Juneteenth

Adam Serwer, the excellent Atlantic magazine writer, spoke today on WNYC and offered what counts basically as a rosetta stone for American politics--so important on this Juneteenth.

"Race is the historically important political dividing line in American politics. When you have a party that becomes ethnically homogeneous, they begin to see nonwhite constituencies as a threat to their control of the political system. This happens regardless of which party we’re talking about. We’ve seen it happen with the Democratic Party and we’ve seen it happen with the Republican Party. They become more hostile to democracy because they don’t want to share power with people who are unlike them. That’s in contrast to a more diverse party. Having to share power with a diverse constituency that is unlike you breeds a kind of tolerance that is necessary for civic participation and multiracial democracy."

In commenting on the current politics, he added, "Donald Trump is not the cause of prejudice in the Republican Party; he is the manifestation of the fact that the Republican Party has become an almost entirely white, Christian party."