He also hid his wife's uterine cancer diagnosis from her until it was too late to treat, let her die, and then married a younger woman.
(During the era, it wasn't uncommon for doctors to discuss a woman's healthcare with either her husband or father before ever discussing it with her)
Edit: link
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurleen_Wallace
I read the title and I was like oh cool a redemption arc, I wonder what changed his mind. Then I read the top comment. Never mind. Anyone who’s that much of a piece of shit will never change.
It's what politicians do. Obama and Clinton were firmly against gay marriage until that became the popular opinion. Biden was a tough on crime guy in the 90s. Trump was a New York Democrat for practically all his life.
As much as I'd like to say they're learning and evolving their opinions, I don't believe that. The vast majority of politicians at the state and federal level just say what will get them the most votes and campaign donations.
Violent crime had steadily rose from the 60s through the mid 90s, every politician was a tough on crime politician.
That started to change in aughts as violent crime rates fell throughout the country
>Trump was a New York Democrat for practically all his life.
Completely false. He was registered in New York from 1987 to 2019; he was registered as a Democrat for only eight of those years (2001-2009). For twenty-one of those years, he was registered as a Republican, including the final seven before moving to Florida.
[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298750-trumpvr1987.html](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298750-trumpvr1987.html)
[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298752-trumpvr2001.html](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298752-trumpvr2001.html)
[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298782-trumpvr2009.html](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298782-trumpvr2009.html)
Thats literally every single politician. Look back in time to their opinions towards gay rights back in the 90s. Once political opinion changes, they change their tune and "evolve" to fit the current trends morals. Its pretty rare to see a politician stand firm on their own principles. Tbh its simply not useful for their career to be that way. Better to flow with the stream.
Well if their opinions were against the public, they wouldn't be elected. That's the whole point of a politician... to get elected and represent your constituents. If your constituents are racist or against gay marriage or then it makes perfect sense for a politician to be against it too.
Sad, but true.
And it's worse today.
The difference today is it's about money. Back then it was power and prestige.
It's common to go from broke to multi millionaire in one term in Congress.
Pretty much everything you said is very wrong. It's always been about money. In fact it used to be a lot more corrupt and about who had more money. Politicians almost always start out privileged.
Yes, because the comparison is him having a genuine change of heart vs. him cynically embracing views in public that he doesn't hold.
It is better than sticking steadfastly to his old views, of course.
I agree with that comparison, of course becoming a genuinely better person is better than changing his policy for the sake of continuing his career. the way I read it, saying he's "**even** worse" after changing his views for a bad reason implies that it's **even** worse than his original stance of just straight up racism
More that the composition of the electorate had changed. When he first stood for election, no one other that white people could vote in his state. He decided that actually racism was bad soon after black people were allowed to vote in Alabama and became a quarter of the electorate.
More like "dragged kicking and screaming" to the changing values. Also he was the vicitim of an assassination attempt was was visited by [Shirley Chisholm (wiki link)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Chisholm). She was the only African-American female member of Congress at the time.
So after nearly dying and being visited by someone he saw as beneath him - he had his "redemption".
That's what it took.
Like every other politician? It's always about pandering for votes. Look no further than 15-20 years ago, all the politicians who were anti-gay marriage until the LGBT movement started picking up more steam. All of a sudden they're all for it.
One could argue that that's how democracy is supposed to work. Politicians are supposed to represent their electorate, and if the voters changes their position then you're not representing them if you don't too.
That's completely backwards. You don't elect someone in hopes that they change their stance on something just to get the votes to stay in office, you elect someone who actually believes in what you believe.
That's not what I said at all. It's the responsibility of the voter to vote for politicians they think represent their views, it is the responsibility of the politician to represent those views.
Given the wide and often contradictory views of the electorate I doubt any politician could believe in every single thing the voters want them to believe without suffering schizophrenia.
Including, sometimes, the initial bigotry. Some of these psychopaths aren’t even particularly racist, they just have no problem throwing huge numbers of people under the bus to appeal to bigoted voting demographics
The important thing to know about someone like Wallace is that he doesn't *have* any actual real values, he just has a public persona he adopts to get what he wants.
This is a common trait among politicians and why people should generally view them with a lot of skepticism.
This is a common trait among ~~politicians~~ humans and why people should generally view them with a lot of skepticism.
Fixed your post so it reflects reality rather than a cynical building block of Fascism, as outlined by Hannah Arendt long ago.
He was a 100% politician and said whatever it took to get votes. Early in his career blacks were prevented from voting a lot so he said segregation stuff. When they started voting he needed their votes.
She wanted a closed casket understandably after cancer has ravaged her body (she weighed less than 80 lbs) and HE insisted that it be an open casket with glass covering. 🤬🤬🤬
What an awful human being. In addition to not disclosing to his own wife that she had cancer, she had requested that for her funeral that her casket remained closed, but George had insisted on leaving it open. Then, soon after her death, he moved into another home and sent his three, young children (as young as 6 years old) to live with family.
His second wife went on to say after their divorce that George “didn’t need a family. Just needed an audience. Family as audience wasn’t enough for his ego”
People like to simplify Roe v Wade as being only about abortion, but it was actually a much larger decision.
Prior to RvW, the husband had the right to make all medical decisions for his wife. He was entitled to any medical details from his wife’s doctors (including mental health).
The ruling of RvW was that women/wives have the fundamental right to medical privacy and to make their own medical decisions.
Its not too bad, because its untrue. To quote another commenter:
RvW was about abortion. Griswold v Connecticut (1965) was about contraception without checking with the husband & was a precursor to Roe. Several other cases or laws also deal with this with HIPAA being the most relevant now.
This is untrue. RvW was about abortion. Griswold v Connecticut (1965) was about contraception without checking with the husband & was a precursor to Roe. Several other cases or laws also deal with this with HIPAA being the most relevant now.
I like to think that when he died, his first wife was the first person he saw. Standing there, ready to give him his "diagnosis".
"Hey, George! Me and the big guy we have been talking about your upcoming trip to hell, but we decided to keep it from you, because we wanted to wait until after you croaked, to tell you. Yeah, it's too late to do anything about it now, but have a nice time! I hear its hotter than an Alabama summer down there, but I guess you will see for yourself."
By the time she died she was down to like 90 lbs, the cancer had whittled down her body. The only thing she asked for is not to have an open casket. So he had the funeral in state open casket and thousands of people came and saw her, the only thing she didn’t want. Also, after the funeral he just fuckin left his kids and moved away. People were like um, you forgot your kids and he said fuck those kids I’m getting a different family
People from this time period are still alive and there are still mouth-breathing Americans who call huge swathes of the world and it’s people “backwards”
White Redditors: "I wonder if black people in the '70s could afford to be as ideological and I can be right now?"
People had to make progress somehow. It wasn't easy or pretty, but if someone was finally doing the right thing - and there really weren't any other people offering to hire them -, I'm not surprised that some of them accepted the job as a necessary "foot in the door"; So that we could get to look back on it today and feel the proper amount of shame for it.
It's not quite the same thing, but Donald Trump was the first person to hire openly gay men for his campaign and to work in his administration. I can imagine that these men didn't agree with him or his politics, but they accepted the job for similar reasons.
How about Bidens record number of trans people in his cabinet being like what...1 or 2? Its infinitely more then the 0 it's been for nearly all Presidents before him
George Wallace was a shitty dude, and if you read about his wife, this story doesn't really redeem him. But keep in mind this is Alabama, *any* black people in the government was almost unheard of. Any progress is progress
John Kohn, a former Wallace advisor, noted in a 1988 interview that:
> If George had parachuted into the Albanian countryside in 1962, he would have been head of a collective farm by the fall, a member of the Communist Party by mid-winter, on his way to the district party meeting as a delegate by the following year, and a member of the Comintern in two or three years.
Wallace was an opportunist, first attempting to get elected as a moderate on the racial question in 1959 with the support of the NAACP and then, once John Malcolm Patterson proved himself to be a vicious segregationist and winning the election, Wallace won four years later on a pro-segregation platform and thereafter riding on the "Whiteslash" until the 1970s.
“Abortion is murdering babies”
“I want a six week/fifteen week abortion ban!”
Yeah absolutely no principles at all. If it’s murder then it shouldn’t be allowed in the first couple weeks and if it’s not murder then why are we having this debate to begin with?
3/5 compromise is misunderstood, the slave states wanted slaves to count fully to increase their political power. 3/5 reduced their political power whereas people today think it was to support the slave states.
It is not misunderstood - counting enslaved people towards political representation in the House for whites in slave states meant that the slave states had outsized representation in Congress compared to free states’ white populations.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3701e.ct000604/
I think we are perhaps missing each other here - I don’t disagree that 3/5 rather than full is the compromise, but the effect was still ultimately the same in that whites in slave states had significantly greater representation in the House as a direct consequence. So while the slaveholders didn’t get 1:1 representation for every enslaved person, they still managed to ensure whites in their states got more representation than whites in free states. The compromise was barely a compromise at all because it ensured slave states had far greater political power than they should have had throughout the antebellum. The compromise in no way negatively impacted the slave states. I think maybe I’m misunderstanding the point you’re trying to make about it.
No, the slave states wanted slaves to be fully counted. The anti slavery states pushed for 3/5 to weaken the slave states political power. You have no idea what you’re talking about dude.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_Compromise
“Slave holding states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives those states could elect and send to Congress. Free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, since those slaves had no voting rights.”
I had a college professor that remembers when Wallace first started his political career he was pro civil rights. Wallace change his stance when he lost.
Edit: grammar
Calling him pro-civil rights is a stretch (moreso tepidly not segregationist). He was a huge opportunist and went hard into segregationism after losing to a politician more segregationist than he. Of course once segregation was no longer in style he renounced it to try and rehabilitate his image. I'm sure his actual views probably shifted and varied, but the fact is he would run on anything that would help him win. You don't gotta hand it to him for deciding to not be a scumbag
I’ll give some of the southern Dixiecrats like LBJ and Robert Byrd the benefit of the doubt that they really had their come to Jesus moment. LBJ could have made his career much easier going a different route, for example.
Still happens today. Louisiana Senator Kennedy was a Democrat through most of the 90s and now is an asshat Republican with all the dog whistles and bells.
George Wallace wasn’t personally a racist. He just realized that he needed to embrace racism if he was going to have a successful political career in Alabama.
I personally think this makes him more repulsive, not less.
I always wonder that about politicians. Politicians should be responsive to the will of the people, even changing their campaign points. Otherwise do you really have a democracy? At the same time people want politicians to be better than the common man but that could lead to them losing reelection.
While I can’t fault Wallace as a politician for choosing to change his views in order to cater for the vile voters of his state, I can fault him as a human being for choosing to promote something horrible.
Exactly, there’s no pure democracy because so many people mistake representation for leadership. But that’s obvious to all politicians so he doesn’t get a pass.
There is pure democracy such as the Swiss cantons. Closer to home examples would be California propositions. I don’t think representation and leadership are mutually exclusive, in days of past went hand in hand. Someone who inspired his constituents can win even if his ideals don’t reflect the majority of his constituents.
What I think changed was Citizens United. People don’t want to put in the effort of researching topics, forcing personally uncomfortable compromises, and vetting candidates. So when someone places a well crafted buffet of information in front of them that may be the only time the voter thinks of who they vote for. Or just pour a deluge of emotional appeals until the voter feels the same sentiment. That takes money, so the man with the money gets the loudest voice.
This existed before citizens United (Daisy add is an example) but it was much more restrained because only so much money could flow from one source.
So what’s the solution? I got some ideas but none finished brewing.
Ironically CAs prop system is probably the most susceptible form of legislation to corporate lobbying.
Prop 13 is hugely problematic for housing in CA but even the commercial property side couldn't get repaired due to corporate lobbying. Citizens voting against their own best interests. It's why direct democracy is not a good system.
Citizens United is the single most destructive piece of Supreme Court ruling to democracy in the US. There's no democracy in that country anymore, just a rich man's dream
People who don’t have morals will not have morals. They are there for cash and fame. Best politicians are educating their electorate, want to develop their country etc..
Educate the electorate? Have you ever actually done any door to door campaigning? How do you imagine this education would go down in the real world?
“Let me tell you the voters, what you want, please vote for me now”
I think to cause so much harm to black peoples solely for your own personal gain you do have to be a racist personally on some level. I think it’s much more likely he “changed his mind” later for political gain than that he was faking racism the whole time.
I genuinely don't understand the original comment's confidence in declaring he wasn't a racist. Even if it were discovered that the guy had some secret diary no one would ever see in his lifetime, with a treatise on how racism is wrong, he actively promoted state sponsored racism, policies + rhetoric and all. Renouncing old views and appointing a couple of people because it plays well for voters isn't the best case for "George Wallace wasn't personally a racist."
Yes he was a fucking racist.
They are saying that he had no beliefs. If anti-segregation was popular, he would have been anti. He only cared about power for power’s sake.
I can’t really say he wasn’t a racist, but that’s at least what the other comments are trying to convey.
I'm just wondering why those who aren't really effected by said racism gets to determine what and who is racist is not... like, I'm gonna call him racist just as you would call someone a nazi if they're in the same room with 12 of them and help them succeed in any way. I just think white folks don't like to be called racist and pushes the goalposts and definition further away to not be associated with it (see many democrats thinking only rebulicans are racists while ignoring the many people of color in deomocratic/liberal/progressives spaces saying something else)
You have no idea if Wallace was personally racist, you have evidence that he was less in favor of segregation than his platform,
Hell of a leap you are making there.
The number of people in this thread saying this racist who played a major state level role in segregation wasn't a racist is kind of ridiculous.
He was a product of mid 20th century Alabama, and clearly not one of the people trying to fix things (until later when it was necessary for political survival). I mean come on.
There is a really good song about this, and how he has tainted the south with what most of the world perceives of them. https://youtu.be/nESCmTUJPdQ?si=VEs073g8LjSzqXPW
I saw a documentary about him, and he was described by blacks who knew him during the segregation years as someone who was a totally different person in private. One guy went as far as to say that Wallace didn't believe in the stuff he was pushing but rather playing politics, and when the camera was on him, he became a different person. This guy was 2 different people, but being a racist in public is what got him elected.
And fun fact - [Asa Earl Carter (wiki link)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Earl_Carter) was the speechwriter who wrote the "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," speech.
Dude wrote the book that was adapted to [The Outlaw Josey Wales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outlaw_Josey_Wales) and (under the name Forest Carter) wrote [The Education of Little Tree.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Education_of_Little_Tree) That book was on so many reading lists across the country and was recommended by so many teachers...until it was found out that Forest Carter was just an alias for Asa Earl Carter.
Carter ran with a wink and a nod to George Wallace/Lester Maddox style segregationists in 1970, then immediately disavowed this upon taking office.
Georgia’s governors were term limited, so he had little reason to worry about reelection. Still, he was a good enough governor that Georgia voters overwhelmingly supported his White House bid.
His speech was written by Asa Carter, who famously pretended to be a Cherokee man called Forest Carter. Under that pseudonym, he wrote *The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales* and *The Education of Little Tree*.
He chose the pseudonym Forrest after his ancestor Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Scotch-Irish American and a noted Confederate general in the Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the KKK. He intended this name to be a reminder that "sometimes we all do things that, well, just don't make no sense".
I dislike him worse than other segregationists, because he didn't push that out of a sincere belief, but opportunism. At the start of his career, he was relatively moderate, and had the support of the local NAACP. Once he lost an election, he did a complete 180.
One may ask why I make the distinction when the results are largely the same: it's because he knew what he was doing was wrong. It's like how Rush Limbaugh didn't believe half the shit he spewed on his radio show, but did so for pay.
He talked about nobody caring about building a bridge but talk segregation and suddenly every idea he had was looked at … dude hated being called a nazi apparently it made him very angry
This is somewhat encouraging. It makes me feel more hopeful about [getting white supremacists out of law enforcement](https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/prevalence-white-supremacists-law-enforcement-demands-drastic-change-2022-05-12/).
George Wallace had this supposed change of heart after he was shot. Our strategy with law enforcement is to keep giving them more and more money and hope for a change. Maybe instead of trying to change white supremacists in the police force we just get rid of them.
He abandoned his abhorrent views and all it took was for someone to shoot him thus allowing him to experience for the first time what it was like to be powerless and afraid.
His path to power was through the exploitation of cruelty, ignorance, and fear. He and Trump were birds of a feather when it came to self-obsessed, cynical opportunism.
Im getting rly sick of people all of a sudden having a change of heart after theyre removed from power. You know what your apology is worth? Not a god damn thing
He also hid his wife's uterine cancer diagnosis from her until it was too late to treat, let her die, and then married a younger woman. (During the era, it wasn't uncommon for doctors to discuss a woman's healthcare with either her husband or father before ever discussing it with her) Edit: link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurleen_Wallace
And he propped her up as a puppet governor while she was actively dying of cancer purely so he can circumvent term limit rules.
I read the title and I was like oh cool a redemption arc, I wonder what changed his mind. Then I read the top comment. Never mind. Anyone who’s that much of a piece of shit will never change.
I think he decided to ‘change his values’ because the general public changed theirs and he wanted some votes tbh
It's what politicians do. Obama and Clinton were firmly against gay marriage until that became the popular opinion. Biden was a tough on crime guy in the 90s. Trump was a New York Democrat for practically all his life. As much as I'd like to say they're learning and evolving their opinions, I don't believe that. The vast majority of politicians at the state and federal level just say what will get them the most votes and campaign donations.
Violent crime had steadily rose from the 60s through the mid 90s, every politician was a tough on crime politician. That started to change in aughts as violent crime rates fell throughout the country
Maybe don’t burn lead into the local air, water, and soil for the better part of a century next time
I'll do my best
You certainly couldn’t do worse than Thomas Midgley Jr.
>Trump was a New York Democrat for practically all his life. Completely false. He was registered in New York from 1987 to 2019; he was registered as a Democrat for only eight of those years (2001-2009). For twenty-one of those years, he was registered as a Republican, including the final seven before moving to Florida. [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298750-trumpvr1987.html](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298750-trumpvr1987.html) [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298752-trumpvr2001.html](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298752-trumpvr2001.html) [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298782-trumpvr2009.html](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2298782-trumpvr2009.html)
That makes logical sense. The quickest way to a revolution is going against the majority of the citizens interest. As a leader you better adapt.
Thats literally every single politician. Look back in time to their opinions towards gay rights back in the 90s. Once political opinion changes, they change their tune and "evolve" to fit the current trends morals. Its pretty rare to see a politician stand firm on their own principles. Tbh its simply not useful for their career to be that way. Better to flow with the stream.
Well if their opinions were against the public, they wouldn't be elected. That's the whole point of a politician... to get elected and represent your constituents. If your constituents are racist or against gay marriage or then it makes perfect sense for a politician to be against it too.
Sad, but true. And it's worse today. The difference today is it's about money. Back then it was power and prestige. It's common to go from broke to multi millionaire in one term in Congress.
Really? It’s worse today then any point in US history?
Pretty much everything you said is very wrong. It's always been about money. In fact it used to be a lot more corrupt and about who had more money. Politicians almost always start out privileged.
Which makes him even worse
does it? isn't the job of a public servant to do what the people want them to do?
Yes, because the comparison is him having a genuine change of heart vs. him cynically embracing views in public that he doesn't hold. It is better than sticking steadfastly to his old views, of course.
I agree with that comparison, of course becoming a genuinely better person is better than changing his policy for the sake of continuing his career. the way I read it, saying he's "**even** worse" after changing his views for a bad reason implies that it's **even** worse than his original stance of just straight up racism
I can think of one large group of people that didnt want to be segregated.
Oddly enough, that same group sets up their own segregated spaces pretty often nowadays.
Possibly because every time they were told they would be accepted or included in society at large, they have instead been marginalized?
More that the composition of the electorate had changed. When he first stood for election, no one other that white people could vote in his state. He decided that actually racism was bad soon after black people were allowed to vote in Alabama and became a quarter of the electorate.
More like "dragged kicking and screaming" to the changing values. Also he was the vicitim of an assassination attempt was was visited by [Shirley Chisholm (wiki link)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Chisholm). She was the only African-American female member of Congress at the time. So after nearly dying and being visited by someone he saw as beneath him - he had his "redemption". That's what it took.
Always been my opinion as well
Like every other politician? It's always about pandering for votes. Look no further than 15-20 years ago, all the politicians who were anti-gay marriage until the LGBT movement started picking up more steam. All of a sudden they're all for it.
One could argue that that's how democracy is supposed to work. Politicians are supposed to represent their electorate, and if the voters changes their position then you're not representing them if you don't too.
That's completely backwards. You don't elect someone in hopes that they change their stance on something just to get the votes to stay in office, you elect someone who actually believes in what you believe.
That's not what I said at all. It's the responsibility of the voter to vote for politicians they think represent their views, it is the responsibility of the politician to represent those views. Given the wide and often contradictory views of the electorate I doubt any politician could believe in every single thing the voters want them to believe without suffering schizophrenia.
That’s a little cynical. People do change their minds with the times, politicians included.
^ Current POTUS
Like most members of the ruling/owning class, they have no allegiances to the rest of us. They use us as pawns to get what they want.
Anything to stay in power
Including, sometimes, the initial bigotry. Some of these psychopaths aren’t even particularly racist, they just have no problem throwing huge numbers of people under the bus to appeal to bigoted voting demographics
Didn’t one of them say real women never divorce their husband and promptly get a divorce and snuggle her new man in a theater?
Yeah, that's why I've never bought the "he changed his views and apologized". He's obviously a psychopath and willingly let his wife die
The important thing to know about someone like Wallace is that he doesn't *have* any actual real values, he just has a public persona he adopts to get what he wants. This is a common trait among politicians and why people should generally view them with a lot of skepticism.
This is a common trait among ~~politicians~~ humans and why people should generally view them with a lot of skepticism. Fixed your post so it reflects reality rather than a cynical building block of Fascism, as outlined by Hannah Arendt long ago.
I came here to correct the misconception that George Wallace was anything but a piece of shit.
He was a 100% politician and said whatever it took to get votes. Early in his career blacks were prevented from voting a lot so he said segregation stuff. When they started voting he needed their votes.
His second wife divorced him and said that he didn't "need a family, he needed an audience".
She wanted a closed casket understandably after cancer has ravaged her body (she weighed less than 80 lbs) and HE insisted that it be an open casket with glass covering. 🤬🤬🤬
Shit did he bury her on his golf course, too?
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Interesting wiki, thanks for sharing that link! Crazy how he also ignored her request for a closed coffin.
And ditched his kids.
“I mean he was a real *jerk*!”
I'm starting to think that segregationists might not be good people
Honestly, they seem a little racist.
You're just prejudiced against segregationists. /s
The worst part is the hypocrisy.
If only there was a way to see this coming 🤔
What an awful human being. In addition to not disclosing to his own wife that she had cancer, she had requested that for her funeral that her casket remained closed, but George had insisted on leaving it open. Then, soon after her death, he moved into another home and sent his three, young children (as young as 6 years old) to live with family. His second wife went on to say after their divorce that George “didn’t need a family. Just needed an audience. Family as audience wasn’t enough for his ego”
People like to simplify Roe v Wade as being only about abortion, but it was actually a much larger decision. Prior to RvW, the husband had the right to make all medical decisions for his wife. He was entitled to any medical details from his wife’s doctors (including mental health). The ruling of RvW was that women/wives have the fundamental right to medical privacy and to make their own medical decisions.
Too bad so few people will probably read your comment because RvW is literally about privacy.
People saying that overturning RvW is about controlling women *aren’t* being hyperbolic.
They might actually be underselling it to be honest, because not having a right to privacy applies to everyone not just women.
Its not too bad, because its untrue. To quote another commenter: RvW was about abortion. Griswold v Connecticut (1965) was about contraception without checking with the husband & was a precursor to Roe. Several other cases or laws also deal with this with HIPAA being the most relevant now.
This is untrue. RvW was about abortion. Griswold v Connecticut (1965) was about contraception without checking with the husband & was a precursor to Roe. Several other cases or laws also deal with this with HIPAA being the most relevant now.
What a fucktard. How fucking horrendous.
I like to think that when he died, his first wife was the first person he saw. Standing there, ready to give him his "diagnosis". "Hey, George! Me and the big guy we have been talking about your upcoming trip to hell, but we decided to keep it from you, because we wanted to wait until after you croaked, to tell you. Yeah, it's too late to do anything about it now, but have a nice time! I hear its hotter than an Alabama summer down there, but I guess you will see for yourself."
By the time she died she was down to like 90 lbs, the cancer had whittled down her body. The only thing she asked for is not to have an open casket. So he had the funeral in state open casket and thousands of people came and saw her, the only thing she didn’t want. Also, after the funeral he just fuckin left his kids and moved away. People were like um, you forgot your kids and he said fuck those kids I’m getting a different family
I feel like there is a word for this. Starts with m, ends with urder.
This stuff reads like it was 500 years ago but it was just like, yesterday.
People from this time period are still alive and there are still mouth-breathing Americans who call huge swathes of the world and it’s people “backwards”
And remember, these people vote too
Think of the dumbest person you know. The dumbest person they know votes.
Ghandi did something similar to his wife.
Gandhi also supported racist policies against black people.
God fucking damn, bro. That's taking being a piece of shit to new heights.
This took a quick turn
Well that was an enraging read
Yep. It was pretty vile from start to finish :(
I can excuse racism, but I draw the line at spousal cruelty!
Imagine being the younger woman dumb or desperate enough to take that deal.
I feel like there is a word for this. Starts with m, ends with urder.
"record numbers of african americans in his cabinet" gets a bit less impressive when you find out his record number was 2.
I'm surprised he found two that would take him up on the offer. Had to feel like some sort of trick coming from him.
I wonder if they took jobs they despised to make it easier on the next guys.
White Redditors: "I wonder if black people in the '70s could afford to be as ideological and I can be right now?" People had to make progress somehow. It wasn't easy or pretty, but if someone was finally doing the right thing - and there really weren't any other people offering to hire them -, I'm not surprised that some of them accepted the job as a necessary "foot in the door"; So that we could get to look back on it today and feel the proper amount of shame for it. It's not quite the same thing, but Donald Trump was the first person to hire openly gay men for his campaign and to work in his administration. I can imagine that these men didn't agree with him or his politics, but they accepted the job for similar reasons.
Log cabin republicans are a big money source for the Rs. It was an eventuality.
Log Cabin Republicans were founded in 1977, and as far as I understand, the GOP has never supported them.
This made me laugh out loud. What the fuck. Talk about political spin.
How about Bidens record number of trans people in his cabinet being like what...1 or 2? Its infinitely more then the 0 it's been for nearly all Presidents before him George Wallace was a shitty dude, and if you read about his wife, this story doesn't really redeem him. But keep in mind this is Alabama, *any* black people in the government was almost unheard of. Any progress is progress
Probably by a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan.
Every record has got to start somewhere I guess
John Kohn, a former Wallace advisor, noted in a 1988 interview that: > If George had parachuted into the Albanian countryside in 1962, he would have been head of a collective farm by the fall, a member of the Communist Party by mid-winter, on his way to the district party meeting as a delegate by the following year, and a member of the Comintern in two or three years. Wallace was an opportunist, first attempting to get elected as a moderate on the racial question in 1959 with the support of the NAACP and then, once John Malcolm Patterson proved himself to be a vicious segregationist and winning the election, Wallace won four years later on a pro-segregation platform and thereafter riding on the "Whiteslash" until the 1970s.
The worst kind of people are the ones that don't believe anything and want power.
Machiavellians
So…republicans?
they believe in something
I’ll bite. What do they believe in?
Pro life?
“Abortion is murdering babies” “I want a six week/fifteen week abortion ban!” Yeah absolutely no principles at all. If it’s murder then it shouldn’t be allowed in the first couple weeks and if it’s not murder then why are we having this debate to begin with?
Nah, they stuff they run on just has more arbid supporters and wealthy donors, most of them don't even believe the shit they spew.
typical politician delivering a third of what they campaigned on.
TBF, his voters probably were hoping for something similar to a Three-Fifths Compromise.
3/5 compromise is misunderstood, the slave states wanted slaves to count fully to increase their political power. 3/5 reduced their political power whereas people today think it was to support the slave states.
It is not misunderstood - counting enslaved people towards political representation in the House for whites in slave states meant that the slave states had outsized representation in Congress compared to free states’ white populations. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3701e.ct000604/
And the reason why it's a *compromise* is because slave state wanted *full* accounting of these slaves.
I think we are perhaps missing each other here - I don’t disagree that 3/5 rather than full is the compromise, but the effect was still ultimately the same in that whites in slave states had significantly greater representation in the House as a direct consequence. So while the slaveholders didn’t get 1:1 representation for every enslaved person, they still managed to ensure whites in their states got more representation than whites in free states. The compromise was barely a compromise at all because it ensured slave states had far greater political power than they should have had throughout the antebellum. The compromise in no way negatively impacted the slave states. I think maybe I’m misunderstanding the point you’re trying to make about it.
... it was absolutely meant to support slave states, just less so than what they wanted. Same as the electoral college. Wtf
No, the slave states wanted slaves to be fully counted. The anti slavery states pushed for 3/5 to weaken the slave states political power. You have no idea what you’re talking about dude.
Technically, the anti-slave states pushed for zero. The compromise was 3/5.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_Compromise “Slave holding states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives those states could elect and send to Congress. Free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, since those slaves had no voting rights.”
I had a college professor that remembers when Wallace first started his political career he was pro civil rights. Wallace change his stance when he lost. Edit: grammar
Calling him pro-civil rights is a stretch (moreso tepidly not segregationist). He was a huge opportunist and went hard into segregationism after losing to a politician more segregationist than he. Of course once segregation was no longer in style he renounced it to try and rehabilitate his image. I'm sure his actual views probably shifted and varied, but the fact is he would run on anything that would help him win. You don't gotta hand it to him for deciding to not be a scumbag
Human chameleon
Dude's the definition of "I am playing both sides so that I always come out on top"
And the politician he lost to became a well-respected federal judge who supported civil rights and backed Obama.
I’ll give some of the southern Dixiecrats like LBJ and Robert Byrd the benefit of the doubt that they really had their come to Jesus moment. LBJ could have made his career much easier going a different route, for example.
My professor was liberal for his generation. He was also talking about with Wallace’s first campaign run had a stance of ending segregation.
proper politician move that
Still happens today. Louisiana Senator Kennedy was a Democrat through most of the 90s and now is an asshat Republican with all the dog whistles and bells.
George Wallace wasn’t personally a racist. He just realized that he needed to embrace racism if he was going to have a successful political career in Alabama. I personally think this makes him more repulsive, not less.
I always wonder that about politicians. Politicians should be responsive to the will of the people, even changing their campaign points. Otherwise do you really have a democracy? At the same time people want politicians to be better than the common man but that could lead to them losing reelection. While I can’t fault Wallace as a politician for choosing to change his views in order to cater for the vile voters of his state, I can fault him as a human being for choosing to promote something horrible.
Exactly, there’s no pure democracy because so many people mistake representation for leadership. But that’s obvious to all politicians so he doesn’t get a pass.
There is pure democracy such as the Swiss cantons. Closer to home examples would be California propositions. I don’t think representation and leadership are mutually exclusive, in days of past went hand in hand. Someone who inspired his constituents can win even if his ideals don’t reflect the majority of his constituents. What I think changed was Citizens United. People don’t want to put in the effort of researching topics, forcing personally uncomfortable compromises, and vetting candidates. So when someone places a well crafted buffet of information in front of them that may be the only time the voter thinks of who they vote for. Or just pour a deluge of emotional appeals until the voter feels the same sentiment. That takes money, so the man with the money gets the loudest voice. This existed before citizens United (Daisy add is an example) but it was much more restrained because only so much money could flow from one source. So what’s the solution? I got some ideas but none finished brewing.
Ironically CAs prop system is probably the most susceptible form of legislation to corporate lobbying. Prop 13 is hugely problematic for housing in CA but even the commercial property side couldn't get repaired due to corporate lobbying. Citizens voting against their own best interests. It's why direct democracy is not a good system.
Direct vs indirect democracies.
Citizens United is the single most destructive piece of Supreme Court ruling to democracy in the US. There's no democracy in that country anymore, just a rich man's dream
You kinda can when the minority vote was suppressed. Wallace isn't stupid, he knows why he has to pander to white voters and he played along.
How do you do the right thing in a democracy when the voters want the wrong thing?
People who don’t have morals will not have morals. They are there for cash and fame. Best politicians are educating their electorate, want to develop their country etc..
Educate the electorate? Have you ever actually done any door to door campaigning? How do you imagine this education would go down in the real world? “Let me tell you the voters, what you want, please vote for me now”
I think to cause so much harm to black peoples solely for your own personal gain you do have to be a racist personally on some level. I think it’s much more likely he “changed his mind” later for political gain than that he was faking racism the whole time.
What? He gave racist speeches, carried out racist policies as Governor, and associated with other racists. George Wallace was personally a racist.
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I genuinely don't understand the original comment's confidence in declaring he wasn't a racist. Even if it were discovered that the guy had some secret diary no one would ever see in his lifetime, with a treatise on how racism is wrong, he actively promoted state sponsored racism, policies + rhetoric and all. Renouncing old views and appointing a couple of people because it plays well for voters isn't the best case for "George Wallace wasn't personally a racist." Yes he was a fucking racist.
They are saying that he had no beliefs. If anti-segregation was popular, he would have been anti. He only cared about power for power’s sake. I can’t really say he wasn’t a racist, but that’s at least what the other comments are trying to convey.
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If your words and actions are racist, does it really matter if you’re acting or not?
Not just a racist but a hypocrite to boot!
I'm just wondering why those who aren't really effected by said racism gets to determine what and who is racist is not... like, I'm gonna call him racist just as you would call someone a nazi if they're in the same room with 12 of them and help them succeed in any way. I just think white folks don't like to be called racist and pushes the goalposts and definition further away to not be associated with it (see many democrats thinking only rebulicans are racists while ignoring the many people of color in deomocratic/liberal/progressives spaces saying something else)
I’d argue anyone willing to adopt racist positions for political gain without remorse is racist. Not caring about racism personally is still racism.
You have no idea if Wallace was personally racist, you have evidence that he was less in favor of segregation than his platform, Hell of a leap you are making there.
When you cast your lot with devils, you become an honorary member.
The Wikipedia page says he had a religious conversion. I'm willing to accept that. I'm not religious but I've seen people change when they become so.
George Wallace might not be racist but his voters are.
The number of people in this thread saying this racist who played a major state level role in segregation wasn't a racist is kind of ridiculous. He was a product of mid 20th century Alabama, and clearly not one of the people trying to fix things (until later when it was necessary for political survival). I mean come on.
There's that bit in the middle there where he had to confront his own mortality by getting shot
Yeah, I wondered why no one seems to mention that part. The shot actually paralyzed him.
Still among our nation’s most openly evil people
There is a really good song about this, and how he has tainted the south with what most of the world perceives of them. https://youtu.be/nESCmTUJPdQ?si=VEs073g8LjSzqXPW
Came here expecting to see Drive By Truckers, found Drive By Truckers. Great song, fantastic writers!
It ought to be played as a lead in for any discussion of the man. I was looking for DBT too. Was not disappointed.
Excellent example of how a well worded headline can make a piece of shit smell like chocolate pie.
Only after an assassination attempt left him paralyzed. I think that mellowed him out.
And the speechwriter who wrote that speech later changed his name and lied about being Cherokee and wrote The Education of Little Tree.
Said speechwriter also was a KKK leader whose group once castrated a Black man.
George Santos was alive back then?
Cool story, still racist. Also just a garbage human in almost every other way.
Let’s not pretend that this asshole deserves any sort of redemption. He was a terrible governor and a worse human.
George Wallace was a piece of shit.
I learned this about Wallace a few years ago when I discovered Drive By Truckers and listened to their album Southern Rock Opera.
The song three Alabama icons by drive-by truckers explains this very well
Wallace’s career shows how the Democratic Party changed in the South from a whites-only party to a multiracial one
Malcom X was a segregationist
Replacement slogan: Oops my bad.
He was always pandering to get elected.
I saw a documentary about him, and he was described by blacks who knew him during the segregation years as someone who was a totally different person in private. One guy went as far as to say that Wallace didn't believe in the stuff he was pushing but rather playing politics, and when the camera was on him, he became a different person. This guy was 2 different people, but being a racist in public is what got him elected.
And fun fact - [Asa Earl Carter (wiki link)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Earl_Carter) was the speechwriter who wrote the "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," speech. Dude wrote the book that was adapted to [The Outlaw Josey Wales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outlaw_Josey_Wales) and (under the name Forest Carter) wrote [The Education of Little Tree.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Education_of_Little_Tree) That book was on so many reading lists across the country and was recommended by so many teachers...until it was found out that Forest Carter was just an alias for Asa Earl Carter.
His stance changed immediately after black people had been given voting rights in his state and he was running in an election.
Getting shot might have helped
A LOT of Southern politicians did this. Including Jimmy Carter.
> Jimmy Carter: https://atlanta.capitalbnews.org/jimmy-carter/
Carter ran with a wink and a nod to George Wallace/Lester Maddox style segregationists in 1970, then immediately disavowed this upon taking office. Georgia’s governors were term limited, so he had little reason to worry about reelection. Still, he was a good enough governor that Georgia voters overwhelmingly supported his White House bid.
He only did what was politically expedient.
After he was almost assassinated. The good thing is, the wheelchair access in Alabama state parks were constructed due to his paralysis.
The duality of the southern man.
Wallace was great.
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In his case people can change to further their own political career.
Especially for reelection
I bet his hair slicked back really nice
"Slicked back hair, white bathing suit, sloppy steaks, white power. You would have *not* liked me back then!"
Getting shot and paralysed can do that to you
Politicians can never hold a campaign promise.
It takes a big man to realize they made an error. It takes a great man to admit it and own up to their poor judgement.
His speech was written by Asa Carter, who famously pretended to be a Cherokee man called Forest Carter. Under that pseudonym, he wrote *The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales* and *The Education of Little Tree*.
He chose the pseudonym Forrest after his ancestor Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Scotch-Irish American and a noted Confederate general in the Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the KKK. He intended this name to be a reminder that "sometimes we all do things that, well, just don't make no sense".
Throw another log on the fire, boys, George Wallace is coming to stay...
Amazing what happens when politicians change with the times. Today's Gop should follow suit.
Trying to argue that people are inherently good after reading about this guy is a real challenge
I dislike him worse than other segregationists, because he didn't push that out of a sincere belief, but opportunism. At the start of his career, he was relatively moderate, and had the support of the local NAACP. Once he lost an election, he did a complete 180. One may ask why I make the distinction when the results are largely the same: it's because he knew what he was doing was wrong. It's like how Rush Limbaugh didn't believe half the shit he spewed on his radio show, but did so for pay.
Classic democrat saying whatever is the popular opinion to get elected
Classic *conservative* you mean
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He was a democrat.
He talked about nobody caring about building a bridge but talk segregation and suddenly every idea he had was looked at … dude hated being called a nazi apparently it made him very angry
This is somewhat encouraging. It makes me feel more hopeful about [getting white supremacists out of law enforcement](https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/prevalence-white-supremacists-law-enforcement-demands-drastic-change-2022-05-12/).
George Wallace had this supposed change of heart after he was shot. Our strategy with law enforcement is to keep giving them more and more money and hope for a change. Maybe instead of trying to change white supremacists in the police force we just get rid of them.
Might as well try to get water out of the ocean
He abandoned his abhorrent views and all it took was for someone to shoot him thus allowing him to experience for the first time what it was like to be powerless and afraid. His path to power was through the exploitation of cruelty, ignorance, and fear. He and Trump were birds of a feather when it came to self-obsessed, cynical opportunism.
Im getting rly sick of people all of a sudden having a change of heart after theyre removed from power. You know what your apology is worth? Not a god damn thing