Charles Curtis: A Forgotten Hero for 'Progressive' Americans?

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Republicans, no matter their race, are a blight on America. The Hoover administration especially so.

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Simply put, his deeds surely would be what make him heroic, not his ancestry.

So, unless you tell me what he done, I can’t actually form an opinion on the matter.

@shavixmir said
Simply put, his deeds surely would be what make him heroic, not his ancestry.

So, unless you tell me what he done, I can’t actually form an opinion on the matter.

There was a world-wide depression in 1929 caused by the collapse of the US stock markets.

This was six months after the Hoover administration deregulated the banking industry, giving them free reign. It became Party Time until the s--- finally hit the fan in October.

Anyone involved in that debacle is hardly a progressive 'hero'.

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In the United States, it seems that racism is so entrenched on the right that it's difficult to envisage a person of colour attaining high office except as a Democrat.

In Britain, however, I fully expect that our first non-white Prime Minister will be a Tory. It doesn't surprise me either that our two female Prime Ministers have been Tories (nor even, perhaps, though it was a long time ago in a very different cultural circumstance, that our first ethnically Jewish Prime Minister was a Tory).

In saying this, I don't claim that racism is less prevalent among Tories, or feminism more so. However, I think there's an unfortunate mental sleight of hand among swing voters. When a left-wing party elects a woman as leader, centrist voters think "Oh, it's a radical feminist party". When a right-wing party elects a woman as leader, centrist voters think "Ah, so it's not a misogynistic party".

Similarly, if Labour chose an ethnic minority leader, centrist voters would think, "Oh, Labour's only for ethnic minorities." But if the Tories chose an ethnic minority leader, centrist voters would think, "Oh, the Conservative Party is for ethnic minorities too."

I guess this is a variation on the old "Only Nixon can go to China" principle.

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Do you like the opera 'Nixon in China' ?

Yes I do - it was one of the last I saw staged before the lockdown started (Scottish Opera production in Glasgow). Remarkable, imaginative score and very even-handed treatment, except for the fact that Adams clearly despises Madame Mao and Kissinger. But the treatment of Mao, Zhou, Nixon and Pat Nixon is generous, and one has a real sense that the opera is trying to answer the question it poses at the end, “How much of what we did was good?” - which seem to apply both to the summit we had just seen dramatised and to the whole agonised history of the twentieth century.

Yet I suspect that only a Chinese leader with a reputation
as 'tough on terrorism' could get it done.

You may have a point about the practical realities of Chinese politics in regard to the Uyghurs. But the opposite perspective might be entertained at the same time: the repression that is understood as "being tough on terrorism" is one of the factors impelling and exacerbating terrorism in the first place.

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Best post of the thread so far. And the shortest.
Should someone go into site ideas and put in a suggestion that the thread subject line can be modified ?
Ah, never mind. 😆

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Being a Progressive I feel that I can answer your question .
Progressives are all about issues , issues , and more issues .
Whatever the race or political party which he belonged is not relevant .
Possibly a hero to many Native Americans but to Progressives I would say he is not a hero .