Episode 1 of “Reviewing the Right” reflects on the above meme, analyzing the historical context and intentions embedded within it. Featuring the expert guest, Professor Matt Hutchinson. This episode goes over a brief history of partisan divides within the United States, and the prevalence of racist ideology on both sides of the aisle.
TRANSCRIPTION:
EVAN LH: Welcome to Reviewing the Right, a podcast where each episode we analyze popular rightwing internet content and attempt to ascertain where it came from if there is any truth behind it, and how to effectively debunk it. Aided by expert advice, google, and stone-cold facts. I’m your host, Evan LH, let’s get into it.
MATT HUTCHINSON: “It ignores the southern strategy, it ignores lee Atwater, it ignores the war on drugs, it ignores everything, and let’s say it never changed, what’s wrong with democrats saying okay, this happened 160 years ago, maybe we changed.”
E: A historian gets to the heart of what we talk about in this podcast – getting to the truth-finding the falsehoods in an age of ‘fake news’ or those that call something, ‘fake news.’
Recently a rightwing Facebook group titled “office of the former president” circulated a meme with an image of the Hollywood character, Forrest Gump. In it, Forrest looks stupified…and there’s the caption, “You mean democrats, who owned all the slaves, are demanding reparations for slavery from the republicans who freed the slaves???”
Just on the surface this is a claim that is directly misleading, incorrect, and ignores hundreds of years of platform changes and value shifting related to the Democratic and Republican parties.
I was able to get Professor Matt Hutchinson to weigh in on the topic. He is a former lecturer at Kennesaw state university, who holds a master’s in history and has taught multiple courses related to world history, as well as US history from 1850 to the present. How are you doing, Matt?
M: I’m Alright, how are you?
E: I’m just fine. The arguments held in this post are seen frequently in more discourses than just reparations, we see it in discussions about “which party is the most racist” and also “which party does better things for black people”. With this post, we weren’t sure where to start
M: Where to start with this one… I mean I’ve got like a timeline of how the parties switched, with how the parties when it comes to racial and even economic issues, the parties diverged. But so much of it is a regionality, where there were northern democrats, Andrew Johnson was a northern Democrat, where he was a war democrat who was in favor of waging war to end slavery in the united states. But, the reason the south split off was because you had the southern democrats and the northern democrats, and the northern democrats had more of those kinds of liberal ideals. But that doesn’t mean that any of them believed that African Americans or slaves were in any way anywhere equal to whites.
E: This statement draws a bead on the belief of the moral purity of either party. President Abraham Lincoln himself, often claimed by the republican party, though a symbol for anti-racism, stated “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races.”
Andrew Johnson, the war democrat who was willing to go to war to abolish slavery, a year after the 13th amendment was passed was quoted as saying “This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President; it shall be a government for white men.”
M: Lincoln, by today’s standards, would have been fairly racist. This implies that history is static and that there hasn’t been any kind of shift of paradigm, or change in ideology for 160 years. And I think my beef with most memes nowadays is the intellectual laziness of them. It implies that the democrats of today are the same democrats of yesterday. Never mind the fact that you have democrats like Strom Thurmond.
E: Strom Thurmond is a former senator of South Carolina, who prior to 1964 was a member of the democratic party, before shifting to the republican party due to his staunch opposition to the Civil Rights act of 1957 and Desegregation. He is remembered for having the longest speaking filibuster on record, 24 hours and 18 minutes, he performed this feat in opposition to the Civil Rights act of 1957. He is a prime example of government representatives switching from one party to another due to racial biases. Shifts like his have happened multiple times throughout US history, quite notably during Lincoln’s election.
M: So you go back to the 1860 election, and, as I said, neither part at that point was what you would call an advocate of racial equity. So the Democrats in the north and the democrats in the south had clearly different ideals. Democrats in the south were for the expansion of slavery, but the more operative term I would argue is southern and northern than it is a democrat. Right, it just happened to be the party that was established and in power, and the whigs and the republicans were just happening to enter on the scene.
E: It is during this time in history that using the current comparison of Democrats vs Republicans is disingenuous. As Matt emphasizes, the party lines were much blurrier than the Mason Dixon line. The civil war was a war between the north and the south, not between democrats and republicans. Party migrations of people who maintain racist ideology have happened throughout American history. And one that potentially affects our lives much more than the one in the 1860s, was the one that happened in the 1960s.
M: What you see in 64 is the separation of wealthy and conservative southerners, tend to align more with republican ideals by that point. But poor and liberal southerners tend to stay democratic. At this point, you start seeing the polarization of the parties.
E: All based around race, this formerly democrat, conservative voters shift to the republican party due to their opposition to desegregation. Matt brings up a strong reminder of the Southern strategy used by Nixon-
M: See he was able to get the Republican party to fight against bussing and desegregation, which pushed all of the white conservative parties in the south to the republican party. And I don’t know if you know who Lee Atwater is
E: Lee Atwater was a consultant for the Ronald Reagan campaign, and back in 1981 he was caught on tape discussing explicitly how the republican campaign can attract racists –
M: And by 80 you’ve got Reagan fully embracing this white nativist narrative. And I guess what I’m getting at is that this meme implies that the democrats in 1860 were the same as the democrats in 1960. So it implies that there has never been any change in what the national conversation about race is. It ignores the southern strategy, it ignores the war on drugs, it ignores Lee Atwater.
E: Posts like this one, though seemingly trivial, are important to examine because they are representative of how the American discourse has evolved. As Matt puts it, posts like these –
M: allow for no change, no growth, and it implies that we have always had the same set of values. It implies we have had no evolution, no change, or growth. Does it matter more what the democrats of the south had to say about slavery during the civil war than it does 5 minutes ago? It ignores the present in favor of trying to score a political point that ultimately has no relevance. On the surface sure, democrats were pro-slavery, republicans were anti-slavery, lincoln freed the slaves. Let’s get into why Lincoln freed the slaves though. It was more to destabilize the south during a war effort than it was any grand vision of equality for African Americans in the united states.
E: The beliefs that are held and represented within this post show that the creator, and those that support it hold a gilded and partially inaccurate view of history. When we address critical historical events like the abolition of slavery, detail is important and ultimately reveals a less than favorable view of history. Sure, no one wants to admit that they are on the Quote – unquote side that did bad things, but it is important to recognize that no matter what side you are on, there was probably someone on the same side that did a bad thing. To ignore an atrocity, or terrible action, or widespread belief simply because of partisanery is a missed opportunity to reflect and understand your beliefs and those associated with it. No matter what side you are on, reflection is important, and it prevents you from making bad arguments.
M: It’s a cake and eat it too kind of argument. And it ignores the real conversation about if reparations are reasonable, it is a conversation that absolutely should be had! It doesn’t instigate conversation, It is just lazy, it shows a distinct lack of intellectual curiosity.
E: The toxicity of aspects of online culture can be felt in this post. It is a surface-level comment on a complex historically dense issue that is designed to be easily parroted and moved on from. There’s no room for further debate, where would one even start? Whether it is intentionally dishonest or not, it sure is largely inaccurate. And this is exactly what makes it dangerous. There are millions of posts out there just like this one. On its own, it may not seem that threatening, but when produced en masse, and shared en masse, and repeated en masse, it poses a real genuine threat to the way we discuss facts and holds the potential to rewrite history.
Thank you for listening to Reviewing the Right, I would like to thank Professor Matt Hutchinson for joining me. As always, resources and screenshots are in the description of the podcast. Until next time, I’m Evan LH.
SHOW NOTES:
Today’s post was discovered on this Facebook Page – https://www.facebook.com/groups/1961066350699871/
A brief history of presidential racism – https://www.aaihs.org/this-is-a-country-for-white-men-white-supremacy-and-u-s-politics/
Full Lee Atwater recording – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_8E3ENrKrQ
A brief history of the Republican party and its origins – https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/republican-party-founded
View Matt Hutchinson’s bio on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattjhutch/
Connect with Evan LH on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/evanlh/