"Great ode! It's too bad that the Dixiecrats couldn't tolerate a ‘black' man being President. Let's just hope that what goes around comes around and that Trump is soon replaced by an articulate president who considers all legitimate views."
Comment to Charles M. Blow, "Ode to Obama", New York Times, 2017-01-11
What I didn’t explain to younger readers was that Dixiecrats were Southern politicians who were in the Democratic Party because that was not the party of Lincoln. They hobbled the Democrats on many issues. Then Richard Nixon played his Southern Strategy and its been into the swamp for Republicans ever since.
I thought the last sitting great Republican was Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. But alas, she is far from being an independent thinker.
See “Susan Collins Just Disgraced Herself at Jess Sessions’s Confirmation Hearing: The senator proved once and for all that she’s no moderate.”
- John Nichols, The Nation, 2017-01-10
