Few names conjure the recalcitrant South, fighting integration with fire-breathing fury, like that of George Wallace. The central image of this “redneck poltergeist,” as one biographer referred to him, is of Wallace during his inauguration as governor of Alabama in January 1963, before waves of applause and the rapt attention of the national media, committing himself to the perpetual defense of segregation. Speaking on a cold day in Montgomery, Wallace thundered his infamous call to arms: “Today I have stood, where once Jefferson Davis stood, and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland … we sound the drum for freedom. … In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny … and I say … segregation now … segregation tomorrow… segregation forever!”
That the current iteration of the GOP has become irredeemably- if not always openly- racist means that, at least in this respect, they’ve learned the lessons of history. George Wallace wasn’t an ultra-hateful racist from the start. In fact, he began his legal and then political career as a racial moderate, and was noted for his respectful treatment of Blacks. It wasn’t until he lost his first run for Governor of Alabama in 1958 that racism became part of his philosophy. His opponent has the endorsement of the KKK, while Wallace secured the NAACP’s endorsement. He suffered a bitter defeat and determined that to win in the future he’d need to run as a racial reactionary who could validate the burning racial hatred of White Southerners who supported segregation. Upon leaving his concession speech, Wallace made it clear he understood where his political future would lead him:
“Well, boys,” he vowed, “no other son-of-a-bitch will ever out-nigger me again.”
And indeed no one ever did. Wallace skillfully turned racial hatred into a brand, culminating with his stand in 1963 against federal courts ordering the integration of the University of Alabama. Understanding that he would ultimately lose, Wallace turned the moment into a masterful display of pure political theater, standing up to the federal government in a moment that was captured on tape and rebroadcast across the country. Afterwards, more than 100,000 letter and telegrams from coast to coast deluged his office. The surprise was that 95% of the missives (more than half of which came from outside the South) supported Wallace’s defiance.
Here’s the thing about Wallace, though: He was a Democrat…though Republicans from Richard Nixon forward would use the lessons Wallace learned to boost their own political prospects.
The nation’s reaction was an epiphany for Wallace, or perhaps better, three thunderbolts that together convinced Wallace to reinvent himself yet again. First, Wallace realized with a shock that hostility toward blacks was not confined to the South. “He had looked out upon those white Americans north of Alabama and suddenly been awakened by a blinding vision: ‘They all hate black people, all of them. They’re all afraid, all of them. Great god! That’s it! They’re all Southern. The whole United States is Southern.’” Wallace suddenly knew that overtures to racial resentment would resonate across the country.
Many Americans falsely believed that racism and segregation was a “Southern” thing, when in fact it was a distinctly American thing. It may have more evident and virulent in the South, but racism could be found anywhere in America.
His second startling realization was that he, George Wallace, had figured out how to exploit that pervasive animosity. The key lay in seemingly non-racial language. At his inauguration, Wallace had defended segregation and extolled the proud Anglo-Saxon Southland, thereby earning national ridicule as an unrepentant redneck. Six months later, talking not about stopping integration but about states’ rights and arrogant federal authority—and visually aided by footage showing him facing down a powerful Department of Justice official rather than vulnerable black students attired in their Sunday best—Wallace was a countrywide hero.
“States right” was a strawman, a losing argument that Wallace embraced not because he believed in it, but because of what it made him in the eyes of Whites: a brave defender of the rightful, God-ordained supremacy of the White race. Wallace proudly stood up for the White majority, even in the face of a federal government he knew would ultimately defeat him. The payoff was that while Wallace might lose in federal courts, he became a hero in the court of public opinion.
Finally, a third bolt of lightening struck Wallace: he could be the one! The governor’s mansion in Montgomery need not represent his final destination. He could ride the train of revamped race-baiting all the way to the White House. Wallace ran for president as a third-party candidate in 1964, and then again in 1968, 1972, and 1976. It’s his 1968 campaign that most concerns us, for there Wallace ran against a consummate politician who was quick to appreciate, and adopt, Wallace’s refashioned racial demagoguery: Richard Nixon.
Nixon was shrewd enough to recognize that Wallace’s strategy was could be a winner for Republicans, himself in particular. Once upon a time, Republicans had been the party of desegregation and racial justice, with Democrats being staunch defenders of separation of the races and anti-miscegenation laws. Building on Barry Goldwater’s racially-charged 1964 Presidential campaign, Nixon understood that he wasn’t going to win the Negro vote, giving birth to what became known as the GOP’s “Southern Strategy.”
As the conservative journalist Robert Novak reported after attending a meeting of the Republican National Committee in Denver during the summer of 1963: “A good many, perhaps a majority of the party’s leadership, envision substantial political gold to be mined in the racial crisis by becoming in fact, though not in name, the White Man’s Party. ‘Remember,’ one astute party worker said quietly … ‘this isn’t South Africa. The white man outnumbers the Negro 9 to 1 in this country.’ ” The rise of a racially-identified GOP is not a tale of latent bigotry in that party. It is instead a story centered on the strategic decision to use racism to become “the White Man’s Party.”
Though no longer openly referring to the “Southern Strategy,” today’s Republican Party understands the math involved in it and that it still holds true. Though often declaring the desire to be the “Big Tent Party,” Republicans understand that they will almost certainly never win a majority of African-American voters. That being the case, they figure, why waste resources on a voting bloc that will never break their way? Why shouldn’t they focus on the demographics they can actually win?
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews argues that Jim Crow has found a new home in today’s Republican Party. I’d argue that he never left. Republicans just learned to do the math early on, and with it discovered a winning strategy.
If you want to understand the Right’s intensely visceral and personal hatred of The Black Guy in the White House ©, it’s no great mystery. A large segment of White voters still believe that political power is their birthright, and that Barack Obama is an interloper, an illegitimate President who couldn’t possibly have won (and been re-elected) without some sort of shenanigans taking place.
Georges Santayana once said that those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it. Unfortunately, this is a case in which Republicans understand history all too well and have chosen to repeat it. The student has become the master. The current crop of Republicans Congressmen, Governors, and Presidential candidates aren’t breaking a new trail. They’re merely following the well-worn path of those who’ve come before.
And that’s how a Democrat became the father of today’s Republican Party.
