So because of something that may have happened 50 years ago, we cant have a civil and rational debate on the issue now.
That's what the evidence suggests.
Of course, it's not as if the "50 years ago" event that begun to slowly emerge 55 years ago could potentially be deemed to have ended before the 80s.
The current party system owes a huge debt to times of opener majority group racism and of now-ended legalized apartheid. Racist sentiments among the majority group, including Democratic voters, are still ridiculously pervasive but also semi-sorta-tabooized (a lot less than "semi", really. But partly tabooized), and are unspeakable in the political arena because that's necessary for this desperate fiction that you've moved on when you haven't.
What, then, do you expect?
