Building on the #WEBDuBois quote Edric just posted:
Reading DuBois’ critique of both parties in 1956, one has to understand what the parties represented in that period. The Democrats were still a very racist political party which appealed to the White working class. The Republicans, by comparison, were mostly indistinguishable from the Democrats except in their Lincolnian heritage and their more concrete adherence to free-market ideals. Republicans in the South were struggling to arise as an appreciable political force, becoming plastered in its declining years as the “Negro Party”.
Fast-forward to today. The Republicans are dominant in the South and are a very racist, white-identity-obsessed party. The Democrats in the South are struggling to arise as an appreciable political force, and are now becoming consigned to “Negro Party”, permanent-minority status. Outside of the South, the parties are more apart than ever before, except on many of the matters which DuBois touches on in this letter. Some things have never changed, and some things have changed party affiliation.
