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In reply to the discussion: Wanna Know Who Made Racism ''Acceptable Again'' in the good ol' USA? [View all]Octafish
(55,745 posts)208. That shows how something can be wrong and right at the same time.
The racism at the heart of the Reagan presidency
How Ronald Reagan used coded racial appeals to galvanize white voters and gut the middle class
by IAN HANEY-LOPEZ
Salon, Jan. 11, 2014
EXCERPT...
Ronald Reagan
Why did Ronald Reagan do so well among white voters? Certainly elements beyond race contributed, including the faltering economy, foreign events (especially in Iran), the nations mood, and the candidates temperaments. But one indisputable factor was the return of aggressive race-baiting. A year after Reagans victory, a key operative gave what was then an anonymous interview, and perhaps lulled by the anonymity, he offered an unusually candid response to a question about Reagan, the Southern strategy, and the drive to attract the Wallace voter:
This analysis was provided by a young Lee Atwater. Its significance is two fold: First, it offers an unvarnished account of Reagans strategy. Second, it reveals the thinking of Atwater himself, someone whose career traced the rise of GOP dog whistle politics. A protégé of the pro-segregationist Strom Thurmond in South Carolina, the young Atwater held Richard Nixon as a personal hero, even describing Nixons Southern strategy as a blue print for everything Ive done. After assisting in Reagans initial victory, Atwater became the political director of Reagans 1984 campaign, the manager of George Bushs 1988 presidential campaign, and eventually the chair of the Republican National Committee. In all of these capacities, he drew on the quick sketch of dog whistle politics he had offered in 1981: from n, n, n to states rights and forced busing, and from there to cutting taxesand linking all of these, race . . . coming on the back burner.
[font color="red"]When Reagan picked up the dog whistle in 1980, the continuity in technique nevertheless masked a crucial difference between him versus Wallace and Nixon. Those two had used racial appeals to get elected, yet their racially reactionary language did not match reactionary political positions. Political moderates, both became racial demagogues when it became clear that this would help win elections. Reagan was different. Unlike Wallace and Nixon, Reagan was not a moderate, but an old-time Goldwater conservative in both the ideological and racial senses, with his own intuitive grasp of the power of racial provocation. For Reagan, conservatism and racial resentment were inextricably fused.[/font color]
In the early 1960s, Reagan was still a minor actor in Hollywood, but he was becoming increasingly active in conservative politics. When Goldwater decided to run for president, Reagan emerged as a fierce partisan. Reagans advocacy included a stock speech, given many times over, that drummed up support for Goldwater with overwrought balderdash such as the following:
Reagans race-baiting continued when he moved to national politics. After securing the Republican nomination in 1980, Reagan launched his official campaign at a county fair just outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town still notorious in the national imagination for the Klan lynching of civil rights volunteers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner 16 years earlier. Reagan selected the location on the advice of a local official, who had written to the Republican National Committee assuring them that the Neshoba County Fair was an ideal place for winning George Wallace inclined voters. Neshoba did not disappoint. The candidate arrived to a raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000 whites chanting We want Reagan! We want Reagan!and he returned their fevered embrace by assuring them, I believe in states rights. In 1984, Reagan came back, this time to endorse the neo-Confederate slogan the South shall rise again. As New York Times columnist Bob Herbert concludes, Reagan may have been blessed with a Hollywood smile and an avuncular delivery, but he was elbow deep in the same old race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nixon.
Reagan also trumpeted his racial appeals in blasts against welfare cheats. On the stump, Reagan repeatedly invoked a story of a Chicago welfare queen with eighty names, thirty addresses, [and] twelve Social Security cards [who] is collecting veterans benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. Shes got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000. Often, Reagan placed his mythical welfare queen behind the wheel of a Cadillac, tooling around in flashy splendor. Beyond propagating the stereotypical image of a lazy, larcenous black woman ripping off societys generosity without remorse, Reagan also implied another stereotype, this one about whites: they were the workers, the tax payers, the persons playing by the rules and struggling to make ends meet while brazen minorities partied with their hard-earned tax dollars. More directly placing the white voter in the story, Reagan frequently elicited supportive outrage by criticizing the food stamp program as helping some young fellow ahead of you to buy a T-bone steak while you were waiting in line to buy hamburger. This was the toned-down version. When he first field-tested the message in the South, that young fellow was more particularly described as a strapping young buck. The epithet buck has long been used to conjure the threatening image of a physically powerful black man often one who defies white authority and who lusts for white women. When Reagan used the term strapping young buck, his whistle shifted dangerously toward the fully audible range. Some young fellow was less overtly racist and so carried less risk of censure, and worked just as well to provoke a sense of white victimization.
Voters heard Reagans dog whistle. In 1980, Reagans racially coded rhetoric and strategy proved extraordinarily effective, as 22 percent of all Democrats defected from the party to vote for Reagan. Illustrating the power of race in the campaign, the defection rate shot up to 34 percent among those Democrats who believed civil rights leaders were pushing too fast. Among those who felt the government should not make any special effort to help [blacks] because they should help themselves, 71 percent voted for Reagan.
CONTINUED...
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/11/the_racism_at_the_heart_of_the_reagan_presidency/
So, great. Without Nixon, no Reagan. But without Reagan, there'd be no return to the Jim Crow thinking, where some people matter more than others, let alone the massive redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy.
How Ronald Reagan used coded racial appeals to galvanize white voters and gut the middle class
by IAN HANEY-LOPEZ
Salon, Jan. 11, 2014
EXCERPT...
Ronald Reagan
Why did Ronald Reagan do so well among white voters? Certainly elements beyond race contributed, including the faltering economy, foreign events (especially in Iran), the nations mood, and the candidates temperaments. But one indisputable factor was the return of aggressive race-baiting. A year after Reagans victory, a key operative gave what was then an anonymous interview, and perhaps lulled by the anonymity, he offered an unusually candid response to a question about Reagan, the Southern strategy, and the drive to attract the Wallace voter:
You start out in 1954 by saying, N, n, n. (Editor's note: The actual word used by Atwater has been replaced with "N" for the purposes of this article.) By 1968 you cant say n that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states rights and all that stuff. Youre getting so abstract now, youre talking about cutting taxes, and all these things youre talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. Im not saying that. But Im saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow mebecause obviously sitting around saying, We want to cut taxes and we want to cut this, is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than N, n. So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.
This analysis was provided by a young Lee Atwater. Its significance is two fold: First, it offers an unvarnished account of Reagans strategy. Second, it reveals the thinking of Atwater himself, someone whose career traced the rise of GOP dog whistle politics. A protégé of the pro-segregationist Strom Thurmond in South Carolina, the young Atwater held Richard Nixon as a personal hero, even describing Nixons Southern strategy as a blue print for everything Ive done. After assisting in Reagans initial victory, Atwater became the political director of Reagans 1984 campaign, the manager of George Bushs 1988 presidential campaign, and eventually the chair of the Republican National Committee. In all of these capacities, he drew on the quick sketch of dog whistle politics he had offered in 1981: from n, n, n to states rights and forced busing, and from there to cutting taxesand linking all of these, race . . . coming on the back burner.
[font color="red"]When Reagan picked up the dog whistle in 1980, the continuity in technique nevertheless masked a crucial difference between him versus Wallace and Nixon. Those two had used racial appeals to get elected, yet their racially reactionary language did not match reactionary political positions. Political moderates, both became racial demagogues when it became clear that this would help win elections. Reagan was different. Unlike Wallace and Nixon, Reagan was not a moderate, but an old-time Goldwater conservative in both the ideological and racial senses, with his own intuitive grasp of the power of racial provocation. For Reagan, conservatism and racial resentment were inextricably fused.[/font color]
In the early 1960s, Reagan was still a minor actor in Hollywood, but he was becoming increasingly active in conservative politics. When Goldwater decided to run for president, Reagan emerged as a fierce partisan. Reagans advocacy included a stock speech, given many times over, that drummed up support for Goldwater with overwrought balderdash such as the following:
We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation. Reagans rightwing speechifying didnt save Goldwater, but it did earn Reagan a glowing reputation among Republican groups in California, which led to his being recruited to run for governor of California in 1966. During that campaign, he wed his fringe politics to early dog whistle themes, for instance excoriating welfare, calling for law and order, and opposing government efforts to promote neighborhood integration. He also signaled blatant hostility toward civil rights, supporting a state ballot initiative to allow racial discrimination in the housing market, proclaiming: If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so.
Reagans race-baiting continued when he moved to national politics. After securing the Republican nomination in 1980, Reagan launched his official campaign at a county fair just outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town still notorious in the national imagination for the Klan lynching of civil rights volunteers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner 16 years earlier. Reagan selected the location on the advice of a local official, who had written to the Republican National Committee assuring them that the Neshoba County Fair was an ideal place for winning George Wallace inclined voters. Neshoba did not disappoint. The candidate arrived to a raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000 whites chanting We want Reagan! We want Reagan!and he returned their fevered embrace by assuring them, I believe in states rights. In 1984, Reagan came back, this time to endorse the neo-Confederate slogan the South shall rise again. As New York Times columnist Bob Herbert concludes, Reagan may have been blessed with a Hollywood smile and an avuncular delivery, but he was elbow deep in the same old race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nixon.
Reagan also trumpeted his racial appeals in blasts against welfare cheats. On the stump, Reagan repeatedly invoked a story of a Chicago welfare queen with eighty names, thirty addresses, [and] twelve Social Security cards [who] is collecting veterans benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. Shes got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000. Often, Reagan placed his mythical welfare queen behind the wheel of a Cadillac, tooling around in flashy splendor. Beyond propagating the stereotypical image of a lazy, larcenous black woman ripping off societys generosity without remorse, Reagan also implied another stereotype, this one about whites: they were the workers, the tax payers, the persons playing by the rules and struggling to make ends meet while brazen minorities partied with their hard-earned tax dollars. More directly placing the white voter in the story, Reagan frequently elicited supportive outrage by criticizing the food stamp program as helping some young fellow ahead of you to buy a T-bone steak while you were waiting in line to buy hamburger. This was the toned-down version. When he first field-tested the message in the South, that young fellow was more particularly described as a strapping young buck. The epithet buck has long been used to conjure the threatening image of a physically powerful black man often one who defies white authority and who lusts for white women. When Reagan used the term strapping young buck, his whistle shifted dangerously toward the fully audible range. Some young fellow was less overtly racist and so carried less risk of censure, and worked just as well to provoke a sense of white victimization.
Voters heard Reagans dog whistle. In 1980, Reagans racially coded rhetoric and strategy proved extraordinarily effective, as 22 percent of all Democrats defected from the party to vote for Reagan. Illustrating the power of race in the campaign, the defection rate shot up to 34 percent among those Democrats who believed civil rights leaders were pushing too fast. Among those who felt the government should not make any special effort to help [blacks] because they should help themselves, 71 percent voted for Reagan.
CONTINUED...
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/11/the_racism_at_the_heart_of_the_reagan_presidency/
So, great. Without Nixon, no Reagan. But without Reagan, there'd be no return to the Jim Crow thinking, where some people matter more than others, let alone the massive redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy.
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Wanna Know Who Made Racism ''Acceptable Again'' in the good ol' USA? [View all]
Octafish
Jun 2015
OP
Amen! 'The legacy of Saint Reagan is one of treachery, malfeasance and treason IMO.'
Surya Gayatri
Jun 2015
#162
And then they fell to their knees, lit the incense, and prayed "Yes, Yes, YES!!!"
calimary
Jun 2015
#64
I recall seeing that live (or on the news the next day) during GHWB's inauguration
Chiyo-chichi
Jun 2015
#88
That's the right answer. But on DU it's tricky to criticize Reagan, many here voted for him and
Bluenorthwest
Jun 2015
#4
In addition to defending Reagan, they defend Bush I, II and the rest of the Crime Family
Octafish
Jun 2015
#10
Reagan could not have pulled it off without the willing acquiescence of many who should have known
KingCharlemagne
Jun 2015
#31
Reagan was a fascist piece of shit, going back to his days as Gov. of California when he threatened
KingCharlemagne
Jun 2015
#35
Reagan called in the National Guard over 4 "dirty words" in The Berkely Barb
stuffmatters
Jun 2015
#137
The thing to remember about RWR is that he started as a Cold War Dem. He's the missing link
leveymg
Jun 2015
#80
Good points all. Simply add a little astrology to the mix and, voila, you've got
KingCharlemagne
Jun 2015
#84
Racism is going to get worse as competition for the few good jobs that are still
Baitball Blogger
Jun 2015
#7
+1. This country was built by African slave labor and the extermination of indigenous peoples
YoungDemCA
Jun 2015
#103
How Ronald Reagan used coded racial appeals to galvanize white voters and gut the middle class
Octafish
Jun 2015
#191
We were in Alabama when Kennedy was shot, and Dad was working in Huntsville (Apollo program stuff)
hatrack
Jun 2015
#123
Lee Atwater had an army of racists and supremacists he used to political advantage.
blm
Jun 2015
#29
Lee Atwater had SC wired with his racist hit squad including a group from Bob Jones Univ.
blm
Jun 2015
#210
And yet in an interview with Mike Wallace in 1988, Ronny couldn't understand why so many
muntrv
Jun 2015
#32
Actually, the Dixiecrats who revolted against Civil Rights gains in the 60s and became Southern
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jun 2015
#43
RACISM has always been around and never went out of style. There never was a time when
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jun 2015
#44
Saying that racism is "acceptable again" implies that there was a time when racism
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jun 2015
#188
Wrong. Nixon led the resurgence. Read again. The Southern Strategy was Nixon's agenda.
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jun 2015
#199
You simply won't admit your mistake. The assertion you made, "Reagan was responsible for racism's
Liberal_Stalwart71
Jun 2015
#211
Reagan was one of the worst Presidents for the poor, the marginalized, the historically oppressed
YoungDemCA
Jun 2015
#118
It stopped -- for a time, anyway -- in the Oval Office during the Kennedy Administration.
Octafish
Jun 2015
#193
Not to mention he kicked off his Presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi as a symbol of
Hoyt
Jun 2015
#101
I am sorry I sound so pedantic...lots of history being rewritten when it comes to fascism.
Octafish
Jun 2015
#107
I have to admit, I'm on my phone and pretty much just looked at the photo. Just went back
Hoyt
Jun 2015
#111
Presidents can't do anything progressive without masses of ordinary people demanding that they do it
YoungDemCA
Jun 2015
#114
Well, in all fairness to Ronnie the Empty Suit, Tricky Dick was really pretty bad too:
struggle4progress
Jun 2015
#115
Ronnie was caught too, but the House decided not to pursue impeachment
struggle4progress
Jun 2015
#121
Had Reagan been impeached, his forced testimony would have outed his alzheimers
stuffmatters
Jun 2015
#141
What a monster! Also, for what he was responsible for in South America....
Joe Chi Minh
Jun 2015
#135
Don't forget the site of Reagan's first speech after receiving gthe 1980 Republican nomination.
bulloney
Jun 2015
#138
Philadelphia, Mississippi had a population of about 5,000 and had no significance whatsoever
aint_no_life_nowhere
Jun 2015
#183
K&R! I thought it was going to be Poppy Bush refering to Jeb's kids as his "little brown babies"....
Ghost in the Machine
Jun 2015
#148
Bush Defends 'Little Brown Ones' Term for Grandchildren, Tells 'Pride and Love'
Octafish
Jun 2015
#185
Bookmarked and K & R. Thanks for restoring some historical perspective to the debate.
Surya Gayatri
Jun 2015
#158
It was screamed in the 80's, and it was 100% true: Reagan was a god damned puppet.
C Moon
Jun 2015
#168