IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL TO BE THIS STUPID

Our good friend and constant source of amusement MrArchieBunker just got done "skoolin'" us on post-1950s presidential election history. According to his misinformed bleating, every presidential election since WWII has been a story of a stolid conservative Republican trouncing a namby-pamby liberal Democrat. Oddly enough, he carefully wends his squirrelly way around Kennedy, Johnson, and, of course, Clinton.

This mental midget crows, "We've broken the code, we don't need liberals to win anymore!" Pathetic. He even gurgles contentedly as he strokes himself and mutters, "I'm not doing rhetoric, it's all the facts, thank you ma'am."

Now, far be it from me to burst the little dear's bubble. I'd hate to have to lay the factual smack down on his tiny wittle head, but that's what you pay me for. So, without further ado, I present to you, the Southern Strategy:

In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to the focus of the Republican party on winning U.S. Presidential elections by securing the electoral votes of the U.S. Southern states, originally through support for states' rights.

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In the 1964 presidential race, Goldwater adopted an extremely conservative stance. In particular, he emphasized the issue of what he called "states' rights". As a conservative, Goldwater did not favor strong action by the federal government. For instance, though not a segregationist personally, he strongly opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the grounds that, first, it was an intrusion of the federal government into the affairs of states and second, it was an interference with the rights of private persons to do business, or not, with whomever they chose. This was a popular stand in the Southern states; whether or not this was specifically a tactic designed to appeal to racist Southern white voters is a matter of debate.

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Nixon, with the aid of Harry Dent and then South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had switched to the Republican party in 1964, ran on a campaign of states' rights and "law and order". Many liberals accused him of pandering to racist Southern whites, especially with regards to his "states' rights" stand.

As a result every state that had been in the Confederacy, except Texas, voted for either Nixon or Southern Democrat George Wallace, despite a strong tradition of supporting Democrats. Meanwhile, Nixon parlayed a wide perception as a moderate into wins in other states, taking a solid majority in the electoral college. That is why the election of 1968 is sometimes cited as a realigning election.

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Nevertheless, in 1980, when Ronald Reagan initiated his general election campaign after accepting the Republican Party nomination, he did so with a speech in which he stated his support of states' rights. He did so at a county fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi, which was also known as the place where three civil rights advocates were murdered in 1964. Reagan went on to make a speech praising Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy and states' rights advocate, at Stone Mountain, Georgia, site of the founding of the modern Klan. A prominent Klan leader endorsed Reagan, but he disavowed the endorsement and moved to neutralize any negative publicity by securing the support of noted Southern civil rights activists Hosea Williams and Ralph David Abernathy.

Bob Herbert reported in the October 6, 2005 edition of the New York Times of a 1981 interview with Lee Atwater in which he explains the GOP's Southern Strategy: "You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

"And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.' " [1]

Charges of racism have been lodged in subsequent Republican races for the House and Senate in the South. The Willie Horton commercials used by supporters of George H.W. Bush in the election of 1988 was claimed to be racist. Other examples include the 1990 re-election campaign of Jesse Helms, which attacked his opponent's alleged support of "racial quotas." Many ardent Democratic party supporters claim that support for federalism in the Republican party platform is, and always has been, nothing but a code word for racism, a charge Republicans consistently deny. Such allegations typically peak after a racially charged controversy involving Republicans, such as Senator Trent Lott's supportive remarks at Thurmond's hundredth birthday celebration.

Leaving aside all questions of race, the Republicans have continued to modify the Southern strategy, and to use it not only within the South, but in conservative areas of the Midwest and other regions. As racism became less politically palatable as a lone motivator, it was augmented by divisions based on other cultural issues like abortion, school prayer, or funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. These cultural differences are emphasized rather than economic issues including tariffs, federal job spending, and so on (with the single exception of taxes). They play on perceived and actual cultural differences between the conservative and liberal parts of the nation. the South is seen as more religious and traditional than, say, New England. An example of this new iteration of the Southern strategy can be seen in this quote from Pat Buchanan, a famously conservative political pundit, in which he denounces John Kerry (the 2004 Democratic contender for President) as:

...a Massachusetts liberal who voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, backs civil unions for homosexuals, voted to defend the infanticide known as partial-birth abortion and wants to raise the federal income taxes that George Bush lowered. [2]

The strategy can be seen in the phrase "Massachusetts liberal", emphasizing Kerry's alleged cultural alienness to the South, and in the emphasis on cultural, rather than economic, issues. A 2004 book by Thomas Frank, entitled What's the Matter with Kansas?, revolves around the rise of cultural issues as a Republican strategy.

It's obvious that the Republicans set out to appeal to the deep seated racism and hatred of "liberal Northerners" in the Old Confederacy and the West. Reagan even made it more blatant with his praise of Davis and his use of images like the urban "Welfare Queen" to win his elections. The Republican party of today has expanded it's playbook to include homophobia and misogyny as well. Karl Rove, likely to be indicted tomorrow, is a disciple of Lee Atwater, who as much as admitted, in the interview seen above, that Republicans were using coded language to appeal to racists. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Republican party of Nixon has used coded racism to build a coalition based on hatred and division, rather than on good policy or good politics.

Perhaps MrArchieBunker can be proud of that kind of winning record, but not me. I'd rather die than stand behind a party that uses racism and bigotry to win. The only bright point is that research and experience shows that young people are much less prejudiced than prior generations. There is hope that, within a few decades, enough of the "Old Guard" bigots will either die out or be shamed into silence that a new progressive politics can emerge. Hopefully, Archie will know enough to keep his bigotry to himself.

JC