this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024

609 points (96.6% liked)

Political Memes

5509 readers

2748 users here now

Welcome to politcal memes!

These are our rules:

Be civil

Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.

No misinformation

Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.

Posts should be memes

Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.

No bots, spam or self-promotion

Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

609

Republicans were cooler back when Marx liked them (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by PugJesus to c/politicalmemes

50 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17294985

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." - Abraham Lincoln

"I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world." - Abraham Lincoln

"The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world." - Karl Marx

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 123 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (7 children)

Party realignment happened, so the current republicans are not really “political descendants” of the party that ended slavery.

Still point taken lol

[–] Eldritch 19 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Republicans didn't end slavery. Slavery was enshrined in the 13th amendment to the constitution by Republicans. They did free black slaves as a punitive fuck you to the Confederate States. But it's not the same thing.

Also there was no realignment. Before civil rights both parties had deeply seeded bigots. Democrats with their Dixiecrats. And Republicans with their fascists. The fascists literaly plotted a Hitler style coup just a few years after his failed. In the early 1930s. Look up the walstreet putsch.

What there was, was a distillation. Democrats got to civil rights first. Winning outsized support from black Americans. And leaving Dixiecrats fleeing the party. Republicans having missed out on being the ones to pass civil rights, took the consolation prize. And for the last 50 years has been the party of bigotry, white grievance, and fascism.

[–] PugJesus 33 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Republicans didn’t end slavery. Slavery was enshrined in the 13th amendment to the constitution by Republicans. They did free black slaves as a punitive fuck you to the Confederate States. But it’s not the same thing.

The language and actions of the Radical Republicans in the 1860s and 70s show a sincere desire to abolish slavery in all of its forms. The 'exception' granted in the 13th Amendment was intended to retain punitive measures for criminals rather than reconstruct a form of slavery. It didn't work out as cleanly as was hoped.

[–] Eldritch 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If it exists it wasn't ended or abolished. Definitionally. I agree that there were some Republicans that felt that way. Not enough and not all. The fact that they held on to it for punitive reasons only proves my point.

[–] PugJesus 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I would argue that forced labor without profit motive or ownership of a person is so far removed from slavery as to not warrant the term. Community service is slavery under that definition (and, in fact, challenges on the basis of the 13th have been [unsuccessfully] leveled against community service), yet I think few of us would view some rich twat getting a hundred hours of community service for a DUI to be slavery in any form, even on a purely technical level.

Labor as punishment is not effective or worth keeping as a tool for ensuring the compliance of a free citizenry by its government, but I also don't think that it is inherently slavery. My point thus is that the 13th Amendment was not meant simply as a punishment, but as a genuine attempt (emphasis on 'attempt') to end slavery as an institution.

[–] Eldritch 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Many of our prisons are privately owned. A profit motive is securely attached at this point at least. And I would argue it has been for a long time.

I 100% agree with you that it isn't effective. I just don't partake in the semantics on it. It is slavery. It's called slavery in the amendment. That means it's slavery. Just of a different kind.

[–] AngryCommieKender 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Just FYI, a very small percentage of our prisons are privately owned. Something like 20%. However, the percentage of jails that are privately owned is more like 80%

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

And capitalists profit off of both because phone calls and commissary are monopolostic contracts awarded by the state. Often to corporations who in turn lobby for harsher jail and prison sentences.

Plus, prisons and jails don't build themselves. And often the medical services are outsourced to corporations, rather than being county or state employees.

Incarceration is big business. It doesn't really matter who owns the prison or jail.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

20% is still 100% too many, and it doesn't matter if the prison is publicly or privately owned, or if the labor is profitable. Forced labor while in another's custody is slavery. It doesn't matter if it's the government that owns you. It doesn't matter if they are losing money on your labor. It doesn't matter if you are guilty of a crime. The definition of "slavery" is very straightforward.

Anyone arguing otherwise is arguing in favor of slavery. There are no acceptable defenses for slavery.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

that forced labor without profit motive or ownership of a person is so far removed from slavery as to not warrant the term.

Take a step back. We're talking about prison labor. That labor is worth capital that the laborer will see none of. They are in state custody, potentially for the rest of their life.

There is a profit motive. The prisons make money selling slave labor. Corporations make money sourcing cheap labor from prisons. Many of those prisons are privately owned for-profit businesses.

The laborer is owned by the state and is not free to leave or cease laboring, and and is subject to other forms of cruelty including psychological torture if they refuse.

How you couldn't conclude that this laborer is a slave is beyond me. "It's okay if you're not profiting off of it" is a terrible rational for stripping a person of their rights completely and using them like cattle with the threat of torture as a punishment for disobedience. Furthermore, it's not true, prison labor is quite profitable for everyone involved except for the slaves.

[–] PugJesus 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Take a step back. We’re talking about prison labor. That labor is worth capital that the laborer will see none of. They are in state custody, potentially for the rest of their life.

There is a profit motive. The prisons make money selling slave labor.

My point is not to defend modern prison labor, which is pretty indefensible, my point is that the exception carved out for punishment was not meant as slavery-by-other-means, even if that's what it turned into. See: 'grinding the wind' in contemporary prisons of the time.

It's dumb and pointless, but was not meant to have a profit motive. It was meant as punishment, in the delusion that work was 'reformative'.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

my point is that the exception carved out for punishment was not meant as slavery-by-other-means

Well, that's exactly what the 13th amendment says:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

It's pretty easy to conclude that using convicts as slaves was a part of the plan. Remember, this was 1865, 99 years before the civil rights act. Black people may have been freed from obligate slavery, but the completely unequal laws made it quite easy to funnel black Americans into chain gangs.

Just because some white people were also slaves now doesn't really make a difference.

[–] PugJesus 3 points 4 months ago

Well, that’s exactly what the 13th amendment says:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

And considering that legislators are often involved with the legal profession, the wording is carefully chosen - legal challenges to 'involuntary servitude' have been issued on everything from community service to military contracts. Slavery, as we would recognize it, was intended to be exterminated by the 13th. What kind of evidence would you accept for the intention of the drafters of the 13th to eradicate slavery?

It’s pretty easy to conclude that using convicts as slaves was a part of the plan. Remember, this was 1865, 99 years before the civil rights act. Black people may have been freed from obligate slavery, but the completely unequal laws made it quite easy to funnel black Americans into chain gangs.

Chain gangs were an innovation that primarily came about after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, and championed by local elites in the South - I don't find it a particularly compelling idea that the Radical Republicans in the Federal government were considering that before chain gangs became widespread. Furthermore, extensive civil rights actions were passed in the Reconstruction era when the Radical Republicans still dominated the government, including anti-segregation legislation and the election of the first African-American Congressmen. It was only once the time of the Radicals had passed and Reconstruction had been ended that Jim Crow laws as we would recognize it took hold.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yes yes we’ve all seen 13th lol you know what I meant. I am acutely aware of what you’re describing. I live in the on again/off again incarceration capitol of the world.

[–] Eldritch 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Not everyone. You'd be surprised. There was a ton of Republican whitewashing over the last century. But it's definitely heartening to see other people who know as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I apologize for my kind of dismissive tone in the previous comment that was uncalled for

[–] Eldritch 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

No worries. You've got nothing to apologize for. It's all good. Besides I know I have a habit at times of getting a bit pedantic and autistic. I try to control it. But sometimes I just can't help myself.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

As somebody whose ADHD expresses as compulsive talking, I feel you to some degree lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I do the excited info dump myself.

Was nice reading this exchange and not feeling like such a freak!

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

They claim to be, which is why it is important to remind them who they claim to be.

If they want to be the party of Lincoln, they'll need to do it more than just in name.

[–] nexguy 11 points 4 months ago

It's strange. They claim to be the party of Lincoln while also claiming confederate heritage.

[–] NikkiDimes 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Kind of ironic that Republicans now would accuse Lincoln of being a RINO.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

They'd say he's a woke lib.

[–] danc4498 -2 points 4 months ago

Hmm, makes you wonder what happened to make current republicans switch from the Democratic Party. Probably nothing significant.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] Wrench 43 points 4 months ago

More like "waaah people don't like me because my entire personality is hating and harassing everyone that isn't like me"

[–] someguy3 35 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Party switch. The right opposed all of it.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Exactly. Back in those days, the Democrats were what Republicans are now, and vice versa. The people didn't change; just the names of the groups flipped.

[–] PugJesus 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

To be entirely fair, it was a bit slower than that. The Republican Party was the party of urban folk and free farmers up until the late 1870s, and shifted to the urban elite and middle class by the 1890s; while the Democrats shifted to favor rural elites and (white) yeomen farmers. Teddy Roosevelt was really the last gasp of progressivism in the Republican Party, which had been steadily been souring on labor, while Wilson shifted the Democrat party to favor white wage laborers as well as farmers. Truman (a Democrat) had taken a firm pro-civil rights stance in the 1940s, and as late as Eisenhower in the 1950s there was broad anti-conservative support in the Republican Party.

The tumult of the 1960s really just set everything in stone - capital siding with conservative elements, and labor with liberal elements. And then, in the course of the 80s, aligning the racists and capital with the previously-apolitical evangelicals, which delivered a 'winning coalition' to a previously-struggling Republican Party.

[–] dual_sport_dork 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

aligning the racists and capital with the previously-apolitical evangelicals, which delivered a ‘winning coalition’ to a previously-struggling Republican Party

This was Nixon, and the "Southern Strategy.". This moment marked the final demographic realignment of the Republican party and is probably Nixon's true legacy since we're still stuck with it to this very day. To be a little more nuanced, I suppose, the Southern Strategy probably ultimately originated with Barry Goldwater's campaign. But Goldwater never actually made it to the presidency -- to put it mildly. (Goldwater was positively obliterated by Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 election.)

But Nixon did.

[–] PugJesus 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Nixon aligned with racists and capital with the Southern Strategy, but the evangelicals being an essential part of the coalition was the work of Reagan and his era.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Also Jerry Fallwell in particular. Fuck that guy.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

For anyone who doesn't understand how it happened, after the civil war the Republican party slowly began to become a big business party after all the contracting that was done to supply the Union military brought party leadership into network with business leaders.

This relationship began to drag the party rightward on economics, while the reforming northern democrats began to drift left as the northern party's ranks became filled with working class voters.

By the time of the 1930s the northern democrats had a solid hold on black voters because they'd moved far enough to the left on class issues, even if they had to caucus with dixiecrats to ever do anything, and when the civil rights movement made their push, LBJ chose them over the dixiecrats, marking the beginning of the transition from a bigtop party generally to a more region locked coalition party like we see today.

Worth mentioning is that very few people actually "switched" parties, the "switch" took the form of new voters changing who they were registering with in the wake of the civil rights breakthroughs drawing the center and left towards the democrats and the war on abortion pulling the right to the republicans.

And that's how a party once lead by a quite possibly proto or para socialist who went to war to crush slavers becomes a party that threatens the fabric of democracy.

The lesson here is that autocracy anywhere is a threat to democracy anywhere. Big business leaders will always choose capitalism over democracy, we cannot allow them to have the power to make the decision. We must begin a transition to a more democratic economic model, to worker ownership.

Vote to save our democracy, and then organize to spread it to the dark corners where the autocrats go to hide in reserve for the next round.

We must purge them like parasitic slime they are.

[–] roguetrick 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

It was much much after the civil war. Teddy Roosevelt was not a business friendly Republican. God he would be fun to have around today.

Interestingly Wilson also claimed to be a progressive like Teddy(and had some actual social justice initiatives to show for it despite being an awful white supremacist) and that three way election between Him, Taft, and Teddy was a big part of the switch. Harding to Hoover is what really cemented the switch to capital and conservatisim in the Republican party.

That election really was one where America still had some ideas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_United_States_presidential_election

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Yes and no, Roosevelt was very anti big business, but that made him a step outside the trend. It's actually part of how he became president. He was doing too good a job fighting corrupt business in NY as governor, so they stuck him in as VP basically to lock him out of anything he could do but make noise about it all.

And then an Anarchist shot McKinley, and Teddy was off the leash.

Had it been up to party leadership Teddy would have gone down as another one of the also rans progressives hold up to insist that the fix is always in against "real progress"

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

time to punch some nazis

[–] FuglyDuck 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

*northern republicans.

The slavery thing was always more north vs south, Southern republicans were very much in favor of slaves too

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The Republican Party was explicitly founded as an abolitionist party, it's partly why the Confederate states shit their pants in a baby rage when Lincoln was elected.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/republican-party-founded

That doesn't mean there weren't pro-slavery Republicans, there were quite a few, it just means they were evil AND stupid if they were.

This is a more accurate criticism of the "helped end segregation" line. Yes, the Civil Rights Act was extremely bipartisan by modern standards, but the majority of the support was from the areas outside the South in general.

[–] FuglyDuck -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

again.... the politics of abolitionism was more of a north vs south thing. not a party thing.

The republicans, as noted in the very source you linked, were founded in the north. The northern states generally did not rely on slave labor and their economy was not reliant on it, in the way that it was in the southern states.

as republican base's shifted south and they became more involved in southern industry... their attitudes towards slavery, civil rights, and all that began to change. The two parties flipped positions, with democrats becoming stronger in the north also becoming influenced there. Civil Rights and simply not being assholes has always been a north vs south issue, not one of parties.

[–] Omega_Man 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is not correct. The Republican party was founded in 1854 as an anti-slavery party. In fact, when Lincoln won the presidency in 1860, he wasn't even on some of the southern ballots. There were Northern democrats who were pro-slavery. I would imagine any southern Republicans were anti-slavery.

[–] FuglyDuck 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

lol. Like most populations, there’s variations.

For example, Texas today. It’s dominated by republican politics; despite the cities being fairly liberal.

Or Minnesota- mostly dominated by democratic politics, despite the outstate being very MAGA.

But read your statement again:

In fact, when Lincoln won the presidency in 1860, he wasn't even on some of the southern ballots.

Also not that the Republican Party stated in Wisconsin, (in the north.)

Also, check out this electoral map of the 1860 election:

Looks familiar, doesn’t it? Aside from most the western states not being, ah, states, that is.

[–] PugJesus 5 points 4 months ago

The slavery thing was always more north vs south, Southern republicans were very much in favor of slaves too

The Republican Party was founded as an abolitionist party, man. The GOP didn't achieve any power of note in the South until slavery was dead.

[–] Omega_Man 5 points 4 months ago

Currently reading The Demon of Unrest and it's wild to see how different the party was prior to the electoral cleave. One nice thing, I bet the ghost of the Chivalry are very unhappy that "their people" are now Republicans.