The Rio Stanton Report

Tag: Democrats

Policies Matter. Actions Matter More.

Let me explain something again for the liberals who keep confusing progressive politics with a cult of personality.

Ahem.

We do not give a fuck about worshipping politicians. We care about what they do.

If Trump delivered humane, progressive policies that materially improved people’s lives, I would acknowledge those accomplishments. That would not require me to excuse everything else about him.

When Biden was president, I wanted him to succeed. I wanted an administration willing to meet the scale of the problems facing us. Give us the ambition associated with FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s Great Society (without the devastating and unjust war, of course), and I would have plenty to praise.

But wanting a president to succeed does not mean pretending that everything they do is enough.

And voting for someone does not mean surrendering the right to criticize them.

That was true when I wrote the original version of this post. It is still true now.

I am tired of people treating progressive demands as unreasonable while expecting us to accept political responses that fall short of the conditions we are living through.

Yes, Biden actually said this to a group of wealthy donors behind closed doors. But he governed surprisingly to the left (even by a little) than anyone who has occupied that position since Jimmy Carter, in my opinion.

People cannot afford housing. They struggle to get healthcare. They work themselves into exhaustion and still cannot establish financial security. Racism continues to shape their opportunities and treatment. Environmental threats keep demanding action.

Then we get told to be patient, lower our expectations, and remember how much worse the other side would be.

We know the other side is worse. What the fuck are you going to do about the problems we elected you to address?

That question should not cause this much damn discomfort.

I am not opposed to every smaller improvement. If a policy helps people today, that matters. What I reject is treating incrementalism as the permanent ceiling on what we can demand.

A partial victory should give us something to build on. It should not become an excuse to declare the work finished or tell the people who are still struggling that they are asking for too much.

Too often, “be realistic” means accepting that the people with power will remain comfortable while everyone else adjusts to insecurity.

I do not accept that as a political goal.

And no, Bernie Sanders is not a messiah.

He became important to many of us because he gave national attention to policies and grievances that other politicians dismissed. He spoke about healthcare, wages, education, corporate power, and the lives of people who felt unseen.

That is why we supported him. His appeal came from what he advocated and what he appeared willing to fight for.

My appeal to Bernie Sanders was solely based on policies that Sanders fights for.

Sanders is fallible. He has disappointed people on the left, including me. When he does, he gets criticized too.

The same should apply to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, any other progressive politician, and whoever comes next. Nobody gets to substitute their name or reputation for accountability.

If a politician abandons the commitments that earned our support, we have every right to challenge them. That is political consistency.

I wanted Biden to be a good progressive president. I wanted him to deliver. I wanted the people who voted for him to have something meaningful to show for it.

I also wanted the United States to confront its racism. Wanting that did not require me to pretend we had already achieved it.

The same principle applies to an administration. I can want it to succeed and still refuse to accept inadequate responses to real problems.

People’s lives cannot be managed as though the goal is to keep them just hopeful enough to make it to the next election cycle.

They need relief. They need security. They need power over the conditions shaping their lives.

And they need more than a lecture about how complicated everything is.

I like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). However, she is not above criticism. She needs to be judged on the policies that she fights for and her voting record, not on her looks, her former job, or slander about her intelligence.

Yes, governing is complicated. There are institutional barriers, hostile courts, narrow majorities, and opponents who will obstruct whatever they can. Those things deserve serious consideration. They really do.

But an explanation should help us understand what happened, what was attempted, and what needs to change. It should not shut down every question about whether leadership could have done more.

I hate excuses that make no logical sense. I hate watching people dodge simple questions about matters they are supposed to understand. I hate the double-speak that turns failure into strategy and criticism into disloyalty.

And I cannot stand the dismissive attitude toward corruption, donor influence, and the conflicts between what politicians promise voters and what they protect once they hold office.

Do not tell me I am being unreasonable for noticing those conflicts.

Policies are important. Policies are important. Policies are very important.

And actions are more important, especially when the country is watching how politicians move.

A platform tells me what you claim to support. Your actions tell me what you are willing to pursue, defend, compromise, or abandon.

That is what I am watching and paying the most attention to.

When Biden was president, many of us criticizing him had voted for him in the general election. We understood the choice before us. We made that choice.

But our votes were not promises to remain silent.

We did not agree to applaud every compromise, excuse every disappointment, or defend the administration against the very people whose needs it was supposed to serve.

We voted to put someone in office. Then we expected them to do the work.

That standard survives Biden’s presidency. It applies to the current administration, to Democratic leadership, and to every future candidate asking for our support.

At the time that this was written (well, rewritten) and published in this Blog, all of the people that you see here are speculated to seek the 2028 Democratic Party nomination for president. There are some that I like. There are some that I don’t like. Race doesn’t matter. Looks don’t matter. Name recognition doesn’t matter to me. What matters are the policies that help American people and end wars. Any one of these people could get my vote if they are advocating for things that align with my personal politics and morals.

You are not owed our devotion. You are accountable for what you do with our votes.

We have to keep holding their feet to the fire. Organize. Ask the questions. Make the demands. Recognize the gains, and keep pushing where the work falls short.

Because if we stop demanding accountability, the people in power have every reason to keep giving us less… and expecting us to thank them for it.

October 2, 2026
The Political Tightrope of Black Power

I think many people (Black, White, and those who identify as neither) fail to understand or appreciate the political tightrope Black people in positions of power have to walk.

I include myself in that criticism. Some of the things I have criticized Barack Obama for, or watched Kamala Harris get criticized for, deserve another look when we consider the power structure they were operating within.

Holding office does not mean controlling every lever of power. A “Black face in a high place” does not suddenly erase the influence of wealthy donors, corporate interests, entrenched institutions, or voters who become uncomfortable when Black leadership starts challenging arrangements they benefit from.

Winning a position within a power structure is not the same as gaining the power to remake it.

Many Black people and other minorities want leaders like Obama, Harris, Wes Moore, and Jasmine Crockett to speak and act with the radical commitment we associate with Malcolm X, Kathleen Cleaver, Assata Shakur, or Winnie Mandela.

I understand that desire. I want leaders who will stand up for us too.

But we have to consider what we are asking of people whose authority depends on operating within institutions that can limit, punish, or remove them. An elected official trying to maintain a governing coalition faces different pressures from an organizer whose purpose is to confront that government.

That does not make radical leadership impossible. It does make it costly. And we should be honest about who bears those costs and whether we have built enough collective power to support them.

We cannot demand that someone confront the whole damn structure while assuming their title gives them everything they need to survive the confrontation.

Some White people also expect Black officials to become the moral voice against every injustice. Apparently, being Black is supposed to make someone courageous, politically flawless, and willing to risk their career whenever the rest of us need a champion.

But these people are human. They have strengths, weaknesses, ambitions, fears, and limitations like everyone else.

Their positions also depend, in part, on voters who may praise the idea of justice while rejecting the policies required to achieve it. Some want the reassurance of a Black leader without the discomfort of having that leader challenge them.

They want representation they can celebrate and leadership they do not have to adjust to.

That is a hell of a tightrope.

This does not excuse everything Black politicians say, do, or fail to do. Some choices deserve criticism. Some compromises are unnecessary. Some silences are calculated, and some leaders protect their own careers at the expense of the people who helped put them there.

We should be able to say that.

Believe me, I’ve been criticizing many Black politicians for these things, including Obama, Harris, and others on the national stage.

But we should also distinguish between a failure of commitment and a limitation of power. Before declaring that someone has betrayed us, we ought to ask what they could actually do, what stood in their way, and whether they used the power they did have, not the power we imagined they had.

Those questions make our criticism stronger.

They also help explain why the political freedom available to someone like Trump can look so different from the freedom available to someone like Obama.

In my view, Trump benefits from a level of permission that Black leaders are rarely granted. His belligerence gets celebrated as strength. His disregard for convention gets sold as independence. His supporters can treat conduct they would condemn in a Black politician as proof that he is fighting for them.

Meanwhile, Black officials are expected to demonstrate restraint, reassure skeptical voters, build consensus, and prove, again and again, that they deserve to be where they are.

A policy can have public support, and a Black leader can still face hostility for being the person advancing it. The argument may be presented as a disagreement over policy, but race and power can shape whose authority people are willing to accept.

I have watched that happen too many times to pretend it is incidental.

There are White voters who will tolerate extraordinary conduct from a White leader while treating a Black leader’s challenge to the status quo as a threat. That tells me their attachment to White power can outweigh the principles they claim to defend.

And no, that does not describe every White voter. But it describes a political force Black leaders have to account for, whether the rest of us acknowledge it or not.

My point is that accountability requires us to understand the conditions under which people govern. I am not abandoning my criticism of Obama, Harris, or anyone else. I am asking whether all of that criticism has been fair, informed, and directed at the people who actually held the power to make a different outcome possible.

We need Black leaders willing to push. We also need organized communities capable of backing them when they do.

We cannot keep treating a Black person’s election as the transfer of power to Black people as a whole. Until we build the power to make our demands harder to ignore, our representatives will keep walking that tightrope, and we will keep arguing about whether they should have fallen off it for us.

October 2, 2026
Party Unity—Until the Left Wins

Whenever Democratic loyalists start lecturing the left about “party unity” and “Blue No Matter Who,” I want to ask a simple question:

Does that rule apply when your preferred candidate loses too?

Because I have been paying attention for a long time, and the demand for unity seems to get a lot louder when progressives are expected to fall in line. When the left challenges a favored incumbent, wins a primary, or questions the party’s direction, suddenly there are exceptions.

Then we hear about electability, ideological purity, troublesome supporters, and how the party cannot afford to be associated with those people.

Apparently, the big tent has a very selective admissions policy.

I remember 2008. Some disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters organized under the PUMA banner (“Party Unity My Ass”) and refused to support Barack Obama. Clinton herself urged supporters to back him, but the holdouts were serious determined, and angry. Some openly considered voting for John McCain.

I also remember Clinton invoking her support among “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans” while arguing that Obama’s support was weakening. I found that appeal offensive then, and time has not improved that feeling.

My political memory did not begin with Bernie Sanders, and it did not end when his presidential campaigns did.

That is why I get tired of hearing the left discussed as though we invented bitterness, divisive primaries, or resistance to a nominee. The party has a long history of internal conflict. But certain people’s resistance gets treated as understandable disappointment, while ours becomes a character defect.

And the same attitude is still with us.

Angie Nixon is a Florida state Representative who won the Democratic Party primary to be the party’s 2026 United States Senate candidate for the state of Florida.

Look at Angie Nixon. She won Florida’s Democratic Senate primary in August, defeating Alex Vindman despite his financial advantage. Whatever someone thinks of her politics, Democratic primary voters chose her.

Nixon subsequently clashed with Florida Democratic chair Nikki Fried over socialism and whether she was receiving sufficient party support.

Reporting this month also described Vindman directing resources toward other Democrats and the state party rather than Nixon herself, while Senate Majority PAC was steering clear of her race.

Now, Florida is a difficult race. Parties have limited resources, and nobody is obligated to pretend every election is equally winnable.

But that explanation deserves scrutiny when “support the nominee” has been preached to the left as a moral obligation.

If progressives are expected to swallow their objections, volunteer, donate, and turn out for candidates they did not want, then they have every right to ask what support looks like when their candidate wins.

You cannot spend years demanding loyalty and then act confused when people expect reciprocity.

To many of us further left of the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans sound eerily similar.

Here in St. Louis, the fight involving Cori Bush makes the role of money impossible to ignore. Wesley Bell defeated her again in the August 2026 primary. AIPAC-backed efforts and other outside spending supported Bell, with spending on his behalf substantially exceeding spending for Bush.

Bush was not entitled to her seat. Voters could criticize her, challenge her, and choose someone else. That is how elections work.

Cori Bush was the U.S. Representative for Missouri’s FirstCongressional District. She served one term before being defeated by Wesley Bell. Bush was not defended by the same Democratic Party that stated that it would defend incumbents and frowned upon primary opponents.

But I am also entitled to question the priorities behind pouring money into defeating a progressive in a heavily Democratic district. I am entitled to ask why a Black organizer’s politics become something to neutralize rather than something the party has to engage.

Calling that spending “democracy” does not put its sources, motives, or effects beyond criticism.

Then there is Hasan Piker, who has become another target in this fight. In April, Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer joined Republican Representative Mike Lawler in introducing a resolution condemning alleged antisemitic rhetoric from Piker and other online personalities. Gottheimer renewed his push for a vote in August.

Progressive commentator Hasan Piker has become the new boogeyman in mainstream media. His commentary, often taken out of context, had been weaponized against progressive and leftist candidates who he is associated with.

I do not have to agree with every damn thing Hasan says to question why Democratic politicians are devoting energy to this.

He is a commentator. He can be criticized. His statements should be examined, including statements people find offensive or harmful. Having an audience does not make him immune to accountability.

But neither should a controversial commentator become an excuse to discredit everyone on the left who has appeared with him, watched him, or supported a candidate he supports.

Criticize the statement. Make the argument. Stop treating association as a substitute for discussing policy.

For as controversial as many in the mainstream media find Hasan Piker on the left side of the political spectrum, there are many more people on the right side of the political spectrum who are not weaponized against political candidates on the right.

This is where my original frustration still stands: identity-based bigotry is real, but the existence of bigotry does not mean every political disagreement is driven by it.

Sexism against women politicians is real. I have said that repeatedly, including when defending Hillary Clinton against attacks that male politicians would not have faced.

Antisemitism is real. Racism is real. All deserve serious attention.

But criticism of a woman’s policies is not automatically sexism. Criticism of a Jewish politician is not automatically antisemitism. Criticism of a Black politician is not automatically racism.

Democrats often defend bad candidates with bad policies against criticisms and for losing elections by charging critics and voters with bigotry. Although their charges aren’t totally baseless, they are often exaggerated and made into the primary reason why campaigns were lost, and their candidates or politicians face legitimate criticism.

And criticism of a government’s actions is not automatically hatred of the people associated with that government.

Context is important here. There needs to be a careful and sober examination of the evidence. What was actually said matters more than the political spin.

These questions require more work than deciding that an accusation ends the conversation. Using genuine struggles against bigotry as political shields makes it harder to address both the bigotry and the policy disagreement honestly.

I do not want the left exempted from that standard. I want the standard applied consistently.

Progressive candidates should answer for their records. Their supporters should answer for what they actually say and do. But establishment candidates should face the same scrutiny over their donors, policies, alliances, and treatment of the people whose votes they expect.

Too often, the left’s demands are described as dangerous or unrealistic before they are even seriously discussed.

Progressive and leftist voters are told to “fall in line.” These voters are often scoffed at and then blamed for electoral losses.

Universal healthcare. Affordable housing. Stronger labor rights. Public investment. An end to policies that treat human suffering as an acceptable cost of somebody else’s profit.

Those are political demands. People can argue against them. But dismissing the people making them as naïve, toxic, disloyal, or unelectable is a convenient way to avoid the argument.

And I think some of that hostility comes from the interests those demands threaten. A party comfortable with its donors and existing arrangements is going to feel pressure when its own voters start demanding changes that those donors do not want.

That is my interpretation of the pattern. It is also why I refuse to accept every attack on the left as neutral advice about winning elections.

Winning for what? Delivering what? And accountable to whom?

The media and party leaders often dismiss progressive and leftist candidates as unelectable.

I understand the danger Republicans pose. I do not need that explained to me every time I criticize Democrats.

What I need is for Democratic leaders and loyalists to understand that opposing Republicans does not require me to surrender my judgment. It does not require silence about the party’s failures, and it certainly does not require pretending that its treatment of the left is fair.

If you want unity, give people a meaningful role in shaping the agenda. Respect their victories. Engage their demands. Show them that their participation matters beyond election-day turnout.

Stop treating the left as a workforce you can insult between elections and summon when you need votes.

Party unity cannot mean that we do the work, accept the blame, and shut the hell up.

October 2, 2026
Stop Trusting Republicans to Play Fair

One thing that used to really piss me off about the Obama administration (and the Democratic Party as a whole) was the refusal to recognize just how far Republicans were willing to go to gain and keep power.

Democratic leaders kept looking for reasonable partners. They kept talking about compromise, common ground, and reaching across the aisle. Meanwhile, Republicans kept showing them that their commitment to those things lasted only as long as it served their interests.

At some point, believing them becomes a choice.

There is no reasoning your way around people who negotiate in bad faith. There is no meaningful compromise when one side treats every concession as an opportunity to demand more. The Democratic Party needs to stand up and fight tooth and nail for the principles it claims to hold.

But the lessons of the Obama years still don’t seem to have sunk in.

We keep waiting for Republicans to come to their senses, embrace their better angels, or stand by their own words. Then, when they abandon those words, Democratic leaders act disappointed. They seem to think disappointment is going to shame Republicans into changing their behavior.

How many times do we have to watch this?

The fight over the Supreme Court in 2020 made this painfully clear. Some people genuinely counted on a handful of Republican senators to honor the standard their party had used to block Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. They expected consistency from people who had already demonstrated that the rules could change whenever power was at stake.

After the Senate failed to convict Trump in his first impeachment trial, some still believed that those same Republican senators would suddenly put fairness ahead of political advantage.

Why? What had they done to earn that faith?

The Democratic leadership, the corporate media, and far too many liberals keep convincing themselves that this time Republicans will play fairly. This time, institutional norms will hold. This time, someone will discover a conscience.

And when that doesn’t happen, we get another round of solemn speeches about how troubling it all is.

I am tired of being told to admire the restraint of people who keep getting their asses handed to them.

There is a familiar saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Whoever first said it, the point applies here. It is beyond frustrating to watch Democratic leaders repeat an approach that keeps failing, then have their defenders insist that the rest of us simply don’t understand the strategy.

Apparently, they’re always playing three-dimensional chess. Apparently, every defeat is part of some brilliant plan that will reveal itself later.

Meanwhile, the whole thing looks more like Wile E. Coyote chasing the damn Road Runner.

And every time a liberal shows up to explain that my lack of faith is unwarranted, I want to ask: What, exactly, am I supposed to be impressed by?

The speeches? The stern letters? The commitment to looking reasonable while the other side takes what it wants?

I do not need another lecture about patience from someone who confuses having a strategy with defending whatever the leadership happens to do.

Compromise requires people who will honor an agreement. When political leaders repeatedly abandon their own standards for an advantage, trusting them again should require evidence—not another appeal to their supposed decency.

And compromise itself should not be treated as a virtue regardless of what gets surrendered. People’s rights, livelihoods, and futures are on the line. The goal cannot simply be to reach an agreement so everyone in Washington can congratulate themselves for being bipartisan.

The goal should be to deliver something worth fighting for.

Democratic leaders need to stop acting as though Republican approval is necessary to make their demands legitimate. Make the case. Use the power voters gave you. Organize. Give people a reason to show up, stay involved, and believe that their participation matters.

If the party claims to stand for working people, civil rights, and democracy, then it needs to fight like those commitments mean something.

Stop trusting Republicans to become the partners you wish they were. Make your demands, prepare for a real political fight, and rally the damn people behind you.

October 1, 2026
America’s Racial Problem Is Not in the Past, And I’m Tired of People Pretending It Is

One of the most frustrating parts of talking about racism in America is how often people act as if it is either exaggerated, isolated, or long behind us. Every time I say that most white Americans have, at minimum, participated in or benefited from racist systems and behavior, there is always a predictable backlash. The conversation shifts from the reality of racism to defensive utterances, including people charging me with racism, exaggerated claims of Black culpability in slavery, sloppy attempts to “both-sides” racism, and arguing that racism was a past reality that black people need to get over.

But history (and the present) tell a very different story, and I’m not pulling that conclusion out of thin air.

I’m looking at history, voting patterns, where people choose to live, how they react when Black people move into their neighborhoods, what they tolerate politically, and what I have personally watched happen over and over again in this country.

In 1991, David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, won 55% of the white vote when he ran for governor of Louisiana. Let that sink in. A man whose public identity was openly tied to white supremacy won a majority of white voters, including 40% of white Democrats. That was not the distant 1800s. That was the early 1990s.

And this pattern is not an isolated one. Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Democratic presidential candidates have consistently struggled to win the white vote. Even in 1976, when Jimmy Carter performed unusually well among white voters, Gerald Ford still won them overall. That should force us to ask uncomfortable questions about what racial backlash has looked like in American politics for the last half-century.

These are not random or meaningless occurances. And it is not just “economic anxiety.” This is racism built into the bloodstream of American politics and manifest through voting decisions and patterns.

The same dynamic has shaped where people live, where they send their children to school, and how they define “good” neighborhoods and “bad” neighborhoods. White flight did not happen by accident. It was not simply about “better schools” or “quality of life.”

For decades, study after study (and plain old lived reality) has shown that white people love to talk about diversity until Black people actually start moving in next door. White families will say they want “good communities” and “nice neighborhoods,” but once a place becomes “too Black” (usually with a Black population at or above 10%), all of a sudden the moving trucks come out and the “For Sale” signs start multiplying like weeds.

In community after community, once Black families moved in, white families moved out. I have seen it with my own eyes. Entire white communities expanded further and further outward, into what had once been farmland, not because they were escaping crime or collapse, but because too many Black people had moved nearby.

And it did not matter if those Black families were educated, professional, stable, or middle class. Their Blackness alone was enough for those white families to flee further into the suburbs.

We want to act like racism was just Bull Connor, George Wallace, fire hoses, and white robes. We want to tell ourselves that racism was a regrettable chapter that “we overcame,” and now the only real racists are a few cartoonishly evil people at the margins.

That is a lie.

Racism in America was never just about the loudest extremists. It has always depended on ordinary white people making racist choices in ordinary ways: where they live, who they vote for, what schools they support, what fears they indulge, what policies they excuse, and what kind of treatment of Black people they are willing to rationalize.

I saw white parents rage against school bussing while talking about Black children as if they were grave threats. I saw anti-Black hostility dressed up as “concern” and “standards.” I saw white resentment toward Barack Obama, a man raised largely by white family members, treated as if he were some dangerous racial radical simply for existing in the White House while Black.

So no, I was not surprised when Donald Trump rose to power by openly winking at white grievance and white nationalism. I was not surprised when racist attacks on women of color energized parts of his base. I have seen this movie before.

A lot of white Americans want to be absolved without being examined.

They want credit for not wearing a hood while still supporting racist politicians, racist policies, racist housing patterns, racist school systems, and racist cultural assumptions.

That’s not how this works.

America’s racial problem has never been confined to a handful of extremists in white robes. That is the lie people tell themselves so they do not have to examine the everyday racism embedded in housing, education, politics, media, and social life. Racism in America has never just been about “bad people.” It has been about a society that trained millions of ordinary people to see whiteness as the norm, the standard, and the default.

And that is the real issue.

If white Americans are tired of being associated with racism, then the answer is not to get offended when people point it out. The answer is to stop supporting racist policies, racist politicians, racist assumptions, and racist social arrangements. Stop demanding that people of color quietly assimilate into a system built to marginalize them. Stop treating whiteness as the universal model of what is “normal,” “civilized,” or “American.”

Because America’s racial problem is not ancient history. It is not dead. And pretending otherwise is part of the problem.

July 16, 2026
Political Demonization and the Collapse of Civil Discourse
Over the past several decades, a pattern has emerged in American political rhetoric, particularly in certain corners of conservative media and political leadership.

People on the political left are not merely described as political opponents. We are often portrayed as existential threats to the nation.

For years, many prominent conservative commentators and politicians have repeatedly described Democrats and left-leaning Americans as:
- Anti-American or people who “hate America”
- Socialists or communists
- Participants in child-trafficking conspiracies
- Doctors who secretly perform gender surgeries on children without parental knowledge
- Supporters of violent crime
- Architects of mass immigration designed to manipulate elections
- Violent extremists who are responsible for “burning down cities”
- Lazy individuals who simply want government handouts
- Rampant sexual deviants who want to groom children into non-heteronormative lifestyles
Many of these accusations are not policy disagreements. They are moral accusations. They are claims that state that their political opponents are fundamentally dangerous, corrupt, or evil.

When these claims are repeated constantly through media ecosystems, they can shape how entire audiences perceive political reality. Over time, exaggerated or false narratives can become accepted as unquestioned truths.

This dynamic has serious consequences.

When political opponents are portrayed not simply as people with different policy views but as criminals, traitors, or threats to society, it becomes easier for some individuals to justify hostility or even lethal violence against them.

At the same time, many of the same political figures who use this kind of rhetoric often react strongly when criticism is directed toward them. Labels such as “bigot” (in any form), “authoritarian,” or “fascist” are often condemned as unfair or offensive, even when critics argue that those labels are based on observable political behavior.

The result is a deeply polarized environment in which one side hurls childish insults, irrational accusations, and charges of civic disloyalty, which endangers those on the receiving end. Then they clutch their pearls when met with the same energy in response.

In the end, our political conversation devolves into arguing against strawman caricatures of people, on either side, rather than having good-faith arguments based on facts and reality.

Healthy democratic societies require disagreement. Political conflict is inevitable and often productive.

But democracy becomes fragile when political actors stop treating their opponents as fellow citizens and begin treating them as soulless enemies who don’t love the land that we are in.

Once that shift happens, civil discourse becomes nearly impossible, and political conflict begins to resemble cultural warfare rather than democratic debate.
March 10, 2026
American History Myths #5: Once More on the Myth That the Major Political Parties Never Realigned

I’m going to beat the proverbial dead horse here, but I feel I need to reiterate a point I made previously in this blog.

One of the most persistent myths in modern American political discourse is the claim that the Democratic and Republican parties have remained ideologically consistent throughout history. According to this narrative, the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights and racial progress, while the Democratic Party has always been the party of racism.

This claim collapses under even the most basic historical scrutiny.

To maintain the illusion, modern conservatives must ignore several inconvenient facts. They must ignore the political dealignment and realignment that occurred between the late nineteenth century and the late twentieth century. They must ignore the steady migration of white Southern conservatives—particularly segregationists—from the Democratic Party into the Republican Party during the second half of the twentieth century.

They must also ignore the uncomfortable reality that many of the political figures celebrated in modern conservative circles were themselves defenders of slavery, segregation, and white supremacy.

The historical record is clear: the ideology of Southern conservatism did not disappear after the Civil Rights Movement. It simply found a new political home.

During the 1960s through the 1990s, many of the most hardline segregationist politicians—often referred to as Dixiecrats—gradually abandoned the Democratic Party and aligned themselves with the Republican Party. At the same time, the Republican Party increasingly adopted political strategies designed to attract white Southern voters who opposed civil rights reforms.

This shift was not subtle. It was openly discussed by political strategists and historians alike.

Yet modern conservatives often pretend that none of this happened.

Instead, they promote a simplified narrative in which the Republican Party “freed the slaves” and therefore cannot possibly bear any responsibility for the racial politics that emerged in the twentieth century. The fact that the ideological descendants of segregationists now overwhelmingly identify as conservative Republicans is conveniently ignored.

At the same time, many conservative politicians and commentators openly celebrate figures from the Confederate past while dismissing or ignoring the Republican leaders who actually fought to preserve the Union and end slavery.

Where are the monuments to Republican generals such as William Tecumseh Sherman or Ulysses S. Grant in the regions that once formed the Confederacy? Why are Confederate leaders, who were Democrats of their time, so often praised in modern conservative political culture?

The answer is uncomfortable but obvious.

For many conservatives, the issue has never truly been about party labels. It has always been about political ideology.

This ideological continuity becomes particularly visible when modern politicians attempt to avoid even the most basic historical truths.

For example, when asked about the causes of the American Civil War, some contemporary conservative politicians have offered vague explanations about “government,” “freedom,” or “states’ rights,” while carefully avoiding the central issue that historians overwhelmingly agree defined the conflict: chattel slavery.

Yet the leaders of the Confederacy themselves left no such ambiguity.

In their own declarations of secession, Southern states repeatedly and explicitly identified the preservation of slavery as the primary reason for leaving the Union.

The historical record could not be clearer.

Attempts to obscure that fact are not efforts to promote historical nuance. They are attempts to preserve comforting myths about the past.

And those myths serve a political purpose.

By denying the ideological continuity between past and present forms of white supremacist politics, modern conservatives attempt to distance themselves from the legacy of segregation and racial hierarchy while continuing to benefit from many of the political narratives that sustained those systems.

None of this is to suggest that racism exists exclusively within one political party. Racism has existed across the American political spectrum throughout history.

But it is impossible to have an honest conversation about American history—or modern American politics—without acknowledging the ideological realignment that reshaped the nation’s two major political parties during the twentieth century.

History cannot be rewritten simply because it makes some people uncomfortable.

In fact, the opposite is true.

Understanding the darker chapters of our past is precisely how societies learn to avoid repeating them.

Black Americans have long demonstrated that it is possible to love this country while also confronting its historical injustices. Despite centuries of discrimination, violence, and exclusion, Black Americans have served in the nation’s military, represented the country in international competition, and fought relentlessly to expand the promise of American democracy.

Acknowledging historical injustice does not weaken the country.

Pretending that those injustices never happened does.

If Americans truly want to move forward, they must first be willing to tell the truth about where they have been.

March 8, 2026
American History Myth #3: The Myth That Civil Rights Were Simply a “Republican Achievement”
Modern political debates often reduce complex historical events to simple partisan talking points. One of the most common claims is that the Civil Rights Movement and the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s were primarily the achievement of conservative Republicans.

This claim is frequently used in contemporary political arguments, but it oversimplifies a far more complicated historical reality.

It relies on several incorrect assumptions:
1. The Republican Party has always been a party of fiscal, social, and small-government conservatives.
2. American political parties historically operated as unified ideological blocs rather than coalitions containing both liberal and conservative wings.
3. Republicans were never involved in segregationist politics, white supremacist movements, or anti-Black rhetoric and policies.
All three assumptions are historically inaccurate.

In the decade following the Civil War, Republicans championed early civil rights legislation during Reconstruction. However, after the contested election of 1876 and the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Reconstruction, national political commitment to protecting Black civil rights declined dramatically.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, what historians often call the Nadir of American Race Relations (roughly 1887–1923), racist policies and segregation became entrenched across much of the United States. During this period, many politicians from both major parties adopted or tolerated segregationist attitudes.

Fast forward to the 1960s and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The legislation was originally proposed by President John F. Kennedy (D) in 1963. After Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson (D) made the bill a central priority of his administration and pushed aggressively for its passage.

Several key members of Congress played major roles in advancing the legislation, including:
- Hubert Humphrey (D–MN)
- Emanuel Celler (D–NY)
- Everett Dirksen (R–IL)
- William McCulloch (R–OH)
The final legislation was the result of bipartisan cooperation, though it was strongly driven by the Democratic administration and several Democratic leaders in Congress.

The final vote totals were:

House of Representatives
289–126 (70–30%)

Senate
73–27

When broken down by party, the numbers appear to show stronger Republican support:

House
- Democrats: 153–91 (69%)
- Republicans: 136–35 (82%)
Senate
- Democrats: 44–23 (66%)
- Republicans: 27–6 (82%)
At first glance, these numbers might suggest that Republicans were the primary supporters of civil rights legislation.

However, this interpretation ignores a crucial factor: region.

When the votes are separated by region, a very different pattern appears.

House of Representatives

Northern members: 281–32 (90%) in favor
Southern members: 8–94 (8%) in favor

Senate

Northern members: 72–6 (92%) in favor
Southern members: 1–21 (5%) in favor

In other words, the major divide was not simply party affiliation—it was North versus South.

Looking at the votes by both region and party makes this even clearer.

House

Southern Democrats: 8–83 (9%) in favor
Southern Republicans: 0–11 (0%) in favor

Northern Democrats: 145–8 (95%) in favor
Northern Republicans: 136–24 (85%) in favor

Senate

Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5%) in favor
Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0%) in favor

Northern Democrats: 45–1 (98%) in favor
Northern Republicans: 27–5 (84%) in favor

Not a single Southern Republican voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Meanwhile, Northern Democrats supported the bill at even higher rates than Northern Republicans.

Another important point often overlooked in modern political debates is that Democrats held large congressional majorities during this period.

In the 88th Congress (1964), Democrats held:
- 66 seats in the Senate
- 253 seats in the House
Without substantial Democratic support, the Civil Rights Act simply would not have passed.

A similar pattern appeared in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. At that time, Democrats held even larger majorities:
- 68–32 in the Senate
- 295–140 in the House
The final votes were:

House
333–85

Senate
77–19

Again, both parties supported the legislation. But the historical record shows that the outcome cannot be reduced to a simple narrative about one party single-handedly delivering civil rights.

The reality is more complex.

Civil rights legislation in the 1960s passed through bipartisan coalitions, but those coalitions were shaped far more by regional politics and ideological divisions than by party labels alone.

Reducing this history to a partisan talking point oversimplifies one of the most important political struggles in American history.
March 6, 2026