General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen Republicans claim the racist/racebaiting 'Southern Strategy' never happened
Take them on a trip down memory lane, courtesy of the Republican Party's most feted, and most revered campaign strategist, Lee Atwater.
Voting Rights Act memory: The majority of GOP strategist class saw political opportunity in the backlash against the Voting Rights Act and called it their Southern Strategy.
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.
Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: 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."[8][9]
Post it wherever the GOP voter base roams.
blm
(112,919 posts)Bat the liars down with this.
rurallib
(62,343 posts)and anything that delegitimizes Obama such as the birthers.
the racist never quit.
blm
(112,919 posts)to secure political power by GOP strategists who EXPECTED and COUNTED ON them to react as racists.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)It's baffling to me that something so clearly historically proven can be believed not to exist.
Bryant
blm
(112,919 posts)for the party's reliance on Southern Strategy in 2005.
So...GOP voter base trusts the words of the Rushes, the Becks, the Hannitys.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)And it's not very flattering to say "You know after that civil rights act passed, Republicans really went after Southern Racists, making sure they knew they had a home in the Republican party." Not that many southern Republicans will openly admit that they are racist at this point even when they clearly are.
Bryant
reformist2
(9,841 posts)They have race-baited themselves into a corner.
blm
(112,919 posts)Nailed it.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)When I was growing up, everybody who was into politics at all in my family were Democrats. They were all racists, pretty much, but they had a lot of liberal beliefs when it came to economics.
Then there was a period in the mid-1970's and early 80's when the younger ones identified with the GOP. The older ones stayed loyal to the Democratic Party and would not hear of voting Republican. As the older generation died out and the South became more Republican, their economic views changed, too. They became Reaganites and hated government intervention into the economy. They began to disparage the poor.
So the decline of the Democrats in the South really made things a lot worse. Not only did we have the racism to contend with, we had the new problems that go along with an economically RW government. The Southern Strategy has been a disaster for most of us. If the GOP hadn't given the racists a place to go and thrive, things might be very different here now.
blm
(112,919 posts).
reformist2
(9,841 posts)It is so true, that people all over the country have shifted their positions on a whole range of issues just to suit the party that accommodates their racism (and other assorted bigotries.)
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)And I won't post what I'm thinking about that.
bluestate10
(10,942 posts)Atwater's near death apology should serve as a warning to racist republicans of today.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)you've done...better if you apologize and then try to fix it...he did a sort of Homer Simpson, "Lisa, if Dady's wrong, I'll make a deathbed confession."
napkinz
(17,199 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Because SC native and vile racist Lee Atwater willed it so.
P.S. I always blank out the i's and e's with * when I use that quote.
blm
(112,919 posts)Sadly, I find there are many still unaware.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)like one of those old vinyl records skipping from a scratch
Just a reminder, from last year's election:
[font size="4"]Obama Hate Text Messages Inspired By Lee Atwater[/font]
11/02/2012
WASHINGTON -- The man behind the company that blasted anti-gay, anti-Barack Obama text messages to voters in the Washington area this week said he learned at the feet of infamous Republican slash-and-burn political operative Lee Atwater.
The firm ccAdvertising confessed to being behind the blast of emailed text messages that showed up on phones Tuesday night saying things like " "Obama supports homosexuality and its radical social agenda" and Obama believes killing children is a right until the umbilical cord is cut.
Many of the texts went to registered Democrats, political operatives and journalists who are unlikely to be swayed. Some wound up reaching people perhaps inappropriately, such as the abortion message going to a 13-year-old girl, and the anti-gay message that went to a gay woman.
ccAdvertising President Gabe Joseph said the burst had the effect he intended, describing it in terms he learned from Atwater, the legendary GOP consultant behind the infamous 1988 Willie Horton ad.
"Sometimes we do things to cause a reaction," Joseph said, adding later, "I was raised in the school of politics of Reagan-Bush '84 under Lee Atwater, and one of the things he taught me is that you win elections when your opponents react to what you do." Atwater, who chaired the Republican National Committee for a time, died in 1991 at age 40.
read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/obama-hate-text-messages-lee-atwater_n_2067774.html
MisterP
(23,730 posts)Giuliani forgot 9-11 and none of them can manage to remember that most "Red States" are "Taker" states (for the precise reason that Them Urbanites DON'T want to see them slide into poverty--even without 30s levels of activism http://www.georgetownbookshop.com/display.asp?cat=26)
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)blm
(112,919 posts).
napkinz
(17,199 posts)blm
(112,919 posts).
Somehow the words "thank you" seem a little too small here...
nt
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)Must Read!
EVERY REPUBLICAN That Was Asked REFUSED TO ATTEND March On Washington Event
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023556128
Rex
(65,616 posts)never did! Then they like to pretend some things did indeed happen...when they never did and everyone else knows they are making shit up out of whole cloth.
In short, the GOP has a real image problem - everyone on the planet earth knows they are fucking liars and work against The People. Thank you Dick Cheney and George Bush for exposing your party for 8 years as one of the vilest on the planet! It worked!
Funny how people don't forget the bad things that happen to them, not even decades later!
Anyway...stay classy GOP!