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Boosted by aredridel@kolektiva.social ("Mx. Aria Stewart"):
sysadmin1138@ngmx.com ("SysAdmin1138") wrote:
"What we need is a Second Reconstruction."
Yes, we do. I'm reading a book on the first one, and it got hella far. A 1860s Radical Republican looks a lot like a modern DSA candidate. But the real cautionary tale is in HOW IT FAILED. Discomfort over racial mixing broke the absolute majority the Radicals had, and allowed compromising with former rebel leaders and plantation owners (southern aristocracy). This broke forward progress. Internal debates in the Republicans saw the Radicals lose to the industrialists, beginning the "party of big business" shift. With no one left to champion civil rights, reigns of terror disenfranchised black voters across the whole south (and some north) allowed non-enforcement of existing civil rights laws and constitutional amendments, and outright reversions. The SCOTUS at the time greatly pared back the scope of the Reconstruction amendments.
Radical surge, then reversion to a slightly advanced mean.