Re: James Buckley’s response to my letter (Voices, Oct. 31).
Mr. Buckley is so predictable. There was no doubt he would bring up Sen. Robert Byrd’s membership in the Ku Klux Klan (in the 1940s). Although Sen. Byrd of West Virginia was a Democrat, my letter specifically refers to “today’s” Democratic Party as having no connection to the Klan itself.
On the other hand, real estate developer Donald Trump would not rent to blacks. He was sued and settled out of court. He has referred to the continent of Africa as a collection of “s—hole countries.” He refused to accept the legitimacy of our first black president. Donald Trump is a racist. This does not make everyone in the GOP racist.
Regarding the seismic political shift that occurred in reaction to the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Most voters in Southern states abandoned the Democratic Party soon after this transformative law was passed and signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
In the presidential election of that year, Republican candidate Barry Goldwater carried only Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and his home state of Arizona. The GOP’s euphemistically labeled “Southern Strategy”, pandering to racist voters in the Old Confederacy, was then conceived and has flourished ever since.
Yet, Mr. Buckley asserts, “Oh, and Republicans still revere the memory of former President Abraham Lincoln.”
Good one! In recent decades, the GOP has used the filibuster, almost exclusively, to block civil rights and voting rights legislation. This is their faux tribute to Lincoln, and it can hardly be called reverent.
Mr. Buckley complains about “mass mail-in balloting (as if more voters exercising their franchise is a bad thing), unsupervised drop boxes (allegedly stuffed with fraudulent ballots), and unrestrained ballot harvesting.” He refers to “an invitation” to fraud. This is quite different from actual evidence of fraud. If he had any such evidence, why didn’t he bring it to court?
He could have formed the ultimate legal “Dream Team” with Rudy Giuliani and added yet another loss to loser Donald Trump’s column. What this has to do with “chaos on our southern border” is a mystery. Apparently, for some, the use of this phrase is obligatory even when irrelevant.
As to Mr. Buckley’s claim that his arguments are not frivolous and without merit, the decisions in more than 60 court cases and the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court would not even hear those arguments, indicate otherwise.
Robert Baruch
Yeosu, South Korea
(formerly of Goleta)
