The Myth of the Southern Strategy

Dealt with already. Deal with the rebuttal or admit Neshoba is hot air BS.

 

Baloney. Document your made up nonsense.

 

An economic shift attributed to one party would have fostered an inclusive regional affinity. It would not have resulted in the wholesale stampede of one race to an increasingly homogenous party, and the other race to the far more racially diverse party without race as a significant contributory factor.

The sharp disparity is a reality that Southern Whites are unable to explain - without blaming Blacks for it.

 

bingo. well said, Natty.

 

Screw that. YOU deal with the mountains of factual evidence conclusively disproving the Southern Strategy posted already in this thread or admit you are hot air. Such an absurdity as courting voters primarily on race whom we are told by the TOP GOP STRATEGIST of the time had ceased to vote on race by 1970... well... that burden's all on you champ. And not a single one of you in this thread has met it, not even close, none of you have offered one shred of factual, documentary evidence in support of the Southern Strategy, just the same windbaggy horsesh-t conjecture and supposition. Casper the friendly ghost stuff that doesn't make any sense and certainly doesn't jive with history.

Hear that? It's the sound of decompression, all the hot air peddled for decades rushing out of the echo chamber. Post some FACTS as I have, or shut up.

 

Socially conservative, states-rights, bible-thumping White Southerner cow chips off the old block changed their label.

Pretending they're an entirely different breed as a result is ludicrous.

 

herpaderp It's not any "economic shift" attributed to one party, but the indisputable FACT that Democrats tend to raise taxes and Republicans tend to lower them, voters know this, everyone in the world knows this, it's a remarkably plain policy difference even for leftists to comprehend, and I think you know that full well too. "Fostered an inclusive regional affinity?" What kind of arglebargle is that? Oh, and the rising wealth in the South leading to an affinity for lower taxes was but -one- of the 8 or so real reasons I listed for the switch. Crickets chirp on the rest, which are indisputably well-documented history. No one said anything about a "wholesale stampede" straw king, it took 40 or so years.

Once again, 0 facts, 0 substance, 0 Southern Strategy. The South switched for a host of real reasons, Atwater told us as much in the interview, quite prescient he was, and I know now none of the lefties in the thread have even bothered to listen to the whole of it.

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0 facts, 0 substance, 0 Southern Strategy.

 

...and here comes another lefty offering... 0 substance, 0 facts, 0 Southern Strategy. I don't have to disprove some silly dogwhistle bigfoot conspiracy theory (but I have anyway), you and yours have to prove it, and once again, raw conjecture and farts in the wind, 0 substance, 0 facts, 0 Southern Strategy. Keep bumping though, it's time for lots of lurkers here to see the rats cling to their sinking ship yet again.

 

Thread challenge, several pages, entirely unmet. Southern Strategy 0, Reason and actual history, 100. Game, set, match.

But...but... dog whistle... dog whistle... dog whistle.

 

Race identity is crucial for the democrat party as it is the issue they have always had and looks like they are doubling down on it as time goes on.

 

it doesn't really matter if those on the right admit to the existence of a southern strategy. The proof of its existence lies in the voting patterns of the southern states. What once was a solid blue bloc of democrats south of the mason dixon line - when blacks in the south could NOT vote - is now nearly a solid red bloc of republicans where blacks CAN vote - and blacks, nationally, vote for democrats nearly 90% of the time. Something happened. Something happened that made blacks - who had traditionally supported republicans for no other reason than Lincoln was one - switch parties almost totally, and something happened that made southern whites - who had traditionally supported democrats for no other reason than they passed the Jim Crow laws that kept the negro in his place - switch parties and vote almost exclusively republican. Who CARES if it was because of race... the strategy worked. The south is now a red state area and it used to be a blue state area. Blacks used to vote exclusively republican and now they vote almost exclusively democrat. Blame that shift on whatever the hell you want to blame it on if it helps you get to sleep at night. The aftermath of it is unassailable.

 

There is no need to prove anything from "us". History has shown what conservatives have done then and what they continue to do today. All one needs to do is look at the results of the CRA vote broken down by north vs south for the answers. You can keep spinning that ship by saying "democrats this" and "democrats that" but the conservative ideology expressed not only on this forum, but many others like it, shows why votes are cast the way they are today.

Herp Derp.

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Exactly, that's basically what I wrote in my post below.

It is a crying (*)(*)(*)(*)ing shame that there are some so ignorant to see it. Then again, I think it's willful ignorance....

 

Wrong again. Those voting patterns prove the following REAL reasons the South switched. You do understand the difference between reality and fiction, right? "Real" for example are the types of factors in the following list. "Fiction" includes things like "dog whistles" (fart whistle), coincidental speech locations, cherry-picked out of context quotes, talking head opinions... you know... things that aren't facts or evidence of the type OP clearly asked for in the OP but for some strange reason has gotten NONE of, in 7 or so pages now.

1. The South was DIRT POOR after the CW, and remained so for nearly a century. As the South gained more wealth in the latter half of the 20th century, they gravitated towards the party of lower taxes. This is likely the primary factor for the shift, more middle and upper middle class voters/taxpayers in the South.
2. The South is more fundamentally religious, and perceives the Democrats as the party of abortion. As Hoosier's article points out, the South also resents the constant barrage of anti religious bigotry from the left, perceives the Democratic Party as the party of atheists.
3. The South is the cradle of our military, has been since the country's founding. As such, the South resented certain aspects of the AntiWar movement, perceived the Democrats as getting us into and keeping us in the VN war, and also perceived the Democrats as disrespectful to veterans.
4. The South has been anti central government since the founding, and that relates only tangentially to slavery. The South perceives the Democrats as the party of big, overreaching, expensive government post Kennedy, and votes accordingly.
5. The South perceives the Democrats as the party of reactionary socialists and immoral, drug-addled libertines, Hollywood and MSM excess, this began with the Youth Movement and continues today. Abbie Hoffman and Tim Leary didn't do the Democrats any favors in retaining the Southern vote long term.
6. The South perceives the Democrats as soft on law and order, allowing and even creating the Watts, Detroit, Chicago and Ferguson riots, coddling OWS lawlessness, race-baiting and wealth-baiting across the country for decades that leads to unnecessary social damage and violence.
7. As mentioned previously in the thread, the South, pro Second Amendment, perceives the Democrats as the party of threatened gun seizures and unnecessary restrictions on gun rights.
8. The South is tired of being subject to LW and Democrat bigotry, being called uneducated, flyover country, backward hillbillies, tired of being the only allowable butt of bigotry by the supposedly PC and tolerant left. Why would any Southerner vote for a party full of people constantly and irrationally derogating the South as OP and the liestudy do?

For the most part, the REAL reasons for the South switching to the GOP evidence the Democratic Party leaving the South, not the other way around. Keep preaching that far left BS, though, keep preaching resentment identity politics, and do keep up a constant stream of bigotry against the South by positing insulting made up BS like the Southern Strategy, keep losing the South. You all are your own worst enemies in that respect.

Once again, for crystal clarity, the OP asks for proof of some Southern Strategy in the Nixon campaign and after, to court a Southern vote racially that presumably voted and still votes on race as a major if not the major issue. This is the linchpin of the leftist lie narrative on race today, and if you nor anyone else can evidence it with facts, not fart whistles, then the whole current Democrat narrative on race, and a racist GOP fails miserably. The OP asked for specific things. NONE of those things have been provided.

 

Hey, here comes glock again, is he gonna post anything factual or substantive with respect to the thread topic, and the crystal clear question the OP asks about any plans, policy, facts with respect to the Southern Strategy? Nope, maybe next time. Probably not.

 

Awww, whats the matter, computer wouldn't let you quote the whole response? Figures you would only respond to the part you can try to deflect.

 

You have not done anything of the sort.

 

1. Lee Atwater said the N word in a 1min 40 second interview in 1981 with a race-baiting hackademic. Atwater was speaking hypothetically and in persona, not to any real, specific GOP strategy. He debunked and refuted the Southern Strategy thoroughly, entirely, and irrefutably, during the other 38 minutes of the interview despite being CONSTANTLY baited by the hackademic who only used the cherrypick, never the entire interview until both he and Atwater were dead. The Nation posted the entire interview, probably because omitting it when slandering Atwater with the 1:40 cherry pick could have resulted in libel charges. Go find it if you want to hear the truth and listen to ALL of it. It completely disproves the Southern Strategy.

EDIT: cool, someone linked it right above (she will regret that LOL... think before running off and blindly googling to cutpaste here in the future). That interview alone proves 1. There was and is no pervasive Southern Strategy in the GOP, 2. race wasn't a radar issue in the South post 1970, 3. Just how dishonest and corrupt leftist hackademics are. Atwater was being played when he thought he was being honestly interviewed. To repeat, the whole interview wasn't published ANYWHERE until 2012, whereas the 1:40 cherrypick was referenced over and over by political operatives and the hackademic in question for decades. I guess the hackademic's wife had pangs of conscience once the hackademic and Atwater were dead. Notice how the Nation tries to play it like the whole interview (that they most certainly don't want you to listen to) is covered in the article. It's not, only the cherrypick.

2. Ronald Reagan held his originating campaign speech, coincidentally, at the Neshoba State Fair within several miles of a particular Civil Rights lynching site. He said "states rights" once in a medium length speech on the economy and inflation... and hilariously when CONDONING WELFARE not racism. Jimmy Carter started his campaign, coincidentally, at the national HQ of the KKK at the time. No one has attributed any racist motivation to Carter... ever. Any venue in the country is within ten miles of a heinous crime, it doesn't mean that people who choose to speak there are supporting that crime.

3. There is a -single- cherrypicked quote of MLK's out of all the many things he said over time, denouncing racism in the GOP. It is taken entirely out of context, and leftists repeat it over and over as if that single quote proves the Southern Strategy. It doesn't. King also wrote a letter to Nixon thanking him for his support of one of the civil rights acts.

4. Two or three commentators, including a Nixon aide who switched parties, state their OPINION that there was a Southern Strategy. None of these OPINIONS are backed with any factual content whatsoever... nada.

5. Recently, a RNC chairman purportedly "apologized" to the black community for racism in the GOP. He did not. Dig up the actual video o youtube and watch it for yourself. It as a political speech with a very vague tossoff phrase obviously directed at the PERCEPTION of racism in the GOP propagandized by the left for decades, not any actuality. Once again, there are no specifics or facts in that speech whatsoever.

6. There is a law professor by the name of Lopez who makes a living race-baiting. His works are transparently dishonest and flawed to any reasonable reader. His premise of GOP racism involves pretending that George Wallace was a Republican (he was not), that because he was a racist means later Republicans were too. No kidding, his work is THAT vapid.

7. Strom Thurmond switched parties. That's IT. Unlike Robert Byrd, who did not switch parties, he was not a klansman. Almost all the racists in Congress remained Democrats their entire career, did not switch, the South remained Democrat in statehouse and Congress until 93.

That's about it. That's as close as you will get the left to proving the Southern Strategy. NOTHING in writing, no policy papers, notes. NOTHING on tape (other than Atwater's clear refutation of it). NO factual content, testimony, documentary evidence whatsoever. NO real evidence at all for a conspiracy theory that supposedly was so pervasive that it caused millions of voters to switch parties due to no other reason than racism.

 

I have never claimed that race was the only reason that the south went from solid blue to dead red... but to suggest it was not a major contributing factor is ridiculous... and AGAIN... who really cares WHY it happened? Blacks couldn't vote, and if they could they voted republican. Whites voted almost exclusively democrat. That flip flopped. You can claim it happened for non-racial reasons and I could really care less. It happened. The south was blue, now it's red. Blacks used to vote for republicans, now they vote for democrats. As republicans, you can't really (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) cuz you have a whole bloc of states that used to vote against you and now vote for you. Attribute that to whatever helps you sleep at night, I could give a (*)(*)(*)(*) one way or the other.

 

Hey, here comes glock again, is he gonna post anything factual or substantive with respect to the thread topic, and the crystal clear question the OP asks about any plans, policy, facts with respect to the Southern Strategy? Nope, maybe next time. Probably not.

 

Here's a tissue, want to address the CRA vote which substantiates the Southern Strategy?

 

Atwater, the greatest strategist in 20th century GOP politics (he ran IIRC over 25 Republican campaigns), tells us in the earlier linked 1981 interview that by 1970, race had ceased being on the top ten list of voting issues in the South. That's 1970, not 1980, not 1990, not 2014... 1970. Atwater tells us that the Economy and Defense were how to win in the South. He tells us that politics in the South would and had become more "class struggle" than race related. He tells us a whole host of other things in the course of a 40 minute interview... all of which utterly disprove any pervasive Southern Strategy in the GOP to court racists during his tenure as the chief strategist of the GOP and the RNC. He was right.

 

Actually he said 1980 in the interview which means that the Southern Strategy of adopting the Democrats tactics in the south were no longer needed since up to that point the only way you could get elected was on race and party and a were a democrat.

 

Another bull(*)(*)(*)(*) dem. nothing more !

 

Thanks for that informative response.

 

Which one? Which CRA? The ones the Democrats opposed and Nixon campaigned for? The one MLK sent Nixon a letter of thanks for his vocal support and work on? The one that JFK and LBJ voted against? 1. If you think a Congressional vote evidences some pervasive GOP plan to court racists to switch to the GOP, you will have a long row to hoe, that's not evidence of anything specifically. But go ahead, which bloc of segregationist GOP Congressmen voted en bloc against the CRAs in an attempt to court racists in the South? to the extent that evidences some Southern Strategy? Can't wait to hear this.

2. Evidence of a Southern Strategy would include some written thing, some plan, some policy, some memoir with some kind of DETAILS of it, as opposed to the head strategist of the GOP stating that he didn't run campaigns on race because that was not the way to win the South after 1970 (believe me, if Atwater had thought he could win on race, he would have campaigned on it), as opposed to Nixon's national newspaper published campaign opener in the 60s declaring that neither he nor the GOP wanted to campaign on race or to court racists, as opposed to Nixon's sterling record on Civil Rights and desegregation that HAD TO P-off any remaining segregationists and racists, not court them.