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"When he signed the act he was euphoric, but late that very night I found him in a melancholy mood as he lay in bed reading the bulldog edition of the Washingto
by every 5y ago
"When he signed the act he was euphoric, but late that very night I found him in a melancholy mood as he lay in bed reading the bulldog edition of the Washington Post with headlines celebrating the day. I asked him what was
troubling him. 'I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come,' he said."
-- Bill Moyers in his book Moyers on America on LBJ following the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill...
- HideousKojima 5y agoSo long as we're posting second-hand quotes attributed to LBJ, here's one from Ronald Kessler: "These Ne**es, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference... I'll have them ni**rs voting Democratic for the next two hundred years."
- paulmd 5y agocasual slurs aside, bettering the lives of your constituents is what politicians are supposed to do, why is that supposed to be some giant gotcha? Not just you, but in general, that is an underlying frame that many people routinely adopt - that making their constituents lives better is a dirty act designed to swing elections. God forbid people have an option to vote for someone who makes their lives better. Like: literally yes, please, actually do something that will make me want to vote for you for a generation. Unironically. I'm 100% serious. That's what you're supposed to be doing. And yeah, sure, politicians dole it out slowly so they don't have to do too much, that's not really a revelation either.