Liveblogging World War II: March 17, 1943
Andrew Gelman Attempts to Preach to the Econometricians

Yes, CPAC Speakers Think the Big Problem with the Democrats Is That They Loathe Black People. Why Do You Ask?

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Josh Marshall:

When The GOP Told Whitey I Aint Gonna Take It No More: Yesterday, a CPAC breakout session on reaching out to black voters broke down in shouting and acrimony as a handful of ‘disenfranchised whites’ attacked the premise of the session (along with black complaints about slaveholders), got into a verbal fight with a black female attendee and with all that managed to unite the crowd against the black woman as the one who somehow spoiled all the fun…. [T]he whole imbroglio ended with denunciations of the black woman who was the one person to go into freak out mode — pretty understandably — on hearing the merits of chattel slavery being argued in the 21st century at a panel on racial tolerance and outreach. (And I’m using ‘freak out mode’ here in the most positive sense.) And that, I think, goes to the heart of the enterprise, this panel, itself…. The panel (“Trump The Race Card: Are You Sick And Tired Of Being Called A Racist When You Know You’re Not One?”) was run by an African-American man named K. Carl Smith (founder of something called “Frederick Douglass Republicans”) whose schtick is to rant against Democrats as the party of the Confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan… preaching/ranting to a crowd of Republicans (an almost entirely lilly white party) against the racism, softness on paramilitary violence and Confederacy-love of the Democratic party (roughly half of which is made up of non-whites). There’s just too much denial, bad faith and comedy there under high pressure for the center to hold. And you can’t tempt the gods of farce on such an epic scale and not have a blow up.

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