Jim McGovern Quotes
This is a place where trivial issues get debated passionately and important ones not at all.
Jim McGovern, U. S. Congressman (Democrat, MA), Debate, House of Representatives, March 12, 2014
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In the 1920s through the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1963, Southern politicians labled all efforts for desegregation as “socialist” or “communist”. What is less known it that this canard goes back to the slavery argument BEFORE the Civil War. This document was relatively widely distributed in the South to the literate part of the public (Even the white population had high illiteracy rates in the South—even in modern times it is higher than the rest of the nation.) In this case the author actually claimed that many Northern State legislatures were socialist controlled as was the House of Represented; and many Southerners actually believed him. Even into the 21st century Southern conservatives were claiming that pro affirmative action politicians like President Obama were socialists and some people actually believed that also.
Under his leadership the conservative Republicans had attempted and failed dozens of times to repeal Obamacare which many Republicans campaigned against in the 2012 Presidential election which they also lost. The irony was that even if a repeal were to possibly pass both housed of Congress, President Obama announced that he would veto the repeal. This futile and repetitive wast of time took place where the House was so extreme that it originated almost no legislation that every became law. The conservative Republicans had opposed every attempt to provide a national health system since they blocked President Truman from it. Yet Medicare was passed and became one of America’s most popular programs. Conservatives blocked all efforts to expand Medicare to cover all Americans until President Obama in his first term passed Obamacare. Since then they made all these attempts to repeal it.
In the latter part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, right wing talk show hosts had extensive conservative audiences who were very susceptible to hyperbole, exaggerations, vitriol, ideology, and conspiracy theories. They in turn pressured the conservative politicians along the lines of the media shows version of conservatism. The result was that the most powerful conservatives in America were media personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. They had more influence on the Republican party than any of the Republican elected officials. Moyers, used to working with Republicans in many bi-partisan efforts attributed the extreme hyperpartisanship, and nasty, gridlocked political scene that developed in these media personalities.
James Patrick McGovern is a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Massachusetts's 2nd congressional district since 1997. He is the Chair of the House Rules Committee and of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China as well as the Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, numbered as the 3rd district from 1997 to 2013, stretches from Worcester to the Pioneer Valley.
