"I think that typically when you see the, I don’t even remember the term they use, but the gangs of blacks lately that have been just been going down the downtown streets and breaking windows on cars. We played the Milwaukee state fair a couple years ago and these black mobs were just attacking white folks coming out of the fair. And over and over again I watch the news and here’s a rape and here’s a burglary and here’s a murder in Chicago. 29 shot. 29 blacks shot by 29 blacks. At some point you got to be afraid of black and white dogs if the Dalmatian’s doing the biting." - Ted Nugent in July 2013, right after he insists he is in no way racist.
One of the biggest shams in American politics today arises when conservatives claim that racism no longer exists in America and that if you dare bring up the issue, well, you're the real racist. This has been the standard response since the verdict in the Treyvon Martin case, and was especially repugnant after President Obama dared to give his thoughts on the matter (just try googling "racist in chief"). This perspective is so blind and naive that it is astonishing that it persists in an age with so widely available information (I blame the mainstream media for not calling them on it). From Tea Party favorite Louis Gohmert labeling immigrants drug mules, to Sean Hannity dog whistling about Obama phones, to states like Texas and North Carolina immediately ramping up restrictions that will make it harder for minorities to vote after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, it is clear that racism still infects our politics, and society at large. But conservatives have convinced themselves that racism is done (we have a black President!), to talk about it is racist, and that they were on the right side of history all along - the real civil rights heroes. Bullshit. Let's go into the Wayback Machine to learn the truth.
The Era of Politics by Geography, not Party
Republicans love to claim that Abraham Lincoln was one of them, that most Southern supporters of slavery and segregation were Democrats, and therefore Republicans are the real saviors of black Americans. Rand Paul put this view on full display when he tried to white-splain African-American history to a bunch of black students at Howard University ("Did you know the founders of the NAACP were Republicans?" Of course they did!) Well, I'll grant the first two points. But to realistically compare the political parties of the 1860s to 2013 is staggeringly naive. Both parties had "liberal" and "conservative" factions, as anyone who saw the movie Lincoln can attest. Lincoln himself was fairly pragmatic and sought compromise where he could in order to achieve bigger goals (read Team of Rivals, the book which inspired Lincoln). Parties were much less tied to ideology in those days, and shifting alliances were common.
Republicans love to claim that Abraham Lincoln was one of them, that most Southern supporters of slavery and segregation were Democrats, and therefore Republicans are the real saviors of black Americans. Rand Paul put this view on full display when he tried to white-splain African-American history to a bunch of black students at Howard University ("Did you know the founders of the NAACP were Republicans?" Of course they did!) Well, I'll grant the first two points. But to realistically compare the political parties of the 1860s to 2013 is staggeringly naive. Both parties had "liberal" and "conservative" factions, as anyone who saw the movie Lincoln can attest. Lincoln himself was fairly pragmatic and sought compromise where he could in order to achieve bigger goals (read Team of Rivals, the book which inspired Lincoln). Parties were much less tied to ideology in those days, and shifting alliances were common.
On slavery, however, it is of course true that most abolitionists were Republicans. After the Civil War, the Congressional faction known as the Radical Republicans imposed strict Reconstruction rules on the defeated South, including military occupation. They went farther than Lincoln would have and even overrode the vetoes of Democratic President Andrew Jackson from Tennessee (the conflict between them lead to Jackson's impeachment). This treatment ensured that the states of the Confederacy would become the "Solid South," voting Democratic in every election for almost 100 years. After Reconstruction ended, Jim Crow began, and the short-lived careers of black and civil rights-supporting Republican politicians in the South was over.
Thus for decades the Democratic Party constituted a weird, uneasy coalition of openly racist, very conservative Southerners and more liberal Northerners. At the same time, there were many notable progressive Republicans, such as Bob La Follette of Wisconsin, Alf Landen of Kansas, and Teddy Roosevelt. Like I said, party and ideology did not always align. Perhaps the best personification of this was Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who was essentially a theocratic leftist. He was a strong Prohibitionist, virulently opposed teaching evolution, and yet took positions on economics and foreign policy that would today label him a peacenik socialist. It's not so cut-and-dried as conservatives would have us believe. Even Dwight Eisenhower, another moderate, didn't declare himself a Republican until just before the 1952 election (both sides, understandably, badly wanted him on their ticket).
Speaking of which, here is the 1956 presidential election map:
In the landslide reelection of a popular President and war hero, Eisenhower still couldn't carry the Solid South. Now let's go down the road to just eight years later - 1964, the year after which today's Republicans tend to stop talking about their civil rights record. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended legal segregation across the country (most notably the South, of course). It passed Congress on a bipartisan vote - opposition was much more based on geography. Here are the vote totals by region and party:
The original House version:
Nearly the exact opposite of '56 (Barry Goldwater was from Arizona). With the exception of Southerners Carter and Clinton being able to pick off a few states, the endorsement of civil rights has cost the Democratic Party most of the South for over 50 years.
Enter the Southern Strategy
The Republican Party's attempt to lock down disaffected Southern whites didn't begin officially until Nixon's 1968 campaign. Nixon campaigned on issues such as "states' rights" and "law and order" that were thinly veiled dog whistles to racist whites, in the vein of the Lee Atwater quote above. The tactic has continued more or less unabated since - here is a good summary from Salon. Campaigning in 1980, Ronald Reagan chose the town in Mississippi where three civil rights workers had been abducted and killed in the '60s to talk how he believes in "states' rights," the glorious euphemism of the racist South. After stealing the South from native son Carter in 1980, he would later talk about "young bucks" and "welfare queens" in Cadillacs as reasons to cut welfare. Ads against Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988 implied that as governor of Massachusetts he let dangerous black criminals roam free (sound familiar?).
With the rise of right-wing media and the campaign and success of the first black President, the Southern Strategy might be even more calcified to the heart of Old Dixie, but it is no less prevalent or effective on its targets. The phony fracas that is birtherism implies that Obama is an "other," not a real American, and not to be trusted - and this would most assuredly not happen if he were white. (Case in point - some Tea Partiers want Senator Ted Cruz to run for President, even though he was born in Canada to American parents - the exact same situation that would be true of Obama, if he weren't born in Hawaii. Can't wait to hear them justify that.) Complaints about Obama having "the accent" when talking to black audiences also serve to portray him as "not one of us." When media figures like Hannity and Limbaugh lambast the "Obama phone" program - which actually started under Bush - and use a black woman as its poster child, they are following in the "welfare queen" stereotype, implying that blacks are nothing more than moochers who live off the backs of real, hard-working whites. Think I'm being too harsh? Dare to peruse the comment sections of any race- or Obama-related story on major conservative news websites such as Breitbart.com or WorldNetDaily. The unabashed racism displayed by "good conservatives" just might surprise you. It's real, it's out there, and to deny it is insane. How many other Presidents have been labeled a Kenyan Fascist Nazi Communist Muslim Atheist Socialist Marxist Antichrist by so many of the loyal opposition?
Consider these simple facts:
A brief aside - some argue that the switch of the South to the Republican Party came as a result of Southern whites voting with their economic interests. As the South became more suburban and affluent after World War II, so the theory goes, Southerners realized they had been hating on their tax-cutting heroes all along. I call baloney. As I've blogged about before, pretty much every economic indicator shows the South as the poorest region in the country, as well as leading recipients of government programs that Republicans often oppose - and this includes many Southern whites. Rather, as argued in What's the Matter with Kansas?, social and cultural issues - race, religion, and guns - have come to dominate the electoral minds of the GOP rank-and-file, to the benefit of the rich who are the real beneficiaries of their economic policies.
A reminder of the 2012 election map, to show how little has changed:
A look at this map - as well as the 2008 map - actually shows that the Southern Strategy may be beginning to backfire for Republicans. The South still largely goes red - excepting Florida and Virginia (and really, just northern VA and southern FL are blue) - but the tactics and policy of the GOP are starting to dissuade voters in other areas of the country. Romney received 118 votes from the Confederacy, and only 88 outside of it. Only 70 of his electoral votes came from non-slave states. Republicans will likely continue to dominate the South for some time, but those 118 electoral votes (out of 538 total) are not enough to win elections. Moreover, demographic trends point to Texas being a true battleground by the 2020s - earlier if Hillary Clinton runs in 2016. If the Republicans lose Texas (38 EVs) and fail to abandon the Southern Strategy - especially with regard to the rise of the Hispanic voter - they are done as a national party. But here's the rub for them - trying to win new voters by supporting immigration reform or being more gay-friendly alienates the Southern conservative base that they desperately need to have any chance of winning a national election. Meanwhile, Obama has shown that a Democrat can win the Presidency without the South. A Republican can't win without it, but might not be able to win with it either. The racism of the Southern Strategy has come home to roost, and today's Republicans are paying the price.
(P.S. I'm gonna assume Nugent, in his quote, is talking about the Wisconsin State Fair, which is just outside Milwaukee proper. I've been there. It was a pleasant time, and this whitey certainly wasn't attacked by black thugs as I left. Go there and have a good time. Try a cream puff.)
- Southern Democrats: 7–87 (7–93%)
- Southern Republicans: 0–10 (0–100%)
- Northern Democrats: 145–9 (94–6%)
- Northern Republicans: 138–24 (85–15%)
- Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5–95%)
- Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0–100%)
- Northern Democrats: 45–1 (98–2%)
- Northern Republicans: 27–5 (84–16%)
Nearly the exact opposite of '56 (Barry Goldwater was from Arizona). With the exception of Southerners Carter and Clinton being able to pick off a few states, the endorsement of civil rights has cost the Democratic Party most of the South for over 50 years.
Enter the Southern Strategy
The Republican Party's attempt to lock down disaffected Southern whites didn't begin officially until Nixon's 1968 campaign. Nixon campaigned on issues such as "states' rights" and "law and order" that were thinly veiled dog whistles to racist whites, in the vein of the Lee Atwater quote above. The tactic has continued more or less unabated since - here is a good summary from Salon. Campaigning in 1980, Ronald Reagan chose the town in Mississippi where three civil rights workers had been abducted and killed in the '60s to talk how he believes in "states' rights," the glorious euphemism of the racist South. After stealing the South from native son Carter in 1980, he would later talk about "young bucks" and "welfare queens" in Cadillacs as reasons to cut welfare. Ads against Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988 implied that as governor of Massachusetts he let dangerous black criminals roam free (sound familiar?).
With the rise of right-wing media and the campaign and success of the first black President, the Southern Strategy might be even more calcified to the heart of Old Dixie, but it is no less prevalent or effective on its targets. The phony fracas that is birtherism implies that Obama is an "other," not a real American, and not to be trusted - and this would most assuredly not happen if he were white. (Case in point - some Tea Partiers want Senator Ted Cruz to run for President, even though he was born in Canada to American parents - the exact same situation that would be true of Obama, if he weren't born in Hawaii. Can't wait to hear them justify that.) Complaints about Obama having "the accent" when talking to black audiences also serve to portray him as "not one of us." When media figures like Hannity and Limbaugh lambast the "Obama phone" program - which actually started under Bush - and use a black woman as its poster child, they are following in the "welfare queen" stereotype, implying that blacks are nothing more than moochers who live off the backs of real, hard-working whites. Think I'm being too harsh? Dare to peruse the comment sections of any race- or Obama-related story on major conservative news websites such as Breitbart.com or WorldNetDaily. The unabashed racism displayed by "good conservatives" just might surprise you. It's real, it's out there, and to deny it is insane. How many other Presidents have been labeled a Kenyan Fascist Nazi Communist Muslim Atheist Socialist Marxist Antichrist by so many of the loyal opposition?
Consider these simple facts:
- Unless you're in the top 2%, federal income taxes are exactly the same as they were under Bush. Yet 2 months after a black man enters the White House, a entire "grassroots" movement of people who are Taxed Enough Already - but were perfectly happy with the same rates under Bush! - takes over the Republican Party.
- Federal gun regulations are the same as they were under Bush, and show no sign of changing in any meaningful way. And yet now that there are Scary Black Men in the White House and DOJ, the government is coming for all your guns, buying up all the bullets, and prepping for the coming race war.
A brief aside - some argue that the switch of the South to the Republican Party came as a result of Southern whites voting with their economic interests. As the South became more suburban and affluent after World War II, so the theory goes, Southerners realized they had been hating on their tax-cutting heroes all along. I call baloney. As I've blogged about before, pretty much every economic indicator shows the South as the poorest region in the country, as well as leading recipients of government programs that Republicans often oppose - and this includes many Southern whites. Rather, as argued in What's the Matter with Kansas?, social and cultural issues - race, religion, and guns - have come to dominate the electoral minds of the GOP rank-and-file, to the benefit of the rich who are the real beneficiaries of their economic policies.
A reminder of the 2012 election map, to show how little has changed:
A look at this map - as well as the 2008 map - actually shows that the Southern Strategy may be beginning to backfire for Republicans. The South still largely goes red - excepting Florida and Virginia (and really, just northern VA and southern FL are blue) - but the tactics and policy of the GOP are starting to dissuade voters in other areas of the country. Romney received 118 votes from the Confederacy, and only 88 outside of it. Only 70 of his electoral votes came from non-slave states. Republicans will likely continue to dominate the South for some time, but those 118 electoral votes (out of 538 total) are not enough to win elections. Moreover, demographic trends point to Texas being a true battleground by the 2020s - earlier if Hillary Clinton runs in 2016. If the Republicans lose Texas (38 EVs) and fail to abandon the Southern Strategy - especially with regard to the rise of the Hispanic voter - they are done as a national party. But here's the rub for them - trying to win new voters by supporting immigration reform or being more gay-friendly alienates the Southern conservative base that they desperately need to have any chance of winning a national election. Meanwhile, Obama has shown that a Democrat can win the Presidency without the South. A Republican can't win without it, but might not be able to win with it either. The racism of the Southern Strategy has come home to roost, and today's Republicans are paying the price.
(P.S. I'm gonna assume Nugent, in his quote, is talking about the Wisconsin State Fair, which is just outside Milwaukee proper. I've been there. It was a pleasant time, and this whitey certainly wasn't attacked by black thugs as I left. Go there and have a good time. Try a cream puff.)
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