One of the more aggressive Facebook presences these days is PragerU - a conservative can't-think-tank bent on promoting conservatism, truth be damned. It's the brainchild of Dennis Prager, a conservative wing-nut who has raised the stakes in extremism over the last few decades. This is the same guy who, when Keith Ellison (the first Muslim elected to Congress) was elected in 2006, and announced that he would swear-in on a Quran instead of a Bible, said, "Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress."
Yeah, that guy.
So who would be interested in paying attention to this Limbaugh-wannabe? Apparently, a great number of people. PragerU has quite a following, because it confirms all the biases they love to assume. It's where the new darling of the dog-whistle Right, Candace Owens, has become a new, rising star as she convinces white people that they aren't really being passive racists through their economic apathy after all.
Well, I'll be using this blog to systematically tear apart all of PragerU's assumptions as frequently as time can spare to do so. And the thing I'll start with is a video which attempts to downplay something we all know to be true: The 20th century flip of Democrats from conservative to liberal, and the liberal-to-conservative flip of Republicans.
The video in question, the one which really set me off, is titled, "Why Did The Democratic South Become Republican?" You can see the video yourself, here. In it, one of Prager's on-staff Sherriff Clarkes (or Kanye Wests, if you don't get the reference), Carol Swain, a professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, hosts a five-minute-long bullshit session about why she thinks the South turned Republican. The answer, of course, is that the South was always Christian Conservative, and when the Republican party abandoned liberalism and embraced conservatism and the religious-right's campaign against abortion, the South eventually followed the Republican party's change. But Swain doesn't see it that way.
According to Swain, the Democratic party was once the party of slavery and Jim Crow laws, while the Republican Party was the party of emancipation and racial integration. Democrats largely sided with the Confederacy, while Republicans sided largely with the Union. This much, so far, is true.
"But then," she says, "everything supposedly flipped. In the 60's and 70's, Republicans became the racists, and Democrats became the party of civil rights."
"Fabricated by left-leaning journalists and academics," she hem-haws, "the story went like this: Republicans couldn't win a national election by appealing to the better nature of the country, they could only win by appealing to the worst. Attributed to Richard Nixon, the media's all-purpose bad-guy, this came to be known as the 'Southern Strategy.' It was very simple. Win elections by winning the South. And to win the South, appeal to racists. So the Republicans, the party of Lincoln, were now to be labeled, the party of rednecks. But this story of the two parties switching identities is a myth. In fact, it's three myths wrapped up in one."
She then proceeds to lay out each myth and why it is wrong. But before we go into that, we must recognize that the Republican and Democratic parties were not the only things that changed. The American people changed, too! The nation was in the grip of a Cold War which threatened to end everything in a nuclear holocaust at any moment. Young men had been sent off to fight in Korea, and later Vietnam, without the political will of their superiors to fully face off against the Russians or the Chinese. Faculty-led school prayer was removed from public schools in 1963, and the religious right militarized against this forever after. Christians became less about helping the needy as Jesus taught, and more about hating the liberals, who they now saw as their enemies. Blacks from the South moved up to Midwest cities in the North to obtain factory jobs and opportunity, and this made the issue of Civil Rights one for the entire nation, not merely states in the South and Southwest. The abortion issue took hold in the 70's and 80's as the ramifications of the 1972 Roe v. Wade SCOTUS decision were fully realized.
In short, Christians became radicalized, leftists became demonized, and white people everywhere had their acceptance of blacks put to the test by seeing black families move in next door. For the most part, they failed this test and fled to the suburbs.
"Myth #1," Carol Swain says, "In order to be competitive in the South, Republicans started to pander to white racists in the 1960's. FACT: Republicans actually became competitive in the South as early as 1928, when Republican Herbert Hoover won over 47% of the vote over Democratic candidate Al Smith."First, 47% of the vote didn't get him much, because that meant that Smith got 53% of the vote. Indeed, looking at the electoral map of the 1928 election (see attached image clipped from Wikipedia), one sees that Hoover won everywhere EXCEPT the South. The only states he lost were Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Okay, he won in Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, but that's probably what drove his numbers in "the South" up to 47% in Swain's citation. Seriously? THAT'S the best example you could find of a Republican being "competitive" in the South? And besides, weren't we talking about the 1960's? How is the election of 1928 even relevant?
Ah, but Swain continues: "In 1952, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won the southern states of Tennessee, Florida and Virginia."Okay, that's pretty much the same territory Hoover, won, minus North Carolina. When we examine the electoral map again (with another Wikipedia page-grab, see left), we see that Eisenhower also lost Kentucky and West Virginia, but pretty much lost every other southern state, in almost exactly the same pattern Hoover had.
So far, this is looking BAD for the idea that Hoover and Eisenhower were somehow "competitive" in the South. Eisenhower may well have been the most popular president of all time during his era, and even he couldn't swing the South.
"And," she continues, "in 1956, he [Eisenhower] picked up Louisiana, Kentucky and West Virginia too."
Great, except that Kentucky and West Virginia were both Union states, not Confederate, and therefore not part of the "South." Come on, doc! You're supposed to be a professor of political science! You should have known that!
She does correctly point out that Eisenhower supported the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and sent in the National Guard to Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce school integration. All that is good. But she conveniently ignores how much flack Ike took from southern conservatives!
"Myth #2:" Swain continues, "Southern Democrats, angry with the Civil Rights Act of 1962, switched parties. FACT: Of the 21 Democratic Senators who opposed the Civil Rights Act, only one switched parties."
Yeah, except that one happened to be the ring leader of the Democrats' opposition! Strom Thurmond! Who set the still-standing record for longest filibuster in Senate history as he opposed the Civil Rights Act! He switched parties in 1964 as a direct result of the Civil Rights Act vote, and remained a Republican all the way until 2003!
What about the other 20 Democratic senators? Swain says "Most of them continued to run as Democrats, or were replaced by other Democrats."
Not quite! Eight of them dropped out after their term ended or after one term, if they were running for re-election in 1964. The ones who were replaced by other Democrats were replaced by LIBERAL Democrats! For example, Absalom Robertson of Virginia was forced out when LBJ backed his primary opponent, William Spong, who beat him! Many were defeated in the early 70's, when Nixon's Southern Strategy was in full swing, and Democrats in the South began to be replaced by Republicans in earnest. The most famous example of this was Al Gore, Senior, the father of Al Gore, Jr (yes, THAT Al Gore, the one who later became V.P. under Clinton), who voted for the Civil Rights acts of 1957 and 1960, but was bullied into opposing the 1964 Civil Rights Act because it was an election year. He always said afterward that he regretted that vote. He later voted for the Voting Rights act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. By 1970, he'd been defeated by a Nixon-backed Republican. Another notable figure was Robert Byrd of West Virginia. A former Klansman, he not only left the Klan but embraced civil rights, always regretting his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He survived re-election, because he had a change of heart. Interestingly, this was exactly the same Senator whom Swain referenced when she said, "One of them even lasted until 2010." (In a different video, but she said it.) Yeah. The repentant sinner!
The Democrats of the South were sometimes known as "Dixiecrats," and they tended to be Christian Conservatives. The Democrats of the north, such as Hubert Humphrey and Ted Kennedy, tended to be academic, pro-business Liberals. But the 1964 Civil Rights Vote did mark a turning point. They didn't leave right away, but they did leave. It became understood, beginning at that point, that "conservative" was becoming synonymous with "Republican." By 1994, the "Dixiecrats" were all but extinct.
"Those 20 seats didn't go Republican until another two-and-a-half decades," says Swain. Well, if you only count that ALL 20 having to change, that's right. But truth be told, many of those seats began to change to Republican in the 70's, and a lot more changed to Republican by the 80's! Yes, there were a few holdouts of those seats that didn't flip until 1994, but so what? The trend had been set!
Yes, it was a gradual shift. But it was an inevitable shift. Because the racism of the South was CONSERVATIVE. And Republicans decided, both during and after Nixon, that they would embrace everything about conservatism, even the racist parts.
"Myth #3:" says Professor Carol Swain, "Since the implementation of the Southern Strategy, the Republicans have dominated the South."
This one, she might have a slight, if misguided, point. Southerners were always Christian Conservatives, and it was Christian Conservatism which held sway in southern elections. So the examples she cites of the Southern Strategy not working don't quite hold, as you will see in a moment.
Swain argues: "FACT: Richard Nixon, the man who is often credited with creating the Southern Strategy, lost the deep south in 1968."True, BUT MISLEADING! Once again, let's go to the map (see left)! The part that Swain is conveniently ignoring is that there were THREE candidates in 1968: Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, AND segregationist champion, George Wallace. Wallace was the one who won the South, taking Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Every analyst agrees that if Wallace was not a viable third party candidate, Nixon would have won all of the Southern states.
You see, it was not Nixon who initiated the Southern Strategy. He implemented it, and he approved of it, but he did not initiate it. The real person who came up with the Southern Strategy was Barry Goldwater! He believed it would help him win the presidency in 1964. But Goldwater waged a poor campaign, and lost badly to Lyndon B. Johnson.
Four years later, George Wallace won nearly the entire South. The Southern Strategy did not fail, IT WORKED TOO WELL!
"In contrast," says Swain, "Jimmy Carter swept the south in 1976, twelve years after the Civil Rights Act."
Very true! The only Dixie state he didn't carry was Virginia. What happened? Why did the segregationist South side with Carter? Because he was a Southern Baptist Christian! A Georgia peanut farmer who openly said, on many occasions, that every day he wanted to live his life according to the standards of Jesus Christ.
And then, in 1980, after Jimmy Carter voiced support for a woman's right to choose abortion, the South rejected him right back again! The only Dixie state Carter carried was his home state of Georgia.
You see, it's not merely about segregation. There are many, many issues voters decide upon, and for the South, it's Jesus, and White Folks.
"And in 1992," continues Swain, "Bill Clinton carried the states of Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia."
Once again, she is ignoring the fact that 1992 had THREE candidates! Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and H. Ross Perot! Perot split enough of the conservative vote to allow Bill Clinton to win the Electoral College, and all the states Carol Swain mentioned, without winning the majority!
In other words, fewer people voted FOR Bill Clinton in those states than voted NOT Bill Clinton!
And again, Carol, Carol, Carol, West Virginia and Kentucky were not Dixie states!
In 1994, we saw the entire Congress and Senate flip en masse. Those few Dixiecrats who were left in the South flipped Republican. The few moderates on both sides who didn't want to change affiliation or do politics differently, opted instead to resign. Never again would there be any uneasy alliance between southern conservatives and northern liberals. They were, from that point on, permanent and bitter enemies!
Swain then points out that it was 1994 when Republicans finally held a majority in the Southern States, 30 years after the Civil Rights Act. But so what? The transformation process was gradual, but inexorable. And, it must be emphasized again, segregation was a CONSERVATIVE issue!
Swain quotes a conservative named Kevin Williamson. Williamson says of the 30-year transformation, "Things move slower in the South, but not that slow."
YES, that slow! Because people don't change right away, nor do political parties.
I return the favor by quoting another conservative, this time one from Milwaukee named Charlie Sykes, who was the king of conservative talk radio in this city for decades. He points out how the Republican Party needs to come to grips with its open embracing of the racism of the South (and, frankly, elsewhere). You can read his article here.
Swain torpedoes her own case when she points out how southerners are more likely to vote for a black conservative, like Senator Tim Scott, than a white liberal. Well, exactly! It was always about conservatism! So was racism!
It's the main reason why black conservatives, like Carol Swain, and Candace Owens, and Tim Scott, and Kanye West, and Sheriff David Clarke, are willing to support an ass-wipe like Donald Trump.
They would rather support a dog-whistle racist and defeat abortion, and instill favoritism for Christianity in defiance of the Wall of Separation Between Church and State.
Ultimately, that is their true goal.
It is also the goal of PragerU's constant, and obvious lies as detailed above.
Eric
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