Jim Crow laws overturned but still legal for businesses to discriminate against race

TRH · Jun 12, 2023

Ophois said:
I think Barry Goldwater would be the perfect president for this. He was pro-civil rights but felt that forcing businesses to not discriminate violated his libertarian ideals.

He was considered so radical by 1960s standards as to be unelectable, though. Which does point to the broader issue that I don't really see the political sense in the federal government overturning Jim Crow laws (no chance in hell the states do that on their own) without also barring private actors from discriminating by race. It very obviously wouldn't be solving the problem, so it doesn't really work as a compromise people come to. As an endpoint, it's a victory for the segregationists. As a halfway point, it doesn't make any progress.

Ophois · Jun 12, 2023

TRH said:
He was considered so radical by 1960s standards as to be unelectable, though. Which does point to the broader issue that I don't really see the political sense in the federal government overturning Jim Crow laws (no chance in hell the states do that on their own) without also barring private actors from discriminating by race. It very obviously wouldn't be solving the problem, so it doesn't really work as a compromise people come to. As an endpoint, it's a victory for the segregationists. As a halfway point, it doesn't make any progress.

Yeah, President Goldwater (which is hard on its own) is the only way I see for this to happen.

TRH · Jun 12, 2023

Ophois said:
Yeah, President Goldwater (which is hard on its own) is the only way I see for this to happen.

Even that wouldn't be enough. You'd also need a Congress full of Goldwaterites to make it happen. And although I deplore the use of ASB in political discussions, I'll say it here because there's never been a point in American history where this specific kind of fence-sitting has been popular. Dixiecrats wouldn't go for it. The post-Nixon GOP wouldn't go for it. No significant number of Northern politicians of any stripe would go for it. Pretty much the only kinds of lawmakers who would would be the likes of Ron and Rand Paul.