The Southern Strategy

Can the political dirty tricks of the 1960s help us understand and respond to the political dirty tricks of today?

This is Part I of a series of pieces. Part II is here.

Content warning: the following excerpt contains offensive racist language. Unfortunately, it’s hard to write truthfully about the Southern Strategy without reprinting it.

From 1954 to 1966, race was the issue… So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. You’re gettin’ so abstract now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all of these things you’re 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— I’m not saying that, but I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract and that coded, that we’re doing away with the racial problem one way or the other, you follow me? Cause obviously sitting around saying we wanna cut taxes, we wanna cut this, is more abstract than even the bussing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than [saying] ‘nigger, nigger’”. —transcript of …