Steve Kornacki tweeted two 1970s polls showing how unpopular busing was in Delaware then

[highplainsdem]

He tweeted these the evening of the 27th. Didn't see them till now, when I ran across them in a reply to a Tom Nichols thread on Twitter (Nichols, a NeverTrumper and one of Trump's harshest critics on Twitter, plans to vote for the Democratic nominee but is very upset with Harris's attack on Biden over busing).

Kornacki's tweets:

Link to tweet

A 1974 Delaware poll found opposition to busing at 87-13% among whites with an opinion on it and 53-47% among African Americans

Link to tweet

Another poll from 1977 - three years later - found a similar result. Among parents of public school students, opposition to busing was 90-8% in the heavily white New Castle County suburbs. In Wilmington, with a largely black student population, opposition ran at 42-39%.

I wanted to post this as a companion thread to my OP about what Larry Sabato wrote on Twitter about political reality in Delaware in the 1970s and why it's a mistake to try to view that time through the lens of 2019:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287179249

[BlueIdaho]

1. Thank You!

Historical context can provide a valuable yardstick.

[George II]

2. Busing was VERY unpopular by almost everyone involved. It was an artificial attempt to....

..."desegregate" schools, but the underlying problem was segregated neighborhoods.

[chimpymustgo]

36. SO??? I prefer candiates who follow their principles not the madding (white) crowd. Yes, segregated

neighborhoods were the underlying problem. But white racism was the manifestation.

[madaboutharry]

3. Biden needs to be better prepared for the next debate.

I blame his staff and advisors for this. They did not properly prepare him for the debate. He has been in politics since he was in his late 20's. He has to be able to answer for his record.

[highplainsdem]

4. I agree. I think he seems out of practice with campaigning.

[mr_lebowski]

9. I love Joe, and I REALLY hope ... that's all it is ... (nt)

[randr]

20. He blew this chance to make this work for him

He should have responded by saying that the positive side of busing produced citizens like Kamala Harris and similar integration efforts would do the same. His opposition was based on his responsibility to his constituency at the time.

[PoliticAverse]

28. He's been in 2 other Democratic presidential primaries. He didn't fare well in either. n/t

[BeyondGeography]

8. Apparently he has a habit of not listening to them

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-faces-backlash-over-comments-about-the-civility-of-his-past-work-with-racist-senators/2019/06/19/c0375d2a-92a8-11e9-b58a-a6a9afaa0e3e_story.html?utm_term=.20b4577382e2

As seemingly random as it was for Biden to reference Sen. James O. Eastland, a long-ago deceased segregationist senator from his own party, some in Biden’s campaign had heard him discuss this relationship before — and warned him against mentioning it in public. Eastland, who represented Mississippi in the Senate from the early 1940s to 1978, often said that African Americans were “an inferior race.”

Aides said they had urged Biden to find a less toxic example.

“It might move him to pick a different senator,” said one adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “But he’s not someone you can go to and just say, ‘You’ve been doing this x number of years and you can’t do this anymore.’?”

[Cosmocat]

18. THAT was his mistake

nm

[mr_liberal]

5. I saw a 1999 poll that was still over 80%. nt

[Demit]

6. With all that material to draw on, and Biden couldn't remember any of it to use

in his rebuttal? I guess it would've been awkward to draw attention to the fact that whites were overwhelmingly more opposed to busing than blacks were.

[Mr.Bill]

7. Biden should have asked her

if she would start the bussing back up if she was elected.

[wyldwolf]

10. Bernie Sanders quote from early 70s

The Government "sometimes does bad in the guise of good things." According to Sanders, in the long run, busing, as a means toward quality education for all school children, creates racial hostility where it did not previously exist.

[Cha]

14. Thank you for that, wyldwolf.

[RHMerriman]

11. How "hurtful" of Kornacki to point out historical and political realities,

How "hurtful" of Kornacki to point out historical and political realities, especially for a junior and liberal Democratic member of Congress in a conservative border state where the Republicans were running hard under the Southern Strategy.

Well, I'm sure the tough as nails ex-prosecutor who gets emotional and puts a quaver in her voice on national television will set HIM straight.

[SidDithers]

19. Yeah. Keep going with that....

It’s really working for you.



Sid

[RHMerriman]

25. Works great ... her hail mary was just that:

Works great ... her Hail Mary was just that: "Look at me!"

Biden was at 45 percent favorable with AA: she was at 5. Pretty obvious what this pathetic little flap was all about.

FWIW, the Berkeley public schools were NOT de jure segregated by race, as well; attendance was organized by residential neighborhoods, which meant de facto by wealth, but unless you're going to say housing prices are something to be regulated by the federal government, it's a moot point.

See:

[link:https://www.berkeleyschools.net/2018/12/50th-anniversary-of-berkeleys-pioneering-busing-plan-for-school-integration/|]

Pretending the child of two University of California PHds - in Berkeley - in the 1970s was somehow underprivileged is ludicrous.

It's a stupid argument, a cheap shot, and generally makes her look both cynical and emotionally manipulative, which is not a winning look for someone trying to get political support from across a diverse party that wants to see Trump defeated in 2020.

Self-righteousness - especially against a fellow Democrat - is not going to work.

[Blue_true]

33. True leaders.

Newly elected Florida Governor Reuben Askew stood before a packed, all White stadium at the University of Florida and essentially said that the time for segregation in public education was over, the state had to, it must, and it will integrate all public schools, including all universities. A few month later, Florida launched on a widespread and largely successful effort to integrate it's public schools and universities. Askew would become a two term governor and sits in time as maybe the greatest Florida Governor (some say Faircloth is).

Jimmy Carter fought with the racist Lester Mattox over integration of society. In Georgia at the height of the fight against integration. Carter would go on to become a two term governor and US President.

Carter and Askew took both political and PHYSICAL risks during that time. Biden seems to have taken neither.

[dawg day]

12. "Popularity" isn't what determines policy

The ACA wasn't popular either.

Surely there's some courage involved in doing the UNpopular thing if you think it's the right thing.

[Goodheart]

13. What's the point of this thread?

Did Joe say "I was opposed to busing because it was unpopular?"

No, he did not.

He said, instead, that he was never, ever opposed to voluntary busing.

So what point are you trying to make? I still haven't seen anyone successfully absolve Joe of his double talk polispeak there.

[Cha]

15. Maybe it's to get some historical perspective..

You think it shouldn't have been posted?

[Goodheart]

16. Perspective on what, exactly? A perspective on why Biden said what he said?

If that's what was intended the OP did just the opposite.

Here's my own perspective: In the heat of the moment Biden didn't know how to defend his opposition to busing so went with some lame "I was never opposed to VOLUNTARY busing" as if any segregationist state would have done so. It was disingenuous.

[Cha]

17. Nevermind

[Vegas Roller]

22. Biden has vowed to not attack other contenders

He could have answered harshly but he didn't want to make a fool of Sen. Harris by responding too harshly.


Nevertheless, if you decision is primarily dependent upon busing votes in the 1970's, I have no quarrel with that.

[PoliticAverse]

27. What does the reason Biden opposed busing have to do with other candidates ? n/t

[Vegas Roller]

34. A lot of people opposed busing

If you want this election to be about busing,

[Duppers]

24. Zactly.

It's a "let's slam Joe" post.

Again: Back in the early 70s, the men controlling these House committees were segregationists and the then 27yo Biden knew he had to compromise with these a.holes in order to get anywhere.

Stop these circular firing squads. They're benefiting Trump. What we need to decide is who is the best candidate to beat IQ45. Period.

[Skittles]

30. twisting themselves into pretzels in defense

no matter how illogical

[bluewater]

21. Just because a position is popular with the voters, it does not make it right.

Opposition to busing had huge racial undercurrents.

Denying that is denying reality.

[frazzled]

23. It's because busing was done so badly in most places

It usually meant busing black kids away from their home neighborhoods into (sometimes far off ) white neighborhoods. Most whites opposed it because of either racism or fear. Many blacks didn’t like it because, well, why should only their kids have to endure a long bus ride?

But it didn’t have to be that way. When my kids were in school, all parents (black, white, Southeast Asian, Native American) were given a choice about where to send their kids within their geographic subdistrict. There were 5 types of public schools in each of these parts of the city, each based on a different types of instructional philosophy. I chose to send my (white) kids to a school that was a 20-30 minute bus ride away because it seemed a perfect fit. There were kids of every race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status in that school. And it was a superb educational and social experience—for everyone.

Desegregation can work (and we need it to work if we are ever to overcome divisions), but only if it is done thoughtfully, equitably, and creatively. Classic busing was not that most times.

[TeamPooka]

26. Slavery was super popular poll-wise in the South in 1860. nt

[wyldwolf]

31. I guess comparing slavery to compusary school busing is appropriate if..

.. your point is the government was making people do things they didn't want to do.

[TeamPooka]

35. Well, since freeing the slaves was the thing they didn't want to do...

[wyldwolf]

38. The US government DID want to free the slaves

Beside the point though.

The government at first forced slaves. The government forced busing. Both instances the US government forced people to do things they didn’t want to do.

If we want to carry out the comparison to get some logical conclusion, slavery was grossliy immoral but quite effective at building the US economy. The entire country was built on the backs of slaves.

Forced busing was a program with good intentions but was extemely unpopular and
largely ineffective.

[asiliveandbreathe]

29. Looking back on 50 years of busing in Boston....

But there's another busing story in Boston, one that began years before in 1966, when progressive white school districts in the suburbs started taking in black students from the city. The founders, though, wanted to call it something other than "busing."

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/10/05/495504360/looking-back-on-50-years-of-busing-in-boston

"We in the African-American community do not use the word 'busing,' because we feel it is a misnomer," says Jean McGuire. "It is about us — it hasn't anything to do with that school bus; it has to do with the complexion of the students who get on it."

McGuire has run the METCO program — which stands for the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity — for the past 40 years. When she started the program, she was a schoolteacher in the Boston public school system.

The ills of racism still exist, but people are working for a better community...together...for many, many years....the more information WE have, the better WE are for it....

https://metcoinc.org/

[Hoyt]

32. How popular were cruddy, underfunded minority schools and being told your kids can't go there?

[BlueWI]

37. Another soldier for the straw man army.

It would be simpler if Biden could signal respect for Harris with his first statement (Senator Harris, I have respect for your truth and experience, but I see things differently) and go on to say much of what he did say. He could have easily claimed the high ground that way.

I would add that most of us who were alive in the 1970s know that contexts have changed since then, especially those of us who actually experienced busing for racial integration. Yes, we noticed that white people didn't care for our presence at "their" schools, and I won't rate it as my favorite school experience either as a person of color. Being called the n-word and being marginalized by culturally incompetent staff did not lead to broad popularity of busing among black people across the board, although some appreciated the effort to institute a remedy, as opposed to the disinterest that is too common today about continuing segregation.

Commonly though, the way that anti-busing arguments were framed in the1970s eptomized white privilege and open racism. Biden, to some extent, represented the white suburban property owner mindset, with legal segregation only out of force for less than a decade. That's part of why James Eastland and Joe Biden could find common ground on the issue, as Biden himself unwisely reminded us.

If anyone needs to study the difference in contexts, it's Biden. All Democrats need him to be stronger in his communication, and probably his policies, on issues of racial disparity. His supporters are doing him no favors by not seeing this, and at least Biden's campaign staff will coach him up, as they obvious need to do.