what’s the current state of analysis on whether the civil rights act of 1957 was actually net positive or negative for civil rights in hindsight? there are two possible stories one can tell, and at the time people were arguing about which is correct:
passing even a useless civil rights bill is a lot better than nothing because it sets a precedent that getting civil rights bills through the Senate is possible / makes the southern coalition no longer look invincible. this serves a useful coordination mechanism because people only want to support things that they think other people will support.
passing a useless civil rights bill is worse than no bill because it creates a false sense of progress and makes it feel like something was done even when nothing was. to the extent that the bill signals to people that getting civil rights bills through the Senate is possible, this is a false impression because the only reason the bill could get through was that it was watered down to uselessness.
this feels directly analogous to the question of whether we should accept very weak AI safety regulations today.
It seems extremely net-positive for civil rights, but mainly through the mechanism of it making Lyndon Johnson a viable candidate for president while maintaining his stature with the southern democrats, leading ultimately to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
This can be seen as a generalizable lesson only insofar as you think weak bills like that are typically passed by Lyndon Johnson-like figures playing 4d political chess ultimately for altruistic reasons. Without that effect, it mostly seemed bad, it likely actually decreased the number of black voters, and did not decrease the south’s ability to filibuster the senate against civil rights (which was the main mechanism by which civil rights bills were unable to pass), eg they filibustered away another civil rights bill in 1959 or something. Plus, if not for Lyndon Johnson ultimately being pro-civil rights, it would have put someone decidedly anti-civil-rights into the presidency.
so it sounds like there’s basically no way anyone could have known that johnson would actually be a pro civil-rights president, and that all the civil rights people who were opposed to the 1957 bill at the time were basically opposed for the right reasons? like basically everything we know about johnson as of 1960 suggests that he is telling everyone what they want to hear and it’s unclear whether he has any convictions of his own except for his strong track record of defending the interests of the south.
Basically yes. His staff likely coulda predicted this (eg there were a few circumstances where out of anger he did some small civil rights stuff, then backed off when he cooled down & looked at the political repercussions), and possibly Lady Bird, but no other senator or member of the public had any reliable way to predict this for the reasons you state.
I mean, even in the Felix Longoria Arlington case, which is what I assume you’re referring to, it seems really hard for his staff members to have known, without the benefit of hindsight, that this was any significant window into his true beliefs? I mean, johnson is famously good at working himself up into appearing to genuinely believe whatever is politically convenient at the moment, and he briefly miscalculated the costs of supporting civil rights in this case. his apparent genuineness in this case doesn’t seem like strong evidence.
Some evidence for (2) is that before the 1957 act no civil rights legislation had been passed for 82 years[1], and after it three more civil rights acts were passed in the next 11 years, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which in my understanding is considered very significant.
there’s an exogenous factor, which is that the entire country was shifting leftward during the 50s and 60s. it’s plausible that the 1964 bill would have passed anyways without the 1957 bill, possibly even earlier
what’s the current state of analysis on whether the civil rights act of 1957 was actually net positive or negative for civil rights in hindsight? there are two possible stories one can tell, and at the time people were arguing about which is correct:
passing even a useless civil rights bill is a lot better than nothing because it sets a precedent that getting civil rights bills through the Senate is possible / makes the southern coalition no longer look invincible. this serves a useful coordination mechanism because people only want to support things that they think other people will support.
passing a useless civil rights bill is worse than no bill because it creates a false sense of progress and makes it feel like something was done even when nothing was. to the extent that the bill signals to people that getting civil rights bills through the Senate is possible, this is a false impression because the only reason the bill could get through was that it was watered down to uselessness.
this feels directly analogous to the question of whether we should accept very weak AI safety regulations today.
It seems extremely net-positive for civil rights, but mainly through the mechanism of it making Lyndon Johnson a viable candidate for president while maintaining his stature with the southern democrats, leading ultimately to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
This can be seen as a generalizable lesson only insofar as you think weak bills like that are typically passed by Lyndon Johnson-like figures playing 4d political chess ultimately for altruistic reasons. Without that effect, it mostly seemed bad, it likely actually decreased the number of black voters, and did not decrease the south’s ability to filibuster the senate against civil rights (which was the main mechanism by which civil rights bills were unable to pass), eg they filibustered away another civil rights bill in 1959 or something. Plus, if not for Lyndon Johnson ultimately being pro-civil rights, it would have put someone decidedly anti-civil-rights into the presidency.
so it sounds like there’s basically no way anyone could have known that johnson would actually be a pro civil-rights president, and that all the civil rights people who were opposed to the 1957 bill at the time were basically opposed for the right reasons? like basically everything we know about johnson as of 1960 suggests that he is telling everyone what they want to hear and it’s unclear whether he has any convictions of his own except for his strong track record of defending the interests of the south.
Basically yes. His staff likely coulda predicted this (eg there were a few circumstances where out of anger he did some small civil rights stuff, then backed off when he cooled down & looked at the political repercussions), and possibly Lady Bird, but no other senator or member of the public had any reliable way to predict this for the reasons you state.
I mean, even in the Felix Longoria Arlington case, which is what I assume you’re referring to, it seems really hard for his staff members to have known, without the benefit of hindsight, that this was any significant window into his true beliefs? I mean, johnson is famously good at working himself up into appearing to genuinely believe whatever is politically convenient at the moment, and he briefly miscalculated the costs of supporting civil rights in this case. his apparent genuineness in this case doesn’t seem like strong evidence.
Some evidence for (2) is that before the 1957 act no civil rights legislation had been passed for 82 years[1], and after it three more civil rights acts were passed in the next 11 years, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which in my understanding is considered very significant.
Going off what’s listed in the wikipedia article on civil rights acts in the United States.
there’s an exogenous factor, which is that the entire country was shifting leftward during the 50s and 60s. it’s plausible that the 1964 bill would have passed anyways without the 1957 bill, possibly even earlier
Fair enough yeah. But at least (1)-style effects weren’t strong enough to prevent any significant legislation in the near future.