I’m an old school Southern Democrat. I’m Progressive and extremely to the left of modern Democrats. I believe that everyone is entitled to a standard of living and that includes a home and a mode of transportation and a mode of communication and a way to provide for themselves. I hate how the New Southern vision was sabotaged by Reagan and the Republican Party. We could’ve had a more inclusive and diverse South. I’m from the Gulf Coast. When I was growing up the Gulf Coast was the last bastion of Southern Democratic dominance. Republicans have taken over our area and corrupted the minds of our people. Southern Democrats are often seen as a monolith but just like the overall Democratic Party it was a big tent. I believe we can revive the Progressive tradition in the South but it’s going to take effort.
If your definition of “extremely to the left of modern democrats” is identifying as an “old school Southern Democrat” and “reviving progressive tradition in the south” then you really should broaden your horizons.
If your understanding of the Southern Democratic tradition begins and ends with the most reactionary people who ever carried the label, then you might want to broaden your horizons.
“Old-school Southern Democrat” does not mean “segregationist.” The South had populists, labor Democrats, Progressives, anti-monopoly Democrats and fiercely anti-corporate political traditions long before modern American politics collapsed everything into a simplistic left-right spectrum.
If anything, the fact that you apparently can’t imagine a Southern political tradition existing to the left of modern Democrats without calling it fake is exactly why I said people here should broaden their horizons.
The term “Old-School Southern Democrat” is so fucking nebulous it could mean literally anything.
I didn’t even say anything about segregation and you immediately felt obligated to explain that it doesn’t mean that. What use is a label when you have to explain your very specific interpretation of it every damn time you use it? Your own damn countryfolk don’t understand what you mean!
Also I didn’t say anything about you being fake. I called you narrow minded. There is a difference.
Do not shove words in my mouth that I did not say myself.
The irony here is that you’re accusing me of putting words in your mouth while doing exactly that to me. You took my use of “old-school Southern Democrat,” assigned your own interpretation to it and then proceeded to argue against that interpretation as though I had actually made the claims you attributed to me. That’s projection.
I brought up segregation because your entire argument about Southern Democrats was built around the assumption that the label necessarily implies segregationism. I was explaining the distinction you were refusing to make, not putting words in your mouth.
And calling me “narrow minded” is particularly ironic considering I’m literally arguing against the kind of simplistic, one-size-fits-all interpretation you’re applying to Southern history. I’m acknowledging that there were different types of Southern Democrats, that political realignment happened gradually, that generations behaved differently and that the South’s history can’t be reduced to one explanation. That’s practically the opposite of narrow-mindedness.
You can dislike the label “old-school Southern Democrat,” that’s fine. But if you’re going to criticize it, criticize what I actually mean by it rather than deciding what you think it must mean and then lecturing me about your own interpretation.