Triumphs of TLA

I don't think this is just another swing to the right ala W or Reagan, I think this is something much different than the semi regular swing of the dem/rep pendulum, and it is in the electorate as well as the elected.  I refer to the Trumpists who are certainly something new, and to the conservatives who are more than happy to ride this tiger because they think he will advance their agenda, and if he bends the rule of law a bit, well no biggie.

I'm speaking of economic inequality conditions in the US and if you have any doubts just hop on the google machine.


Nowadays if you say every adult should be able to vote and that a person should be able to live wherever they can pay the rent and have a chance at a job they are qualified for, pretty much everybody outside of the alt right will agree with you, but it wasn't that way in our childhood.  Before Old Dog joined The Institute Beagles and I had a long conversation about the time MLK dropped into Gage Park.  There was a book cowritten by a former pastor of Elsdon Methodist that we both sent away for and read and discussed.  A quick survey of my bookcase does not reveal it, I wonder if Beagles remembers the title. 

Anyway on the one hand there were really no laws in Chicago against Blacks being able to live and work wherever they chose, on the other hand most whites were against them and would not rent their properties or consider hiring them. 

Meanwhile in the south technically Blacks were free to vote since the civil war, but all kinds of impediments were put in their path so that they could not in fact do that, and there was nothing on the books where anybody could do anything about it.  Not until LBJ, who passed the laws that enabled the National Guard to come in and enforce the right to vote and to attend schools etc at the point of the bayonet.

This wasn't popular in the south, and MLK wasn't popular with white folks in Chicago, and things are still not all hunky dory with racial equality, but they are much better than they were.  Both triumphs of TLA. 

And women, they had the right to vote and all, but they had a hard time getting into schools and getting good jobs because men who ran things didn't think they were smart enough or that they should stay home and take care of the kids and not take the job of some man who needed to support his wife and kids.  The ERA failed, but now half our collegiates are women and they are getting pretty good jobs.  Another triumph of TLA.

It used to be illegal for gays to even have sex and now they are proudly walking down the aisle and eating of the cake with two grooms or two brides.  Another triumph of TLA.

There was that economic inequality thing,we weren't doing so well there.  Well it's a tough one, maybe we would get to it in the future and look here in 2008 we elected the first Black president.  Was that a triumph or what?  The people, a majority of Americans had voted Democrat for the first Black president, was that not a sure sign that the TLA was about  to fix things for once and for all?

It turns out it wasn't.  Next post, what went wrong.