The More Things Change . . .

Once upon a time, before I was born, the regressive wing of American politics was the province of Southern Democrats called Dixiecrats. Now, realignment is complete and the radical right Tea Party delegation in the U.S. Congress, a faction in the Republican, comes about two-thirds from the American South that accounts for about a quarter of the U.S. population (and the Tea Party is not getting any significant share of the black vote despite the fact that the South has a larger black population than any other region in the U.S. by a large margin), while only one hails from the Northeast. It is dominated by the same demographics that used to elect Dixiecrats. They are just as pernicious as they were before they rebranded and changed parties.