Landrieu and the myth of the southern realignment

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Jazz Shaw:

With Mary Landrieu exiting the Senate, the usual rounds of finger pointing and recriminations have already begun. In the eyes of her supporters, the reasons are numerous and obvious. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the unpopularity of the President or the issues she espoused. No, the only reason that a Republican will occupy that seat next year is that the South is full of hateful, bigoted, stars and bars waving racists and homophobes.

This, they will claim, is the result of an ongoing process which began simmering after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, building up to the sweeping “party switch” in the era of Nixon’s southern strategy. This was allegedly when the kindhearted Republicans fled to their more natural home in the Democrat party while the old school, evil racist Democrats jumped ship to the GOP. It’s an old story, and one which is reasonably deflated by Kevin Williamsonthis week.

A few obvious questions: If white Southerners were really so enraged about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and if they switched to the Republican party to express their displeasure, then why did they wait 30 years before making that preference felt in House elections? Why did Dwight D. Eisenhower — a supporter of civil-rights legislation who insisted on the actual desegregation of the armed forces (as opposed to President Truman’s hypothetical desegregation) and federal agencies under his control — win a larger share of the Southern vote in 1956 than Barry Goldwater, the most important Republican critic of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, did two cycles later? Why did Mississippi elect only one Republican governor in the entire 20th century, and that not until 1992? Why didn’t Alabama have a Republican governor until 1987? And why did Louisiana wait 60 years to eliminate its last Democratic senator in favor of a candidate from the party of Condoleezza Rice, Ben Carson, Allen West, Mia Love, Tim Scott, and that not-very-white guy who serves as governor of Louisiana? White supremacy should be made of sterner stuff: Did somebody forget to tell Louisiana state senator and newly confirmed Republican Elbert Guillory that he’s black?

Generalizations about “The South” are as common as they are wrong. The southeastern portion of the country is actually incredibly diverse by virtually any metric you’d care to use. If we must drill down to the most basic of numbers, we can note that the overall population of the United States is roughly 62% white and 13% black. The corresponding population distribution in South Carolina, for example, is almost exactly the same. Interestingly, of all businesses in the United States, only 7.1% of them are owned by blacks, but in South Carolina (same chart as last link, further down) that number jumps to 12.1%. In short, the entire country is a melting pot, as it has been for ages. To pretend that the south has been immune to this is to be intentionally obtuse or disingenuous.

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Excellent article. The left will continue making the same bogus claims (we’ve seen them do it here numerous times) because if you repeat a lie often enough (i.e. there was no WMD in Iraq), people will believe it to where it becomes “fact”. At least in the minds of the braindead left.

What’s facts to a liberal? They unabashedly USE minorities as political tools and props, never lifting a finger to help their condition but merely funnel the money someone else has earned to maintaining their addiction to government aid, all for the sake of votes and political power.

The only thing there is to respect of Democrats is how artfully they use propaganda to make the perception the exact opposite of the reality.