“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
– George Santayana

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. – How is it possible in the United States of America that a corrupt New York real estate developer who conned his way into the White House keeps us living in a hell ship of a bad trip acid flashback?

That’s how I felt this morning after waking up in the woods near Camp David and reading the daily email briefing from the New York Times. The headline?

Why isn’t the ‘Southern strategy’ working?

To summarize this piece from Times columnist David Leonhardt:

“The so-called Southern strategy — appealing to white voters by focusing on racial issues — has worked very well for the Republican Party. It has helped the party persuade many frustrated white working-class voters that the Democratic Party doesn’t care about them.”

He says Richard Nixon’s presidential campaign “invented the strategy,” and used it to win the presidency twice.

That’s a bit of journalistic over simplification, but historians and journalists have written volumes about this for decades. It has also been called Nixon’s “Dixie Strategy,” which makes me want to wash my mouth out with soap. He actually got it from “Operation Dixie,” Barry Goldwater’s campaign in 1964.

According to this political lore, Ronald Reagan also used this “Dixie Strategy” in his run for president in 1980 by praising “states’ rights” in a tiny Mississippi county known for a Ku Klux Klan triple murder.

George H.W. Bush also used it by running “the notorious” Willie Horton ad, says Leonhardt.

He conveniently leaves out George W. Bush and Karl Rove, who also found ways to capitalize on Southern disgruntlement with the federal government to win two terms in the White House, most importantly in the final days of the campaign by transferring the strategy of appealing to white males from race to sexual orientation, promising to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 2004 to ban gay marriage once and for all.

Of course no bill was ever introduced to this affect once Bush won his second term in the White House. It would have been a non-starter and could never have passed muster in two-thirds of the states. But the political damage had been done.

Maybe the Times should not have held that story proving domestic surveillance until after the election and things might have turned out differently.

Bush NSA Spied on EVERYBODY, Including US Journalists

Yes, it could be argued that this so-called “Southern strategy” has been “the most successful strategy in the history of modern politics,” according to Cornell Belcher, a Democratic strategist.

“The basic bet has been that Republicans win when voters focus on race,” Leonhardt writes.

Yes, Steve Bannon, who helped run President Trump’s campaign, described the flip side of the idea, in 2017: “The Democrats,” Bannon said, “I want them to talk about racism every day.”

Clearly Bannon is back, and certainly had a hand in writing Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech.

“Sure enough,” Leonhardt reports, “Trump has put race at the center of his re-election message. He did so in two aggressive speeches over the weekend and defended the Confederate flag.”

“Almost every day in the last two weeks, Mr. Trump has sought to stoke white fear and resentment,” the Times‘ Maggie Haberman wrote.

“And yet this time seems different,” Leonhardt writes. “The strategy isn’t working. Trump’s poll numbers are slumping, and some of his 2016 supporters cite racial issues as a reason they plan to vote for Joe Biden.”

“Why is the Southern strategy suddenly flailing?” he asked, then posited four main reasons:

1. The country is changing. It becomes more racially diverse each year. And most Americans under age 35 are quite liberal. The horror of the George Floyd video and the ensuing protest movement have also changed the minds of many Americans.

2. People are afraid. Historically, many white Americans didn’t see how racism hurt them, Belcher said. But he now hears white voters in focus groups say they’re worried that the country is coming apart. “They talk about, if we continue on this trajectory, it’s going to be dismal for our kids,” he said.

3. Trump has gone too far. Most white Americans remain moderate to conservative on immigration, affirmative action and more. But many also believe police departments are biased, and many don’t like symbols of slavery. Reagan offered an optimistic, patriotic message that let many voters downplay or overlook his racial appeals. Trump is practically forcing voters to take sides on racism, Terrance Woodbury, another Democratic strategist, told CNN’s Ron Brownstein.

4. Voters are simply too unhappy with Trump’s handling of the coronavirus. “As long as that’s true,” The Times’s Nate Cohn told me, “I don’t see how he has the freedom to employ wedge issues.”

“Of course, the usual caveat applies,” Leonhardt says. “The campaign still has four months left.”

Backlash

Dog help us all. The backlash to the recent protests on police violence have the far right all fired up again and back to watching Fox News, after several months of falling trust in Trump’s response to the coronavirus. Trump thinks he can keep using this to fire up his enthusiastic base. But they are a shrinking minority now, so this should not help him much in November, especially if that’s his entire plan.

Remember History

For the record, back in the early days of the internet when free-lance journalism was still a thing, the first time I was ever able to really get the attention of the editors at the New York Times was about the Confederate flag, back when Georgia removed the image from its state flag. Finally this is happening in Mississippi, according to recent news reports (see photo above).

To the Editor:

Forward-thinking Southerners everywhere should take their New South hats off and salute the legislative leadership in Georgia for taking a stand against the New Age Klan and reducing the Confederate battle flag’s dominance of the state flag (Week in Review, Jan. 28).

In this new millennium, when the race issue should begin to wane because of the progress of the last century and a half, it is preposterous to argue that the battle flag represents a positive heritage. Now that its symbolism has been reduced in South Carolina and Georgia, is it now possible to move on to more important issues, like poverty and crime and protecting our environment?

GLYNN WILSON
New Orleans, Jan. 28, 2001

New Day in the South

Of course that was just 10 days after Don Siegelman was sworn in as governor Alabama and billed as that state’s “first New South governor,” even by New York Times editorial page editor at the time, Howell Raines of Alabama.

The New South Rises, Again: Alabama Gets Its First ‘New South’ Governor

But my history of covering this issue goes back even further, to the late 1980s.

I was there in Montgomery the day Thomas Reed and Alvin Holmes made a show of climbing the tall fence around the Alabama capitol building, then closed for renovation, to get the Confederate flag removed for good.

My story, written for the old Southern Magazine out of Arkansas, never saw the light of day, since the magazine went out of business and there was no web publishing then.

But it was covered by the New York Times back when, and you can still read about it if you are willing to pay for access to the archives.

The president of the Alabama N.A.A.C.P. and 13 other blacks were arrested today as they tried to scale an 8-foot fence around the State Capitol in an effort to take down a Confederate flag atop the building.

State troopers and Capitol police officers confronted State Representative Thomas Reed, the president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and other black lawmakers at a padlocked gate leading to the building, which is closed for renovation.

The blacks contend the Rebel battle flag, flying from a cupola on the Capitol dome, is a racist symbol of slavery and black oppression.

The police were acting on orders from Gov. Guy Hunt, who wants legislators to decide whether the flag should continue to fly over the Capitol. He had promised that no one would be allowed to rip down a Capitol flag.

14 Arrested at Alabama Capitol In Bid to Remove Confederate Flag

Of course the history goes back even further than that.

April 25, 1963: The Confederate Naval Jack flag was raised over the Capitol on the day when Attorney General Robert Kennedy met Gov. George Wallace inside the Capitol. It wasn’t removed after this visit.
During this time, the American flag was flown from a flag pole on the south lawn. The Alabama flag and Confederate Naval Jack were on the dome.

1975: Alvin Holmes filed suit to require the American flag be flown from the highest position. A federal district court said the Flag Code suggests, but does not require, the American flag to be flown from the highest position.

Wallace made the decision to fly the U.S. flag from the highest point. The Alabama flag was below it followed by the Confederate Naval Jack.

1976: Alvin Holmes filed a suit against Wallace and others to prohibit the flying of the Confederate flag over the Capitol. The federal district court ruled against Holmes.

1988: The NAACP, Alvin Holmes and others filed a lawsuit against Gov. Guy Hunt seeking to remove the Confederate battle flag from the State Capitol grounds. The district court again ruled against Holmes.

Late 1980s-Early 1990s: The Alabama Capitol was flying the U.S., Alabama and Confederate battle flags. All three were taken down due to a massive renovation of the capitol in the early 1990s.

Alvin Holmes and other legislators filed a third lawsuit using a different argument than the first two (1976 and 1988). They argued that an Alabama law from 1975 doesn’t allow for the flying of any flag above the Capitol other than the U.S. and Alabama flags.

Jan. 4, 1993: Circuit Judge William Gordon rules in favor of Alvin Holmes. Judge ordered Alabama law allows only the state and national flag be flown over Alabama’s capitol and enjoined the governor from raising the Confederate, or any other flag.

Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. didn’t appeal the judge’s ruling.

History of the Confederate flag on Alabama Capitol grounds

No Excuse

Yes, for those who cannot remember the past, they are condemned to repeat it. But there is no excuse these days for not knowing the past. We have this amazing archive called the web, which anyone can access with an internet connection.

Speaking of which, just as I was about to publish this, the email dinged with this missive.

What 9 GOP Campaign Consultants Really Think About Republicans’ Chances in November: The mood in MAGA-land: “Every shred of evidence points to a likely ass kicking”

And the U.S.S. Hellship sails on. If I possessed a big enough anchor, I would drop it through the fucking hull and make sure it sinks all the way to the jailhouse bottom. I’m just not interested in living through another four years of this hell ship flashback.

“There are two options, you can be on this hell ship or you can be in the water drowning.”

Or you can ride in another ship and fire cannon balls at the hell ship. That’s my choice. You?