What in the world is wrong with the Americans and why is their 2020 election in a mess. Prof Tommy Koh recently blogged in the Centre For International Law website to share his views and his understanding of the country.
I have great respect for the professor but I disagree with several of his viewpoints. This blog is a contrarian view of some things he mentioned as well as some things which he omitted but which can provide a better understanding. I realise I am pitting my mediocre academic background against an esteemed personality but I hope to demonstrate that if we are to develop as an open and mature society, we must be dauntless in exercising critical thinking and not be spoon-fed ideas and views. I shall quote a lot from his article.
Koh : "... the 2020 elections ... have been won by President-elect Joe Biden ... Trump has not conceded defeat ... <Trump> intends to challenge the results in the courts"
Writing on Nov 11, the status of electoral votes from states counted are 232-227 in Trump's favour with 6 states still in play, The 270+ number is an outright liberal media concoction. The logic that Trump should concede defeat at this point is beyond ridiculous. Trump is also not challenging the results in the courts, there being no results yet in the first place. What the Trump Team is pursuing is to bring cases of vote irregularities to court. It is an entirely different matter. The unbelievably biased media, aided by big tech, is actively rushing for a Biden win by conditioning the narrative that Trump has lost. They pursue the tactic of rushing by influencing the public and world leaders to recognise Biden, hoping to bear pressure down on Trump to concede. It's surprising that Koh does not see it this way. Because the eventuality of a Trump win will be total embarassment.
Blue States <Democrats> and Red States <Republicans>
Koh : "... the 3 states on the west coast and the 10 states on the northeast coast, are blue states. The reason is probably that the people on the two coasts are better educated, more cosmopolitan and liberal. This is why most of them voted for the Democratic Party.".
Indeed Koh is right. But why do they vote for Democrats? It's because the Dems stand on a liberal platform. But why are better educated people liberals? The reason is academia. This is one of the pillars of society that has been captured by liberal-minded community. In the last 70 years they have ingrained themselves deep in universities. Academia is the faucet from which has flowed a generation of educated Americans indoctrinated in liberal thoughts.
US today is divided along some fault lines, a major one is political philosophy. In the past few decades, the country has seen a tectonic shift to the Left. This strikes at the core of what is happening in the US. I thought Koh should have discussed this point, but since he has not, let me try to unpack this.
America was founded on Puritanism and people who led their lives guided by moral codes of the Book are called conservatives. Liberals are people who reject dogma and want a progressive way of life with values changing to the needs of the times. Decades ago, the country was predominately conservative, with some Liberals and others in between (such as Libertarians, Anarchists, etc). The percentages have shifted and today, there is about 30% Conservatives and 30% Liberals. All political science and psychology students know that with percentages like this, all hell will break loose.
How then has Liberals proliferated. The 4 pillars that nurture the social fabric have been captured by liberal-leaning groups. The academia faucet as mentioned earlier is one. Entertaiment industry is another. Their works condition the minds by nuancing the products consumed vociferously by the public. Is it a wonder to see celebrities like Robert de Niro and his ant-Trump rants? Is it a wonder to see pop icons going into Satanic gears and profanities to rant in the face of dogma? The third pillar is the media which today includes big tech corporations. They push the Biden narrative, casting aside professionalism and breaking laws in the process. The last pillar is the judiciary whose capture facilitates the passing of socialist legislation. Before Trump, the scale in the Supreme Court was 5 Liberal justices and 4 Constitutionalists. Republicans tend to appoint constitutionalists, Democrats appoint Liberals. Is it a wonder the nomination of Kavannagh and Amy Barrett were resisted by the Democrats with such vehemence?
Why this has happened is a very much bigger picture story that I cannot incorporate here. In brief, it is the infiltration of communists who has been slowing building from the ground up for decades. Communism never went away with McCarthyism during the Red Scare after WWII. Don't believe in such a thing? Just take a look at AOC's Republican Accountability Project. It is the starter in a Pol Pot menu. The Extreme Left has taken over the Democratic Party. Biden is riding on the back of an Extreme Left tiger that he cannot get off if he enters the White House.
At its core, Liberals attach greater importance to equality and social/community responsibility. They are socialists. As liberal influence and power grow, intolerance follow. In campus, an undergrad seen with a Bible is likely to get ostracised. Visiting speakers are not welcome if the topic is conservative. If they do get the permit, they are heckled by liberal groups, often in the most vulgar manner. You can't greet someone Merry X'mas. Cops can't put any religious labels in their vehicles. If you wear a MAGA cap in a plane, you may get thrown out.
As religious dogma is cast aside, liberal dogma fills the vacuum. There has been a societal value change to progressive thoughts in US. Thus a huge segment of Americans are now skewed toward liberal idealism like gay marriages, multi-culturalism, pro-abortion, etc. A whole new liberal generation has grown up, many occupying power positions in industry, commerce and in government.
Republican philosophy leans more towards individual freedoms, rights and responsibilities. They fall back on the platform values of the founding generation with ideas like patriotism, sacrifice, moral stoicism, hard work. Conservatives tend to to be more religious and supporters of Republican Party.
Why is this difference of ideology so divisive?. Liberals are socialists of various scales. On the extreme Left are communists in sheep skin. Liberals see religion as enemy number one. Just as communist Russia and China saw the Roman Catholic Church. When Liberal numbers were small, the Dems were able to sit down and negotiate with GOP. As the number and strength grew, the scale tips to the extreme Left and sheep skins are coming off. This is the pattern of the communists. Liberals now demand power is their right. The battle in 2016 was all about retaining power for the Democrats. Obama took them to a pivotal point where power was almost complete. Remember Hillary's famous quote "Long-held religious dogmas need to change". The Conservatives know what's coming. The Democrats reached the point of almost making the Church powerless and irrelevant and GOP a weakling. No Mitt Romneys or any other Republican could have stood against Clinton in 2016. Then out of the blue came this gregarious and pompous businessmen whom, in the past, all Democrats were happy to take donations from, and media and celebrities sucked up to him for some star dust. Trump is the bulldozer that no one can stop. The Liberals have never faced a Republican capable of hitting them back so hard since Newt Gingrich. Is it a wonder then of the 4 years of extreme hate they heaped on Trump and the coordinated national effort to assassinate his character.
The 2020 election is about the Liberals wanting to grab power to prevent Trump from dismantling the socialist policies already in place, and the Conservatives seeking to protect and preserve the US Constitution to prevent the country from turning into a communist country. The irony is not lost that the Democrats want to turn all states Blue when they are turning the country Red.
Why is the South Coloured Red?
Koh : "Another striking feature is that most of the states in the south, which were part of the confederacy during the Civil War, are red states. Georgia is the only exception to the rule. Historically, the southern states were blue states. However, when Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, decided to end segregation in the south, and introduced the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, the south felt betrayed by the Democratic Party. As a result, all of them switched their allegiance to the Republican Party. The Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, has forgotten his legacy and become the champion of the white voters."
I think it is disingenius to just glean through this part in the manner Koh did if the journey is one of real discovery. A proper understanding of this will disclose the deceit and moral leanings of the Democrats that has so quickly been forgotten by Americans. This journey of discovery is made very difficult as the mainstream narrative has been completely whitewashed by Liberal academia.
The Dems have a very inconvenient past that they successfully buried by adopting the communist tactic of blaming the other side for their own sins. The Dems is the party of the Ku Klux Klan. They were the racist who lynched the blacks in the south. And here they stand, casting Trump the bigoted racist, the white supremacists.
Koh is right that the southern states were historically blue. The reason is very simple. The southern states were the states of the white plantation owners who owned 4 million black slaves. Before the Civil War, there was no Republican Party and the Democratic Party was the dominant game. The Ku Klux Klan was a vigilante group formed by white plantation owners to control the blacks. Any Dem politician who wanted to get anywhere in the hierarchy had to be a member of the KKK. All slave owners were Democrats and not a single Republican owned a single slave. The US was a Jacksonian Democracy, where suffrage was extended only to whites above 21 years. That is a historical fact why those states were blue and no Dems today want to face that truth.
The Republican Party, also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP), came into being in 1854. The issue of slavery came to the fore around the time. GOP stood for abolishing slavery, the Dems were anti-abolitionists. This led southern Democrats to breakaway to form the Confederacy and the Civil War broke out in 1861. The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1864 which freed the slaves. The war ended in 1865, the south loss. Lincoln advocated for citizenship and voting rights for the blacks and on 11 April 1865, the first Republican President who fought for the rights of the blacks, was assassinated for his cause.
The 15th Amendment was finally passed in 1870 which granted the blacks universal suffrage. In reality, the blacks in the south faced tremendous amount of violent obstacles and few really had a chance to vote. Then followed 100 years of black discrimination which led to black activism, most famous of which were the militant Black Panthers and the pacifist human rights movement of Martin Luther King. During those difficult times, it was the Democrats who passed the cruel Jim Crow laws which enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised the blacks.
It is biased to say "Historically, the southern states were blue states.' without explaining the bigotted and racist policies of the Dems kept the States blue.
Again, there is bias and in fact, a historical error in this view : "... Johnson, decided to end segregation in the south, and introduced the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, the south felt betrayed by the Democratic Party" This statement promotes the Dems as the party of the pure hearts who are anti-racist. Drill into the details, the picture is different. Firstly, it is a known fact, that in private, Lyndon Johnson possessed the kind of bigotry that the Dems now heap on Trump. Secondly, both the Acts passed in Congress and Senate with Republicans voting in substantially higher percentages than Dems. Had Republicans voted in the same percentage as the Dems, those laws would not have passed. Thirdly, George Wallace, an ex-segregationist who ran as an independent on racist sentiments and who managed to retain 5 southern states. Johnson's Acts did'nt cause all southern states to turn red.
Koh: "As a result, all of them switched their allegiance to the Republican Party. The Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, has forgotten his legacy and become the champion of the white voters."
This statement is interesting and majority of people have been fooled by a big deceit, apparently including Koh. It's impossible with voters that "all of them switched". Koh was not referring to black voters, but to something called the Dixiecrats. The story goes that sometime in 1948, a bunch of Dems switched over to the Republican side. This is known as "THE BIG SWITCH". Thus, according to Koh, the GOP of today is the racist party that champions the whites. Liberal historians framed the narrative to show the Dems as the good guys and Republicans the bad ones. The Dems today are not the Dems of the past. The Republicans today are the Dems of the past, ie the white supremacist racist white party. That's what kids are taught in universities. It's a big lie, let me explain.
The factual account is different. In WWII, 2 million blacks fought for the US. Dem Leader Truman had to acknowledge this contribution and proposed equal pay and integration in the military. A group of more than 200 Dems from the south refused to support this legislation. These southern Democrats advocated for racial segregation for their states and they formed a faction. They became known as Dixiecrats. Their plan was to wrest control of the Democratic Party and put Strom Thurmond on the presidential ticket. They failed at the 1948 Democratic National Convention which nominated Truman who went on to become President. Dixiecrats fizzled out. Most went back to the Democratic Party proper. Of the 200+ only Strom Thurmond joined the GOP in 1964. There was no big switch.
This Dixiecrat story highlights 3 important points. (1) It is a great deceit by the Dems to pin the blame of the past on the Republicans. As I mentioned earlier, it is a communist tactic to always blame the opponent for that which you are responsible. (2) The insidious attempt by liberal academics at historical revisionism poisoned many young minds of today. (3) The bigotry of the Dems is still very much alive today.
So indeed, how did the southern states turn red? Nixon was never racist, and he never used white bigotry to win the south. The bigoted ex-Democrat George Wallace won 5 of the states. In 1992 Democrat Bill Clinton won 6 southern states. The Civil Rights Act passed by Johnson did not cause any sudden big switch of southern states to red. The states gradually turned red 30 years after the Civil Rights Act. The reason is the growth of the middle class, and values changed over time.
Koh's characterisation of a flip by the GOP to a bigoted white supremacist party is factually wrong. It is revisionist history that allows the Dems to make a devil out of Trump. This revisionism is so deep that in every debate I watch on internet, the Liberals will make a vehement claim of the Big Switch. This is easily rebuffed by the latest example in the MAGA March Nov 14 in support of Trump which went peacefully until MLM and anti-protestors came out.
Koh has got it wrong factually. (1) The Bible Belt comprises of only the SE quatrant. Territory-wise, Koh only had 50% correct. (2) Pew Research analysis of 2016 election showed only 52% Catholics and 58% Protestants/other Christians voted Trump.
Had Koh said "The Republican Party has weaponised Christianity against the Democratic Party" in a Singapore context, he would have landed up in jail. Not only is it mischevious, the statistics proved him wrong. Koh could have said Democrats' pro-abortion and same-sex marriage policies disenfranchised the Christians. But he took the liberal media line of nuances against Republicans.
According to Koh, the people living in between the east/west coasts tend to be conservatives who likes to go hunting. Thus they carry arms and the Republican Party embraces the NRA to win votes. This is a tourist-eye view. The US is indeed complicated, and to understand the guns issue, one needs to view from 3 perspectives. (1) Americans have a unique DNA. They value individual freedom and their constitutional rights passionately. The 2nd Amendment gives them the right to carry arms to protect themselves. This is not so much about the domestic protection against someone breaking into the house, the way most non-Americans view it. It is about protection against tyranny, the last resort when the government turns against the people. (2) The GOP conservative platform cherishes the same ideal of self-protection by the people enshrined in the 2nd Amendment. That's why they are pro-NRA. (3) The Dems ideology is full government control over everything. Full socialism is communism. Private individuals carrying arms is the last thing they want. That's why Dems are anti-NRA.
I would expand on Koh's question and ask why indeed is the middle blot red and West and North Eastern coast staes blue? There may be various reasons, but one major one would have to be simply a matter of economics.
Koh highlighted several demographic analysis which I don't have a problem with. The black votes require some explanation for a better understanding. After the emancipation of black slaves, it's no surprise all the black votes went to the GOP. This pattern persisted until the 1930s. In the time of the Great Depression, poverty drove blacks to flip massively to the Dems to support Democrat Roosevelt's New Deal programme. After 1965 Dems captured almost 90% of black votes and it has stayed at the level ever since. What sealed the fate for the GOP was Barry Goldwater who was the presidential nominee in 1964. Goldwater's plan to capture the southern states was to placate white votes by advocating for the repeal of Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and relegate race relations to individual state responsibility. This was called the GOP Southern Strategy, in effect a reversal of what Abraham Lincoln had done, and what Koh meant "they had forgotten his legacy". In the end, Democrat Truman won, and Southern Strategy was never pursued by Nixon later on. The GOP has never been able to regain the trust of the blacks to this day.
It is yet another anomaly of the US that blacks today voted 10-1 for the party that lynched them in the past. They rejected the party that emancipated them, and whose majority votes forced Johnson to sign the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
Koh : "... the 2020 elections ... have been won by President-elect Joe Biden ... Trump has not conceded defeat ... <Trump> intends to challenge the results in the courts"
Writing on Nov 11, the status of electoral votes from states counted are 232-227 in Trump's favour with 6 states still in play, The 270+ number is an outright liberal media concoction. The logic that Trump should concede defeat at this point is beyond ridiculous. Trump is also not challenging the results in the courts, there being no results yet in the first place. What the Trump Team is pursuing is to bring cases of vote irregularities to court. It is an entirely different matter. The unbelievably biased media, aided by big tech, is actively rushing for a Biden win by conditioning the narrative that Trump has lost. They pursue the tactic of rushing by influencing the public and world leaders to recognise Biden, hoping to bear pressure down on Trump to concede. It's surprising that Koh does not see it this way. Because the eventuality of a Trump win will be total embarassment.
Blue States <Democrats> and Red States <Republicans>
Koh : "... the 3 states on the west coast and the 10 states on the northeast coast, are blue states. The reason is probably that the people on the two coasts are better educated, more cosmopolitan and liberal. This is why most of them voted for the Democratic Party.".
Indeed Koh is right. But why do they vote for Democrats? It's because the Dems stand on a liberal platform. But why are better educated people liberals? The reason is academia. This is one of the pillars of society that has been captured by liberal-minded community. In the last 70 years they have ingrained themselves deep in universities. Academia is the faucet from which has flowed a generation of educated Americans indoctrinated in liberal thoughts.
US today is divided along some fault lines, a major one is political philosophy. In the past few decades, the country has seen a tectonic shift to the Left. This strikes at the core of what is happening in the US. I thought Koh should have discussed this point, but since he has not, let me try to unpack this.
America was founded on Puritanism and people who led their lives guided by moral codes of the Book are called conservatives. Liberals are people who reject dogma and want a progressive way of life with values changing to the needs of the times. Decades ago, the country was predominately conservative, with some Liberals and others in between (such as Libertarians, Anarchists, etc). The percentages have shifted and today, there is about 30% Conservatives and 30% Liberals. All political science and psychology students know that with percentages like this, all hell will break loose.
How then has Liberals proliferated. The 4 pillars that nurture the social fabric have been captured by liberal-leaning groups. The academia faucet as mentioned earlier is one. Entertaiment industry is another. Their works condition the minds by nuancing the products consumed vociferously by the public. Is it a wonder to see celebrities like Robert de Niro and his ant-Trump rants? Is it a wonder to see pop icons going into Satanic gears and profanities to rant in the face of dogma? The third pillar is the media which today includes big tech corporations. They push the Biden narrative, casting aside professionalism and breaking laws in the process. The last pillar is the judiciary whose capture facilitates the passing of socialist legislation. Before Trump, the scale in the Supreme Court was 5 Liberal justices and 4 Constitutionalists. Republicans tend to appoint constitutionalists, Democrats appoint Liberals. Is it a wonder the nomination of Kavannagh and Amy Barrett were resisted by the Democrats with such vehemence?
Why this has happened is a very much bigger picture story that I cannot incorporate here. In brief, it is the infiltration of communists who has been slowing building from the ground up for decades. Communism never went away with McCarthyism during the Red Scare after WWII. Don't believe in such a thing? Just take a look at AOC's Republican Accountability Project. It is the starter in a Pol Pot menu. The Extreme Left has taken over the Democratic Party. Biden is riding on the back of an Extreme Left tiger that he cannot get off if he enters the White House.
At its core, Liberals attach greater importance to equality and social/community responsibility. They are socialists. As liberal influence and power grow, intolerance follow. In campus, an undergrad seen with a Bible is likely to get ostracised. Visiting speakers are not welcome if the topic is conservative. If they do get the permit, they are heckled by liberal groups, often in the most vulgar manner. You can't greet someone Merry X'mas. Cops can't put any religious labels in their vehicles. If you wear a MAGA cap in a plane, you may get thrown out.
As religious dogma is cast aside, liberal dogma fills the vacuum. There has been a societal value change to progressive thoughts in US. Thus a huge segment of Americans are now skewed toward liberal idealism like gay marriages, multi-culturalism, pro-abortion, etc. A whole new liberal generation has grown up, many occupying power positions in industry, commerce and in government.
Republican philosophy leans more towards individual freedoms, rights and responsibilities. They fall back on the platform values of the founding generation with ideas like patriotism, sacrifice, moral stoicism, hard work. Conservatives tend to to be more religious and supporters of Republican Party.
Why is this difference of ideology so divisive?. Liberals are socialists of various scales. On the extreme Left are communists in sheep skin. Liberals see religion as enemy number one. Just as communist Russia and China saw the Roman Catholic Church. When Liberal numbers were small, the Dems were able to sit down and negotiate with GOP. As the number and strength grew, the scale tips to the extreme Left and sheep skins are coming off. This is the pattern of the communists. Liberals now demand power is their right. The battle in 2016 was all about retaining power for the Democrats. Obama took them to a pivotal point where power was almost complete. Remember Hillary's famous quote "Long-held religious dogmas need to change". The Conservatives know what's coming. The Democrats reached the point of almost making the Church powerless and irrelevant and GOP a weakling. No Mitt Romneys or any other Republican could have stood against Clinton in 2016. Then out of the blue came this gregarious and pompous businessmen whom, in the past, all Democrats were happy to take donations from, and media and celebrities sucked up to him for some star dust. Trump is the bulldozer that no one can stop. The Liberals have never faced a Republican capable of hitting them back so hard since Newt Gingrich. Is it a wonder then of the 4 years of extreme hate they heaped on Trump and the coordinated national effort to assassinate his character.
The 2020 election is about the Liberals wanting to grab power to prevent Trump from dismantling the socialist policies already in place, and the Conservatives seeking to protect and preserve the US Constitution to prevent the country from turning into a communist country. The irony is not lost that the Democrats want to turn all states Blue when they are turning the country Red.
Why is the South Coloured Red?
Koh : "Another striking feature is that most of the states in the south, which were part of the confederacy during the Civil War, are red states. Georgia is the only exception to the rule. Historically, the southern states were blue states. However, when Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, decided to end segregation in the south, and introduced the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, the south felt betrayed by the Democratic Party. As a result, all of them switched their allegiance to the Republican Party. The Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, has forgotten his legacy and become the champion of the white voters."
I think it is disingenius to just glean through this part in the manner Koh did if the journey is one of real discovery. A proper understanding of this will disclose the deceit and moral leanings of the Democrats that has so quickly been forgotten by Americans. This journey of discovery is made very difficult as the mainstream narrative has been completely whitewashed by Liberal academia.
The Dems have a very inconvenient past that they successfully buried by adopting the communist tactic of blaming the other side for their own sins. The Dems is the party of the Ku Klux Klan. They were the racist who lynched the blacks in the south. And here they stand, casting Trump the bigoted racist, the white supremacists.
Koh is right that the southern states were historically blue. The reason is very simple. The southern states were the states of the white plantation owners who owned 4 million black slaves. Before the Civil War, there was no Republican Party and the Democratic Party was the dominant game. The Ku Klux Klan was a vigilante group formed by white plantation owners to control the blacks. Any Dem politician who wanted to get anywhere in the hierarchy had to be a member of the KKK. All slave owners were Democrats and not a single Republican owned a single slave. The US was a Jacksonian Democracy, where suffrage was extended only to whites above 21 years. That is a historical fact why those states were blue and no Dems today want to face that truth.
The Republican Party, also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP), came into being in 1854. The issue of slavery came to the fore around the time. GOP stood for abolishing slavery, the Dems were anti-abolitionists. This led southern Democrats to breakaway to form the Confederacy and the Civil War broke out in 1861. The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1864 which freed the slaves. The war ended in 1865, the south loss. Lincoln advocated for citizenship and voting rights for the blacks and on 11 April 1865, the first Republican President who fought for the rights of the blacks, was assassinated for his cause.
The 15th Amendment was finally passed in 1870 which granted the blacks universal suffrage. In reality, the blacks in the south faced tremendous amount of violent obstacles and few really had a chance to vote. Then followed 100 years of black discrimination which led to black activism, most famous of which were the militant Black Panthers and the pacifist human rights movement of Martin Luther King. During those difficult times, it was the Democrats who passed the cruel Jim Crow laws which enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised the blacks.
It is biased to say "Historically, the southern states were blue states.' without explaining the bigotted and racist policies of the Dems kept the States blue.
Again, there is bias and in fact, a historical error in this view : "... Johnson, decided to end segregation in the south, and introduced the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, the south felt betrayed by the Democratic Party" This statement promotes the Dems as the party of the pure hearts who are anti-racist. Drill into the details, the picture is different. Firstly, it is a known fact, that in private, Lyndon Johnson possessed the kind of bigotry that the Dems now heap on Trump. Secondly, both the Acts passed in Congress and Senate with Republicans voting in substantially higher percentages than Dems. Had Republicans voted in the same percentage as the Dems, those laws would not have passed. Thirdly, George Wallace, an ex-segregationist who ran as an independent on racist sentiments and who managed to retain 5 southern states. Johnson's Acts did'nt cause all southern states to turn red.
Koh: "As a result, all of them switched their allegiance to the Republican Party. The Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, has forgotten his legacy and become the champion of the white voters."
This statement is interesting and majority of people have been fooled by a big deceit, apparently including Koh. It's impossible with voters that "all of them switched". Koh was not referring to black voters, but to something called the Dixiecrats. The story goes that sometime in 1948, a bunch of Dems switched over to the Republican side. This is known as "THE BIG SWITCH". Thus, according to Koh, the GOP of today is the racist party that champions the whites. Liberal historians framed the narrative to show the Dems as the good guys and Republicans the bad ones. The Dems today are not the Dems of the past. The Republicans today are the Dems of the past, ie the white supremacist racist white party. That's what kids are taught in universities. It's a big lie, let me explain.
The factual account is different. In WWII, 2 million blacks fought for the US. Dem Leader Truman had to acknowledge this contribution and proposed equal pay and integration in the military. A group of more than 200 Dems from the south refused to support this legislation. These southern Democrats advocated for racial segregation for their states and they formed a faction. They became known as Dixiecrats. Their plan was to wrest control of the Democratic Party and put Strom Thurmond on the presidential ticket. They failed at the 1948 Democratic National Convention which nominated Truman who went on to become President. Dixiecrats fizzled out. Most went back to the Democratic Party proper. Of the 200+ only Strom Thurmond joined the GOP in 1964. There was no big switch.
This Dixiecrat story highlights 3 important points. (1) It is a great deceit by the Dems to pin the blame of the past on the Republicans. As I mentioned earlier, it is a communist tactic to always blame the opponent for that which you are responsible. (2) The insidious attempt by liberal academics at historical revisionism poisoned many young minds of today. (3) The bigotry of the Dems is still very much alive today.
So indeed, how did the southern states turn red? Nixon was never racist, and he never used white bigotry to win the south. The bigoted ex-Democrat George Wallace won 5 of the states. In 1992 Democrat Bill Clinton won 6 southern states. The Civil Rights Act passed by Johnson did not cause any sudden big switch of southern states to red. The states gradually turned red 30 years after the Civil Rights Act. The reason is the growth of the middle class, and values changed over time.
Koh's characterisation of a flip by the GOP to a bigoted white supremacist party is factually wrong. It is revisionist history that allows the Dems to make a devil out of Trump. This revisionism is so deep that in every debate I watch on internet, the Liberals will make a vehement claim of the Big Switch. This is easily rebuffed by the latest example in the MAGA March Nov 14 in support of Trump which went peacefully until MLM and anti-protestors came out.
Why are most of the states between the two coasts red states?
Koh : "It is also very striking that most of the states between the two coasts are red states? Is there an explanation for the phenomenon? I think there is. The people who live in the middle of the country tend to be more conservative than those living on the two coasts. They also tend to be more religious. Many of the Americans who live in the rural America and in the west, tend to own guns and hunt for recreation. The Republican Party has weaponised Christianity against the Democratic Party. It has also embraced the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby."
Had Koh said "The Republican Party has weaponised Christianity against the Democratic Party" in a Singapore context, he would have landed up in jail. Not only is it mischevious, the statistics proved him wrong. Koh could have said Democrats' pro-abortion and same-sex marriage policies disenfranchised the Christians. But he took the liberal media line of nuances against Republicans.
According to Koh, the people living in between the east/west coasts tend to be conservatives who likes to go hunting. Thus they carry arms and the Republican Party embraces the NRA to win votes. This is a tourist-eye view. The US is indeed complicated, and to understand the guns issue, one needs to view from 3 perspectives. (1) Americans have a unique DNA. They value individual freedom and their constitutional rights passionately. The 2nd Amendment gives them the right to carry arms to protect themselves. This is not so much about the domestic protection against someone breaking into the house, the way most non-Americans view it. It is about protection against tyranny, the last resort when the government turns against the people. (2) The GOP conservative platform cherishes the same ideal of self-protection by the people enshrined in the 2nd Amendment. That's why they are pro-NRA. (3) The Dems ideology is full government control over everything. Full socialism is communism. Private individuals carrying arms is the last thing they want. That's why Dems are anti-NRA.
With the exception of Texas which is red, the blue states are the rich states. This bears a close correlation to the pattern of wealth distribution in the US. It points to the election as a clear cut battle between the rich and the poor.
This then, raises the anomaly of the politics in US. The socialist Democrats are supposed to be the workers' party, but it is the rich state where they are strong. On the other hand, the Republicans are the capitalists, but the poor states are supporting them. How does one get a handle on this?
I see the answer in Liberalism ideology vs pragmatism. As Koh pointed out, there are more liberals in the blue states. Better educated, better jobs, wealthy people in wealthier states. The majority of liberals are young idealists imbued with the notion of social justice (a topic I blogged here). This segment support the socialist platforms of the Dems. To them, it's social justice over economics. But there are also a small and very loud segment of liberals who are business owners and celebrities. Why do they support socialist platforms that will supposedly take away their wealth? The business class do so for selfish reasons. They support the Dems who protect their stranglehold in the industry, as well as the globalist policies. The celebrities are hypocrites. They shout for redistribution, but they are the ones that are sucking in all the monies of the poor.
The voters in the red states go for the practical policies of the Republicans. Pragmatic people are smart enough to see all the socialist policies of the Dems bankrupting the blue cities and states.
White Voters and Black Voters
Koh : "There is also a racial divide in the behaviour of the voters. By a big majority, the black voters voted for Joe Biden."
It is yet another anomaly of the US that blacks today voted 10-1 for the party that lynched them in the past. They rejected the party that emancipated them, and whose majority votes forced Johnson to sign the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
Democrats hold elitist world views. Before the Civil war period, blacks were deemed useless people whose only function is to be used as slaves. After the war, blacks were still useless people who were prevented from voting Republicans and were second class citizens by segregation and repression. Today, the poor, predominantly blacks, are Hillary Clinton's 'basket of deplorables'. Sounds very much like the 'mediocres.' of Singapore. The Left have mastered how to turn blacks into Democrat voters. Simply use socialist policies that hand out just enough to keep the blacks in ghettos and sustain a mendicant community.
Black activism against "Democrat plantation" has trended recently. This is a movement that believes Democrats have failed the blacks. Eighty years supporting the Democrats have seen blacks unable to join mainstrean America. They are stuck in the bottom rung of the social construct in a seemingly hopeless situation with less education and employment opportunities. Democrat policies for 80 years have denied blacks agency, not much different in the days of slavery. It is a new Democrat plantation they are now trapped in.
In the 2020 election, exit polls showed Trump has managed to increase Republican black votes slightly from 13% in 2016 to 18%. Trump administration has put in place programme initiatives that enhance educational and economic opportunities in black communities which has seen hopeful results in the last 4 years.
A divided America
Koh : "Over the past 30 years, America has become more polarized and divided. The paradigm shift probably began with Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican who viewed the Democratic Party as enemy and advocated confrontation over compromise. The relations between the two parties have become toxic and they view each other as the enemy of the people."
Koh set out to search for understanding the complicated US and it is incredible that his answer is in one sentence, down to one single person, Newt Gingrich. Can such complicated problems be attributed to one single personality? .Gingrich indeed pursued an abrasive and confrontational style to break Dems strangle-hold on Congress for 4 decades. Indeed he introduced toxicity between the 2 parties. However, the same impossible political divide in the country, I posit, is caused by the identity politics of the Democrats which has poisoned the whole nation..
Black activism against "Democrat plantation" has trended recently. This is a movement that believes Democrats have failed the blacks. Eighty years supporting the Democrats have seen blacks unable to join mainstrean America. They are stuck in the bottom rung of the social construct in a seemingly hopeless situation with less education and employment opportunities. Democrat policies for 80 years have denied blacks agency, not much different in the days of slavery. It is a new Democrat plantation they are now trapped in.
In the 2020 election, exit polls showed Trump has managed to increase Republican black votes slightly from 13% in 2016 to 18%. Trump administration has put in place programme initiatives that enhance educational and economic opportunities in black communities which has seen hopeful results in the last 4 years.
A divided America
Koh : "Over the past 30 years, America has become more polarized and divided. The paradigm shift probably began with Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican who viewed the Democratic Party as enemy and advocated confrontation over compromise. The relations between the two parties have become toxic and they view each other as the enemy of the people."
Koh set out to search for understanding the complicated US and it is incredible that his answer is in one sentence, down to one single person, Newt Gingrich. Can such complicated problems be attributed to one single personality? .Gingrich indeed pursued an abrasive and confrontational style to break Dems strangle-hold on Congress for 4 decades. Indeed he introduced toxicity between the 2 parties. However, the same impossible political divide in the country, I posit, is caused by the identity politics of the Democrats which has poisoned the whole nation..
Conclusion
Koh : " The Republican Party stood for free trade and the Democratic Party was more protectionist."
In closing, some words on economics to get a sense of US actions in the international scene. I'm not too sure if there was a typo in the Koh statement.
The 2014 and 2020 elections are also battles between globalism vs nationalism. It cannot be anymore clearer than this in the party divide.
The Biden camp is a continuation of globalism, the dominant economic trend for the past few decades. This basically means policies dictated by (1) the subjucation to global policies set by international bodies; (2) outsourcing jobs to countries with cheaper production costs; (3) reliance on foreign sources of energy and commodities.
Republican Trump's inward looking policies revolve around the ideas (1) US exceptionalism - that US is a dominant force and can influence global policies unilaterally; (2) MAGA - that outsourcing was a strategic mistake, and works to return supply chains back to the US; (3) critical resources should be produced locally in the interest of national security.
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