So Nixon “deracialized” the Southern Strategy. Who Knew?
by digby
“If Trump isn’t offering workable solutions but he is identifying problems that others have ignored, the hope is some more policy-focused, more governance-focused competitor will make use of the opportunity that Trump has publicized,” Mr. Frum said.
In an analogy that won’t make anyone very comfortable, he said Mr. Trump could be useful in the same way George Wallace was in 1968: “Wallace talked about a lot of issues, many of them pretty dismaying, but he also seized on the crime issue. Crime was rising fast, and it was not an issue that respectable politicians wanted to talk about. The result was that Richard Nixon stole his issue and deracialized it.”
Well, not exactly. Pressed on whether Nixon’s anticrime language could really be considered deracialized, Mr. Frum argued Nixon “diminished its racialism and incorporated it into something like a workable policy agenda.”
I guess these people have actually convinced themselves that Nixon’s Southern Strategy wasn’t racist.
And now we can look at George Wallace’s campaign as being a big positive for our democracy which is really nice.
The “law and order” issue is coming to the fore. Hysteria is rising in both parties and among the intelligentsia. Flogging this fear is one of the most tried and true methods conservatives use to push back on racial justice, civil rights and liberal reforms in general. Trump’s moment isn’t coming out of nowhere.
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