It has somehow become part of conventional wisdom that Ronald Reagan launched his 1980 presidential campaign with a blatant appeal to southern racism by engaging in a vigorous defense of "states' rights" in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. I've read it myself so often I was sure that it was true.
Out of curiosity, I looked up contemporary articles on Nexis, because I wondered why I don't remember this being much more controverisal at the time (I was only 13, but I followed the election daily in the NY Times). I discovered that the convential story has a kernel of truth, but is wrong in [many of] its details. I was going to blog about this in detail, but see that James Taranto and David Brooks [and Bruce Bartlett] already beat me to it, pointing out, among other things, that Reagan mentioned "states' rights" only once in the speech, in a reference to federalism in economic policy, not race [the speech is available in MP3 here; interestingly, contrary to what I've always heard was Reagan's typical "welfare queen" speech, when he discusses welfare he suggests that people on welfare don't want to be on it, want to work and join the economic mainstream, but are stifled by the bureaucracy acting in its own interest]; that Reagan almost skipped the speech entirely; and that the speech was given at a county fair near, but not in, Philadelphia; and that he gave a speech the next day to the Urban League, which hardly suggests that this was the day his campaign intended to start a race-related controversy.
A few things Taranto doesn't mention, that Nexis reveals: Reagan gave this speech on August 3, 1980, the week after the Republican convention, but at the time, no one thought of this as the "launch" of Reagan's campaign, because the Democratic convention was yet to come. This was considered the slow season before the campaign really started on Labor Day, and the speech, according to a Times story in October 1980, received little initial coverage beyond the local newspaper [sorry, misread the Times story, which was actually referring to criticism by Andrew Young. The speech itself was covered in the inside pages of the Times and Washington Post, with the Times noting the reference to "states' rights"]. Reporters at the time reported that the audience didn't perceive that Reagan was referring to race [NY Times in October: "Although Mr. Reagan did not elaborate on that occasion, he later explained that he was referring to his proposal to shift certain taxing powers and social programs such as welfare from the Federal to the state level. Most of those at the rally apparently regarded the statement as having been made in that context"--if you listen to the speech, you can see the reference was indeed in that ocontext] and Reagan expert Lou Cannon reported that Reagan didn't usually talk about "states' rights" in his stump speech, but apparently ad-libbed the phrase that one time.
As far as the media was concerned, Reagan launched his campaign on Labor Day in Detroit, while Carter campaigned in Alabama. This itself became the subject of some controversy, when Reagan accused Carter of starting his campaign in a town that was the birthplace of the Klan. (He was wrong, though the town in question was the headquarters of one Klan branch.) "Outraged" southern Democrats said that Reagan had slurred the South and wouldn't win a single southern state (they were, of course, wrong).
The states' rights speech came up a few times in the campaign, but was hardly a major issue. Carter himself absolved Reagan of any intimations that Reagan was running a racist campaign in a nationally televised news conference [Carter, Sept. 17,1980: Reagan shouldn't have mentioned the Klan or "states' rights," but he is not "a racist in any degree."]
It was, of course, incredibly foolish and insensitive for Reagan to throw out the phrase "states rights" in Mississippi during his campaign. This is consistent with my general impression of Reagan's relationship with African Americans: he wasn't intentionally hostile, but was largely indifferent to their concerns and sensitivities, and their voting patterns gave him little reason to change once he become president.
But the prevalent idea that Reagan's campaign marked a turning point in American history because he overtly appealed to southern racists by launching his campaign with a "states' rights speech" in Philadelphia, Mississppi, just isn't right. Ironically, it was Carter, not Reagan, who launched his 1980 campaign in a town deeply associated with racism (though Carter had no discernable racist intent in doing so).
UPDATE: I did a bit more Nexis digging. Reporters did state at the time that the speech was "in Philadelphia," though it was actually just the closest town to the county fair. Lou Cannon reported that some Reagan advisors wanted Reagan to skip the speech because the proximity to Philadelphia was bad symbolism, especially since Reagan was planning a big push that week and beyond to get some of the black vote. Reagan could have done his historical legacy a big favor by skipping the speech and not mentioning "states' rights." However, the media coverage at the time still indicates that Reagan's campaign strategy at the time was to secure the Northeast and Midwest, and that his campaign hoped to get enough black votes (and allay concerns among moderates and liberals about his views on race) to help him achieve that objective. The campaign was still unsure whether the South was sufficiently promising to spend a lot of resources on (Carter had virtually swept the South in 1976).
So I still hold Reagan responsible for stupid and insensitive rhetoric, and his advisors were right to tell him to skip this event, which was in fact bad symbolism, made worse by the states' rights line. But the image of Reagan deliberately launching his campaign with a vigorous defense of states' rights in a blatant appeal to southern racism at the "launch" of his campaign still isn't right. It's more like, "in the downtime between the Republican and Democratic conventions, Reagan was desperately at this time seeking to attract some black votes in the North, while some of his advisors held out hope of winning some southern states. Some of his campaign advisors were savvy enough to realize that the Mississippi speech would create problems for the first goal. Others of his advisors, and Reagan himself, were not sufficiently attuned to African American sensibilities to recognize that giving a speech to an overwhelmingly white audience in Mississippi, and ad-libbing a reference to states' rights, would seriously undermine the campaign's main objective for the week, which was to build sufficient bridges to African Americans to undermine Carter's chances in the Northeast and Midwest." "Dog whistle politics" doesn't explain a reference to "states' rights" in Mississippi with Washington Post and N.Y. Times reporters in the audience, nor would it explain why Reagan then flew to an Urban League meeting to declare in a major speech "I am committed to the protection and enforcement of the civil rights of black Americans. This commitment is interwoven into every phase of the programs I will propose." He then "made the obligatory visit to the debris-strewn South Bronx, traveled to a black publishing company in Chicago and dropped by Jackson's Operation PUSH headquarters — all in the same day."
So Reagan wound up undermining his own efforts to court the votes of African Americans and those concerned with civil rights issues, and Blacks wound up with the impression that Reagan was largely indifferent to their concerns and sensibilities, and they were probably right. But the actual chain of events is much more nuanced than what I had been led to believe by the conventional story. Indeed, instead of "Reagan deliberately spoke in racist code to pursue a southern strategy" it's more like "Reagan stupidly undermined his own campaign strategy through an ill-conceived reference to 'states rights' just before a major speech to the Urban League."
Given that Brooks was hardly a first party to this alleged Reagan advisers debate - why credit him with some special insight? [In particular as you are quoting him without reference.]
I'm also puzzled as to what contemporary liberal Dems think was SUPPOSED to happen to the non-liberal Southern element purged from the party in the 70s. Were they supposed to shut up and stay home? Were they all supposed to die? Or were they all expected to 'come to their senses' and turn liberal? YOU kicked them out of your party - and then you blame the Repubs for welcoming them in.
Since the 60s and 70s, the Dems have rejected various aspects of Southern culture and I don't think racism determines the Southern votes today, but back in the day, the Dems lost the South on racial equality. They first went to George Wallace, but Nixon wanted to be sure he captured them for the Republicans.
The Mississippi speech is a bit of unfortunate symbolism but hardly makes Reagan a racist. Just the political pandering common to all candidates
Look, I know Reagan was your hero and I'm really sorry if you have illusions of his perfection. The truth is, though, that all heroes have moments when they behaved in ways that make us less than proud. That's true whether your hero is Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Ronald Reagan, or Gandhi or MLK. They were human beings, and they were not perfect.
Reagan was an incredibly savvy politician (as were all those I named). That speech was pitch-perfect dogwhistle politics, complete with deniability. Reagan was about as innocent as Henry II.
That is what liberty is all about. Selling or renting your private house can be on any basis you want. If Bob Jones University is private they can fire Laurence Summers because of what he said, there is no freedom of speech. Does Harvard get federal funds?
(juris_imprudent: as far as quoting Brooks "without reference" goes, I direct your attention to the highlighted citation to Brooks in Bernstein's post. This "hyperlink," as the kids today call it, is the sole one in the post. If you "click" your "mouse" on it, lots and lots of pretty words will magically appear on your WebTV, including the ones I excerpted.)
Congrats on this one, btw.
That's pretty funny. No politician is my hero, though I have a certain fondness for Warren Harding and Grover Cleveland. This isn't an "attempted defense," it's a matter of historical accuracy, which you haven't disputed. You can look it up yourself, if you care enough. But what's really odd is that you'd take a post in which I said Reagan did something "foolish and insensitive" as evidence that I think he was perfect.
I was at one of his inaugural balls. With a lady I was dating, later my first wife, who died in '03.
Still remember the lady who'd had a few too many and blew her cookies on the ballroom floor. Those were the days...
And that's correct. That's a simple matter of individual liberty. (The landlord may be hostile to blacks, but that's a separate issue altogether. Opposing the Fair Housing Act is no more racist than the ACLU supporting the First Amendment is "racist" because some people will take advantage of free speech to say racist things.)Presumably by "federal" funds, you actually mean Bob Jones' own funds, right? The issue was whether Bob Jones was entitled to the same tax exempt status as other educational institutions.
They have had a very odd way of showing their "rejection". The following are the names of Democratic Senators who filibustered the Civil Rights Act, and the date they left the Senate.
Senator James Eastland (D) Mississipi. 1978
Sam Ervin (D) NC 1974
Al Gore (D) TN 1971
Robert Byrd (D) WV still serving.
Fritz Hollings (D) SC 2005
J William Fulbright (D) AR 1974
Richard Russell (D) GA 1971
These men were part of the Democratic Senate majority for many years after they filibustered the Civil Rights Act. They don't seem to have been "rejected" at all.
Please, you can't possibly be this disingenuous. In the first place, "historical accuracy" is a matter of context. The whole point of mentioning states rights in Philadelphia Co., MS was to speak in code. It was precisely the context, not the GPS location, which was significant.
Let's put it this way: if a German politician today were to give a speech in Munich offering a "final solution" to Germany's unemployment problem, do you really think we'd have any difficulty understanding what he meant? Context.
In the second place, your logic is all over the place. You begin by saying "Reagan mentioned "states' rights" only once in the speech, in a reference to economic policy, not race". The clear implication of this is that the phrase did not refer to blacks. However, at the end you undercut this entirely by saying "It was, of course, incredibly foolish and insensitive for Reagan to throw out the phrase "states rights" in Mississippi during his campaign. This is consistent with my general impression of Reagan's relationship with African Americans: he wasn't intentionally hostile, but was largely indifferent to their concerns and sensitivities...." This suggests that the phrase WAS being understood as a reference to race.
These are not the only flaws, but it's late and I'm tired, and I doubt seriously you're going to change your view.
Of course, excusing sin was exactly what happened at Bitburg. Also, it revealed -- no surprise to those of us who already knew that Reagan had sat out WW2 in every sense -- that he had no idea what went on in the '40s.
At Bitburg, Reagan did not say we should give up scapegoating. He said the guilty had never been guilty.
I don't recall being specifically aware of a speech in Philadelphia, Miss., in 1980, but I sure understood that Reagan was pitching his campaign to more or less genteel racism.
The man made my skin crawl.
So, by your logic, Jimmy advocated Jewish extermination.
The left wing moonbats whether they be commenters here or writers for the drive by media have been trying to rewrite the Reagan presidency and legacy since before he left office. They are terrified of Reagan and his legacy because the greatness and success of his presidency showed more clearly than anything else just how empty are the false promises of liberalism.
I remember it was Jimmy Carter in a desperate attempt to revive his flagging campaign went about making speeches to various organizations charging that Reagan had used code words of "states rights". Playing the false race baiting accusations that the left wingers are so accustomed to doing. When the facts don't work, just go for a false character assassination by yelling racist.
This habit of left wingers to falsely call race card and race baiting on their opponents has played to its ultimate conclusion recently with the Clinton's attempting to play the race card race baiting accusation against Obama.
I doubt that the moonbats who post above get the irony of how their tired old race baiting shtick has come back to bite establishment moonbats and america hating congresspersons right on their big fat arse.
LOL,
Says the "Dog"
No, my logic depends on CONTEXT. Do I need to say it louder?
You must live in a different South than I do.
But of course he was a democrat then, once he became a Republican then he became a racist.
Yeah, I recall all those tumultuous demonstrations throughout the South against Wickard v. Filburn.
I think the Krugmanites don't realize that History (not the historians) has made its decision on Reagan, and it is overwhelmingly positive.
He did not want to "start a race-related controversy." He wanted to get the racist message to the racists without the non-racists noticing. It worked.
I don't care if the accusations made here are even true, which they aren't. After Jimmy Carter's disastrous administration, almost anyone was better. The other party supported Jimmy and his policies of telling Americans to wear sweaters instead of keeping their homes warm. The democrat party was a laughing stock, the voters made that clear, and the sweater wearing losers have been whining ever since.
Reagan wasn't perfect, but he was no racist. People are talking about dogwhistles as though the plain meaning wasn't intended. Reagan didn't have a dog whistle for racism. He had common sense and told Americans not to be ashamed. That will win every time.
from the movie Barcelona
Just so I understand, Obama is to be condemned for his supposed affiliation with racists, but Reagan is just an innocent, though "foolish," victim of people's oversensitivity to a politician using the term "state's rights" just miles from one of the worst civil rights episodes in our history.
Was Reagan an overt racist? I don't think so. Did he want their votes? Yes.
No, the relevant proposition is a quite different one: that in making a trip to give a speech near Philadelphia, Miss. -- a bit off the beaten path, wouldn't you agree? -- immediately after his nomination, Reagan's campaign was deliberately playing up to the culture of white Southern racial resentment.
Bernstein himself manages to support this thesis: Yes, what an odd coincidence, that "states rights" should be dropped into a speech where it normally wouldn't be. Nothin' meaningful about that, nosirreebob -- heck, we all know that "states rights" in the context of the Southern states is just a reference to federalism in all its glory, right?
Nothing to see here at all, provided you're determined to see nothing.
Yep, don't be ashamed of your racism, be proud of it. Reagan had the common sense to hit all the right chords he needed to win.
He also taught white parents not to fear . . . that their kids might have to go to school with black kids.
He was not stupid. He was good. Really good.
Or more generally, by asserting the use of "code words."
I know I do. The racists I know around here are staunchly Democratic. Funny how the entire notion of "state's rights" has now come to mean "racism" in the minds of so many. Now no one can espouse such a view (whether they're racist or not) without being demonized. Who benefits from this?
It's because for so long "state's rights" was the only semi-respectable way to argue to let local racist laws stand.
Those who claim that Reagan's relative lack of overt racism proves that he was not race baiting miss the point. Of course he was not expressing overt racism. The goal was to let the racists know he would leave them along without keying in the rest of the country. And he was good. Damn good.
The Democratic and Republican parities in the South are like two tents. Starting in the 60's, the people under each tent started switching to the other tent. Attracting Democratic racists to the Republican party is what Nixon dubbed "The Southern Strategy."
I never read either of them, or Bob Herbert who also I now see weighed in, so I wasn't aware of the "public pissing match."
I'll let the old Negro Leagues star, "Cool Papa" Bell respond to this:
"In the Negro Leagues the audience was mixed but mostly colored. Even down South there were some white people at the games. When we played the Birmingham Black Barons in their park, there were always lots of whites in the crowd, but they were separated by a rope. You could be sitting right next to a white man, but that rope was always there. That was the system they had in those days. That’s what they called states’ rights. States’ rights doesn’t mean much to the Negro. You don’t get justice with states’ rights. Which is a bad thing to happen."
The phrase "states rights" hasn't just now come to mean segregation, it has always meant that in the South. Always, as in day one of the Constitution.
The point is that it wasn't "blatant." It was calculated to assuage white racists while ticking off as few others as possible.
The fact that Reagan intentionally overruled his advisors makes this look even more calculated on Reagan's behalf. The state's rights reference wasn't an accident. It was a coldly calculated rhetoric.
I think most Southerners live in a different South than you do.
David M. Nieporent:
Also not 2007. In 1980 such hysterical attempts to find racism in non-racist remarks was not as prevalent as they are today.
But even if you are right, the standard story is that the speech was "about" states' rights, that it involved the major Fall launch of his campaign, and that the appeal to southern whites' racism was blatant. If the story is modified to "Reagan gave a minor speech to a largely white audience at a state fair in Mississippi, against the advice of aides who thought it was bad symbolism when he was trying to woo the black vote, during a lull in campaign season, in which he threw out a calculated but very brief reference to states' rights" that still is a significant change from the accepted story of the Reagan campaign engaging in an overt campaign to woo southern racists by launching the campaign with a blatant appeal to southern racsim in a speech defending states rights, which is what I had previously beleived to be true.
Don't worry. Only Dan Rather knows the frequency. And CBS won't let him tell us. ;)
I would have said, until a few weeks ago, that appeals to racism a la Pitchfork Ben Tillman were never going to be seen again in national politics, although I wouldn't have said we wouldn't see appeals to racism.
Well, Ron Paul proved me wrong about that.
Neither Reagan nor Obama were the kind to stand at the cashier's counter handing out ax handles. That doesn't mean that the one didn't and the other isn't appealing to racism, though.
This year, looks like we're going to get a poisonous political mixture of religious and racial bigotry in the presidential election like we haven't seen since 1960. Ick.
I guess you and I agree that the appeal wasn't blatant, but I still think it was carefully and effectively calculated to appeal to racists. As to doing it in front of the national media, racists saw the national media, too. Reagan's goal was to give red meat to the racists while not ticking off the others too much. On the rest, I think we are splitting hairs.
As to the comparison to Obama that others, not DB, have made, check out DB's threads on Obama, and you will see posts by me saying that Obama must do a better job at denouncing the bigotry of his church's leader.
From now on, anyone who talks about social programs is really pining for Stalin's USSR. Because of the code.
When I lived in Chicago, everyone was so liberal and supportive of civil rights in the south, but if blacks wanted to move into our neighborhood it would bring the property values down so that was different.
Reagan wanted votes, even from white racists. But, he also wanted African-American votes. So, he gives a speech, and in a place, that sends one message to the first group, but hopefully doesn't obviously piss off or offend the other group, because he can deny he had any intention of speaking in racist code.
This doesn't mean Reagan was a racist, he was just a politician looking for votes.
Disclaimer: I wasn't even alive in 1980, so my sense of the political realities of the era may be completely distorted. I'm mostly just running off what DB says about it.
If you have a problem with it, blame people like George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, and Orval Faubus. The fact is, they co-opted the term "states' rights" and made it synonymous with resistance to desegregation. "Federalism" is more accurate and doesn't carry the baggage.
Patience. Undoubtedly, that term will be next. It only needs to be programmed into the secret decoder rings.
Reagan was so NOT racist and such a GREAT president that he carried 49 out of 50 states when he ran for re-election. He carried those bastions of racist supporting southern states rights boot licking knuckle dragging states like New York, California, Massachusetts, Maine, and Connecticut.
If there were even the slightest bit of truth in the history revising race baiting moonbats above and elsewhere seeking to denigrate the Reagan legacy would such a massive victory in every liberal brie eating surrender monkey state in the Union been possible?
The real problem the liberal hate mongers and race baitors have with Reagan and his legacy is that he was always smarting than they and his legacy of greatness was firmly established in the minds of the vast majority of the people by his actions and his governance. That's why he won every state in the Union but Mondale's home state.
When a poll of over 50 million people in the country was taken about the Reagan presidency and Reagan the man, his beliefs, his hopes, and his policies the resounding answer was Reagan, Si Se Peude !!!!!!!
What is the confidence level and plus or minus accuracy of a poll of over 50 million people ? !!! LOL
At one of the most critical times in history where the world and the USA teetered on the brink of a nuclear holocaust, with a stagnant economy and run away inflation (interest rates of 17%); at a time when the moonbats and self titled superior thinking intellectuals all wanted to surrender via a nuclear freeze (an action that would have resulted in the soviet union remaining viable for many more decades to come); at a time when the liberals wanted more socialization and confiscation of liberty and property from the people for programs they didn't support and that would serve no useful purpose; Reagan came along and forced them to do that which they did not want to do.
Reagan reduced regulation, followed John Kennedy by dropping marginal tax rates, built up the military and began research and development on defense programs to help protect the people from soviet missiles, and by so doing he defeated the soviet threat without ever firing a shot, started the longest peace time economic boom in our history, squashed the hyper inflation of the Carter years and restored the country to its previous moral greatness in the world.
It is little wonder he is so hated by the left wing revisionists. He so soundly defeated their icons and their thinking, that to consider Reagan is to force them to face the fact they aren't the brilliant thinkers they always tell themselves and each other they are.
The Polls are in on the Reagan legacy and won in 49 out of 50 states. A popular vote and electoral vote landslide. A referendum on the man, his vision, his thoughts, his subtext, and his policies. All answered with a resounding yes, we love you Mr. President. Thank you for your service Mr. President. God's speed Mr. President.
Says the "Dog"
As to whether Reagan made a stupid ad lib gaffe or was trolling for racist votes with a "dog whistle" a quarter century later, I think it could have been both. He was sometimes remarkably naive, as Lyn Nofziger's tale of jodphurs illustrates.
Ah, yes. Morning in America. It will be just like all those other mornings, wink wink.
He could, of course, have campaigned on a program of 'forget your past animosities, come on into the big tent where color doesn't matter.'
He didn't do that.
Believe me, we'uns down South got the message. Some of us'ns liked it better'n otherns did.
Dog, you are on pretty thin ice with your argument about big majorities. FDR got majorities just as big and bigger, and, according to the people you are channeling, he was at the least a Stalinist stooge if not a paid agent of the Kremlin.
Except for the closed minded liberals who still to this day think the south is the south of the 40's and 50's. (I'm not saying you Fub fit into this class).
Says the "Dog"
JYLD, if Reagan was talking about federalism, he could have said federalism. Instead, he said states' rights, which every sentient being knows means something specific. Given that he was "always smarting" the dumb liberals, I can only assume this was deliberate, not a mistake.
Just so we're all clear, the murders in Philadelphia happened in 1964, just 16 years before this speech. It was far from ancient history.
Second, what's with this?
He wanted to get the racist message to the racists without the non-racists noticing.
Huh? That one speech's reference to states' rights would never have been seen by the vast majority of voters at all, ever. The only reason that anyone talks about it now is PRECISELY because the "non-racists" have been complaining ad nauseam (which means that they certainly have managed to "notice" the phrase, and not only notice, but publicize the speech far beyond anything that would otherwise have happened).
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. If you don't remember the nasty bussing fights, you don't remember the 80's. White parents nationwide were fighting hard to keep their kids from having to rub elbows with black kids at school.
And if you think the murders 16 years earlier were ancient history, remember, they were as far back as 1992 is from us now. MLK was murdered only 12 years earlier (1996 is only 12 years before now).
Reagan was playing on raw racist nerves, and he knew it.
Either that, or Reagan used the term to actually mean states rights.
So now the words "states rights" are racist. Are there no longer any people who believe words have plain meanings? When do I get to redefine words? Or is that the exclusive privilege of the Left?
Bingo. Obviously the phrase "states' rights" can mean different things to different people. It's roughly equivalent to the Confederate battle flag that way. There certainly are non-racist people who talk about the former or display the latter.
But if somebody thinks "states' rights" isn't currently used as a code phrase by racists (particularly in the South), or wasn't routinely used as such in the 1980s, that person is just willfully ignorant. The situation is exactly the same for the battle flag.
I was born and raised in Neshoba County, Mississippi, where Philadelphia is the county seat. So, naturally, reading this, I have to comment.
Judging by what others have wrote recently, you come to one of two conclusions, that Reagan was an overt racist, or that he was a cynical politician vying for the southern white racist vote. Both are absurd.
I think the "Reagan was a racist" meme can be countered by him speaking at the Urban League a week later, as was previously discussed. The argument that he was swaying racist voters is equally absurd. The Neshoba County Fair speech was never considered a crucial part of Reagan's campaign strategy. In fact, it was a last minute event that was thrown together without much thought.
If I remember the story right, State Republican officials and fair organizers were trying to find a "big fish" to speak at the fair that year, and sent invites to every prominent Republican at the time. Initially, the Reagan campaign declined, but at the last minute, an article about the Fair in National Geographic magazine caught Nancy Reagan's attention. At her urging, the story goes, the campaign contacted the fair commission, who were overjoyed that they had the Republican nominee, of all people. In fact, the date that was published in the local paper had to be pushed back a couple of days to accommodate the planning and logistics of having a presidential candidate at a county fair.
So, clearly, Neshoba wasn't part of some grand strategy to win southern voters. It was a one off that only happened because of an article in National Geographic.
It's also absurd to believe that by injecting two words into an otherwise innocuous speech was supposed to fire up white racists. Like southerners were on the edge of their seats waiting for those magic words to be uttered.. Ridiculous... If that was the intention, it failed miserably. Everyone that I spoke with that sat in those grandstands that afternoon, took those words at face value, ... less federal government interference... more self determination by the states.. Not as some kind of call to support racist policies.
So I hope that sheds some light on the situation
It's sort of like the nuts who think Willie Horton was a racist issue; only the self-proclaimed "non-racists" think of it that way.
Michael's got it right. less federal government interference... more self determination by the states that is the plain meaning of states rights, the rights of the sovereign states.
Again, in 1980 all the civil rights legislation was well in place, supported by Reagan, enforced by his DOJ, and enacted ONLY with the support of REPUBLICANS over the objections of the democrats.
Again, if Reagan was the slightest bit not the President of all the people he wouldn't have won in a landslide in 1984 carrying all the homelands of the usual crew of race baitors in this country.
As for busing arguments in the 80's I'm afraid I don't remember those. Seems to me most of them happened in the 70's. Certainly with hindsight we can see that parents who were worried about their children no longer attending local (close to home) schools were racists as opposed to being concerned for the safety and well being of their most precious loved ones. Certainly they were racist for wanting them closer to home. Certainly they were wrong to think that busing would have no effect on housing segregation in the North or be the start of a race to the bottom of educational excellence for an entire couple of generations so they playing field could be leveled for all at the bottom!! Certainly they were racist for thinking their children's educations and safety were being sacrificed at an altar constructed by wealthy white liberal elites whose children would never be bused because their children went to expensive private schools. Those same liberals who oppose school choice today for those who can't afford their expensive private schools.
Says the "Dog"
Let's say that, later this year, a democratic politician gives a campaign speech in DC and the speech includes the line "And I fully support the idea of collective rights." 20 years later, someone tries to defend the line by arguing that the politician was referring to an issue other than gun control. Would you accept that explanation?
I just love this stuff - it so reminds me of "Raising Arizona" - "we're using code names".
The funny thins is that leftists are always the ones complaining about right-wing "code". Must be a Derrida thing.
Apodaca-
My bad on missing that the link was above. Your bad on still not qualifying how Brooks knows about this supposed campaign team debate - since he sure as hell wasn't party to it.
And that of course, in the eyes of modern liberals is the ONLY aspect to the "Southern Strategy".
Someone else mentioned that Dems essentially wrote off the South, ostensibly for the very reason that they assumed all whites there to be racists. The Dems didn't just purge the racists from their ranks - they purged the non-racist conservatives too. That is the opening the Repubs exploited. Yes they took in the racists along with the conservative former Dems. The Dems had made clear that NONE of them were welcome in the party.
Seriously, libs - what did you expect would happen? That racists should not seek to be part of the political process? Should they have been branded and disenfranchised? Maybe their children marked too?
I'd be more inclined to say you are poorly informed. Rights belong to individuals - powers are delegated to govt (at whatever level).
That's funny, did George Wallace deliver a "states' rights" now, "states' rights" forever speech?
No, by golly he said "segregation". I guess he wasn't in on the code.
Let's see, was that somewhere in Mississippi, or was that in Massachussets? And the fights were really more in the 70s. By the 90s, busing was on the way out.
Ok, I get it now. Reagan ad-libbed the code-word, IN Mississippi to signal all the racists in South Boston.
Let's see, now. The first presidential candidate to win 49 states resigned during the second year of his second term, if I remember correctly. He is probably now running for re-election as President of Hell.
This is why I get upset about an aircraft carrier being named after politicians, even after they're dead, and they're not even waiting for them to die anymore. Nowadays, it's just bound to make half the people get their noses bent out of joint. If such a popular president with such a dramatic impact on history can't be remembered decently, no one will be anymore.
Reagan was not a racist, and did not need to court racists. The racists were not going to vote for Jimmy Carter for Pete's sake.
In 1980, when Reagan spoke, their murderers were living in freedom. It would have taken courage for Reagan to speak about bringing their murderers to justice.
Most that I know did. And do (vote for dems). The Dem (national) leadership may have been (eventually) purged of (overt) racists. Not so much the rank and file and local leadership. The appeal to resentment is so sweet they can overlook a few uncomfortable planks in the platform.
Dog, you really did sit out the civil rights movement, didn't you?
I was a newspaperman during the height of what should be called the Second Busing Controversy. And I can remember getting into raging arguments with my editors who were pushing 'local schools.'
Fact is, just two years before, nobody -- and I mean nobody -- was objecting when buses carried black kids miles and miles, passing as many as half a dozen white schools on the way, to get them into an all-black school.
Yes, say it loud and proud: Everybody who objected to busing in the '70s and '80s was a racist, unless they had also objected during what should have been (but wasn't) the First Busing Controversy in the '60s and earlier.
I never met such a person.
I guess you could say I was against busing before I was for it.
Wallace didn't make his "segregation forever" speech until 1962 at his first inauguration. Rhetoric had heated up a mite by then.
Bull****. I was there and I DO remember, quite well. In fact, I attended one of those anti-bussing rallies.
I rubbed elbows with black kids in school, and I didn't have any problem with that. Neither did my parents.
What I and they had a problem with was the possibility that I could, at some bureaucrat's whim, be bussed to a school all the way across town, when my parents had bought a house from which I and both my brothers could (and did) walk to school.
Thank you for trying. Unfortunately, those who really need the light prefer to stay in the dark, bleating about the secret hatreds of others.
I've lived in the South all my life. I've never seen in Southerners the malignant, bigoted prejudices preening leftists are so fond of attributing to us.
I remember a little bit of the 60s, too. I can remember reading of race riots in Chicago, Detroit, Newark, and Los Angeles. Funny, I can't remember any in the supposedly-benighted South. And the busing controversy began IIRC in Boston. Hmmm....
All the more amusing then Fub, that it was code, then plain language, then back to code - if we follow the 50s, then 60s then 1980 timeline. There is no justifiable apologia for segregation. It was wrong, plain and simple. But this twisting language back and forth, in service of an unworthy meme, is just a bit silly.
The Dems tossed out virtually all Southern whites as racists, when in reality, only a fraction were. Reagan's appeal to them was the same as to Pennsylvania and Michigan "Reagan" Democrats. In which case, the "Southern Strategy" is a bit of a misnomer.
For someone who admits not knowing much about the 1980s, you seem astonishingly well-informed about the sentiments of people in the 1860s. (Not really. ;) )
Here's a clue: A war was begun by Northerners who couldn't abide the departure from the Union of the substantial tax revenues collected in southern ports, and would kill hundreds of thousands of people to keep that money.
The so-called "Civil War" wasn't about slavery -- it was about money, and about the determination of some people to rule the lives of others hundreds of miles away. It was a repudiation of the very idea of self-determination that was once the foundation of this country.
Well Harry, how many blacks were first being bussed OUT of South Boston or the Minneapolis suburbs, before they were bussed IN?
And to think that people accused Reagan of over-simplifying.
Right. They nevere thought about it until it was their kids. Not very altruistic, but not necessarily racist.
Right. They never thought about it until it was their kids. Not very altruistic, but not necessarily racist.
The first shots were fired at Fort Sumter by the Confederacy. It was the Confederacy that greeted the election of President Lincoln by seceding from the union. And if you read the articles of secession, you will see that the reason for seceeding was to preserve slavery.
1. Have a pretty low opinion of the South
2. Need to reacquaint themselves with Occam's razor
Do you really think that Reagan would make a one time speech, using super secret code words, in order to bring in the racist vote?
How do you square that with his later speech at the urban league? Do you think the racist vote would not notice that?
If your theory requires simultaneous mutually exclusive items
1. Reagan wanted the racist vote and used code words in one speech to get it.
2. Reagan wanted the black vote and spoke in front of black groups to ask for it.
It is probably time to give up on your theory.
By and large states rights issues had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the aggravation caused by having to drive across Wyoming at 55 MPH when the roads, traffic, distances and common sense all pointed to the wisdom of a 75 MPH speed limit.
No, but anybody who objects to busing white kids to black schools who didn't also object to busing black kids to keep them out of white schools is.
'I've never seen in Southerners the malignant, bigoted prejudices preening leftists are so fond of attributing to 'us.'
Well, I have. When I entered college in 1964, the football coach (a family friend) had, somewhat nervously, recruited his first black player, a tackle. I knew him slightly.
The frosh team went down to play the U. of So. Carolina. On one play, the Carolinians agreed to 'get the nigger.' The State halfback run unopposed for a touchdown, while the tackle was ganged up on and had his knee wrecked.
It was a long time before another black athlete was recruited at State.
I could go one like that for hours from personal experience.
'Funny, I can't remember any (race riots) in the supposedly-benighted South.'
I can. April 5, 1963. Got caught in one in Raleigh, N.C., as I was driving my fiancee back from the hospital. Peaceful march of Shaw and St. Augustine students commemorating Dr. King's death the day before. Redneck in a 396 Chevelle raced ahead of the parade, threw it into reverse and backed into the crowd at around 35-40 miles an hour, tires smoking. Crowd broke. One used his umbrella to smash the windshield of the pickup in front of me. The driver of the pickup got out his 12-gauge.
There were plenty of others.
'The Dems tossed out virtually all Southern whites as racists, when in reality, only a fraction were.'
As it happens, I can give you a pretty precise idea what the percentage was, juris imprudent.
For example, in April 1963, the first integrationist march in Raleigh, N.C., was held. I marched. Afterward we adjourned to the fieldhouse at St. Augustine U. for hymns and freedom songs. About 5,000 were there. I can tell you precisely how many white Southerners were in that hall -- 1.
This is, of course, laughable. What do you call the attack on the Freedom Riders? Bull Connor? Any one of a hundred other assaults by white defenders of segregation?
This is total BS. You have no clue what you're talking about. Go bark at the moon.
David Nieporent:
I can understand how it is possible to oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act on libertarian grounds, though I think the argument is dead wrong. I do not understand how you can defend opposition to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Believe me, it was necessary.
The Civil War was begun by the south over slavery. Not by the north over tariffs. Nobody has ever fought a war over tariffs.
Are you kidding?
Read some history books.
How about the USAn revolution. It wasn't really about tea and people's dissed feelings. The real issue was the UK's trade policies; everything else was propaganda.
David, that isn't the argument they made, though.
They were saying that 'neighborhood schools' were a matter of principle, not of individual convenience. Yet the whites (the same whites, in most cases) who had run the school districts had somehow overlooked that principle as long as the busing served to keep black kids out of white schools.
(Some white kids got bused past black schools, too, but I think generally it was black kids who spent the most time on the bus.)
My post about the riot should have said 1968, not 1963.
You dismiss "everything else" as "propaganda." But assuming that's true, propaganda to what end? The answer should be clear: nobody will fight over tariffs. You can't get people to volunteer to die to change the tax rate. (If you could, the Libertarian Party would be a lot more successful.)
When Atwater knew that he didn't have long to live, wasn't the Horton business one of the things he expressed regret about and asked Dukakis to forgive him for? You wouldn't count Atwater himself as a nut who thought "Willie Horton was a racist issue," would you? (If what you are saying that the Massachusetts furlough program was fair game for an opponent to use in the manner that Gore did, I would agree with you. What I don't agree with is the notion that as used in ads by the Republicans in 1984 there was no racial subtext.)
Trying to sh