Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past [Hardcover]

Bruce Bartlett (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 8, 2008 | ISBN-10: 023060062X | ISBN-13: 978-0230600621 | Edition: 1st

In Wrong on Race, Bruce Bartlett sets the record straight on a hidden past that many Democrats would rather see swept under the carpet. Ranging from the founding of the Republic through to today, it rectifies the unfair perceptions of America's two national parties. While Nixon's infamous "Southern Strategy" is constantly referenced in the media, less well remembered are Woodrow Wilson's segregation of the entire Federal civil service; FDR's appointment of a member of the KKK to the Supreme Court; John F. Kennedy's apathy towards civil rights legislation;  and the ascension of Robert Byrd, who is current President pro tempore of the Senate, third in line in the presidential line of succession, and a former member of the KKK.
For the last seventy years, African Americans have voted en masse for one party, with little in the end to show for it. Is it time for the pendulum to swing the other way? With the Republican Party furiously engaged in pre-2008 soul searching, this exhaustively researched, incisively written exposé will be an important and compelling component of that debate as we head towards November.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bruce Bartlett brandishes a damning history of the Democratic Party, which for 100 years after the Civil War provided a fertile ground for Jim Crow and white supremacy. Democrats have long acted behind an ethos of racial equality, yet, as Bartlett powerfully illustrates, the reality of their patchy record over the last two centuries in fact lends little credibility to that claim. Compelling and incisive."--Grover G. Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform

"Wrong on Race is an important contribution to the study of party politics in America. Bartlett offers a thorough, well documented account of the racial roots of the Democratic party. This book should be a required reading for African-Americans of all ages, and especially for the nation's youth."--Carol Swain, Professor of Political Science and Law, Vanderbilt University, and editor of Debating Immigration

"Wrong on Race powerfully recapitulates a twentieth century journey into racial pettifogging and outright confusion, and in doing so shines a light as clear as the meridian sun on the realities of racial politics…Bruce Bartlett has done what no one before him has done, and it is all the more remarkable, therefore, to say that it will probably never be better done."--Professor William B. Allen, Michigan State University; and former chairman, U.S. Civil Rights Commission

"The Democratic party is widely credited, not least by black writers, as the party that has done the most for civil rights. Yet for most of its history it has been the other way around. As Bruce Bartlett points out in Wrong on Race, Democratic icons like Woodrow Wilson worked to impose segregation on blacks, and even Franklin Roosevelt did little for equal rights."--Michael Barone, syndicated columnist, co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, and author of Our First Revolution

Praise for Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the American Legacy:

"It's a fairly devastating indictment of the current administration's economic policies from a conservative-to-libertarian perspective."--Chris Suellentrop, The Washington Post
"Liberal commentators gripe so frequently about the current administration that it's become easy to tune them out, but when Bartlett, a former member of the Reagan White House, says George W. Bush has betrayed the conservative movement, his conservative credentials command attention."

--Publishers Weekly
"Bruce Bartlett is no impostor. He's the real thing--a reality-based conservative who searches for supportable truths and then speaks them loudly and clearly."

--Ron Suskind, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Price of Loyalty
"Bruce Bartlett has long been one of Washington's most searching, thoughtful, and uncompromisingly candid analysts. That's a view shared not only by those who agree with him, but also by people like me, who differ with him about 80 percent of the time. This book is a perfect reflection of Bruce's gifts: he cares far more about being honest and consistent than about following anyone's party line."

--E. J. Dionne Jr., author of Stand Up Fight Back and Why Americans Hate Politics

About the Author

Bruce Bartlett has had a nationally syndicated newspaper column for the last ten years, and has written for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The National Review, and Fortune. He was a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and a treasury official under President George H.W. Bush.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st edition (January 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 023060062X
• ISBN-13: 978-0230600621
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 1 x 9.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,047,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bruce Bartlett is a columnist for The Fiscal Times, an online newspaper covering public and personal finance, and Tax Notes, a weekly magazine for tax practitioners and policymakers. He also contributes a weekly post to the Economix blog at the New York Times, and writes regularly for the Financial Times. Bartlett was previously a columnist for Forbes magazine and Creators Syndicate. His writing often focuses on the intersection between politics and economics and attempts to inform politicians about economics, and economists about the current nature of politics.

Bartlett's work is informed by many years in government, including service on the staffs of Congressmen Ron Paul and Jack Kemp and Senator Roger Jepsen, as executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House, and deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department during the George H.W. Bush administration.

Bruce is the author of eight books including the New York Times best-seller, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (Doubleday, 2006). His last book was The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). His new book, The Benefit and the Burden, will be published by Simon and Schuster in 2012 and is a history and review of issues related to tax reform.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Real Eye Opener March 25, 2008

By dwood78

Format:Hardcover

Prior to writing this review, I went to the web sites of both the Democratic Party & the GOP to check their records on civil rights & women suffrage. Here's what I found:

The GOP's history page talks about its founding to oppose slavery & the passing of a number of civil rights bills, & its later support for women suffrage.

The Democratic history page (which is older then the GOP) only talks about civil rights & women rights cica post-1960.

This in itself is an eye opening. This books exposes the ugly racism in the Democrat Party's past. Starting with Thomas Jefferson personal views on people of color to President Jackson defying the US Supreme Court in order to force Native Americans to move West (the Trail of Tears).

Even 20th century Democratic heros had a failing grade on these issues. From the overrated Wilson (who in my book is a true racism who barred Blacks from coming to Princeton University while he was President there. Despite the fact that other Ivy League schools were opening their doors to people of color.), to FDR who appointed a klanman to the US Supreme Court & did little to help people of color. (In fact it took A. Philip Randolph who will planning a march on Washington in 1941 to force FDR to sign Executive Order 8802, barring racial discrimination in the national defense industry.) And let's not talk about him forcing Japanese Americans into internment camps...

Truman faired better, but I shocked to find out that he wanted to join the klan. He was denied because he wasn't willing to not hire Catholics. Nonetheless, he as President desegregated the armed forces & was willing to take political risk in backing civil rights. Thus causing Strom Thurmond (who a Democrat then) to ran on State's Rights on a 3rd. party.

In truth, the party never really supported civil rights until they saw the writing on the wall, that most Whites want to see Blacks get fair treatment under the law. Sadly, most Black Americans don't know this & still vote 90%+ for a party that never really were looking out for them. Even today, on issues like school choice, tradition marriage, & immigration, the party's of the opposing side of what most Blacks believe.
Also, when it's known that a Republican gets support from White Nationalist groups like 9 years ago when some were members of the Council of Conservative Citizens, it made national news while racist views by Dems (Black & Whites) are underplayed a la Obama's former pastor.

Personally, I'm not in either party, but this is a great read on the Democratic Party's buried past.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Democrat Racism October 7, 2008

By Manuel H. Rodriguez

Format:Hardcover

Wrong on Race is a long-needed history of the Democrat party and its views on race. From the era of slave owners and party founders Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, to the 1960's, Democrats were the party of black oppression. The Republican Lincoln freed the slaves and his party's Reconstruction did the almost impossible in the racist South to give blacks vote and other civil rights over the fierce objections of white racist Democrats. When the Union army left the South, Democrats began their counter-attack by instituting the era of Jim Crow and black subjugation. Lynching was the Democrat way of enforcing their rule. Historian Eric Foner labels the KKK "the military force of the Democratic Party." FDR's New Deal depended on the Solid South and its racist Democrats to enact its legislation and racists like George Wallace, Richard Russell, Bull Connor, Orville Faubus and many others did their worst to keep blacks in their place. Democrats maintained power for decades with the help of white racism and today with 95% of the black vote, they continue to vie for power. Without that 95% vote Democrats would never win a national election.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Wrong on Race" Very Revealing June 15, 2008

By Dennis T. Figiel

Format:Hardcover

I found the book to be an excellent read. Up until the mid-1960's, the Democratic Party was the party of slavery and segregation. One Democratic politician in the late 19th century referred to the Democratic Party as the "white people's party" and the Republican Party as the party of "equality." He meant it as a derogatory remark against the Republicans.

Frankly, I had to stop reading this book at night because it made me so angry that I had a hard time falling asleep. Bartlett hit a "home run" with this book. It is quite an "eye opener."

Dennis Figiel