What the GOP Lost When It Won the South

[applegrove]

What the GOP Lost When It Won the South

by Matt Lewis at the Daily Beast

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/23/what-the-gop-lost-when-it-won-the-south.html

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In one of the chapters, Too Dumb to Fail details the many ways the so-called Southern Strategy impacted conservative policy—but the impact it had in terms of cultural signaling is among the most important, if more superficial, effects.

(And here I’m not talking about overt racism, which I think we all condemn, but instead subtle cultural customs and signals that may seem out of touch in an America that is increasingly cosmopolitan.)

Let’s take George W. Bush, the most successful Republican politician of the post-Southern Strategy, post-Reagan era. After losing a Congressional race, George W. Bush (possibly as a reference to a much worse George Wallace line? ) vowed “never to get out-countried again. ” This was smart politics for Bush, who ultimately went on to become President of the United States, but it helped reinforce the image of a Republican as someone who, well, looks and talks like George W. Bush. (I realize that Texas is often considered more Western than part of the “Deep South,” but you get my point.)

This brings us to today. As we all know, the demographics of the country are changing rapidly. The electorate is rapidly becoming less white, less rural, and better educated. Yet the GOP is still culturally synonymous with, well, white, rural, less-educated southern whites, who remain a major pillar of the party’s support. And so you get to the point where guys like Scott Walker and Rand Paul spend a week ducking questions about whether the Confederate flag should be flown on government property…in 2015.



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[KamaAina]

1. Its soul?

[applegrove]

2. Yup.