This characterization of the Southern strategy in the @nytimes is close, but not quite right.
Calls for "law and order" were often *part* of the Southern strategy -- but they weren't exactly one and the same.
nytimes.com/2020/06/09/us/…
Calls for "law and order" were often *part* of the Southern strategy -- but they weren't exactly one and the same.
nytimes.com/2020/06/09/us/…
During the Nixon era, certainly, the two blended together.
As Dov Grohsgal and I noted in @TheAtlantic, Nixon campaign strategist Kevin Phillips argued in the 1968 election that the key to realignment was "the law and order/Negro socioeconomic syndrome."
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
As Dov Grohsgal and I noted in @TheAtlantic, Nixon campaign strategist Kevin Phillips argued in the 1968 election that the key to realignment was "the law and order/Negro socioeconomic syndrome."
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
But the Republicans' Southern strategy predated that moment, and the law and order issue, too.
As I noted recently, the GOP made a move for conservative southern whites in the wake of the 1948 Dixiecrat rebellion, largely with a "states rights" framing.
As I noted recently, the GOP made a move for conservative southern whites in the wake of the 1948 Dixiecrat rebellion, largely with a "states rights" framing.
Once Republicans found success in the South by mimicking the Southern Democrats' support of segregation, political reporters started to speak of this as the "Southern strategy."
Again, in the 1968 campaign, Richard Nixon's team -- stealing a line from segregationist George Wallace (D-AL) -- increasingly framed these appeals to white conservatives in the South and elsewhere as a pitch to "law and order"
In later decades, the GOP acknowledged that the Nixon-era Southern strategy had been "based on coded racism," as Lee Atwater put it, but insisted that the "law and order" pitch was entirely different.
This thread is the key here:
This thread is the key here:
But the Southern strategy was more than the original racial appeal and the later "law and order" one.
As @AngieMaxwell1 and @ShieldsTodd have argued, there was a "long southern strategy," which added anti-feminist and pro-religious right elements as well. global.oup.com/academic/produ…
As @AngieMaxwell1 and @ShieldsTodd have argued, there was a "long southern strategy," which added anti-feminist and pro-religious right elements as well. global.oup.com/academic/produ…
So, yes, "law and order" was often part of the Southern strategy, but the Southern strategy had a history that was broader and longer than that narrow point.
