The dissidents formed the States ’ Rights Democratic ( “Dixiecrat ”) Party, with Thurmond as their presidential candidate. ” In vehement opposition, delegate Strom Thurmond, then governor of South Carolina, stalked out of the convention, leading other Deep South delegates in tow (Edsall and Edsall 1991, p. But in 1948 Democratic Party convention delegates supported this plank in the party platform: “The Democratic Party commits itself to continuing efforts to eradicate all racial, religious, and economic discrimination. Such support remained strong as long as Democrats did not push aggressively for civil rights for blacks. From 1932 into the 1940s, the Democratic Party ’s majority coalition nationwide was owed in part to intense Democratic loyalties among most white southerners. Meanwhile, most white southerners vilified Republicans as the party of the Union cause during the Civil War and of the hated Reconstruction era, when federal troops occupied southern states after the war. Virtually all southern Democratic politicians favored racial segregation and antiblack discrimination candidates that did not were unelectable. Region-wide, but especially in the Deep South ( Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina), the politically and economically dominant white population enforced segregated schools, neighborhoods, and public establishments, severe discrimination in jobs and housing, and denial of voting rights for blacks. While racial discrimination existed nationwide before 1960, it was especially pervasive and severe in the South.

BEFORE 1960: THE UNSTABLE DEMOCRATIC PARTY COALITION In American politics, the “southern strategy ” refers to efforts by the Republican Party and its candidates to win presidential elections since 1964 by appealing to conservative whites (especially white southerners) disaffected with the Democratic Party by its strong embrace of civil rights laws in the 1960s and its racially egalitarian policies since. BEFORE 1960: THE UNSTABLE DEMOCRATIC PARTY COALITIONġ960 TO 1964: RACIAL ISSUES REEMERGE, AND REPUBLICANS MOVE TO THE RIGHTġ965 TO 1972: YEARS OF TURMOIL AND NIXON ’S SOUTHERN STRATEGYġ969 AND LATER: THE SOUTHERN STRATEGY EVOLVES, BUT CONTINUES

Why the southern strategy is fake