Vasyl in comments:
Have you noticed how often Keyes and his supporters cite 19th century politicians and precedents? It’s almost like they think they actually are fighting the political battles of that century, not debating the issues facing 21st century America.
I liked Josh Marshall’s comments about Keyes’s eloquence — that it is spellbinding, but has a cartoonish quality about it. Having read some of his speeches and columns, I have an rudimentary theory about this.
Keyes’s grammar and syntax are not modern. He has more in common with orators from the 19th century than he does with the great speakers (Reagan, Clinton, Blair, Obama) of our day.
Doesn’t this sound like Keyes: “I now wish to ask you whether that principle was right or wrong which guaranteed to every State and every community the right to form and regulate their domestic institutions to suit themselves.”
It’s not a Keyes quote; it’s a sentence from Stephen Douglas’s speech at one of the debates in 1858.
What about this one: “The practical foundation of all the rights and privileges of the individual citizen is the rights that inhere in the citizen body as a whole, the rights of the people and of the state governments. The latter effectively embody their ability to resist abuses of national power. Such rights include the right to elect representatives, and to be governed by laws made and enforced through them.”
That’s Keyes in 2003, even though it sounds like Douglas in 1858.
The theory is this: Keyes lives in the 19th century. He has adopted the trappings of a free black man from that time period, and it informs his opinions, his manners, his outlook, and even his speaking style.
I admit, this is just a rough theory — but it certainly explains why Keyes ignores every constitutional and political development since the Civil War.
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