John Patterson, former segregationist Governor of Alabama, died on Friday at the age of 99. In an interview with The Washington Post for what would later be his obituary, he said “Having a record of supporting segregation is a terrible burden to bear.” In 2008 he announced he’d be voting for Barack Obama for President, 50 years after his election as Governor.
Patterson is one of the last in a pretty long list of segregationist luminaries who later came to regret and recant their support for Jim Crow. We’re right to have limits on our patience for too much of these latter-day apologies. But Patterson’s story is instructive for understanding the current drive of radicalization within the Republican party.
All of these guys were segregationists to start with and all of them were racists, certainly by the standards of today and in pretty much every case by the standards of their own. But pretty few of them were the most racist and few got into politics with strong positions either way on segregation or the racial politics of their day.
I’ve mentioned a few times that Israel appears to be on course for a Jan 6th type moment. The possibility of that seems much more serious than when I first suggested it. The chance that Netanyahu and his supporters will be able to break free a few defectors from the new coalition government and prevent it from being sworn in seems perhaps to be diminishing. But the chance of violence of some sort or at least the expectation of it seems to be growing rapidly. The head of Israel’s domestic security service, the Shin Bet, just issued what seems to be an all but unprecedented warning that the climate of incitement threatens not only violence but a breakdown of the democratic order itself. The message seems clear aimed at Netanyahu without mentioning him by name.
Politico has a “West Wing Playbook” newsletter that focuses tightly on the Biden White House. Their note this evening was “Biden: Speak softly and carry a big carrot”. The update looks at the topic I discussed below: what’s going on? what is the White House’s plan to move off the legislative drift that has become the order of the day. There are some ins and outs in their account. Biden’s comfort zone is persuasion rather than threats. That matches with what we know of him.
But my real takeaway from their write-up, albeit not what they say, is that really no one has any idea what’s going on. That’s not a failure of reporting. These folks and others like them have the sources and skills to ferret out the gist of what is in play. But you can’t find something that isn’t there. Chuck Schumer told his Senate colleagues last week that he’s going to start bringing all the big legislation to the floor this month. If Republicans are going to filibuster these bills they’re going to have to actually do it, not just get their way with the passive threat. This is the shift in gears that many Democrats have been waiting for. But I don’t think the White House has a plan for how to change the current dynamic.
