p. viv
“

I began studying the political history of race in America. Having worked in Congress and at the White House, I have some familiarity with the nature of politics and how politicians think. I thought I could use this knowledge to illuminate this one aspect of the race problem in America in ways that might help us better deal with its long, sordid history. What quickly jumped out at me is a fact that seems obvious in retrospect, but which I had never really thought about. Virtually every significant racist in American political history was a Democrat. Before the Civil War, the Democratic Party was the party of slavery. It was based largely in the south and almost all of its leaders were slave owners, including Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson, considered by Democrats to be co-founders of their party.

— Bruce Bartlett

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I began studying the political history of race in America. Having worked in Congress and at the White House, I have some familiarity with the nature of politics and how politicians think. I thought I could use this knowledge to illuminate this one aspect of the race problem in America in ways that might help us better deal with its long, sordid history. What quickly jumped out at me is a fact that seems obvious in retrospect, but which I had never really thought about. Virtually every significant racist in American political history was a Democrat. Before the Civil War, the Democratic Party was the party of slavery. It was based largely in the south and almost all of its leaders were slave owners, including Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson, considered by Democrats to be co-founders of their party." in the context of "p. viv" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Bruce Bartlett" (Quotes, 2000s, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past (2008): Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past (2008)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

About Bruce Bartlett

Bruce Reeves Bartlett (born 11 October 1951) is an American historian whose area of expertise is supply-side economics. He served as a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and as a Treasury official under George H. W. Bush.