1. You could spend all day on the slanted & misleading history in this @jbouie column why Mitch McConnell is...the new John C. Calhoun? To start with, search the column for mention of Harry Reid, Robert Byrd, or Lyndon Johnson. You won't find them.https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/republicans-racism-african-americans.html …
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8. I'm not sure how you write this paragraph without pulling a hamstring.pic.twitter.com/aecf8mOtis
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9. Also, in ascribing Calhounism as the source of anti-majoritarianism in American politics, Bouie ignores the role of "living constitution" judges & the administrative state, both of which derive from the anti-majoritarian theories of white supremacist Woodrow Wilson.
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10. Now, Calhoun began with a germ of truth: the American system runs on multiple tracks - the president, Senate, House, & states each answer to separate electorates. Those distinct majorities can each, within limits, obstruct the others. But that's not why Calhoun's wrong.
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11. The federal system, including the provision of a written & amendable constitution, ultimately allows large or lasting majorities to override all opposition. Calhoun clung to a pre-1787, anti-originalist view that the concurrent systems had an absolute veto.
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12. To belabor the obvious, Calhoun was also bad on the merits - he also turned away from the Founders' view of slavery & embraced it as a positive good.
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13. Antebellum South Carolina was also uniquely bad. Bouie describes it as "the paradigmatic slave state" but it was more the extreme example. From 1828-60 it was the only state that held no popular vote for POTUS. Its state government was likewise out of step w/even the South.
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14. Anyway, there are deeper issues w/transporting Calhounism to the modern GOP while totally whitewashing the entire history of the Democratic Party outside the South & the modern progressive posture towards popular sovereignty & constitutional government, but you get the idea.
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End of conversation
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I mean, depending a little on what you mean by “key” and “settled”, but… kinda, yeah?
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Brown v Board was in 54. King was dead by 68. Buckley didn't lead or even move with the charge he resisted it until the optics got uncomfortable
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