Tuesday, December 25, 2007
What caused the shift in southern voters to the GOP after 1964?
Matt Yglesias and his liberal readership are forever looking for the racist boogieman.
They would love to believe that Republicans won electoral dominance in the South, wresting it away from racist Democrats, by pandering to their racist views and becoming the party of choice for segregationists.
That's just idiotic. Racist Democrats wanted to join forces with country club republicans up north over the civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965? Right. Because they had so much in common with Rockefeller.
No. As much as Democrats want to indulge in their holier-than-thou fantasy that the reason they lose elections is because they aren't racist (the liberal assumption, always always ALWAYS, is that the American people are basically bad, bigoted and stupid), they are ignoring what really happened between 1964 and 1980.
What happened after 1964 was that the Democratic Party of Kennedy and Roosevelt, which commanded some loyalty and was broadly pro-American and pro-strong defense, quickly degenerated into the party of anti-Americanism, rioting in Chicago, spitting on veterans, and surrendering to the Communists in Viet Nam.
You don't get to run a national disaster like McGovern in 1972 and then wonder why Southerners trended Republican. McGovern didn't exactly carry that many states in New England, either.
What the south really is is pro-America and pro-military. There is a strong tradition of military service throughout the south. When liberals and radical Democrats began showing up on television and news reports calling soldiers and marines "baby-killers" and spitting on veterans returning from Viet Nam, southerners rightly recognized those as lies, and turned away in revulsion.
Ronald Reagan grasped that, and called for Americans to take pride in our armed services again, and take pride in our role as a positive force for good and freedom in history.
It was that that southerners responded to. Some of them were racists, naturally. Most weren't.
But the left's failure to grasp that their anti-American, anti-military rhetoric coming from their radicals (and increasingly, their leadership in congress) is damaging is one of their chief obstacles to building a lasting majority and regaining the White House.
Of course, some bonehead is probably going to respond on Yglesias's blog saying "but we AREN'T a force for good, Bushco is guilty of war crimes, and we're fighting a racist genocidal war and our troops ARE rapists and baby-killers. Thus proving my point (that the liberal postulate, always always ALWAYS, is that Americans are bad, bigoted and stupid)
If they don't do it there or here, the morons at Daily Kos or Democratic Underground will take care of it for them.
Splash, out
Jason
They would love to believe that Republicans won electoral dominance in the South, wresting it away from racist Democrats, by pandering to their racist views and becoming the party of choice for segregationists.
That's just idiotic. Racist Democrats wanted to join forces with country club republicans up north over the civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965? Right. Because they had so much in common with Rockefeller.
No. As much as Democrats want to indulge in their holier-than-thou fantasy that the reason they lose elections is because they aren't racist (the liberal assumption, always always ALWAYS, is that the American people are basically bad, bigoted and stupid), they are ignoring what really happened between 1964 and 1980.
What happened after 1964 was that the Democratic Party of Kennedy and Roosevelt, which commanded some loyalty and was broadly pro-American and pro-strong defense, quickly degenerated into the party of anti-Americanism, rioting in Chicago, spitting on veterans, and surrendering to the Communists in Viet Nam.
You don't get to run a national disaster like McGovern in 1972 and then wonder why Southerners trended Republican. McGovern didn't exactly carry that many states in New England, either.
What the south really is is pro-America and pro-military. There is a strong tradition of military service throughout the south. When liberals and radical Democrats began showing up on television and news reports calling soldiers and marines "baby-killers" and spitting on veterans returning from Viet Nam, southerners rightly recognized those as lies, and turned away in revulsion.
Ronald Reagan grasped that, and called for Americans to take pride in our armed services again, and take pride in our role as a positive force for good and freedom in history.
It was that that southerners responded to. Some of them were racists, naturally. Most weren't.
But the left's failure to grasp that their anti-American, anti-military rhetoric coming from their radicals (and increasingly, their leadership in congress) is damaging is one of their chief obstacles to building a lasting majority and regaining the White House.
Of course, some bonehead is probably going to respond on Yglesias's blog saying "but we AREN'T a force for good, Bushco is guilty of war crimes, and we're fighting a racist genocidal war and our troops ARE rapists and baby-killers. Thus proving my point (that the liberal postulate, always always ALWAYS, is that Americans are bad, bigoted and stupid)
If they don't do it there or here, the morons at Daily Kos or Democratic Underground will take care of it for them.
Splash, out
Jason
Comments:
I've heard there are places where a statue of Robert E. Lee is welcome but not a statue of Abraham Lincoln. Do they show the same demographic voting trends as the rest of the South?
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# posted by 
: 10:34 PM
: 10:34 PM
