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Well said, Karey. To your first point, the equivocation fallacy — that Civil War & Reconstruction-era Republicans are not the same as the GOP of today — it should be pointed out also that the ardent segregationists in the Democratic Party were almost
exclusively Southern. In 1948, Strom Thurmond ran for President as a Dixiecrat, and then after 1964 he became a Republican. The rest of the Southern Democrats followed him out the door. This was an act of shameful protest in response to the passages of the
Civil Rights Acts of 1964, 1965 and 1968.
These newly minted Republicans then joined forces with the Goldwater / Nixon (Southern Strategy) / Reagan wing of the GOP. From that point forward, we witnessed the steady destruction of the moderate wing of the GOP (Rockefeller, Lodge, Ford and others).
This leads me to respond to another erroneous point by Ms. Cantor:
Sorry, but ... this is just flat wrong (apart from her comment about JFK, addressed below). Two points:
(1) I am sure Ms. Cantor is familiar with Grover Norquist, the influential architect & firebrand of GOP tax strategy. His mantra — his guiding principle — was “starve the beast.” The promoted idea was smaller government,
passed off as a bromide, but what really was afoot was an attack on the legitimacy of government. This attack was perfected by Reagan, who famously quipped the so-called “most terrifying words” are (paraphrasing) “I’m here from the government to help you.”
In saying this, Reagan was playing crudely off the simplistic notion that government operations are perceived (generally) as not as efficient or as effective as for-profit businesses — a fair enough observation, but one that wholly misses the point of the
proper role that government, in fact, must play, if we are to have a just society that provides for all.
It was all a front. The clear intent was to enrich the fat cats, and to undermine the social progress which had been set in motion by the Civil Rights Acts that the GOP Southerners despised, and that were perceived by
the fat cats as too expensive. The end result, over the last 4 decades, has been wage stagnation and the near-virtual destruction of the middle class (as constructed in the 1950s). The resulting wealth inequality is staggering, and offensive.
(2) So-called “trickle-down economics” have been proven time and time again to be a failure. Yes, JFK’s tax cuts — from the Eisenhower era of very high taxes — benefitted the economy, and so did Reagan’s. But, regarding
the latter, what current Republicans always ignore is the fact that Reagan subsequently raised taxes several times. The GOP, instead, has simply turned “tax cuts” into an unthinking religion.
Trump’s tax cut perhaps provided a brief sugar high for the economy, but his tax cut never delivered on the selling point — that it would lead to job creation and better wages. There is simply no evidence of this.
Yes, the economy grew from 2017 until the pandemic, but this growth (apart from the afore-mentioned ‘sugar high’) was simply a continuation of the corrections made by the Obama administration to the failed economy of G.W.
Bush. Obama’s improvements to the economy took clear hold in 2011 — six years before Trump took office!
The Trump tax cut simply enabled the big corporations to go on a binge of stock buybacks, and the uber-wealthy pocketed their windfall. The rich got rich and the poor — maybe they didn’t get poorer between 2017 and 2020
— but, to be sure, there were no advances in opportunity, nor any advances over the sad reality that huge numbers in this country live two paychecks away from bankruptcy.
And stop calling the American left “Marxists.” It’s just plain stupid to do so.
The American economy has long been a mix of both capitalism and socialism, with capitalism plainly dominant — and this will remain the case. Progressives are simply calling for a heavier thumb on the socialism side of
the scale. This is necessary, and a clear majority of Americans agree — on an issue-by-issue basis, as polls consistently show — in order to correct the current injustices in our economy, and the current absence of opportunity for the betterment of vast numbers
of Americans.
The chickens are coming home to roost, Ms. Cantor.
****
I recognize this has little to do with Percy —as least not directly. That said, Ms. Cantor chose this forum for the spewing of her uninformed opinions. Inasmuch as she chose to swim here, she should not be surprised that
critical thinkers will provide a swift counter current.
Karl Montague Terrell
Brevard, N.C.
Sent from my iPhone
On Aug 7, 2020, at 1:42 PM, Karey Perkins <kareyperkins AT gmail.com> wrote:
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