Senator James Strom Thurman is still alive in South Carolina.
It is a shame that the elected Republican leadership of South Carolina is taking on a Dixiecrats mentality and is not able to represent all South Carolinian with a sense of balance and fair representation. I am personally ashamed especially of the rhetoric espoused by Governor Sanford and Senator Jim DeMint. Given the composition of the demographics of South Carolina there is no excuse for the unbalanced way of Senator DeMint or Governor Sanford speaking as our representatives. These Republicans are embarrassing all South Carolinians at a time when most Americans are trying to pull together to solve one of the nations worst economic crisis in history.
It is clear in this age of technology and the availability of opinion research data that all elected officials of today have access to polls and have a reading of the public sentiment. This means that if a Republican politician like DeMint wanted to more evenly represent all of the people of South Carolina he could. This also means that the voting records and rhetoric of South Carolina Republicans are intentionally meant to represent only the Confederacy and they are intentionally leaving many other South Carolinian unrepresented. That is the shame of it all. Common sense says that even if you knew you had enough justice haters in your constituency to get elected or reelected, your own personal sense of fairness and justice ought to guide you to stand up for what is just in 2009. How shallow can one get to be still spewing old south rhetoric in 2009? We sorely need leadership that helps us to move forward and not backwards. In my daily life with a lot of contacts with SC whites I would not think that this kind of voting record and rhetoric would appeal to enough white folk to make these Republican do this. However, regardless to public sentiments these Republican that we have seemingly have no desire to represent all of the peoples of SC. Simply put, the elected Republican representatives of SC that we have today are the soldiers of Senator James Strom Thurman and others like him. This means that when Governor Sanford, Senator Jim DeMint, Senator Lindsey Graham, and Congressman Joe Wilson unite to oppose a very popular President of the United States, Barrack Obama, it is done clearly in the spirit and the legacy of Senator James Strom Thurman, the Confederacy, and the old south.
Senator Thurman, the original Dixiecrat, is the template I argue which is being used by our present day Republican elected leadership when they lineup to oppose change and oppose financial assistance to our state. Without doing a history lesson on Thurman, as you will remember or know, was in office from November 1956 to January 2004. The basic template that Thurman set is to lead South Carolina on behalf of the Confederacy and all it stood for. Yet, as the constituency of the state changed Thurman was smart or slick enough to moderate his views to do enough for the minority constituency to remain in office. To use this Thurman template assumes that one can lead from the extreme southern Confederacy view until the constituency forces you to change. It further assumes that making these changes will be enough to get reelected and that all will be forgiven. This worked for Thurman and it seems that these elected leaders of 2009 are still relying on the Thurman template to work for them. We have to let these 2009 Dixiecrat leaders know that the Thurman template will not work anymore.
When I heard the Candidate for the U. S. Senate, Jim DeMint, say that he thought that school systems should fire all of the gay teachers and administrators because they “. . . do not make decent role models,” I thought he would never get elected; he did. When I heard Governor Sanford say, “South Carolina could make it on its own without a stimulus package,” I thought the State would erupt in protest to this remark; it did not happen. When I heard Senator Jim DeMint say a few days ago at the Conservative meetings in February 2009 that “President Obama is the most eloquent spokesperson for socialism,” I thought the press and the public would not accept this unpatriotic disrespectful remark as acceptable civil discourse; no protest yet. Civil discourse requires that no U. S. Senator would ever disrespect the President of the United States or even another Senator. What kind of company does Senator DeMint keep if he gets applauds for saying such a thing about the about President Obama and no one challenges DeMint for his disrespectful behavior? When I noticed that Senator Lindsey Graham was getting a lot of private meetings with President Obama and I noticed that he went on bi-partisan trips abroad with Senator and Vice President Elect Joe Biden before the inauguration, I kind of thought that Senator Graham’s posture would be moderated. Yet, as soon as the opportunity came for Republicans to bash Obama and oppose the stimulus package, Senator Graham was a leader on all of the networks bashing the stimulus package and President Obama. So, I have not been right in expecting South Carolinians to wake up and curb the vile rhetoric of the Republicans, but I still think that they will. One reason South Carolinians are so quiet is that SC does not have a media outlet that is progressive or informative. Yet with the use of the Internet, I still have faith that the people of SC will rise up because I believe that God does not like ugly and it is clear to me that these Republicans are acting ugly. I also know that many national leaders are gearing up to be in SC in the next election season to try to help wake up SC.
If Sanford, DeMint, Graham, and Joe Wilson came from a state of low unemployment and relative affluence, we could go on and examine to see what philosophical differences are afoot. However, when these leaders come from a very poor state with an unemployment rate amongst the highest in the country, one has to ask and can only ask, “Are these leaders of SC still fighting the Confederate war?” How can these leaders be so upset in opposition to getting money into such a poor state? Seventy percent of all Americans support President Obama and over sixty percent of all American are supporting the stimulus package. Then you have to ask, “How did we get elected leaders from South Carolina who are so out of line with the country” First we have to recognize that the Republican Party uses race to get elected and Republicans are not good for the working class economy or our people; Black or white. Second, we have to recognize that SC has many poor white folk who have been and are being used to support Republicans even if it means keeping poor white folk poor. If poor and middle income South Carolinians Black and white voted in their own best interest, for jobs and an organized workforce, health care for everybody, better housing, and better schools they would clearly vote Democratic and get a better government. IT IS THAT SIMPLE! That is why I believe that the people of SC will eventually rise up and reject the Republican Confederate leadership. The Heritage movement and a belief in holding onto the Confederate flag does not put food on the table or pay the rent. Poor whites in SC will wake up to this fact soon and then we can all move forward.
What do we do next? Continue to support Congressmen James E. Clyburn and John M. Spratt. Try to elect some more like them because they are working hard to make America live up to its promise. We have to identify the worse of the Dixiecrats and call them out by their names and reputations so that all will know who they are and what they are. We have to let these Republican elected officials know now that we are not going to be forgiving of their membership in the “Party of No” and their Confederacy advocacy behavior. Ask them to change now and support change if they want to remain in office. We have to let elected officials that are mentioned here and those who are not mentioned here know that if the shoe fits they are hereby included; especially those who voted for picture ID to vote in SC. We will have to apply the old “vote the incumbent bastards out” policy. When I first started voting there were no candidates who asked for or wanted my vote. The candidates actually ran on a campaign about how badly he was going to treat me. Thurman, I remember, pretended to not be able to say the word Negro. That is when most Black and fair minded voters had to adopt the policy of “Vote the incumbent Bastards out.” Today, we have to let all of our elected officials know that we expect rational behavior and an evaluation of legislation and ideas based on the merits and just voting no is unacceptable. These people have to know that they represent more than the core confederate racist corner of some county or counties; other folk do matter. Making change in America is not a spectator sport. WE HAVE TO GET UP AND PRESSURE THESE REPUBLICAN ELECTED OFFICIALS NOW AND GET READY TO VOTE FOR CHANGE IN SOUTH CAROLINA ON OUR NEXT ELECTION DAY even if it means electing an all new leadership. Tell me what you think of this commentary. Hit me back at Spoonbooks1@aol.com