[lbo-talk] Why Richard Hofstadter Is Still Worth Reading but Not for the Reasons the Critics Have in Mind

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Oct 17 14:55:33 PDT 2006


On Oct 17, 2006, at 5:12 PM, Seth Ackerman wrote:


> I'm all for challenging the leadership of the SC Democratic Party.
> But what will that achieve unless a new leadership can actually win
> elections there? Probably 90% of SC blacks *already* vote Dem.
> Elections can only be won by convincing a much larger percentages
> of whites to vote Dem too. What's the strategy for that?

Adolph Reed, who's been heavily involved in the Labor Party's effort to get ballot status in SC, says that all the time he's spent there talking to white working class voters emphasized to him why the old planter class wanted to stoke racial tensions, because the content of the downscale whites' politics had a lot in common with black voters. Obviously it's a tall order to get over those racial animosities, but that would have to be the strategy, which is what Fletcher said too.



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