Progressive Arizona

President William Howard Taft signs the bill admitting Arizona as the 48th state in 1912.

If our advanced high-speed rail system backward dependence on overcrowded airliners works, I'll be on a panel next Friday at the national convention of Netroots Nation in Phoenix. The topic: How Progressive Arizona Became Tea Party Arizona.

Because panelists never get to say as much as they'd like, I'll set the table here.

Arizona indeed began as a capital-P Progressive state. This included a weak, almost figurehead of a governor and a strong Legislature, as well as the initiative and referendum where the people could essentially legislate on their own. Statewide officials were required to stand for re-election every two years. They could also be recalled.

Importantly for a state where mining interests and railroads exercised enormous power, the state constitution created a Corporation Commission with wide-ranging regulatory power over the capitalists.

All these were hallmarks of the Progressive Era, which developed as a response to the robber barons and inequality of the Gilded Age of the 1880s and 1890s.

Theodore Roosevelt busted the trusts and more vigorously applied tools that had been passed by Congress earlier, such as the Sherman Antitrust Act and Interstate Commerce Commission. He signed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which, like many Progressive measures, was a result of horrors exposed by muckraking journalists

Had TR won in 1912, he would have gone much further, enacting reforms that had to wait for his cousin, Franklin.

Woodrow Wilson oversaw creation of the national income tax, the Federal Reserve (so the nation would no longer be at the whims of J.P. Morgan and his banker cartel), the Federal Trade Commission and stronger antitrust legislation, as well as an eight-hour day for the railroad industry.

The Progressive Era was also distinguished by a host of social and economic reforms at the state level, such as workers compensation and abolition of child labor. These years also saw the unstoppable movement for women's suffrage.

In Arizona, Frances Willard Munds pushed for the state constitution to give women the right to vote. Rebuffed, she used the referendum to bring the matter to a vote — it passed overwhelmingly soon after statehood (Munds went on to serve in the state Senate).

There were Republican and Democratic Progressives (the tragic Herbert Hoover was a Roosevelt Progressive). But the movement also had its blind spots. For example, Jim Crow had a home among Democratic Progressives. Wilson, the first Southern-born president since the Civil War, fired all the African-American federal employees hired by TR. Most Progressives supported Prohibition.

George W.P. Hunt, the state of Arizona's first governor, was a Progressive Democrat (as was Carl Hayden, its U.S. congressman and then long-serving Senator). He fought for elimination of child labor, restrictions on lobbying, and creation of workers comp and old-age pensions. He was friendly with the radical union, the International Workers of the World or "Wobblies."

Hunt was out of office by July 1917 when the infamous Bisbee Deportation took place, with Phelps Dodge forced 1,300 striking miners onto railroad cattle cars and boxcars, to be taken without food or water into the New Mexico wilderness. A similar act of corporate criminality was carried out in Jerome.

These were pointed reminders that the forces of reaction never rested and Progressive Arizona had its limits.

This was also true in matters of race. Arizona was (is) a Western and a Southern state. De jure segregation lasted for half of the 20th century, as well as anti-Asian laws. Antipathy against Mexicans, for example, didn't start with SB 1070. American Indians didn't get the right to vote until 1948, even though Cherokees had been recognized as U.S. citizens in 1817 and the Indian Citizenship Act became federal law in 1924.

Arizona and small-p progressivism is another matter. Arizona's constitutional progressivism was populist. Most Arizonans were conservative. The local term "Pinto" applied to the majority conservative Democrats.

Many powerful Arizonans fought making the Grand Canyon a National Park. Later, Phoenicians dithered as the Papago-Saguaro National Monument languished; Papago Park is nothing like the wonder it could have been. The Corporation Commission was soon captured by the utilities, a situation that continues today. In 1945, Arizona became the first state in the West to pass a "right to work" law.

The contradictions were abundant, with many Arizonans celebrating the "rugged individualism" of their frontier state, and yet being indebted to federal investments to force peace on the Apaches, provide land grants as incentives for railroad construction, and especially with water reclamation projects.

In the Great Depression, Arizona and Phoenix took a disproportionate share of help from the New Deal (it helped make Del Webb a millionaire). Later, federal money underwrote the military bases, defense industries, FHA loans, Interstate highways, and flood control that helped create urban Arizona.

In her book Sunbelt Capitalism, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer argues that Barry Goldwater and his businessmen friends in Phoenix actually created the modern conservative movement that would lead to the election of Ronald Reagan. I wouldn't go that far, but from the 1950s on, the contours were evident and turned what had been a solid Democratic state into one that was first competitive and then nearly solid Republican.

This process took decades, and was helped along by

• The Big Sort of like-minded people moving here;
• Sprawl severing civic connections;
• Lower-than-average levels of college-educated citizens;
• A huge cohort of retirees who vote and Hispanics who don't.
• Withering of advanced industries dependent on talent with a liberal bias;
• The rising political involvement of conservative Mormons (as opposed to the Udalls),
• And the staggering ineptitude and cowardice of the state Democrats.

One could argue the building bricks of the Kookocracy were always there. I wrote about the Phoenix City Council race of 1961, when right-wing extremists gave Charter a scare. Evan Mecham received a shocking high level of votes against Hayden in 1962. The right has been much more successful in using initiative and referendum than have progressives.

But over the past three decades Arizona politics have been nationalized. There is hardly anything in the Kookocracy today that is grassroots or original, even the willful stupidity or bigotry of its elected officials. Tax cuts, the Charter School Racket, Private Prison Racket, low funding for education — it could be Kansas or Mississippi in the desert.

The only novelty is the level of embarrassment caused by such things as SB 1070, the guns-in-bars law, Joe Arpaio, and a Superintendent of Public Instruction who acts as if she has never received any. Yet even here, national groups such as ALEC, NRA, the Family Research Council, Club for Growth, and abundant dark money are at work.

As a result, Arizona is now a solid part of the New Confederacy.

Progressive Arizona was never, say, Wisconsin. Thanks to this successful nationalization of reaction and oligarchy, the channeling of resentments and anxieties of the white working class to vote against their interests, Wisconsin isn't even Wisconsin any more.

Here's the link for the panel.

 

Comments

[Anon]

Kookocracy entered the Arizona body politic while it was a young and growing state, molding it into the political insane asylum it is today. Kansas is a smaller rural and suburban state which is a natural fit for Kookocracy persuasion, and the home of the biggest financial backers of the reactionary movement. For Wisconsin, a former union state, well funded Kook money started flowing into the state in the 1990's to combine with local reactionary money and deftly exploit urban racial segregation as the dividing wedge. As soon as the far right movement ascended to control all branches of Wisconsin state government, the Kooks took a wrecking ball to every state institution and transformed the state into another New Confederacy member. In all three Kook states, the values of much of the populace be damned. The budget process of all three defy financial rationality but uphold reactionary values to the benefit of the rich and powerful.

[Petro]

I'll not be able to attend, but for those who might - I couldn't find the particular topic you mentioned ("How Progressive Arizona Became Tea Party Arizona") on the Netroots Nation schedule for Friday.

Is this happening under "The Pundit's Cup," as they have it listed (4:30 pm?)

Thanks for contributing.

[soleri]

In Arizona's first presidential election in 1912, the Socialist Eugene Debs came in third, Republican William Howard Taft fourth.

Once Arizona became a state of "haves", it turned conservative although even back in the 1950s there were dirt-poor whites who voted Republican and middle-class whites voting for the party of FDR. The racial fulcrum was never completely clear, either. Today, we're used to cultural markers delineating political bias. There are very few people who are racist who vote for Democrats now (and very few Republicans who are not racist).

My father was a lifelong liberal who could be as ugly as any Confederate-flag waving yahoo. But his political flavor wasn't self-contradicting when LBJ ruled the Senate and Sam Rayburn was Speaker. In Arizona, the split showed up in the difference between the Udalls and more traditional Democrats like Ernest McFarland and Wesley Bolin. FDR himself was famously accommodating to racists. Eleanor, not so much.

The soul of liberalism is locked in a perpetual battle between purists and pragmatists. I could be a purist when I was young and idealistic but now I'm content to now to take the best offer that comes my way. Say, Hillary. It's not that I don't love the thunder and dander of a Bernie Sanders. It's that life is too short for suicide missions.

I remember some epic battles for the liberal soul like they happened yesterday. I was 20 when Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy went at it tooth and nail. Their ideological differences were minor but their political colorations were diametrically opposite. One was a tweedy professor most comfortable with people like himself. The other was a demagogue (in the best sense of that word) who evangelized for a more inclusive America. His death still haunts me.

Arizona went crazy because its aging cohort of white burghers demands reality be simplified to the level of a bumper sticker. They're economic winners but cultural losers in a game they don't play well . They live in places without visible social stress and they vote like people who don't want to share. Donald Trump speaks for them and the America they loved, in their fashion.

The white homelands of Arizona flicker in the night with giant TV screens filled with sports, lovely blonde pundits, and reality shows from places where sitcom dads go transgender. Now they're ready for a better show on a different network. Listen up, Arizona. The past lies ahead. You can't quite see it but the mirages are unmistakeable.

[cal Lash]

Did U mean Regressive AZ.

[INPHX]

I don't think its news to anyone who reads these blogs that Soleri and I are often at odds. Part of the problem might be in the way we write (and think)- I tend to be very literal and detail oriented, wherein I think it safe to say that Soleri tends to avoid literal interpretations and favors a broader, less precise way of writing, and, I guess, thinking.

And in this blog, we have this little gem:

"Today, we're used to cultural markers delineating political bias. There are very few people who are racist who vote for Democrats now (and very few Republicans who are not racist)."

Focus on the "very few Republicans who are not racist" part.

Now, again, maybe I take that too literally. But- what does that mean? Can "very few" be linked to a percentage? If so, what percentage? 5%? 10%? 25%?

And what does it mean to be a racist? What are the criteria? Living in a gated community? Supporting SB 1070? Opposing affirmative action? Opposing the President? Noting the black on black homicide rate? Using the N word? Supporting the Klan? Combinations of these? Being outraged that a 5 time felon illegal alien is free to kill an innocent 31 year old woman here in the US?

The more i think about it- the more confused I get.

So, I'll ask but I'm afraid it will wind up where it always does.

What does that statement mean and can it be corroborated or supported?

I share Soleri's anguish (although I think to a lesser extent) over Bobby Kennedy. He really might have made a difference.

As far as Arizona turning to the right, well, good.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/07/06/state-fiscal-health-pension-funds-report/29763379/

[Rogue Columnist]

Here is where INPHX goes off the rails and gets my "block" finger twitching.

Soleri had his say and made excellent points. Anyone who is confused about what he means has not been paying attention to America over the recent decades. One might not agree, but there was no muddled writing.

INPHX would add more value by writing off my column and making his own points.

[cal Lash]

Turning to the right. now what does that mean, Exactly?

[INPHX]

Cal:

RC's post, as I understood it, was that there was a time that Arizona might not have been as conservative as it is now. So, I suggest that it turned "right"- more to the conservative side, and that maybe, based on the states rankings, that's not the bad thing that RC's original post suggested it was.

RC:

First, I think my challenge to Soleri is relevant to your initial post and his response; as I read both, I think both of you are suggesting that a part of Arizona's turn to the right is linked to racism. And lots of it.

Is that not an accurate interpretation?

So, on Soleri's response, let's assume it's not muddled writing. That commits Soleri to a position that "very few Republicans are not racist"- and I interpret that as beyond the Arizona borders-- am I wrong?

So- I'm challenging that comment. I don't think it's anywhere near accurate, either in Arizona or in the US. But it depends- on "very few" and exactly what criteria must exist to consider someonone a racist.

I'd just like to see what (if any) foundation that comment is built on.

[Rogue Columnistt]

INPHX, your clarification is fair game for discussion.

[Ramjet]

Arizona "racist"?
See Sheriff Joke for a leading example.
There are others - the guy (alleged child molester) whose name thankfully escapes me for another. I could go on, but why bother.

[Ruben Perez]

INPHX , I'm surprised you took the bait. Soleri's comment has no basis in fact and was solely meant to pull you in.

[Cal Lash]

Man has only “two passions, Ideas and fornication.” So Ruben thinks Soleri is fucking with INPHX? Now there is an Idea. Personally I am a fan of the artist of detail and the artist of broad brush strokes. One can find detail in Soleri’s writing but even when I do not agree with him, I do not attack. I swim comfortably to the rhythm of his musical and poetic word flow. Fact or fiction, truth or hyperbole I enjoy his style of presentation. INPHX, I think you should keep posting, your detailed information and perhaps now and then a subjective opinion. After all, is it not all opinion?
“Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your suffering, except by your death. So long as you are alive your case is doubtful, you have a right only to their skepticism.” The Fall by Albert Camus.

[Dawgzy]

I'm surprised that net roots is convening in the Valley. I'm guessing that there was some controversy about that- and in JULY! Quite the list of luminaries. Since RC will be a participant, let's stay in focus with the topic, and give him the value of this fine community's unique insights, anecdotes, facts and tales. Squabble and provoke at some other time. I read this blog to get a handle on the transition that RC describes. It should be a fascinating forum. Your participation is indispensable, RC.

[Rogue Columnist]

Trump is coming to a Phoenix rally, likely to be joined by Arpaio. Old Anglo suburban Arizona racist? Republicans racist?

[cal Lash]

Somewhere out there are some studies that suggests"race" does not exist.
except in racist minds.

Jon, I will have to pass on registering for the NetRoots deal. It sounds way over my head and it ain't cheap to get in the door. Maybe a group Oculto, later.

[wkg_in_bham]

@RC: Interesting author lives in your city, Neal Stephenson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson

Enjoyed “championship golf” from Seattle a couple of weeks ago (U. S. Open). Weird though, here is maybe one of the most scenic areas in the country and golf course styled to look like it was in Scotland.

@Soleri: Don’t know if it will ever come up, but if need to move from Portland. From:

http://granolashotgun.com/2015/06/21/some-kindly-advice-from-an-old-white-guy/

“I have long time friends-of-the-family in Los Angeles. Their daughter graduated from university, got married, and promptly left California. She and her husband explored the country looking for a place to live that they both liked and could afford. (That ruled out nearly every inch of California.) They lived in Baltimore, Maryland for a while and then Portland, Oregon for a year before moving to Cincinnati. They could afford Baltimore and appreciated its gritty charm. But they really loved Portland – give or take the ridiculously high rent and real estate values. What they wanted was Portland at a Baltimore price….”
Sort of on topic. “Progressive” seems to look until it doesn’t. From

HTTP://MERCATUS.ORG/STATEFISCALRANKINGS

“Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York rank in the bottom five states, largely owing to low amounts of cash on hand and large debt obligations….”

[soleri]

wkg, one of the most embarrassing omissions in my travels is Cincinnati. I first became aware of it in the movie Traffic (or the gentrifying Over-the-Rhine neighborhood). I was awestruck. This speaks to a passion I have for old buildings and their transformative power for the good. I occasionally "debate" architects whose bias for the modern tends to be a bit defensive. I note that no one moves to Phoenix for the architecture. Portland, or any city with a substantial stock of old buildings, leverages character houses and other old artifacts for its overall economic benefit. Phoenix looks cheap and uninteresting for a reason it can't escape no matter how nice the landscaping might be: modern is usually very boring. You go downtown and see some contemporary boxes and five minutes later decide to visit Scottsdale for some shopping.

INPHX, the faux naif of this blog, seems to think racism is the worst thing ever to accuse anyone of although without it, the Republican Party wouldn't be within spitting distance of a majority. Or does he think all those Southerners, working-class whites, and elderly pensioners are voting GOP because they read Atlas Shrugged in high school? Please. It's 2015. We know your party's history, its code words, dog whistles, policy positions, and demographics. 95% of blacks vote for Democrats not because they love its cohort of white liberals so much as they hear and see Republicans on Fox News talk about blacks' "culture problem", how police and George Zimmerman are always defended whenever they shoot an unarmed black kid, how Detroit is code for Get Out of Town Before It's Too Late. How food stamps are breaking our budget but subsidies for Big Ag aren't.

You'd have to extremely stupid to think blacks can't translate your party's nostrums and "conversation" into something intelligible to the very people it's talking about. As I said above, you're a faux naif here not because you believe the GOP's Faustian bargain is wrong but because you deny it even exists. Please, before pretending to a precision for language that would make Orwell guffaw, just own up to the basic political script that has guided your party, for better and now worse, for the past 47 years. Nixon coopted George Wallace, using the advice of Kevin Phillips and Pat Buchanan, and the rest is history as stark as graffiti on an urban school in the wrong part of town. NIGGER is the word writ large but you don't have to say it out loud. You don't even have to approve of others saying it. You simply state that racism no longer exists. The Supreme Court said so! So, move on with your party's voter suppression strategy. Justify cutting off millions of poor Southerners (largely black) from health care, run Scary Black People stories on Fox News 24/7, and demonize Obama as a foreign-born Muslim Marxist because you really do LOVE!!! black people (read: Ben Carson, Tim Scott, and Condoleeza Rice). Now, if we could just get Al Sharpton to tone down his rhetoric, there wouldn't be any problems at all!

You live in a Goebbels-like bubble (sorry, Godwin) that reeks of hypocrisy for words and their meanings. Please don't lecture me about language. You contempt for truth is more than just a political convenience. It's an existential necessity given your party's blatant cynicism and ugliness.

[INPHX]

Soleri:

I'm going to dissect just one of your racist accusations and I think I can demonstrate non racist motives. It most likely won't matter to you, because you and Paul Krugman have already decided that the emperor's clothes are beautiful. But here goes.

Many liberals assume racist motives for the Southern States refusal of the Medicare expansion as part of Obamacare. But the data just doesn't support that.

According to this chart, about 10% of whites in Alabama live in poverty and about 31% of blacks do:

http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/

But the population of Alabama (in 2005) is about 72% white and 27% black

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Alabama

So- relative to the total population of Alabama, about 7.2% is poor and white and 8.4% is poor and black.

So- the refusal of Medicare, in terms of the population of the state, most likely effected about the same number of blacks and whites.

Doesn't sound exactly like the Klan at work, does it?

Georgia is about the same

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Georgia_(U.S._state)

About 6% of Georgia is white and poor and about 7.7% is black and poor.

Wouldn't one think that racist motives would have resulted in a more skewed result?

Let's dial into another racist accusation. The kerfuffle over Obama's birth certificate being racially motivated.

Imagine it's right after the SCOTUS vindication of the Florida Secretary of State's award of Florida's electoral votes to George Bush in the year 2000 election. And suddenly there are rumors that Bush wasn't born in the US.

What do you think would have happened?

Republicans didn't question Obama's birth because he's black. They questioned it because he's a Democrat and he won.

Broadly speaking, maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. I think liberals look for racial motives wherever they can find them and I'm sure liberals think conservatives are blind to racism. The George Zimmerman/ Trayvon Martin incident is probably a pretty good example. Not one shred of evidence that Zimmerman had any racist motive and quite a bit of evidence that he had none. But- here we are- debating it.

You're probably right about 95% of blacks voting for Democrats- in the last few decades or so.

Look where it's gotten them.

Congratulations.

[INPHX]

wkg:

Not trying to brag, but my July 7th post referenced a USA article that summarized the Mercautus report about states' fiscal conditions.

Echoing what you pointed out about the worst states, I hinted that maybe it was good that Arizona had shifted to the right (at least fiscally)

Just incredible what's happening in Illinois. Sky high taxes, unimaginable financial chaos, parts of Chicago are virtual war zones, and the relentless greed of the unions:

http://wgntv.com/2015/07/02/cps-teachers-to-protest-1400-layoffs-200m-in-cuts/

Is a federal bailout imminent? I sure hope not....

[Jerry McKenzie]

And what does it mean to be a racist? What are the criteria?

Living in a gated community? Not.
Supporting SB 1070? Racist.
Opposing affirmative action? Racist.
Opposing the President? Not (unless it's because he's a Kenyan)
Noting the black on black homicide rate? Racist (especially if not noting the white-on-white homicide rate)
Using the N word? Racist (duh).
Supporting the Klan? Racist (derp).
Combinations of these? Only if the combination is all "not".
Being outraged that a 5 time felon illegal alien is free to kill an innocent 31 year old woman here in the US? Racist (because you should be outraged by every murder of an innocent, and it is usually someone the victim already knew and the larger number of murder victims are white killed by white men)

[Jerry McKenzie]

Republicans didn't question Obama's birth because he's black. And yet not a peep about Cruz who actually is not native born. Let's hope Trump sinks him (not that I won't bet on it becuz racism).

[soleri]

It's a mild irony that Donald Trump opened his big, fat, entitled mouth, and a bunch of racist shit spewed out. Whereupon he shot up to second in the polls for the GOP nomination. Also notable - the lethargy verging on utter apathy of the other contenders to rebuke him. Why would that be? Anyone have a clue? Since INPHX can't imagine his own party being captive to the much-discussed Southern Strategy, what explanation would suffice? http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/iumigd/slandero-gigante

The explanation that INPHX offers is simply blanket denial mixed with pro forma outrage that anyone could consider an all-white party racist for any reason whatsoever. Targeting a black kid for no reason and then shooting him? NOT RACIST! Defending the Confederate flag for one election cycle after another (see: John McCain debate himself!): NOT RACIST! Denying Medicaid for poor citizens, the MAJORITY of whom happen to be black: NOT RACIST! Limiting access to the polls for low-income voters: NOT RACIST!

It doesn't matter that Obama had a birth certificate and the local newspaper of record announced his birth. Republicans ONLY questioned his status an American because he won. Did they do that with Clinton or any other Democrat? No. Was there any legal argument that Obama was unqualified to be president? None, particularly since his mother being born in this country automatically granted him citizenship regardless wherever else he might hve been born. So why make a fuss about it? Why portray the president as a Kenyan, a Marxist, a thug, an affirmative-action hire, and kind of Manchurian candidate seeking to overthrow America from within? Lots of reasons! But none are racist!

I don't care if the average Republican is racist or not. But there's only one reason why a party dedicated to fellating the wealthy, pillaging the environment, and shredding the safety net has any reasonable shot at winning political office. It has nothing to do with the Richie Rich politics of INPHX. It has a lot to do with the whiny-ass resentments and grievances of people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Donald Trump, and Sarah Palin. Call it what you will but don't whitewash it. You know what it is.

[INPHX]

Jerry:

Republicans attacked a Democrat (Obama) over his birth certificate.

Democrats are howling about a Republican (Cruz)

Here's a sample:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/24/1372965/-In-His-Bid-to-Become-President-Republican-Ted-Cruz-Forgets-to-Be-Born-in-the-US

Thanks for helping me with my point- both men (Cruz and Obama) are being attacked by the other party, not because of their race, but because they belong to the opposite party.

Justice Roberts wrote the following about affirmative action being against the Constitution:

"Roberts' decision banned the schools from considering the race of the students in determining where they went to school. "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race," the chief justice wrote."

Is he a racist?

[Rogue Columnist]

Generally, the states of the New Confederacy are doing worse economically than the blue states. Except for the petro- and federal-investment rich state of Texas, all are net takers.

RE Cincinnati. I lived there for three years and it is wonderful. Churchill called it the most beautiful inland city in America and he's still right. Featured as the setting in my Cincinnati Casebooks novels. The only downside is it is in a red county and state, so gets little help in urban issues.

[Rogue Columnist]

P.s., and I wish I could linger but it's a big news day...

Beware of false equivalency. Sniping at Calgary Cruz is almost exclusively the province of the left online media. The shameful and unending questioning of President Obama's citizenship, religion and patriotism was the mainstream of the Republican Party. It is without question in my lifetime.

[Gordon shumway]

100% of racist people I know are republican
#data

[Jerry McKenzie]

Yes, the chief justice is a racist, just like the last one. They are very good at plausible deniability and misdirection.

I have not seen the vitriol over Cruz's actual Canadian birth as I have seen over Obama's actual US birth, and I have read no news article on whether or not he is actually qualified (right or left). The only good Trump can ever do is during his run is to take it to the courts (even while Cruz busily smooches his moon).

I go to the Daily Kos only for the comics, nothing else.

[Rogue Columnist]

Interesting you mention Bill Rehnquist (whose children I went to grade school with).

He was a foot soldier in the Arizona GOP's "Operation Eagle Eye" after passage of the Voting Rights Act. He and others would stand outside polling stations in south Phoenix, challenging minority voters.

This was part of the same Republican reaction that led picketing of Central Methodist Church, one of the pillars of Phoenix mainstream Protestantism, after our senior pastor, Kermit Long, marched with MLK in south Phoenix.

Richard Nixon first saw a photo of him from this era and reportedly said, "Who is this clown?"

[drifter]

The US is a racist country. Slavery based upon race was one of the foundations of the country.

Most Americans, Republican or Democrat, are racist in varying degrees. My definition of racist:

A person who holds preconceived beliefs about another person based upon that other person's race.

Republicans live in denial that racism exists while exploiting racism for political advantage. Modern day Democrats acknowledge racism's widespread existence and attempt to remedy the inequalities arising from a white privilege country.

[HMLS]

Bill Rehnquist brought those "bold and big" racist values from his home state of wisconsin to Arizona. No doubt Scott Walker reflects fondly about Rehnquist's racist political tactics as he enacts voter ID laws and other statutes to discourage non-whites from voting.

It is a proud Wisconsin tradition.

[cal Lash]

Slavery is rampant. There are only 5000 people in the world. everyone else is a commodity.

[Ruben Perez]

You almost got it right drifter.

Republicans live in denial that racism exists while exploiting racism for political advantage. Democrats acknowledge racism exists while exploiting racism for political advantage.

What a selection we citizens have: do I vote for the bullshit party or do I vote for the cow manure party?

Decisions. Decisions.

[drifter]

Rueben,

Do you think Joseph McCarthy would have made a good president? If so, vote for the manure shit party. There are things in life far worse than bullshit.

[Ruben Perez]

Rueben is the sandwich.

Joe and his reincarnation Ted Cruz would be best as arrow catchers at a 3D shoot. IMHO.

[soleri]

I'm not sure how Democrats exploit racism. This really sounds like right-wing sour grapes. "You keep making us sound worse than we are!" No, no one makes you, or Fox News, or Roberts/Scalia/Alito/Thomas, or the Sons of the Confederacy sound worse than you are. You do that yourselves. Democrats merely take notes. If you don't like the noise, turn down the volume. Of course, if you do, how do you galvanize your mouthbreathers? Decisions, decisions.

You're losing the culture war badly because it's based on a cynical strategy of intentionally cultivating cruelty and disrespect. Watch Bill O'Reilly for five minutes, or listen to Rushbo for 30 seconds. How can there be any doubt that Republicans are most themselves when complaining about people unlike themselves? Now, they're staring at Donald Trump heightening the contradictions to the nth degree. Celebrate your "culture", righties. It won't win you any more presidential elections but you still have Arizona.

[Rogue Columnist]

Republicans shouldn't be sore winners.

They control a majority of statehouses, the U.S. Senate, and hold a commanding, almost insurmountable, majority in the U.S. House. They have more sway on the federal courts, especially the Supreme Court.

So non-conservatives have had a few largely symbolic victories. Same-sex marriage had popular opinion at its back and gays tend to be higher class with disposable income, so the oligarchs won't stand for the dead-enders opposing equality here.

Otherwise, the GOP right is carrying the day on almost everything that really matters for the nation's future. Even Obamacare was the conservative option for health reform, straight out of Heritage and implemented by the party's 2012 presidential candidate in "his state," as he invariably called Massachusetts.

Progressives and liberals are going to have to find a way to fight, a compelling narrative. Unfortunately, the Republicans have done a much better job of preying on the fears the whites who outvote others, especially in critically important non-presidential elections.

Even in supposedly "blue" Washington, the Legislature tends to be hamstrung because take out Seattle and Washington is Idaho (or Arizona).

The project of national suicide continues. Don't be sore winners.

[cal Lash]

Jose Mujica for president. Bernie Sanders as Financial adviser.

[drifter]

Ruben...got it

[drifter]

Rogue, all good points on Republicans being sore winners. I need to get to blue soil before the next wave of Republican empowerment hits. The unlimited amount of right wing money buying up all levels of government won't be contained. There is no left, left in the US.

[cal Lash]

Drifter try Uraguay

[Mary Tooley]

Both my husband and my ancestors were pioneers in Wisconsin. We were always proud to be from the state with a strong Progressive tradition. In a few short years, we have seen the Koch brothers and their mean little puppet turn our state into Wississippi. Last week saw an attempt to repeal our open records law. The just enacted budget has gutted our university and public schools and given "the charter school racket" more funding. Thank you, Jon, for shining the light on the travesties brought on here by the corporate powers. Scott Walker as President would entrench the oligarchy for generations.

[INPHX]

Many conservatives predicted the types of attitudes demonstrated here when this country elected our first black President.

Don't like Obamacare? Racist. Think Eric Holder is a chowderhead? Bigot. Think merit trumps race? Klansman. Someone should have some link to actually being a citizen to vote? Intolerant. Think someone who is in this country illegally is in this country illegally? Xenophobic. Question a Presidential candidate on his history? Prejudiced bastard.

It's so easy and intellectually lazy. Someone (like a Chief Justice of the SCOTUS) thinks that when the Constitution prohibits racial discrimination, it prohibits racial discrimination. Rather than deal with that issue, just call him a racist and be done with it. How could a racist be right (or even have a legitimate view )about something?

It seems Soleri has backtracked a little on the alleged Southern Strategy of refusing Medicare in order to harm poor black citizens. But even then, it seems to me he's committed to a position where leaders of those states are refusing a program that hurts just about as many whites as it does blacks.

Because those leaders are racists.

Well, OK.

Could't have anything to do with those states being poor and the Medicare eventually being the states' responsibility- could it?

So.

If you're looking for racism, you'll find it. You can bend, twist, manipulate, and spin a lot of events and inject racism into it, especially if that fits with a preconceived agenda.

There's really no better example (at least on these blogs) than the George Zimmerman/ Travyon Martin incident. The jury, the lead investigator, the FBI, and the DOJ concluded that racism was not part of Zimmerman's motive. But Soleri ignores that evidence, well, because, well, ummm, errr, well, he just does.

It should be noted, though, that in the phone call to his girlfriend, Martin referred to Zimmerman as a "creepy ass cracker".

So there's that.

And drilling down even more, I don't recall a whole lot of liberal outrage when it was discovered that NBC had doctored audio tapes in order to portray Zimmerman even more unfavorably.

Did I miss something?

[HMLS]

One in four Texans go without health insurance mostly due to Texas rejecting Medicaid expansion and Texas statutes blocking outreach efforts to expand subsidies to low and middle income residents.

50% of all property tax revenue in Dallas County goes to hospitals in the county who treat uninsured residents at the emergency room.

Federal funding of Medicaid expansion has been paid to states for half a decade now and by statute will continue at 90% with no statutory time limit.

The Republican governors in Wisconsin, Texas and Kansas, among other socially backward jurisdictions, claim they will not accept federal Medicaid expansion funding because "some day" the money won't be there.

A lot of their low income citizens will needlessly die before "some day" arrives.

Federal funds could be reduced "some day" for transportation, infrastructure and other federally funded programs. So why doesn't Texas, Wisconsin and Kansas stop accepting federal funding for those programs?

INPHX, no it isn't simply that those states rejecting Medicaid expansion are poor and the federal funding may eventually be the states" responsibility.

It is all about Red States willing to sacrifice the health of a large number of their citizens and financial well being of health providers for right wing ideology and opposition to anything Obama.

[INPHX]

HMLS:

Compelling post-

Plausible explanations, even in light of the fact that polls have reflected over time that Obamacare has never been really well received by the entire US. (I don't know if there are polls strictly based on the Medicare expansion).

Would love to discuss it further...

But I don't think that's the point presented in this blog-

Do you think the motives of those Medicare expansion refusing states are based on race and if so, what makes you think that?

[soleri]

INPHX, what you miss is that the GOP's all-white base cares less about tax cuts for the corporate puppetmasters you enthusiastically fellate and more for the race-based outrage inculcated by your Goebbels-lite media. Say, food stamps are budget busters, welfare costs up to half our treasury, and blacks are behind an epidemic crime wave in this country. Nothing racist about that bad information. No siree.

Do I think you're a racist? I guess, but so what? Do I think you're intellectually honest or emotionally sentient enough to be troubled by racism? No.

Best post-hoc justification for a race-based homicide yet: the victim called his killer a "creepy ass cracker". Lordy, lordy. He's worse than Tawana Brawley!

BTW, not that you care if people live or die, but if Southern states took the Medicaid (not Medicare) part of Obamacare, the savings would have easily finessed the much more expensive costs of emergency-room care, even after states become responsible for a whopping 10% of their Medicaid costs down the road. Why throw away billions of dollars of Federal money just because you have a bad accountant's soul? Why ask why. Southerner governors did something Jan Brewer was instructed NOT to do by Arizona's local oligarchs. Occam's razor: they did it because it plays well with the GOP base who don't minding punishing poor whites if it means punishing even more poor blacks.

John Kasich is not someone I admire very much at all but he did say something that caught my attention when questioned why he took the Obamacare bait:

Kasich snapped at Randy Kendrick, wife of Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, during a Southern California conference sponsored by billionaire Republican donors Charles and David Koch. When Kendrick asked Kasich why he describes his expansion of Medicaid in Ohio as something God wanted, Kasich replied by pointing at Kendrick and, his voice rising, saying, "I don't know about you, lady. But when I get to the Pearly Gates, I'm going to have an answer for what I've done for the poor.

First off, I love the fact that Ken Kendrick's wife is pig. I'm sure she's a very sweet pig, but when you're rich, you need to have this quality some call noblesse oblige. It humanizes you, as Donald Trump is discovering too late to salvage what remains of his downscale brand.

Secondly, if the party of Family Values thinks poor people don't deserve health care, well, your coaltion of racist assholes, evangelical yahoos, and Randian greedheads is going to incur a dubious reputation. Half our national conversation concerns the nuttiness your trailer-trash party has uttered on talk radio, Facebook, and Fox News in the last 24 hours. Keep the humor flowing. We may disagree about what's real but we certainly agree on what is surreal. It's this conversation. And yes, march on with Birth Certificate madness! It's your ticket for success in 2016!

[cal Lash]

Should the Charleston Street named after alleged racist senator and vice president John C Calhoun be renamed Emanuel Way 9?

[Ruben Perez]

Anyone else notice in the photo above: the missing - women, Indians, Chinese, Mexicans.

Hmmmmmmm??

[cal Lash]

Ruben the guy in the middle of the pack is a my great great uncle Abraham.

[Gerrick Brenner]

Jon:

Really great panel at Netroots. Thank you for the snapshot on AZ's history. Very interesting.

You are a service to the public.

Thanks,
Gerrick Brenner
Progress North Carolina