When Republicans claim the racist/racebaiting 'Southern Strategy' never happened

[blm]

Take them on a trip down memory lane, courtesy of the Republican Party's most feted, and most revered campaign strategist, Lee Atwater.

Voting Rights Act memory: The majority of GOP strategist class saw political opportunity in the backlash against the Voting Rights Act and called it their Southern Strategy.

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm 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 me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."[8][9]


Post it wherever the GOP voter base roams.

[blm]

1. Kicking up -

Bat the liars down with this.

[rurallib]

2. and today it's "food stamp administration" and "makers and takers"

and anything that delegitimizes Obama such as the birthers.
the racist never quit.

[blm]

4. Many GOP voters don't even realize they were part of a PLAN

to secure political power by GOP strategists who EXPECTED and COUNTED ON them to react as racists.

[KittyWampus]

3. Bookmarked.

[el_bryanto]

5. Yep the Southern Strategy - the one that Republicans pretend never happened

It's baffling to me that something so clearly historically proven can be believed not to exist.

Bryant

[blm]

8. Radio talkers claimed it never happened, even after Mehlman apologized

for the party's reliance on Southern Strategy in 2005.

So...GOP voter base trusts the words of the Rushes, the Becks, the Hannitys.

[el_bryanto]

11. I suppose they have to flatter their audiences

And it's not very flattering to say "You know after that civil rights act passed, Republicans really went after Southern Racists, making sure they knew they had a home in the Republican party." Not that many southern Republicans will openly admit that they are racist at this point even when they clearly are.

Bryant

[reformist2]

27. They have to deny it - to admit to it in 2013 would be suicide.

They have race-baited themselves into a corner.

[blm]

29. You said that exactly right.

Nailed it.

[LuvNewcastle]

6. I've seen it in my own family.

When I was growing up, everybody who was into politics at all in my family were Democrats. They were all racists, pretty much, but they had a lot of liberal beliefs when it came to economics.

Then there was a period in the mid-1970's and early 80's when the younger ones identified with the GOP. The older ones stayed loyal to the Democratic Party and would not hear of voting Republican. As the older generation died out and the South became more Republican, their economic views changed, too. They became Reaganites and hated government intervention into the economy. They began to disparage the poor.

So the decline of the Democrats in the South really made things a lot worse. Not only did we have the racism to contend with, we had the new problems that go along with an economically RW government. The Southern Strategy has been a disaster for most of us. If the GOP hadn't given the racists a place to go and thrive, things might be very different here now.

[blm]

9. Much the same in my Ohio family.

.

[reformist2]

30. The point should be made a lot more often!

It is so true, that people all over the country have shifted their positions on a whole range of issues just to suit the party that accommodates their racism (and other assorted bigotries.)

[joeybee12]

7. Lee eventually died a horrific painful death from cancer...

And I won't post what I'm thinking about that.

[bluestate10]

21. Atwater apologized for his deeds literally on his deathbed. But he apologized too late.

Atwater's near death apology should serve as a warning to racist republicans of today.

[joeybee12]

25. Yup, when you're facing eternity it's tough not to regret all the evil

you've done...better if you apologize and then try to fix it...he did a sort of Homer Simpson, "Lisa, if Dady's wrong, I'll make a deathbed confession."

[napkinz]

10. The GOP ... "still racist after all these years"

[KamaAina]

12. Next primary season, ask yourself why South Carolina follows Iowa and New Hampshire

Because SC native and vile racist Lee Atwater willed it so.

P.S. I always blank out the i's and e's with * when I use that quote.

[blm]

16. I know - I just wanted to make it VERY REAL for those unaware.

Sadly, I find there are many still unaware.

[napkinz]

18. and that he used the word AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN

like one of those old vinyl records skipping from a scratch



Just a reminder, from last year's election:

[font size="4"]Obama Hate Text Messages Inspired By Lee Atwater[/font]





11/02/2012

WASHINGTON -- The man behind the company that blasted anti-gay, anti-Barack Obama text messages to voters in the Washington area this week said he learned at the feet of infamous Republican slash-and-burn political operative Lee Atwater.

The firm ccAdvertising confessed to being behind the blast of emailed text messages that showed up on phones Tuesday night saying things like " "Obama supports homosexuality and its radical social agenda" and “Obama believes killing children is a right until the umbilical cord is cut.”

Many of the texts went to registered Democrats, political operatives and journalists who are unlikely to be swayed. Some wound up reaching people perhaps inappropriately, such as the abortion message going to a 13-year-old girl, and the anti-gay message that went to a gay woman.

ccAdvertising President Gabe Joseph said the burst had the effect he intended, describing it in terms he learned from Atwater, the legendary GOP consultant behind the infamous 1988 Willie Horton ad.

"Sometimes we do things to cause a reaction," Joseph said, adding later, "I was raised in the school of politics of Reagan-Bush '84 under Lee Atwater, and one of the things he taught me is that you win elections when your opponents react to what you do." Atwater, who chaired the Republican National Committee for a time, died in 1991 at age 40.

read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/02/obama-hate-text-messages-lee-atwater_n_2067774.html

[uponit7771]

13. +1

[MisterP]

14. their universe doesn't include Operation Cyclone or El Mozote or the Phoenix Program

Giuliani forgot 9-11 and none of them can manage to remember that most "Red States" are "Taker" states (for the precise reason that Them Urbanites DON'T want to see them slide into poverty--even without 30s levels of activism http://www.georgetownbookshop.com/display.asp?cat=26)

[winter is coming]

15. Never happened? More like never stopped. n/t

[blm]

17. Exactly. If anything it's gotten worse in so many ways.

.

[napkinz]

19. love this man's resolve ...

[blm]

20. That's one of my favorite Moral Monday pics.

.

[Blue Idaho]

22. WOW!

Somehow the words "thank you" seem a little too small here...

[napkinz]

23. kick

nt

[Scurrilous]

24. K & R

[napkinz]

26. and here you have it ...

Must Read!

EVERY REPUBLICAN That Was Asked REFUSED TO ATTEND March On Washington Event

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023556128

[Rex]

28. Repukes like to pretend all kinds of things that happened

never did! Then they like to pretend some things did indeed happen...when they never did and everyone else knows they are making shit up out of whole cloth.

In short, the GOP has a real image problem - everyone on the planet earth knows they are fucking liars and work against The People. Thank you Dick Cheney and George Bush for exposing your party for 8 years as one of the vilest on the planet! It worked!

Funny how people don't forget the bad things that happen to them, not even decades later!

Anyway...stay classy GOP!