Since I grew up in the Chicago of Mayor Daley the first, I can claim some acquaintance with traditional party machines. I think this article is a laundry list, where you have every possible factor that anyone's ever thought of. If everything is important, then nothing's important.
Particularly, the section "Decline of the Urban Machines" has (1) no differentiation on which factors mattered the most, and (2) factors don't apply particularly to Chicago. I can't speak for NYC.
The move to suburbia happened after WW II and had no effect on the Chicago machine. Both Daleys ruled long after that, as did Rahm Emmanuel. Civil Service reform happened in the 1800's. Primaries existed long before the Machine fell apart. Television and debates had no impact. The 1924 immigration reforms had no effect. Ethnic neighborhoods lived on in Chicago for at least 50 years after that. I grew up in a multi-ethnic one (Irish, Polish, Italian, etc.)
In the old days, having a job with the City meant you were a precinct captain or ward committeeman, and keeping the job meant delivering the Democratic votes in your area. Once people were able to get good jobs without bowing to the Machine, and follow politics on their own, then it started to fall apart. A general atomizing of society also helped in that.
I'm not a supporter of DEI but it did not rise as an alternative source of patronage. Analyses of political movements in the last 15 years and where "wokeness" came from have been coming thick and fast since the election and those are a better explanation.
No, you are wrong. This article is not a "laundry list, where you have every possible factor that anyone's ever thought of."
The causes that I listed for the decline of the urban political machines are far more important than "people getting good jobs without bowing to the Machine." Good jobs had always existed in the US, particularly in the 1940s and 50s.
I never even used the term "wokeness" in this article. Nor am I trying to explain it in this article.
1) Primaries did not become the dominant means to select party candidates until the 1970s. They existed beforehand, but they did not play a big role. I am not sure why you cannot see that party bosses no longer being able to select candidates would not have a big impact.
2) You ignore the fact that the reason why people could "follow politics on their own" was because of television, direct mail, polling, and other means of communication.
3) Yes, the migration to the suburbs had a big effect. Party machine control was much weaker in brand new suburbs than much older urban neighborhoods
4) The 1924 immigration reform was important, but there is a generation's delay on its impact on politics. New immigrants were the strongest supporters of urban machines, and those people no longer existed after immigration reforms.
5) Yes, civil service reform on the federal government happened in the late 1890s, but that did not mean that is did not matter. State and local government took much longer.
And i am not sure why you cannot see the strong parallels between affirmative action/DEI and old party machines. They both distribute jobs, money, and services to people based on their demographic characteristics and partisan loyalties. Both are supported by the same party.
Great article, although I would take issue with the assertion that Asian-Americans and Jews benefit much if at all from DEI. Asians and Jews appear to be Schrodinger’s minorities, oppressed minorities when convenient for the left, white-adjacent when not. But on balance Asians and Jews do great in the U.S. without the need for DEI, and in reality both groups would be wildly overrepresented on elite university campuses (which frequently lead to elite jobs) if DEI admissions criteria were discarded.
DEI ideology is about group power differentials, that's why Kendi (high priest of anti-racism until everyone noticed he was a useless grifter) says that only white people can be racist, because only white people have power, and racism is discrimination+power.
Thus, my favorite example is to imagine a black gang-banger from Boston travelling to South Africa. At home, he's being anti-racist when he steals from white people and should be celebrated for striking a blow for social justice (looters really were celebrated in this way just a few years ago.) When he's in S. Africa (a country in which blacks hold all the power) he's being racist when he steals from white stores and should be condemned and imprisoned. And when he comes back, his violence is once again holy and righteous.
Kendi et al will never do this (just like they don't talk about NBA team diversity, as you said, Michael) because what the DEI crowd promotes is really a spoils system masking itself as a moral framework. The best evidence of which is that taking said moral framework at face value, it results in absurdities like this.
It seems to me that in the late 60s/70s progressive WASPs decided (or at least allowed) that the best way to break the urban Catholic machines was to let blacks purge them, via criminal violence and school desegregation (basically violence).
The Boston Busing Riots are an obvious Irish vs Black view but this happened in cities across America.
Progressives WASPs hoped this would result in a Progressive WASP led coalition with blacks as junior partners. This worked in some cities, but in lots of others (especially with new black majorities or big enough minorities) this was a disastrous trade. Whatever the faults of the Catholic urban political machines, they were at least functional. Black run political machines were a total disaster*.
By the 1990s people were so tired of the crack wars that a series of reactionary often Catholic mayors that led to renaissance of some of the global tier cities like NYC. However, Hispanic immigration and and other demographic changes continued to move the electorate further left. Eventually these cities went full one party state. The urban machine politics returned, but steeped in progressive ideology and without the competence that the civil service system was supposed to bring.
*This is basically what happened in black run states of the reconstruction era and why the north backed off trying to force reconstruction.
Since I grew up in the Chicago of Mayor Daley the first, I can claim some acquaintance with traditional party machines. I think this article is a laundry list, where you have every possible factor that anyone's ever thought of. If everything is important, then nothing's important.
Particularly, the section "Decline of the Urban Machines" has (1) no differentiation on which factors mattered the most, and (2) factors don't apply particularly to Chicago. I can't speak for NYC.
The move to suburbia happened after WW II and had no effect on the Chicago machine. Both Daleys ruled long after that, as did Rahm Emmanuel. Civil Service reform happened in the 1800's. Primaries existed long before the Machine fell apart. Television and debates had no impact. The 1924 immigration reforms had no effect. Ethnic neighborhoods lived on in Chicago for at least 50 years after that. I grew up in a multi-ethnic one (Irish, Polish, Italian, etc.)
In the old days, having a job with the City meant you were a precinct captain or ward committeeman, and keeping the job meant delivering the Democratic votes in your area. Once people were able to get good jobs without bowing to the Machine, and follow politics on their own, then it started to fall apart. A general atomizing of society also helped in that.
I'm not a supporter of DEI but it did not rise as an alternative source of patronage. Analyses of political movements in the last 15 years and where "wokeness" came from have been coming thick and fast since the election and those are a better explanation.
No, you are wrong. This article is not a "laundry list, where you have every possible factor that anyone's ever thought of."
The causes that I listed for the decline of the urban political machines are far more important than "people getting good jobs without bowing to the Machine." Good jobs had always existed in the US, particularly in the 1940s and 50s.
I never even used the term "wokeness" in this article. Nor am I trying to explain it in this article.
1) Primaries did not become the dominant means to select party candidates until the 1970s. They existed beforehand, but they did not play a big role. I am not sure why you cannot see that party bosses no longer being able to select candidates would not have a big impact.
2) You ignore the fact that the reason why people could "follow politics on their own" was because of television, direct mail, polling, and other means of communication.
3) Yes, the migration to the suburbs had a big effect. Party machine control was much weaker in brand new suburbs than much older urban neighborhoods
4) The 1924 immigration reform was important, but there is a generation's delay on its impact on politics. New immigrants were the strongest supporters of urban machines, and those people no longer existed after immigration reforms.
5) Yes, civil service reform on the federal government happened in the late 1890s, but that did not mean that is did not matter. State and local government took much longer.
And i am not sure why you cannot see the strong parallels between affirmative action/DEI and old party machines. They both distribute jobs, money, and services to people based on their demographic characteristics and partisan loyalties. Both are supported by the same party.
Great article, although I would take issue with the assertion that Asian-Americans and Jews benefit much if at all from DEI. Asians and Jews appear to be Schrodinger’s minorities, oppressed minorities when convenient for the left, white-adjacent when not. But on balance Asians and Jews do great in the U.S. without the need for DEI, and in reality both groups would be wildly overrepresented on elite university campuses (which frequently lead to elite jobs) if DEI admissions criteria were discarded.
Perhaps I worded that sentence awkwardly, but that is what I meant to say.
In many ways, both groups are punished by DEI despite typically being loyal Democratic voters. That makes them the exception to the rule.
DEI ideology is about group power differentials, that's why Kendi (high priest of anti-racism until everyone noticed he was a useless grifter) says that only white people can be racist, because only white people have power, and racism is discrimination+power.
Thus, my favorite example is to imagine a black gang-banger from Boston travelling to South Africa. At home, he's being anti-racist when he steals from white people and should be celebrated for striking a blow for social justice (looters really were celebrated in this way just a few years ago.) When he's in S. Africa (a country in which blacks hold all the power) he's being racist when he steals from white stores and should be condemned and imprisoned. And when he comes back, his violence is once again holy and righteous.
Kendi et al will never do this (just like they don't talk about NBA team diversity, as you said, Michael) because what the DEI crowd promotes is really a spoils system masking itself as a moral framework. The best evidence of which is that taking said moral framework at face value, it results in absurdities like this.
It seems to me that in the late 60s/70s progressive WASPs decided (or at least allowed) that the best way to break the urban Catholic machines was to let blacks purge them, via criminal violence and school desegregation (basically violence).
The Boston Busing Riots are an obvious Irish vs Black view but this happened in cities across America.
Progressives WASPs hoped this would result in a Progressive WASP led coalition with blacks as junior partners. This worked in some cities, but in lots of others (especially with new black majorities or big enough minorities) this was a disastrous trade. Whatever the faults of the Catholic urban political machines, they were at least functional. Black run political machines were a total disaster*.
By the 1990s people were so tired of the crack wars that a series of reactionary often Catholic mayors that led to renaissance of some of the global tier cities like NYC. However, Hispanic immigration and and other demographic changes continued to move the electorate further left. Eventually these cities went full one party state. The urban machine politics returned, but steeped in progressive ideology and without the competence that the civil service system was supposed to bring.
*This is basically what happened in black run states of the reconstruction era and why the north backed off trying to force reconstruction.