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I very randomly watched A Time to Kill, a now mostly forgotten film that had some super-hot takes on the culture war back when it came out in 1996. Overall, I liked it a lot and thought it threw out some genuinely interesting moral considerations, but I also found the tone and message... wonky.
The premise - In the Deep South of Alabama (presumably in 1996), two drunk red neck good old boys who liberally say "nigger" and have a Confederate flag on their truck are trawling around town harassing random people. On a whim, they kidnap, rape, torture, and try to murder a 10 year old black girl. She survives, but is left with lots of injuries, including being unable to ever have children.
The rednecks are quickly arrested and everyone in town hopes they'll receive swift justice, but some people aren't so sure they will. Alabama is still considered deeply racist, and apparently a similar case a few years ago saw different perpetrators escape punishment. So the father (Samuel L. Jackson) takes matters into his own hands. While the two suspects are being marched through the local court house on the way to their trial, the father guns them down with an assault rifle, and accidentally wounds a police officer in the process.
The rest of the movie is a courtroom drama where a white lawyer (Matthew McConaughey) defends the father while the local DA (Kevin Spacey) tries to charge him with double first-degree murder. Meanwhile, the brother of one of the suspects tries to get the literal KKK to terrorize the lawyer to sabotage the defense. He's told that there is no KKK in town, but through some contacts, the brother finds the nearest Grand Wizard who then commands the brother to set up a local chapter. Throughout the trial, the KKK launches various terrorist attacks on the town and amasses 100+ members to march through the streets, and gets into violent encounters with pro-father protesters.
To get to the most interesting culture war-y part, I need to SPOIL the plot, so don't read on if you don't want to know what happens in a 25 year old movie.
The Defense mostly fucks up in the trial and it looks like the father is going to be convicted. The biggest problem for the Defense is that the jury is all white and presumed to be racist/unsympathetic. In one scene, the jurors are shown talking about the trial (illegally) the night before its conclusion, and all 12 jurors admit that they will vote guilty (one of whom even refers to the defendant as a "nigger").
Cut to the climactic closing statements of the trial. The DA gives a rousing speech about how he feels sorry for the father given what his daughter went through, but the law is the law, and you can't just murder two men in cold blood because they wronged you. Then McConaughey gives his closing statement: he recounts in gruesome detail every step of the 10 year old girl's kidnapping, torture, and rape, and concludes with... "now imagine if she was white."
The Defense wins the trial. The father is cleared of all charges and goes free. The film's narrative portrays this as an unambiguously good thing.
There's a lot to unpack here, but a few prompts:
Was 1996 Alabama really THAT racist? Would the random average white person in Alabama at that time be considered racist enough by default that they would automatically side against any black defendant? Were there enough real, true, hardcore racists that the KKK could field 100+ protesters at a big racial trial?
How differently, if at all, would such a trial be perceived today?
What is a proper punishment for the father, if any? If I had to give a verdict, I'd say he should be found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison, which is an extremely short sentence for a double murder and maiming of a cop, but warranted given the context. I most certainly wouldn't be comfortable with finding him not guilty, not if we want to have a functional society.
Non-culture war addendum - the movie has an insane amount of contemporary and future movie stars. There's Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland, Kurtwood Smith, Oliver Platt, Chris Cooper, Charles Dutton, and I'm proud of myself for spotting Octavia Spencer as a literal extra.
As an aside, I've often felt it was a blatant smear that Republicans got tagged as the "racist" party (with increasing fervor) in recent years, when the supposed "most racist" states in the South were reliably Democratic during the eras of exponentially-greater blatant racism. I've often heard the defense of "oh well the parties flipped", but I've never been able to square that argument with obvious examples like Robert Byrd being a Democratic senator a mere 13 years ago, or things like Biden's comments in the 70's about a "racial jungle".
I'm like "okay, if the parties flipped, then when did they flip?". Because when it comes to Biden (and countless others, I'm certain), they clearly haven't flipped yet.
There was no "flip," is the point. There was a multi-decade trend across the South from one-party Democrat control to mostly one-party Republican control, but this trend happened at different rates in different states, and even more so, in different electoral contexts. Bill Clinton represented the last major effort at retaining the South in Presidential elections in 1992 and 1996 (and his running mate was even from a different Southern state!), and for all that--and Ross Perot's third-party candidacy--he only got about half the Southern states. In 2000, Al Gore did not win a single Southern state, not even his home state of Tennessee.
Let's take a look at the state governments:
Alabama's governor's mansion flipped from R to D to R to D to R in the 90s and early 2000s, and has only been solid R since 2003. Both houses of the Alabama state legislature were controlled by the Democrats from the end of Reconstruction until 2011 (!...also, this pattern will recur), and they have remained in Republican hands since then.
Arkansas' governor was a Democrat to start the 90s, then a Republican from 1997-2006, a Democrat until 2015, and a Republican since. Both houses of the state legislature were controlled by the Democrats until 2013 and Republicans thereafter.
Florida's governor was a Democrat (with a couple of Republican exceptions: one in the 60s and one in the 80s) until Jeb Bush took over for the Republicans in 1998, and except for some weirdness in 2010 with Crist, has remained Republican since. The state legislature was split in the mid 90s, with the Republicans taking over the Senate a couple years before adding the House in 1997.
Georgia's governor's mansion and state Senate flipped from solid Democrat to solid Republican in 2003, and the state House in 2005.
Kentucky and Louisiana still have not solidified as one-party Republican states--both have had repeated exchanges of power in the governor's mansion over the past three decades (and are currently controlled by Democrats). Kentucky's Senate went R in 2000, but the House did not go R until 2017. Lousiana's state legislature was solid D until 2011, and solid R since then.
Mississippi started the 90s with an R governor, succeeded by a Democrat in 2000, and back to R from 2004 to the present. Except for a brief exchange in 2007, the Democrats controlled the state Senate until 2011, and the House until 2012, while the Republicans have controlled both since then.
Missouri started the 90s with an R governor, went D in 1993, R in 2005, D in 2009, and back to R in 2017 until the present. The state Senate was solid D until 2001, and the state House similarly until 2003, and the Rs have maintained control of each since then.
North Carolina currently has a D governor, and the Republicans have only held the governor's mansion for a single term (2013-2017) since the early 90s. Aside from a short span in the late 90s (1995-1999) when the Rs held the state House, the Ds held both the state Senate and state House until 2011, and the Rs have controlled both since then.
South Carolina's first Republican governor since Reconstruction was elected in 1974. Since that time, both Rs and Ds have been governor, though the R's current winning streak goes back to 2002. The state House went R in 1995, and the state Senate in 2001, and have remained in R hands since.
Tennessee started the 90s with a D governor, switched R in 1995, back to D in 2003, and back to R in 2011. Except for an oddball period in 1996, Democrats held the state Senate until 2005, and Republicans since then (though there was split control in 2007-2008). The state House was solid D until 2010, and solid R since then.
Texas elected its first R governor since Reconstruction in 1978, and exchanged parties back and forth until George W. Bush was elected in 1995. In the past 28 years, Texas has had three governors--Bush, Perry, and Abbott--all Republicans. The state Senate went R in 1997, and the state House followed in 2003.
Virginia has had split control of the governor's mansion and both houses of the state legislature across the past three decades in various configurations. Currently, the governor and state House are R, and the state Senate is D, but if the state is going to solidify its political lean, that will happen in the future. The governor and state House were last D two years ago, and the state Senate was last R four years ago.
So while Republicans mostly control the state governments of the South today, in most cases that takeover happened in the last decade or two. A heavily recurring pattern--particularly in the houses of the state legislatures--is persistant control by Democrats lasting a century or more, followed by a switch to persistant Republican control at some single point within the last 30 years.
Paralleling this development is the regional decline in racism. The South of 50 years ago is not remotely like the South of today in terms of race relations. For example, multiple states in the South have elected racial-minority candidates in statewide races, though in general, those candidates have been Republicans.
I can’t speak to other states here, but a major caveat on ‘republicans control the Texas house’ is that the Texas house is currently controlled by a coalition agreement including lots of democrats, and has since 2003.
This is because of A) blue doggers who are basically republicans but in Spanish and B) efforts by moderate republicans to exclude the most conservative republicans from positions of influence. The Texas house is about 1/3 partisan Republican(not all of these are Uberconservatives, they’re just all partisan), 40% dem(some of these are blue doggers but many are not, and there are some fairly progressive democrats in high ranking house positions), and everyone else moderate.
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