Democrats and Jesse Jackson
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Sounding just a little bit hysterical, right-wing commentators, stunned by Jackson’s apparent substantial appeal even to white voters, have a new clarion call: It is not Jackson’s blackness but his radical ideas that make him unfit.
What Jackson’s appeal really does is expose as a canard the fall-back position of Reaganites as the Reagan Revolution unravels: “He made everyone feel good again.”
I am sure that became holy writ from the myopia of their pristine prisons of privilege. But for anyone willing to listen, he could hear the windows opening, as in the movie “Network” of some years ago, and the people screaming, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!”
To these multitudes, Jackson is offering new hope. Are your tuned in, warmed-over Reaganites in the Democratic party?
FLOYD A. OLIVER
Los Angeles
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