Deconstructing Memes: Organized movements have been responsible for the rights people have in the US

In my latest installment of Deconstructing Memes, I dissect a recent meme that presents a very binary narrative about how rights were won in the US. 

The dominant binary used in this meme is the Liberal vs Conservative binary, a binary that is not only over used, but one that in this case misrepresents the list of “wins” included in the meme.

Before I deconstruct the list, it is worth noting that the person whom the meme content is attributed to is Lawrence O’Donnell, who has a show on MSNBC and acted in the TV series, The West Wing, a show that many self-identifying liberal (especially white liberals) celebrated. For me it is instructive that the Liberal vs Conservative binary being used here comes from a white liberal who not only has celebrity status, but class privilege. Arguably, these traits – white, with economic privilege and someone who enjoys celebrity status – are how many people see liberals. For an interesting critique of how working class people see liberals, read the book, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War, by Joe Bageant. 

However, my main critique of this meme has to do with the list of “wins” that are all attributed to liberals. I want to look at each of these claims and to provide a more honest  and often complex set of circumstances around how these “wins” came about.

Liberals got women the right to vote – Women organized for several decades to win the right to vote in the US all across the country, demanding that the US government adopt the 19th Amendment. I have written about this effort here in Grand Rapids, which began in the later part of the 19th Century.

The 19th Amendment in the House of Representatives passed by a vote of 304 to 89. It was a decisive victory, and the split among Democrats and Republicans was staggering. In all, over 200 Republicans voted in favor of the 19th Amendment, while only 102 Democrats voted alongside them. Subsequently, on June 4, 1919, the 19th Amendment passed the Senate by a vote of 56 to 25. Once again, the split among Democrats and Republicans was notable: eighty-two percent of Republicans voted in favor of the amendment while only forty-one percent of their Democrat colleagues concurred.  Equally important is the fact that only white women won the right to vote with the passing of the 19th Amendment.

Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote – Actually, Black organizers were demanding voting rights for decades, often at great risk to themselves. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was adopted by the Johnson Administration primarily because Black people involved in the Civil Rights Movement/Black Freedom Struggle, were demanding voting rights, civil rights and economic rights, plus the Johnson Administration wanted to avoid further social unrest and believed that by giving Black people the right to vote that they would stop or lessen other demands. The Voting Rights Act was only possible because of the tireless efforts of those involved in the Civil Rights Movement/Black Freedom Struggle. See the 3 volumes by Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters, Manning Marable’s book, Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006, and Elizabeth Hinton, America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s. 

Liberals created Social Security, and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty – The FDR administration adopted social security, but it was primarily because the US labor movement was at its peak just after the Great Depression. As Jeremy Brecher notes in his book Strike!, organized labor was engaging in 1,000 strikes per year during the first FDR Administration, with numerous demands around wages, the right to organize, benefits, labor exploitation, even questioning the economic system of Capitalism. It is in this context that the Roosevelt Administration adopted New Deal policies, since workers were on the verge of undermining free market capitalism. Adopting New Deal policies like Social Security was a way to somewhat pacify the militant labor movement, since they were beginning to demand a larger anti-capitalist platform. This history is also well documented in Howard Zinn’s book, A People’s History of the United States. 

Liberals ended segregation – see my response to Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote.

Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act – see my response to Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote.

Liberals passed the Voting Rights Act – see my response to Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote.

Liberals created Medicare – Medicare was adopted in 1965, within the context of the Civil Rights Movement, the labor movement and a growing women’s and anti-war movement that were all calling for an expanded social safety net. In addition, the creation of Medicare also necessitated 70 House Republicans and 13 Senate Republicans who voted to adopt Medicare.

Liberals passed the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act – People like Ralph Nader, his group Public Citizen and the growing environmental movement were the ones who pressured Congress to adopt the Clear Air Act in 1970. The House voted 374 to 1 in favor of the Clean Air Act and the Senate voted 73 – 0 in favor. This was a bi-partisan effort. The same was the case for the Clean Water Act, which saw a vote of 366-11 in the House and 74 – 0 in the Senate. Again, this was due to massive public support and years of grassroots organizing.

The bottom line is that the organized grassroots movements were the real reason for the policy changes in the US during the 20th Century, like all of the ones listed in this meme. Claiming that liberals were the ones who made it happen is not only inaccurate, it erases the history of a very diverse group(s) of people that organized around these issues, which included socialists, communists, and anarchists, along with people who identified as liberals and conservatives. Learning this history can help as be free from the liberal/conservative binaries that limit our imagination and feeds into the Red/Blue political bullshit.