Political History

[DogOnPorch]

Toss your fables of past elections and such in here.

Got a photo of Nixon giving the bird to Le Duc Tho? I wanna see it...

 

[Infidel Dog]

I'm told to bring the Southern Strategy discussion here.

Very well...

Here's a description of what Progressives and those in their orbit claim the Southern Strategy was. (It's from Wikipedia)

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In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans.

Most often it's attributed to the campaigns of Goldwater and Nixon in 1964 and 68. 

The problem there is neither of those two ever publicly called for such a racist strategy to be enacted.

The black vote in the south had begun migrating to the Democrats during the gifts package days of the New Deal under FDR.

Goldwater made a comment once suggesting it would be better to concentrate on the white vote because they'd already lost the black one. Past Republican presidents such as Herbert Hoover and Eisenhower had had some success with the white demographic. Neither were racists.

Kevin Phillips who worked briefly as a strategist in the Nixon Campaign before becoming a contributor to Progressive media popularized the phrase "Southern Strategy."

Both Goldwater and Nixon have good civil rights creds.

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There are three aspects to the Southern Strategy. First it is alleged that Barry Goldwater’s vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act proved he was a racist and his appeal to “states rights” implied a continuation of Jim Crow. The reality of Goldwater’s alleged “racism” is much different, however. Goldwater had been instrumental in the effort to integrate the Arizona National Guard even before Truman integrated the Armed Forces. Goldwater had voted for all previous civil rights legislation. He was only opposed to two provisions in the ’64 Civil Rights Act; provisions which affected private property. He believed that private businesses and clubs were subject only to market forces, not government mandates.

Later a couple of Progressives managed to finagle a Ronald Reagan strategist into an hours long interview where they managed to badger him (Leon Panetta) into claiming at one brief point in the interview it would be possible to pitch to white racists with Dog whistle terms. It had been claimed Nixon did that.

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The second aspect alleges that Richard Nixon used hidden code words that appealed to racists within the Democrat party and throughout the South in an effort to win white votes by exploiting racial tensions. The problem with this line of thinking is that, in order for racism to be hidden inside another viewpoint, that second view – to be a useful hiding place – must be one that can be held for entirely legitimate reasons. In other words, these are also positions principled non-racists can hold. The views are racist simply because they are defined as racist, a tautology.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-gop/2787426/posts

For example Nixon opposed busing but there can be legitimate reasons for that. In an interview Nixon described how it wouldn't make sense to bus a kid 5 miles to be in an integrated school when he had a school to walk to 5 blocks away. Such a thing would be more likely to cause more problems between the races, he argued. He thought it better to simply improve all schools and open them to all.

So accepting the notion of a "Southern Strategy" requires we believe the notion that Nixon, Goldwater and later even Reagan were dog whistling to Southern Democrats by mentioning legitimate notions that might draw in some white Dems for supposedly racist reasons. Pass the tin foil guys.

In fact, speaking of tin foil, another reason for ignoring this conspiracy theory labelled the Southern Strategy, that Progressives are desperate to believe and have you believe, is there's no real evidence of its existence.

 

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The third aspect for establishing the Southern Strategy myth was laid with another falsehood; that all the former Dixiecrats had joined the Republican Party after Nixon allegedly used the used the Southern Strategy. The Dixiecrat Party was a third party that splintered from the Democrats because of their dissatisfaction with Harry Truman over the civil rights issue during the 1940s. The goal of the Dixiecrat Party was to continue segregation and white supremacy in the southern states. Senator Strom Thurmond left the Democrats and became their presidential nominee in 1948. After losing the election, Thurmond returned to the Democrat Party, but later switched to the Republicans in 1964. However, almost all the other former Dixiecrats remained in the Democrat Party until they either retired or died. Fulbright, Wallace, Gore and Byrd retired as Democrats.

Speaking of which: shoutout to Beaver Feaver. Do you notice Democrat Senator Byrd's name up there, Beave? He wasn't just an Exalted Cyclops of the KKK. He was a Dixiecrat.

Edited October 22, 2020 by Infidel Dog

[DogOnPorch]

A Biden rally.....

Kidding!

[DogOnPorch]

Anyways...politics and history. Hand in hand...but pretty boring ultimately.

But Trump made it fun for a while...stirring things-up. 

Now we enter a Brave New World where the leader of the free world ISN'T the most powerful person on the planet. He's number 15...or 35...or the 62nd.

If they can ban Trump...think of what they can do to little old you.