Is Joe Manchin A Closet Dixiecrat?

Over the years, I have writ­ten sev­er­al arti­cles, inart­ful­ly attempt­ing to show that the mod­ern Democratic par­ty that most black Americans sup­port is not the same old par­ty of the south­ern Dixiecrats.
It is a tough row to hoe as peo­ple will not allow you to for­get where you are com­ing from, regard­less of the trans­for­ma­tion you go through to change the way you were.
People get a kick out of den­i­grat­ing you to the worst of what you are. So frauds and hyp­ocrites like Kentucky US Senator Rand Paul are quick to point the fin­ger at the his­to­ry of the Democratic par­ty’s racist past, even as he and his par­ty are exact­ly where the Democrat par­ty of old has been.
The thing about point­ing a fin­ger is that there are always a few fin­gers point­ing back at the point­er, but the sym­bol­ism of that is lost on the likes of Rand Paul, who are iter­a­tions of humankind that are devoid of shame or guilt.
In the Bible, scrip­tures refer to Simon the [lep­er], one can make the point that the scrip­ture uses Simmon’s old afflic­tion as a ref­er­ence. Still, there must have been some pos­i­tives about Simon that could be used to speak of him out­side of the worst mal­a­dy to befall him.
Leprosy meant ban­ish­ment, excru­ci­at­ing pain, and even­tu­al­ly cer­tain death in solitude.
Because your ene­mies want to degrade you, they con­tin­ue to point to your worst moments, but God does not see us that way; he sees us at our best.
Thanks, Pastor B.

The Republican par­ty would be in a bet­ter place moral­ly if it were point­ing to the past sins of the old Democrat par­ty while it was itself occu­py­ing a high­er moral ground. Of course, the worst one could say about that kind of fin­ger-point­ing is that it is in poor taste to judge, but that is not the case.
The Republican par­ty long trans­formed itself into a white peo­ple griev­ance par­ty of racism, hatred, xeno­pho­bia, and fascism.
It is now a fascis­tic par­ty of snivel­ing lit­tle bitch­es who are filled with hatred and fear of the prospect of hav­ing to com­pete based on their tal­ents, and so they are mov­ing hell and high water to rig the way the game is played through vot­er sup­pres­sion laws.
As those of us who are pay­ing atten­tion look on in hor­ror at what is hap­pen­ing to the American Democracy through the actions of the Republican par­ty and the weak­ness of the Democrats, peo­ple are focused on Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, two US Senators.
Focusing on the two is exact­ly what ought to hap­pen because they were elect­ed to office to car­ry out the Democratic agenda.
If they want­ed to be Republicans, both Sinema and Manchin should have run as Republicans. It is treach­ery of the high­est order to run on one par­ty’s agen­da then vote to enhance the oth­er par­ty’s agenda.
Yes, I will con­tin­ue to say that the par­ty which gave black Americans the civ­il rights act of 1964 & the Voting Rights act of 1965, which came a full hun­dred years after the end of the civ­il war, is a dif­fer­ent par­ty than the Dixiecrat par­ty of Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, and George Wallace, in the same way, that the Republican par­ty is not the same par­ty that.….….…..
Okay.….… now that I have your atten­tion, the Republican par­ty was nev­er the par­ty of Black Americans. The par­ty was sup­pos­ed­ly formed to stem the spread of slav­ery to west­ern states, but that does not mean they loved Black people.
That includes the con­tin­ued non­sense that Lincoln freed the slaves as if Lincoln cared about enslaved blacks.

Republican President Lincoln’s let­ter to Publisher Horace Greely on his feel­ings about the enslaved peo­ple suf­fer­ing in the United States.

Hon. Horace Greely: Executive Mansion,
Dear Sir Washington, August 22, 1862.

I have just read yours on the 19^th. addressed to me through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any state­ments or assump­tions of fact, which I may know to be erro­neous, I do not, now and here, con­tro­vert them. If there be in it any infer­ences which I may believe to be false­ly drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be per­cep­ti­ble in it an impa­tient and dic­ta­to­r­i­al tone, I waive it in def­er­ence to an old friend, whose heart I have always sup­posed to be right.

As to the pol­i­cy I “seem to be pur­su­ing,” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the short­est way under the Constitution. The soon­er the nation­al author­i­ty can be restored, the near­er the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slav­ery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slav­ery, I do not agree with them. My para­mount object in this strug­gle is to save the Union and is not either to save or to destroy slav­ery. If I could save the Union with­out free­ing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by free­ing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by free­ing some and leav­ing oth­ers alone, I would also do that. What I do about slav­ery and the col­ored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I for­bear, I for­bear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less when­ev­er I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more when­ev­er I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to cor­rect errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stat­ed my pur­pose accord­ing to my view of offi­cial duty, and I intend no mod­i­fi­ca­tion of my oft-expressed per­son­al wish that all men every­where could be free. Yours,

A. LINCOLN

Abraham Lincoln need­ed black bod­ies to fight his war; he was also afraid that the French would enter the war to pro­tect their then ter­ri­to­ry of Louisana. Had the French entered the war, the com­ing togeth­er of east and west would have been a dream only.
It was freed black men who freed oth­er black men. Lincoln’s Emancipation Declaration was only applied to states that had seced­ed from the Union and had declared war on the United States. The Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln did not take the full cor­rec­tive steps against the (Confederate Traitors) who declared war against the United States that enabled the insur­rec­tion of January 6^th, 2021, one hun­dred and fifty-six years later.
Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis, two trai­tors, suf­fered zero con­se­quences for tak­ing up arms against the United States. That, how­ev­er, was only the tip of the ice­berg; not only were the trai­tors from top to bot­tom not pun­ished, but mon­u­ments were raised up in aston­ish­ing num­bers across the United States, in nation­al parks, on state­house grounds, on mil­i­tary bases, and places beyond.
And the con­fed­er­ate bat­tle flag flew on south­ern state­hous­es as if they won the war. The idea that the Republicans were some­how bet­ter than the Dixiecrats who declared war against their own coun­try is laughable.

Fast for­ward to 2021, although both polit­i­cal par­ties have tak­en decid­ed moves from where they were as late as the 1960s, it does not mean that every­one in the Democratic par­ty is purged of racism, not by a long shot.
As far as the Republican par­ty is con­cerned, it is dif­fi­cult to argue that it is not solid­ly a homoge­nous racist white fas­cist polit­i­cal par­ty. After all, they purged mod­er­ates from their ranks. I hope you do not believe that Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, and Murkowski are moderates?
Democrats, how­ev­er, nev­er did a purge; the par­ty con­tin­ues to hold to the belief that the coun­try is a cen­ter-left, cen­ter-right nation that wants both par­ties to stay close to the center.
There is no evi­dence to sup­port that the­o­ry in my hum­ble esti­ma­tion. A full 46% are Republicans who are far-right adher­ents. There are approx­i­mate­ly 52% who are Democrats, who, by the way, long and yearn for a tru­ly pro­gres­sive, no-non­sense par­ty rep­re­sent­ing their val­ues, anoth­er 2% remains some­where in the mid­dle who are basi­cal­ly wishy-washy fin­ger to the wind voters.
The Democratic Party is a par­ty of dif­fer­ent coali­tions, Blacks as the foun­da­tion, Hispanics, Native Americans, Jews, Gays, Lesbians, Whites, and every­one not white who has self-respect.
This explains Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin’s game could be seen as self-right­eous as he bleeps about bi-par­ti­san­ship and pre­serv­ing democ­ra­cy. (I will come back to this).
He is also seen as cater­ing to his own polit­i­cal sur­vival in a state Donald Trump won by over forty per­cent­age points.
Some make the case that no oth­er Democrat can win statewide in West Virginia, except Joe Manchin. So despite Manchin’s shenani­gans, Democrats have no choice but to grin and smile with Joe Manchin as they hold the slimmest of majori­ties because Joe Manchin can win in a Republican state.
The oth­er moti­va­tion for Joe Manchin’s stance on the Biden agen­da is that despite the pol­i­tics of the state of West Virginia and his own polit­i­cal sur­vival, Joe Manchin may very well share the views shared by Republicans on vot­ing rights.
Yes, I said it.
What oth­er plau­si­ble expla­na­tion could there be on [vot­ing rights]? If Joe Manchin does not secret­ly har­bor old Dixiecrat views, how could he a Democrat refuse to sup­port the right of all Americans to vote?
Set aside Kyrsten Sinema’s stu­pid­i­ty about chang­ing atti­tudes, Manchin is an old hand, not a fly-by-night like Sinema.
Surely Joe Manchin under­stands that this is the nation’s last best hope of block­ing Republican all-out assault on the rights of peo­ple of col­or to vote.
Joe Manchin must have seen what the Roberts court did to the vot­ing rights Act in 2013 in the Shelby County Alabama Vs Holder. He must know that the court destroyed the law because John Roberts the Chief Justice was a Reagan admin­is­tra­tion lawyer who hat­ed the vot­ing rights act.
Manchin is no dum­my like Sinema, he knows that the major­i­ty of Americans are pro­gres­sives but even so, the coun­try is ruled by a sen­ate that does [not] reflect the will of the majority.
Manchin also knows that Democrats have lost three elec­tions in which the plu­ral­i­ty of Americans chose his par­ty yet the pres­i­den­cy went to the Republicans.
And I believe that the west Virginia sen­a­tor under­stands that in 1876, Democrats won the elec­tions which in fair­ness was a mess, the Republican Rutherford B Hayes was giv­en the pres­i­den­cy on the con­di­tion that he pull fed­er­al troops from the south enforc­ing recon­struc­tion after the civ­il war.
In what is now known as the com­pro­mise of 1876 Hayes pulled fed­er­al troops out by 1877, paving the way for the estab­lish­ment of Jim crow laws which all but re-enslaved blacks for almost anoth­er century.
Joe Manchin knows all this even if the flighty Karen doesn’t.
So his claim that he will not destroy the Republic rings hol­low. Not act­ing while the coun­try per­ish­es is not patri­o­tism it is cow­ard­ly acquiescence.
No Senator Joe Manchin there are not ten patri­ot­ic Republican Senators who will do the right thing. Therefore you must vote to end the archa­ic and destruc­tive fil­i­buster which allows the minor­i­ty to run the county.
That was not and could not be the intent of the founders and you damn well know it, so stop with the bull­shit show and sup­port fil­i­buster reform, and while you are at it get the flighty pat­sy to vote with you.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.