And that was very cool. Until the advent of the Southern Strategy, which, as you well know, was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy But Lincoln would not have been a member of a Republican Party that would have sold its soul to the devil in this manner. In fact, he would probably have switched sides even before the Southern Strategy: When and why did Democrats and Republicans switch platforms? https://www.livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parties-switch-platforms.html Over a century ago, Democrats and Republicans switched platforms, changing their political stances. The Republican and Democratic political parties of the United States didn't always stand for what they do today. The more liberal Democrats and the right-wing Republicans each have a defined set of belief systems, but these were once very different. During the 1860s, Republicans, who dominated northern states, orchestrated an ambitious expansion of federal power, described by the Free Dictionary as "a system of government in which power is divided between a central authority and constituent political units." This helped to fund the transcontinental railroad, the state university system and the settlement of the West by homesteaders, and instating a national currency and protective tariff. The Democrats, who dominated the South, opposed those measures. Indeed, according to the author George McCoy Blackburn ("French Newspaper Opinion on the American Civil War(opens in new tab)," (Greenwood Press, 1997) the French newspaper Presse stated that the Republican Doctrine at this time was "The most Liberal in its goals but the most dictatorial in its means." After the United States triumphed over the Confederate States at the end of the Civil War, and under President Abraham Lincoln, Republicans passed laws that granted protections for Black Americans and advanced social justice (for example the Civil Rights Act of 1866(opens in new tab) though this failed to end slavery). Again Democrats largely opposed these apparent expansions of federal power. Sounds like an alternate universe? Fast forward to 1936. Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt won reelection that year on the strength of the New Deal. This was a set of reforms designed to help remedy the effects of the Great Depression, which the FDR Presidential Library and Museum(opens in new tab) described as: "a severe, world -wide economic disintegration symbolized in the United States by the stock market crash on "Black Thursday," October 24, 1929." The reforms included regulation of financial institutions, the founding of welfare and pension programs, infrastructure development and more. It was these measures that ensured Roosevelt won in a landslide against Republican Alf Landon, who opposed these exercises of federal power. So, sometime between the 1860s and 1936, the (Democratic) party of small government became the party of big government, and the (Republican) party of big government became rhetorically committed to curbing federal power. HOW DID THIS SWITCH HAPPEN? Eric Rauchway(opens in new tab), professor of American history at the University of California(opens in new tab), Davis, pins the transition to the turn of the 20th century, when a highly influential Democrat named William Jennings Bryan (best known for negotiating a number of peace treaties at the end of the First World War, according to the Office of the Historian) blurred party lines by emphasizing the government's role in ensuring social justice through expansions of federal power — traditionally, a Republican stance. But Republicans didn't immediately adopt the opposite position of favoring limited government. "Instead, for a couple of decades, both parties are promising an augmented federal government devoted in various ways to the cause of social justice," Rauchway wrote in an archived 2010 blog post for the Chronicles of Higher Education(opens in new tab). Only gradually did Republican rhetoric drift toward the counterarguments. The party's small-government platform cemented in the 1930s with its heated opposition to Roosevelt’s New Deal. But why did Bryan and other turn-of-the-century Democrats start advocating for big government? BIG GOVERNMENT According to Rauchway, they, like Republicans, were trying to win the West. The admission of new western states to the union in the post-Civil War era created a new voting bloc, and both parties were vying for its attention. Democrats seized upon a way of ingratiating themselves to western voters: Republican federal expansions in the 1860s and 1870s had turned out favorable to big businesses based in the northeast, such as banks, railroads and manufacturers, while small-time farmers like those who had gone west received very little. Both parties tried to exploit the discontent this generated, by promising the general public some of the federal help that had previously gone to the business sector. From this point on, Democrats stuck with this stance — favoring federally funded social programs and benefits — while Republicans were gradually driven to the counterposition of hands-off government. From a business perspective, Rauchway pointed out, the loyalties of the parties did not really switch. "Although the rhetoric and to a degree the policies of the parties do switch places," he wrote, "their core supporters don't — which is to say, the Republicans remain, throughout, the party of bigger businesses; it's just that in the earlier era bigger businesses want bigger government and in the later era they don't." In other words, earlier on, businesses needed things that only a bigger government could provide, such as infrastructure development, a currency and tariffs. Once these things were in place, a small, hands-off government became better for business.
Ya, let's just replace one form of slavery for another..... https://crooksandliars.com/2022/06/john-oliver-explains-why-rent-too-damn John Oliver Explains Why The Rent Is Too Damn High The comedian defines housing in the United States as “the thing that 16-year-old TikTok millionaires can afford, and you can’t.” By Susie Madrak — June 20, 2022 Last night, John Oliver took on a subject near and dear to my heart: The rent is too damn high, and corporate real estate buyers like it that way. Via Rolling Stone: John Oliver began his main story by defining housing in the United States as “the thing that 16-year-old TikTok millionaires can afford, and you can’t.” This week’s episode of Last Week Tonight only got more infuriating from there. More than a third of U.S. households are currently renters, which is a problem for a whole bunch of inequity-related reasons. But as many news stories in the past couple of years have pointed out, being a renter is hard and getting harder — in the past year alone rents have risen 15 percent nationally, 30 percent in mid-sized cities like Nashville and Seattle, and a whopping 50 percent in Austin, which is not a great way to maintain weirdness. Rents were already unaffordable before Covid. Personal finance gurus say that you shouldn’t spend more than 30 percent of your income on rent. But for years in cities all over the country, the average percent of income devoted to rent has been higher than that, and rent continues to rise faster than wages — though to be fair, pretty much everything has been rising faster than wages for decades. New rental housing is being built all the time, but the vast majority of that new housing is relatively expensive. Since 1990, the total number of U.S. rental units has risen by more than 13 million. The total number of very affordable rental units, however, has dropped by almost four million. One result of this bullshit is that landlords are now able to charge more money because there’s too little housing available. Another result is that landlords are increasingly not individuals, but serpentine companies and investors who have seen U.S. rents trending skyward and purchased housing so they can keep jacking those rents even higher, happily bleeding more money out of society’s gradual collapse.
I see. Lincoln would be happy with the Dem Plantation of today and would be a big supporter of the re-segregation and re-racializing of America being spearheaded by Biden and the current race hustlers. OR NOT.
So landlords charging more rent for downtown apartments in Nashville and Seattle where costs are higher is ...... bad? Are you saying businesses should not be able to charge market rates for properties then? rents are inflationary like any other good that you buy and propery values and rents have been rising steadily no matter the economy. If the government wants affordable housing they can subsidize it or provide rent subsidies the same way they bail out wealthy corporations. Blue collar labor has it worse as they need to go to work in person but I think with more nad more white collar jobs being virtual then people will stop paying silly rents in the city and move out to the suburbs.
Rents are rising faster than inflation. Suburbs are not immune to crazy rent hikes, as soon as demand increases in suburbs, rents rise.
The stock of affordable housing is actually decreasing while luxury is increasing, often built on the demolished affordable. The housing stock does not reflect what most people can afford. Corporate landlords need to be abolished as they are price fixing special interest cartels.