Customer Reviews

Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past

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Bruce Barlett states that his investigation of race found that virtually all of the virulent racists were Democratics. This countered the legend of them being the paragons of race. He succeeds in backing his view.
The book starts with Jefferson and ends at the present time. He provides a fair assessment of individuals and provides the notes to back up his assessment.
His section on Woodrow Wilson was eye opening. Definitely tarnishes the image of this former president.
He also explodes the the myths of FDR and JFK. Mostly flash and no action.
I find his explanation of the Southern Strategy plausible. There are many factors to former Democrats becoming Republicans and saying it is purely racial is a sign of obtuse thinking.
The book provides a good review of the racial policies since the founding of this nation. It is a key component to help in our understanding of our nation's history in regards to race.

The book was interesting, I learned much I didn't know. For a student of politics and history, it is always good to have as much information as possible, in order to draw one's own opinions. The information the book presents was certainly new to me, history is an avocation and so I am more informed than a casual reader,nevertheless the book provided me with much new information and food for thought.

This is a great addition to the DVD "American History in Black and White".
All ten parts can be viewed on YOUTUBE.

The book go into greater detail and breaks the wall of lies and silence imposed by the leftists.
The libs/progressives/Dems can not survive this knowledge getting into the minds of the people of color.
If even half of them learned the truth the entire nation would change for the good.

About 50 yrs ago I was a Senate page in IL due to my fathers high 'rank' in the Democratic party.
As the eldest child I was raised to follow him into political power.
Though I thought my dad was amazing I became disgusted with what I saw.
The leftists didn't even try to hide their cynicism and disregard for honor.
BTW - I am not trying to say they were all evil and the Republicans were all good!
But a retarded child could tell the difference if he spent a few days around them.

The libs are still the ones feeding off the people of color.
The so called 'liberal' policies they push for keep the people down.
My father was appointed by the Gov of IL to head up the 'revitalization" of East St Louis for the Dem's.
After months of study he wrote a paper with the help of
the black leadership PROVING how the DEM policies were enslaving the blacks.
He gave copies to every single IL congressman and all the top execs in the IL statehouse.
He said it pretty much ended his political career.
The blacks are nothing but a people to step on and use to gain and keep power to the Dem party.

Expect this book to be ignored and if mentioned lied about and dismissed.
At least one of the previous reviewers lied about this and made comments proving he didn't read it.
I have given Copies of the previously mentioned DVD to everyone who will watch it.
Now I have another tool.

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.

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.

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

"Wrong on Race" is a factual nonpartisan account of the ugly past of the Democratic Party. It is a wonderful asset to my Political Science Library. If one is intensely interested in knowing the truth about world's oldest political party, this book will increase your knowledge.

Great background on how the truth gets hidden by dogma. If you tell a lie long enough, it does become the truth in this country. While that fact is truly pathetic, this book at does it's best to shine a spotlight on what factually happened. Great ammunition to pass around to anyone wants to claim to be a Democrat, and is too lazy to realize what they are saying. While the end arguements are debatable in how wrongs could be righted, it is still a very well written book that should hopefully make anyone who reads it actually think for themselves for once.

This is an outstanding book that helps you understand how the old Democratic Party of the south morphed into today's Republican Party. The ideology, vitriol, and obstructionism displayed by those on the far right of the political spectrum are not new. Read this book to see for yourself.

Bartlett wrote a fascinating history lesson that is needed. And I'm a liberal independent. Bartlett certainly tries to be reasonably balanced. Heck, he actually supports the principal behind giving reparations to the decendants of slaves - which of course, most conservatves run from.

Yet, Bartlett is disingenuous as he was on C-Span when he tries to underplay the Southern Strategy and how the **modern** day GOP played the race card and enticed many Democrats of the 1960s to switch party affiliations. Remember, many whites were Democrats in the South BECAUSE the GOP was the Party Of Lincoln, The North, and Reconstruction. They disenfranchised blacks and of course went Democratic out of spite.

Not coincidently, after LBJ signed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, blacks got the vote in the South, whites switched in droves to the GOP, as did the Strom Thurmonds, Jesse Helms, Trent Lotts, and other segregationists. Look, if you took the Boston Red Sox, put them in Yankee uniforms and still had them play in Fenway, do they become the Yankees (pun not intended)? Change the label, the contents remained the same.

To ignore or downplay this by saying, "Well whites switched to vote their economic interests..." flies in the face of common sense and history. As Bob Herbert said, it is like some historians trying to claim that the Civil War wasn't really about slavery at all.

In spite of this, the book has value as a historical guide. Many black people do not (in spite of what some white people would have you believe) have a naive view of Democrats - past and present. This pulls back the curtain on them.