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this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2026
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This is some wild erasure of impact of the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s on pressuring Democratic politicians, including LBJ himself, who was more worried about pissing off southern Democrats than passing the VRA. It wasn’t until the threat of mass civil unrest was upon them that that it was passed with bipartisan support, with 20 of the 32 Republican Senators at the time (not a typo, Dems held a supermajority of the Senate) cosponsoring the bill to prevent southern Democrats from filibustering it. It also passed the House with bipartisan support and a 333–85 vote (Democrats 221–61, Republicans 112–24).
As always it is the people, not politicians, who get the goods.
The masses have never convinced the wealthy to something they haven't wanted to do. The publics desire for change has never been a motivating factor for policy.
If you have evidence that the Civil Rights Movement and civil unrest had no impact on the passage of the VRA please present it, because that is not current historical consensus.
The civil rights movement was a story I was taught but the reality of the government engaging in a slow burn genocide against minorities with the War on Drugs is my modern reality.
So was the appeasement of civil unrest and subsequent backlash again VRA and the Civil Rights Movement a net positive. Was it just appeasement or did the government actually bend to the will of the people. What do you think Martin Luther King or Malcom X would say about the state of things now considering the US has destroyed millions of minority families in the last 40 years.
I think this also gets at the perspective that things are getting progressively better. While some metrics such as poverty have shown some amazing progress with billion of people having access to fresh water and electricity, actual human rights have not faired so well.
I think you can take historical consensus and drop kick it off a cliff for what it is worth.
And let's not forget that Strom Thurmond, the man whose hatred for black people gave him the demonic fortitude to filibuster the Civil Rights Act for 24 hours and 18 minutes was a Democrat, until he and his ilk decided to all gather in the Republican Party.
I don't think liberals will ever quite understand why it was so easy for him to switch parties like that. Or why Trump made the same switch after being a Hillary supporter in 2008.
Not only was he a dem, he was personal friends with the Clintons. All that racist shit libs know he's been saying since the 90s? His buddies were pushing for the Crime Bill at the time
I see. So if our ideal candidate isn't possible anymore for the next election, we should always vote for the worse candidate, to drive people further towards public outcry, until civil unrest can get the real goal accomplished.
Makes perfect sense
The point is that it doesn't matter who you vote for, and pretending otherwise is a bit absurd. All we get are neoconservative politics no matter who we elect. The difference is one side pretends to be powerless and just lets the bad shit happen. (Except for genocide and poverty, which they enthusiastically aid and support.)
Your only power is local unless you're willing to commit a dramatic act of vigilantism.
You may wish there were a third track, but taking your hand off the lever gives up power.
Saying it doesn't matter is a naive position of privilege. Of course it matters. This is a "they're no different" argument that is just so obviously a false equivalence.
You're saying that voters should have no power and have to accept whatever the Democrats nominate. You don't seem to understand what power is.
No, not being allowed to rewrite history doesn’t mean that at all. You don’t get to erase the incredible violence faced by average people that was ultimately behind the passage of the VRA, or the cowardice of the politicians who wouldn’t act until the mob was literally on their doorstep.
If you think anything I’ve said about the VRA is inaccurate you need to go read a history book. Anyone telling you to be grateful to the Democrats for passing it out of the goodness of their heart is at minimum too ignorant about the actual history of the US to listen to, or they’re trying to con you.
I never said any of that? I said you can do both. They are not mutually exclusive