him saying... that word... to rudely refer to black people. Oh wait, he's the party's presumed 2020 candidate for president!

Nothing deep has changed. It's just being smarter about public relations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com