With the emergence of right-wing Republican Ronald Reagan in the late 1970s, the white racist resistance to civil rights found another charismatic front man, who -- like Jefferson -- pushed the message of "small government" and "states' rights."
The Reagan era marked a reversal of the strides that America had taken after World War II to open mainstream society to black citizens. But it also signaled a retreat on other federal initiatives, including regulation of Wall Street and other industries.
So, besides worsening the financial standing of many blacks and other minorities, Reaganomics returned to a boom-and-bust economy of an earlier capitalism. The Great American Middle Class, which had emerged with the help of federal laws after World War II, began to shrink, though many whites, especially in the South, stuck with the Republicans because of the party's hostility to helping blacks.
But there was still a national push-and-pull over whether to resume a march toward a more equitable society or to embrace Jim Crow II, a more subtle and sophisticated arrangement for disenfranchising black and brown Americans.
Some political observers believed the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president was a point of no return toward a multi-cultural America. However, instead of heralding a day of greater racial tolerance, Obama's presidency intensified the determination of right-wing whites to do whatever is necessary to make his presidency fail.
That battle appears likely to get even uglier this fall as the House Republican "majority" plots to shut down the federal government and even default on the nation's debt if the African-American president doesn't surrender to their political demands.
Pundits are sure to frame this donnybrook as an ideological fight over the principles of "small government," but behind that will be a replay of the South's historic insistence on maintaining white supremacy.
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