Failing To Square The Circle

"Today, every Republican and conservative wants to say he would have been one of the Republicans (there were many) who supported the Civil Rights Act — more Republicans did than Democrats, as people versed in GOP historical apologetics often note. Yet every conservative Republican also wants to say that he would have had the foresight to support the principled conservative Goldwater . . . who opposed the Civil Rights Act. Squaring that circle was challenging then, as it is now, but while Goldwater’s principles and record on civil rights allowed him to escape some historical obloquy for his stance, others who lacked those credentials were haunted ever since. When in doubt, do the right thing."

Dan McLaughlin in National Review, May 5, 2016 

An astute observation by McLaughlin.  I've seen versions on this in various conservative publications, emphasizing the oft-ignored truth that a greater percentage of Congressional Republicans voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act than Congressional Democrats.  At the same time, Barry Goldwater, the torchbearer of modern political conservatism, opposed the bill.  And, though McLaughlin does not mention it, the type of Republicans, moderates from the northeast and midwest, who voted in support of the bill are almost extinct today.

I consider the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965), America's two greatest legislative achievement during the 20th century.  The need to treat black Americans the same as other Americans was overwhelming, something that finally needed to be addressed by this country, after centuries of slavery, followed by a century of legal and de facto discrimination after the Civil War.  While Martin Luther King Jr, the Freedom Riders, and many others who risked their lives created the sense or moral rightness and urgency that generated public support, the person most responsible for their passage was President Lyndon B Johnson.

On the Republican side, Goldwater was not a segregationist.  He supported the integration of Phoenix schools, even helping to fund the lawsuit, and with a senior aide who happened to be a black woman, integrated the U.S Senate cafeteria in the 1950s.  However, as a conservative he felt certain provisions of the 1964 proposal, specifically regarding privately owned facilities, were unconstitutional.

In current conservative circles there is an effort to rewrite history by conflating 1960s Republicans with conservatives, which is historically wrong.  The GOP, at least in Congress, was predominantly moderate, with many so moderate that today's Republicans would consider them RINOs (Republicans in name only).  Most of the much smaller conservative community of the time opposed the Act; some because of Goldwater's reasons, but some also because they failed to appreciate the plight of blacks in segregated America, and the urgent need for action.  William Buckley, the publisher of National Review, and conservatism's leading intellectual light, was in the latter category, something for which he apologized for years later.  Many modern conservatives still need to face into this, and try to understand why they got this issue so wrong.

At the time, there was still a substantial faction of Congressional Democrats from the South unalterably opposed to integration and voting rights for blacks.  Today they are often described as conservatives but, in many instances, that is not accurate in the context of the times.  In fact, the man referred to as the "Dean" of the Senate, Richard Russell of Georgia who served from 1933 until 1971, was a New Deal Populist.  His only issue with New Deal programs was to make sure blacks did not get full access to their benefits.  Recently, I saw an interview with American neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, in which he spoke about his views on domestic policy and it was startling to discover he was really a New Dealer, supporting FDR's social programs as long as white people were the primary beneficiaries, just as Senator Russell did.

Senator Russell was also Lyndon Johnson's mentor during his time in Congress.  It is difficult for conservatives, President Kennedy's enthusiastic and worshipful supporters so resentful of LBJ, and modern progressives to credit LBJ; crude, untruthful, corrupt, vicious, and vulgar (as so well documented in Robert Caro's massive biography), whose disastrous and deceptive decision-making precipitated the Vietnam fiasco (for more read Dereliction of Duty), and whose hubris led to the launching the Great Society with all its deleterious consequences, with also being the instrument to accomplish these two monumental legislative landmarks.

The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were effective in transforming America.  That they were not even more so is due to the Supreme Court's continuing refusal to enforce the specific language in the Act forbidding discrimination based upon race.

What these Acts mean in the context of today's politics is more difficult because context has changed so much in a half century.  To illustrate, I'm so old I was liberal back when we believed in freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, tolerance, and equality under the law.  And it's why I'm not a progressive today.