This was from a post on redstate.com. The title is "The Southern Strategy: Real or Democrat/Press Myth." I see a hypothesis forming in the mind of Martin A. Knight, the author of the post. Now we just have to check and see if his critical thinking faculties are up to snuff.
"I have always maintained that it is one of the clearest signs of injustice in the world of politics that the Republican Party is consistently stigmatized in the popular culture as being stridently anti-Civil Rights and the Democrats are lauded as the premier pro-Civil Rights party. I am well aware that the GOP has a far from spotless record on race, but it is relatively pristine compared to just how much more spotted the Democrats' record is."
I think I see where this is going. But I'll give him a chance.
"The Democrats today claim that the Republican Party turned against Civil Rights in the mid-1960s, and/or used subtle appeals to latent Southern racism to pick up the racist white vote in the South. This theory, that the GOP appealed to racism to reach their current position of dominance in the South, is what has since been termed the Republican "Southern Strategy."Is this story true? I personally don't think so."
Ok. You've made your claim. Let's here the evidence.
"practically every famous racist that had walked the sphere of American politics in the past 100 years had worn a 'D' behind his name, Republicans are considered the "racist party." Ben 'Pitchfork' Tillman, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Bilbo, Richard Russell, John Sparkman, Orville Faubus, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, Ross Barnett, George Mahony, etc. all hardcore racists, all high profile (Senators and Governors, one a President), all Democrats. Bull Connor himself was a registered Democrat up until he died."
I have some bones to pick with this, but I'll let you continue.
So you're admitting that academics and the media- in other words people who actually do research for a living- disagree with you. This doesn't bode well."Did the Republican Party turn against Civil Rights even as the Democrat Party embraced it wholesale?
The Democrats and their friends in the Fourth Estate and academia all say yes. This is offered as the primary reason why the South went from being solidly Democrat to solidly Republican; the Southern Strategy."
"First of all, the first Civil Rights Bills passed since Reconstruction in 1957 and 1960 were sent to Congress by the Eisenhower Administration and steered though to passage (though much weakened by Democrat Amendments) by Senate Republican Leader William Knowland of California. In the congressional battles for Civil Rights in the 1960s, the GOP, in both the House and Senate, consistently voted for Civil Rights in far greater percentages than the Democrats."
That's probably true. But I don't think you're quite understanding historical context.
"So, it cannot be denied, the GOP acquitted itself well during the Civil Rights Acts' fights for survival in congress and were key players in getting them passed. In fact, of the twenty Senators who filibustered the key Civil Rights Act in 1964, only one was a Republican, John Tower of Texas."
You keep making the same point. Naming Democrats who were opposed to the civil rights act does nothing to address your apparent ignorance of the history underlying these facts. Ever heard the term "Dixiecrat"?
"No doubt there was some sort of "Southern Strategy" to appeal to Southerners, but was it based on race? Or other cultural issues? The Democrats say it was based on race but there are far too many ahistorical holes in this story;how much of it is reality and how much of it is myth? For one, when Democratic news outlets like the New York Times write about the 1968 campaign and attribute Nixon's victory to the "Southern Strategy" they invariably fail to mention that there were two Democrats running in 1968, Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace. It is my belief from looking at the history that this so-called "Southern Strategy", even if implemented the way the Democrats say it was, was neither long-lasting nor in any way effective."
That's it? You want to go after a firmly established concept like the "southern strategy" and that's all you have? Let's have some facts.
First of all, we have to start at the civil war and the concept of the "Yellow Dog" Democrat in the South. After Lincoln, a Republican, signed the emancipation proclamation, many racist whites in the South became what was known as a "Yellow Dog" Democrat. They hated Lincoln so much they would vote for a yellow dog if it was a Democrat against any Republican challenger. As the two parties, Democrats and Republicans, began to change on issues over time, the Southern Democrats found themselves often at odds with their Northern companions. In 1948, Strom Thurmond actually split from the main body of Democrats and introduced the State's Rights Democrats, commonly called the Dixiecrats. The platform of the Dixiecrats was opposition to desegregation, specifically they were outraged at the desegregation of the military which was done at the behest of Truman, a "true" Democrat. State's Rights Democrats supported state's rights obviously, but the motivation for this support was obvious in the issues supported. They wanted a state to have the right to segregate and wanted states to have the right to enact Jim Crow laws.
By 1964, Strom Thumond-who previously ran for President as a segregationalist- had switched to the party that more accurately reflected his values, the Republican party. The "states rights" terminology had become symbolic for the racist attitudes in the South that led to the creation of the Dixiecrats which were properly called, States Rights Democrats. The trend of Republicans seizing upon the radical racist elements of the south's discontent with the original Democrats who were now taking a pro civil rights position for African Americans continued. Often using the term "states rights" as a way to imply, accurately or not, that the candidate sympathized with supporters of segregation and racist policies, Republican candidates(including Nixon and later Reagan) encouraged a shift in Southern voters and the former "Yellow Dog" Democrats, in the passage of time since Lincoln, gave up their voting traditions and began voting for Republicans. Evidences of that reality still exist. Zell Miller of my home state of Georgia, who ran as a segregationist in the 1960's still considers himself a Democrat. Yet, we see that he aligns himself in every way, including fiery speeches at national conventions, with the Republican party.
So it seems obvious to me that pointing out what letter was behind the name and whether or not the candidate had racist tendencies is at best poor methodology in understanding the political landscape surrounding the development of the Southern Strategy. Especially since there were two distinct sets of Democrats, even though they all had a "D" behind their name. Any success that Democratic candidates who supported civil rights had in the South is not evidence that racism was not a motivating factor in the south, but is most likely a testament to lingering effects of the "yellow dog" Democrat phenomenon. The NY Times article you mentioned should have been a clue to your mistake, yet you somehow tried to frame it as support for your argument. The NY Times failure to mention Wallace was not the conspiracy of a liberal newspaper to hide the fact that a racist Democrat was running in 1968 from posterity. It was because Wallace had no chance of winning, and Humphrey was the nominee of the official Democratic party. What advantage would the NYT have in not reporting that information when it was common knowledge at the time?
Look, if you don't like being associated with a party that is favored by people with racist attitudes, or a party that will pander to such attitudes for its own benefit, then avoid it. You don't have to become a Democrat. Be an Independent or a Libertarian or a Green. But you can't change reality. Like it or don't like it, you can't revise history (or the present) just because it is inconvenient. Five minutes of research would reveal all of this information. If you are going to challenge reporters and scholars on facts, you should at least do some homework. They can be wrong. And I could possibly hit a Randy Johnson fastball. The professionals have a much better chance of success than I do. Likewise, professional scholars have a much better chance of having accurate information. I encourage anyone to challenge the established academia. But don't try to do it without a serious committment or you're just wasting time.
SFS
