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the full schedule for the weekend, your program guide or at c-span mortgage history. up next historians talk about republican to increase electoral support among southern voters and how that strategy has evolved since the 1950s. this program was part of an american political conference hosted by purdue university city. so just to kind of frame, you know, my personal motivation for trying to get this panel together is my current project, which is a biography of senator bill brock, who passed away last spring and in many ways, he's seen as crucial of the southern strategy or was responsible. i guess my, interpretation of the southern strategy. and that how the gop won the south.

what was strategy to do that. now today going to talk about different versions southern strategies that benefit different groups even democrats. so thinking about that i was trying to position bill brock within this constellation actors who the southern strategy and him within them and thinking really i guess what are some different ways that people frame the southern and also i began to wonder what what is it is useful anymore has become so ingrained systemically and american institutions that not just regional strategy that benefits a particular organization group or individual politically. right. and so, you know, i think maybe i'll just start off by i have a little script here. so that's in general, the here for for what i was about. but the script goes a bit like

this that i was thinking and this really happened. so my father, a committed liberal, called me and just the other day and said that he a solution to the nation's problems. he had solved it and what were going to do is we were going to secede. right. and so he has a whole map drawn out where it connects california. he said canada can join to lucky them. and so it kind of cuts through and joins the blue states. right. and general in general what his what he was trying to say was that he wanted to cut the south out. right. and i think he was channeling a shared vision of what's wrong, what went wrong or where the problem lies. and i think a lot of this does reflect, you know, how this talk about a southern and the southern ization of america, which bruce talks about in his book that we'll be discussing during the conference framed, how we think about conservatism today. this regional emphasis is still powerful, but i wonder, is

useful or maybe even harmful in thinking about really what's going on. i'm especially in how this concept interact with different genres and disciplines. so how do different ways of writing about history use term in different ways? so thinking about local histories, i'm writing a biography. cultural history, economic history, which kids are going to talk about. we have hopefully a political scientist on the panel taking these topics on. so genre can shift focus. right so i don't want to think about this as like, you know, again this is idea it's it's fluid it's depends it's changing and that raises questions of what it's really worth the i'm using we're testing to answer this question is biography after bill brock played a vital role he shaped the gop appeal to the south in the 1960s. and then he was one of nixon's only real southern strategy. successes and the 1970 midterm. right. which was known as the southern strategy for for nixon.

considering brock. i'm very interested in thinking about, you know, the the intellectual framing. and i'm really in what geoffrey kabaservice has to say especially for historians to think thinking more granular about conservatism. right. that it's not monolithic. and that's tempting these days. right. to look back words and see the you know, emphasize the fringes perhaps of politics. and so how i look at this individual more again gradually to reconsider the regional dynamics of this, what we call, you know, white backlash politics. so what are some useful ways to define the southern strategy? i'm going to punt on that now. i think it might be useful first asked whose strategy was it? right. who using this strategy and to end and what were different players who did benefit and was the constituency that it won? or i think it's important to consider what did you lose in

using the southern strategy? and that's important lesson i see in brock story. so, you know, there are many southern strategies as we talked about many people reference sort of the kevin phillips, terry dolan version of really white identity that resonated with wallace voters in the south. but many scholars today are questioning this interpretation that offers that laser like regional emphasis. nixon's law and order backlash strategy. so thinking about principal character bill brock, how did he framed southern, what did that mean to make it something southern? and i think it's just to do some back story thinking about biography. i mean, i don't know if this helps or hurts us. understand the systemic emphasis on on this, to think about the personalities. but his family was not from chattanooga tennessee. they came from outside. they were commerce people. right. they were sort of coates folks. these were people who were starting manufac schering, the

brock candy company, and, you know, brock's grandfather and others. his name was cruz. he had the the chattanooga a while the company. so there really sort of forward thinking manufacturers and they always wanted that was denied sort of their southern it's this wasn't something that they necessarily embraced or encouraged and you saw them constantly trying to downplay that and looking at the minutes of the chamber of commerce. right. that they're always trying to appear more of civilized. they want to attract outside, always focused on outside investment and. so, you know, brock himself when i always talk to me always said chattanooga is not in the south, which a lot of historians of the south laugh at. right. but he was you know, he said, you know, we were not southern. i don't i'm trying to figure out what he really meant by this. i think he meant that they didn't identify with sort of southern, but i think it's

important to note that many in chattanooga disagreed as brock's family had a cross-border on their front yard by the kkk. when brock's father fought to desegregate chattanooga in the late 1950s. so thinking about, you know, chattanooga did you know on that left, that's how you're defining the heritage and thinking about it, that chattanooga certainly has that history. so this raises questions for me about intent and how important it is to pin the southern strategy on a party or or even an individual. should i be looking at brock and carefully to find what was the southern strategy? was he responsible? did he to marginalize people of color in order to build white working class voting voter base? you know, how important is it to prove that, to demonstrate that, to find the smoking gun? right. that sort of and have them right. we have them in the nixon but for for brock specific. and so looking at his papers you know he was offering actually that's sort of like upbeat

forward thinking youthful brand of responsible government conservatism, you know, defying our expectations of backlash. southern the southern switch. right. but when we get to the political record, the distinction is because you know brock was not wallace but when we look at the political record the distinctions blur. right. it can be while brock called it the biggest of his life, he voted against civil rights act in 1965, against the voting rights act 1960. voting rights. civil rights act of 1964. against the voting act of 1965. he many explanations for this. in the seventies, he opposed bussing. his senate campaign famously featured a billboard that said. you know, brock believes what tennesseans believe in really identify and i think with the southern heritage many ways and none of this hurt brock in 1970 because he was running against al gore senior who also voted against the civil rights act of 1964. so it was not really, you know, that distinction.

but in 1976, brock got crushed with the black vote. his opponent, jim sasser, brock, his reelection bid. he lost several districts, but his opponent won 95% of all black voters, a higher percentage of low income african-america, tennessee. and even in his hometown of chattanooga, where brock's prominent had organized with civil rights leaders, end segregation in that city. he collected a paltry 92 votes to south. there's over 1700 in the black downtown precinct. so you know, i've got a lot more here, but i want to i want to move forward. i guess you know, the big question here is looking at individuals through biography, we humanize at our own risk and question. you know, i'm thinking about toni badger's book al gore senior who seems to show. he was almost an intentional victim of brock's southern

strategy in. 1970. and i think i think it's more complicated if you if you wanted a wider lens, you could actually hold gore complicit and his own version of this tactic. and part the institutionally, i think, poisonous growth of this backlash politics that is seemingly intertwined with and infused into our national political system and discourse. and so finally i guess the question is, but if the southern strategy is in fact everywhere and can be included as people like a.g. are to include things like religion, gender and other complex dynamics beyond just racist backlash, which matters in all of these spaces. and if it has so different practitioners across the political spectrum, has it's lost its significance or accuracy or relevance. i argue know that there are

unique contours and regionally specific political appeals influence the gop success in the south. i'll leave that open ended as sort of an argument that requires evidence that maybe you can help me find. but on some level, i just it mattering still. and so i'll just it there. want reminder that i think have our other panelists now. so. maya my sincere apologies for my lateness some technical difficulties on my end. it's so nice to be here. my name is christina taylor. i am at ohio university. i am a political science in political science, the center for law, justice and culture. there i'm going to go ahead and introduce professor catherine jewell. i think you're going to be up next. if if i'm right that you haven't

gone yet. so dr. jewell is an associate professor in economics, history and political science at fitchburg state university. her recent book, dollars for dixie business and the transfer station of conservatism in the 20th century, came out on cambridge university press in 2017. dr. jewell specializes in 20 century conservatives from southern politics, media and culture and business and economic development. so i will give you the floor. great, great. thank you. and thank all for coming. and thanks us for that teeing us up with these provocative questions. so i'm going to start by exploring this from another and i'll start also with a little anecdote, but i'm going to go back to the late 1990s when i was a college student in, nashville. and in every class that i took there, it didn't matter if it was, you know, the new south or medieval history. at some point they would we

would all have a debate about what constituted the south and you know it would usually have some general variations. you know florida, would sometimes get hacked off or at least the know the the panhandle would be allowed to join the south. oklahoma there was a lot of contention over oklahoma and kansas and missouri were hot topics as well. but this was a debate that would sort of constantly kind of roil through and historian are no different. we have been debating about what constitutes use the south rather torturously for four generations. we can look back the 1941 book by w.j. trying to diagnose mind of the south, which took a very journalistic narrative approach to identifying what he saw as central characteristics of the south, while also exploding this kind of tried and true about the so-called tradition in the south, a sort of genteel history

upending what he called the pieties, or what one observer called the pieties that made their way into images of the old south, such as gone with the wind historians. have you gone back and forth on this question and revolved around this idea of there being many south's now cassius writing in 1941, a moment when conservatives, democrats found themselves in the minority in their party, but with power in washington thanks in large part to their longevity in politics due to one party. this one party system black enfranchisement for cash. the south still had deep though cash's south sounded a lot like what my white classmates from the upper south or the piedmont regions defined a of a south that they were, you know kicking florida out of or something like

that for cash. southern identity strict stretch long across decades unperturbed even by the civil war or reconstruction a fact much by his critics like historians stephen woodward, whose origins in the new south presented the transformation wrought by a new group of southerners, those who reshaped the south economy and political relations in the post-reconstruction decades. these new men of the new south, much like what is seeing in brock's heritage, so emerges this theme or debate about internal continuity and change in southern history, a debate that once around the post-civil war transformations of the region. on the one hand, you have the plantation economy continuing well into the 1930s organizing the production of commodity crops and organizing labor well

after enslaved people secured their freedom and his rights secured through the reconceive auction amendments faded, of course, with flagging federal enforcement debt and judicial erosion. well, cash does not address this forcefully. perhaps the greatest case for continuity in southern history remained or remains persistence of the logics and the processes of white supremacy. maybe as we see the plantation system kind of way. but the power of this continuity thesis remains very strong. and historians kind of keep back to it, even as, you know, woodward and others and myself kind of push back against it. and there remains i would say, particularly in popular imagination, then perhaps with seth, dad, that there is this kind of singular southern mind that is warped in its defense of white hegemony and, economic privilege and power and some singular set southern principles

that are abington white from the nation, that are there to be won or lost the era, and perhaps exploited and manipulated some other ends by seeking political power. now, sometimes southerners advance thesis themselves my my lovely grandmother. when i asked her, you know, what do you see the biggest change in the south know she was born in 1917 so she watched a lot of changes happen. she said, well, i think is when all those northerners moved down here and i asked my grandfather either about, you know, politics and like, why the republican party, you made inroads in the south. he says, well i don't know. but you know, anybody who ever got a driveway, that's when they started voting republican and so, you know, people with paved driveways, you know, there's a lot of paved driveways in the south now. so i don't know how, you know, there's a lot of correlates and

maybe going on in in that thesis. but the story of the south one party politics is likely a familiar one as are probably the details of party dynamic. certainly there are moments long before 1968, 1972, when segments of south went for the gop, whether not they had paved driveways with hoover crats in 1928, for example, tennessee, virginia and texas and florida's votes for eisenhower in 1952. but these votes reveal, i think it said, the dynamic and candidates of those particular elections and contexts rather than some signal planted of a realignment to come and, they were not necessarily bellwethers should support some teleological local narrative pointing to the saliency of some future southern strategies. you know you know had gop

planners thought of it, then they could have exploited it. that particular moment. but that also that doesn't mean that developments in the south in these years weren't in shaping a viable political and it relied and i would say that strategy relied more on capital movement perhaps suburban with all those northerners bringing their paved driveways into a formerly solid democratic stronghold. but for that movement to happen, you have to look at how economic elites in the south constructed, their preferences for political economy, how they viewed the south's competitive ness, and what it would take to be an attractive location for business investment for the south to be an attractive and viable region for mobilization required a congruence of policy interest of, political strategizing, a

convergence of cultural vision and language and rhetoric. know think of terms like free enterprise as that being a term that would be able to describe the southern economy, the national economy, and, you know, perhaps do a lot of heavy. as well as, you know, i must say this word synergy, though political planners to construct a political identity that appealed regional economic and class lines so much that work though i would argue, was not done by a political strategist outside of the south in the gop, but by motivated interests the south, we could call them astroturf, as elizabeth tandy schirmer, rather than grass roots actors who sought to leverage their economic power into political influence to preserve those very economic arena that made them so powerful

within the south. and so i look at a group of southern states industrial council as i bring my book, just to show it off. they convened in december. 1933 in chattanooga. was their first meeting was and they did so with the professed purpose of advocating for the south's economic against the new deal. in their minds at the moment, carve out protections for south's special economy, namely its low wage base of and its racialized structure within. the new deal. they thought we're in democratic party. we've got a voice here. we're going carve out specific protections for our regional economic model. and that proved increasingly more futile over time. and so they found themselves to be kind of flexible and instead adopting a set of terms were sort of coded for what they

wanted that appealed to national interests that they found were more likely to be amenable to their policy vision for federal minimum wage, maximum hours, unionized, in particular, as well as enforcement or not enforcing civil rights and desegregation and so as this quest for outside of the south, within the south, for a political economy that preserved segregation and wage labor structure, that ends up being the fulcrum for the development of the inroads of a two party south that i focus on. so i'm going to turn it back to christine and see who else has a theme to weigh in on. okay, wonderful. thank you so much. so up next is, going to be professor ted, who is a historian of, american politics,

southern politics and political culture and capital is a he is an associate professor of history at northwestern university and author of not morning. i'm so sorry, not a at all just want to make sure my my college gets the recognition oh i might have misspoke please go ahead had a problem. well thank you very much and thank you for hosting this purdue university and thank you katherine brownell for this esteemed event. it, among others, organizing this esteemed event. my work has centered on a novel interpretation of the republican southern strategy, and it breaks from the traditional understanding, the southern strategy, which saw barry

goldwater. my my book was called not. it came out in 2015. the birth of the southern strategy and the rise of the far right in dallas. and this this book would break from the traditional version of the southern strategy that says that goldwater, richard nixon, ronald reagan would break the democratic solid south and also segments of the north by capitalizing on the the reactions of white voters to the events of the 1960s when events about the counterculture the decline about traditional sex, the decrease in union membership, the tendency of whites to see themselves as homeowners, tax payers, school parents rather than workers or reshaping the political

thinking. but i also want to to be sure, the democratic party's support for affirmative action school welfare race made northern and southern white conclude that the party no longer protected their interests. but those of african-americans. so in order to attract these disaffected voters into the gop fold, it was politician like goldwater and and nixon. they this southern strategy and they framed colorblind discourse of rights, freedom, individual ism, small government and appealed to the middle class suburbanites. now republican color conservatism appeal to. class advantage. economic rights freedom of choice. culture concerns. but race always hovered in the

rhetoric. this meritocratic discourse racial privileges like the spatial segregation suburbs, justified a minimum diversity in schools. my book not country would challenge that traditional narrative and say that the gop southern strategy and i focus really on the early southern strategy rather than the long southern strategy which seth mentions and was so instrumental. the introduced by angie maxwell, whose book was was pioneer airing. i argue that this this new southern strategy that i developed or didn't develop it talked about was born in the 1960s, but in the 1950s, southwest. and it was specifically more

racial in motivation. so intentionally racial in motivation and application. so i argued that it was dallas. my book focused on dallas and dallas republicans argue were blazing the trail. the the gop southern strategy making those racial appeals to white democrats as early the 1950 as early as 1956. and i show that it was a bruce al gore who was a dallas republican, elected to congress in 1954, the first dallas republican since rick reconstruction, and it was john tower, the texas republican senator elected in 1961 after lyndon johnson, vice president and john tower would until 1985 and a number of folks from

dallas who had used specific racial strategies to capture these white voters. the whole point among them was to make it very clear that the republican was not sympathetic to the interests of african-americans. and i argue that it was algiers. 1956 campaign, which an important precedent. it's important moment for the racialization and the future the southern strategy because it marked the first time that a southern republican, at least by and abandoned this measured stance on desegregation, embraced seeing and embraced a segregationist a harsh segregationist position to not only maintain his his seat, maintain his coalition, but build upon it. he was he was signaling to white

voters that he was antagonistic towards the interests of civil rights and to blacks. now it was tower who i argue did the same thing. he he argues early on that we need to abandon our position. the party that is the party's position as the party of thaddeus stevens, the heroic pennsylvanian who led the it was a radical republican who led the radical republican efforts in during. so it was he's arguing for a more for a more racial a more specifically racial promotion of the republican party. that's what tower is doing following in the footsteps of of bruce of

alger, when one southern senator greeted tower and when tower was won his seat and into the senate. he was greeted in the he was greeted on one of his committees by a democrat republican senator excuse me, a conservative senator. when that democratic senator said, we want to welcome them, we want to you welcome the south back to the confederacy. so it was a tower towers moment. towers moment was was key after tower. you see incidents. it was goldwater who would pursue a southern strategy. he first demonized the civil

rights act, which became law in the summer 1964. he also his team produced the the film choice, which was which goldwater himself racist. goldwater introduces the. the the law and order strategy which is pursued by richard nixon. so goldwater is also complicit in this racialist version of a southern strategy. this is continued, of course, in the campaigns. richard nixon, who who argues for a more blatant law and order strategy. you also see it particularly in the campaigns of ronald, who talks of he talks of welfare

queens, who talks of. strapping young bucks who began his which was obviously a racial code. you also see it in the reagan decision to begin the his campaign in neshoba county, mississippi, where three civil rights leaders were murdered and freedom summer of 1964. by by the end of his term in 1988. three fourths of african americans were convinced that reagan was a racist. so i argue that it was more intentionally racist from the beginning. and i think that this, despite the twists and turns, this as angie maxwell demonstrates, effectively it's a it's a

question of one step forward, two steps back for the the republican party's southern strategy. but i think we see by. 2016 with donald trump's campaign where it's a more explicit use of race and that was proposed to him of course by steve bannon. steve bannon is arguing for a more forceful, explicit, not in direct use of race. i think you could argue even mitt romney apply these kind of kind of things because he would say nobody asks me about my birth certificate. so, i mean, these are the the racial aspects i think has been the re-emphasized because. i'm not criticizing the work of going beyond and looking at long

southern strategy because i think it's it has a lot of of usefulness. but as we go that particular direction, i don't think we should lose of the fact that it's it's intention and intention is very important. it was racialist in the beginning. so that was what i produced. okay. wonderful. thank you so much to the three of you for such an amazing start to this. i can't wait to sort of dive in more and lean into some some more conversation about this what we've sort proposed and maybe you've covered that already is i'll start out a question i had in mind as a sort of very not easy one, but a very

sort of like basic one about how we might define the southern strategy, but i think there's been so much richness that that i'm going to move on to, the more sort of substantial question that is still on the southern strategy. we might call following you ted the like longer southern strategy versus the newer also kind gets talked about in the framing of southern a broad sort of southern exceptional chasm into, mid-century, southern, mid-century and later southern strategies. and i'm wondering if we can think together about what in your view has the frame of the southern of southern exceptionalism or the southern strategy either reveals about american politics writ large or southern politics. i suppose. and what it has included or prevented us from seeing about the direction that american politics has taken since the mid

20th century has been a useful framing. southern political history. and then maybe this is where i'm really interested in leading us to to think is how in in what respects or deeply does it remain useful us today? have we entered a kind of different kind of era or not? i would love to hear sort of comments from from guys. for those of you who would like to weigh in on those. so i'll open it up for people to to discuss. i mean, guess for me the, the big question is and i kind of posed and kicked this around. to what when we talk about southern men, are we really just blaming looking at looking backwards in this period of

trumpism and saying where does this all come from? right. and so that's i see some important connections. it's great i'm writing about the southern strategy people are interested in. and there's all things it's great for sales, terrible for my children's future. right. and so, you know, as we look back are and this is what you know coates we're all talking about this idea of, you know, the trajectory of southern strategy and, how we've developed and this, you know, my father's idea, right? that this myth that it's just always been and it actually goes back to the confederacy. right. and, you know, where was the problem? you know, the irony that my father's the solution is secession. when you know, that's generally what we think is the problem. the first place, the idea of like, you know regional distinction and identity. i, i i worry that you know this

what i like about brock is that he's who dedicated the republican party. i mean, i like, i like him for lots of reasons and i miss our conversations, but i'm beginning to, you know, i'm struggling with, you know, the humanizing aspect because i know played a role in systemically the direction i think he played. my argument is that he played more of a role in the systemic of the southern ization of politics and its elements of appealing to white working class voters. right. and this includes, you know, the evangelical piece. it's not just race. right but that it has overall eroded our institutions something that brock held sacred. and that's the irony of project that and so and about him as this sort of break you know he

really tried to reorient the republican party towards black voters in 1976 and 1977 when he became the chair of republican national committee. that was his core emphasis was reaching out to black voters. and so and he's a he's a tennessean southerner who used who was sort of somebody who charted the strategy. and so for me, wonder, like, are we overlooking the degree right? that there are there's a spectrum right? that it's not just this. and there are a lot of historians, you know, are i think oversimplifying this for the wider public in ways that are useful and do bring attention to the southern, but in all things, when scholarship meets public, it overlooks the the exceptions and the dips and

the i think it also overlooks the human agency right, the sort of the ways that people make. it was not this clear pathway. and and so that's where i think that understanding the personality in the people and the relationships and the tensions matter. but then, you know, again, i can't blame people doing that for wider consumption because. that's how you get heard. and so for me, the question is like how do scholars present the southern strategy to the wider public in ways that are nuanced and complicated but also digest and i think we're doing a pretty bad job of that right now actually because i think we've got the digestible piece for people like my dad. right. but he doesn't for me, you know, i that you know the second part of that story is we talk for a half hour when i bought him

about actually you know i will actually my dad a lot i think that's allowed so sorry that was a long answer just one piece that that's kind of what thinking as far as one of your questions. well, we've been circling around this concept of, southern exceptionalism. and i think there's this idea that, you know, the that the south contains within it some you know poetic like exceptional exceptionally bad with white supremacy with racialization and that there is something to be exploited there. and if we only eject to the south all of a sudden the nation's problems with race will be solved right. that is a very, you know, attractive way of seeing the world as a very simple solution. right. if you're looking for a for a solution to this. but the reality course is much, much more complicated. so i have i have some active learning here to do with in the room and i'm going to give you

all we're just going to collect three dates. i have a quote for you from i read the quote and i just want three suggestions as to when you think this comes from this is oral okay. all right so here we go this. is john barr there's no reason you should know who this is. he says the southern states are no longer willing to play stooge for elected democrats, who attempt to use our party regularity as the means of delivering our party and country to alien borders from within, who seek to capture for a continuation enlargement of their diabolically un-american purpose. these minority groups overplayed their hand and overlooked the fact we of the south were american first and democrat second. so and three years south. you got a year, got to guess 1964. all we got 64 years in 1919 ten

when world war one more 1948 1948 close us do you win the prize? i i can give you back my book. it's 1944, so close right. sounds a lot like dixiecrats, right? and really it was dixiecrat. that's a he. this was a man was a new orleans pen manufacturer who was trying to draft robert byrd, a not robert, the other byrd from virginia for and they were advocating to be the regular to take back the the democratic party for the true south the truly american jeffersonian south free from of federal intervention. and there anti-new deal you know that they felt themselves they'd been kind of pushed to the sidelines this party and you know they were they weren't going to take it anymore. and so what you see is this idea of this idea that we're going to throw off a party in which they

increasingly found themselves in the minority among new deal liberals is also who might compromise on civil rights, which was intricately tied up in their strategy to preserve the separate southern wage structure, that it rests on a racial is view of the southern social structure. you but you can't separate out their economic motivations from their social and cultural predilections. yes, that is absolutely true. but you know, this is also an era in which we see globalization beginning to rise, or at least after the war. it was, you know, on the rise. you know, it's i think it's no accident. we see this southern strategy narrative surrounding it and sort of the the reshaping of this rhetoric occurring within the midst of the the processes of globalization and these new strategies to construct american and u.s. capitalism and political economy going into and

where see those dallas businessmen right. they were extremely active that 44 push to draft bird you know so they they were already. you know, marinated and they were there's this whole like électeurs strategy that they were going to like the texas regulars were going to come in. it was a whole nefarious plot to kind of take power back within the democratic party in 44 prior to dixiecrat walkout, which was obviously all about civil rights and but at the same time these business interests were very wary of this appearing as just a southern thing because they wanted to find those allies and to, you know, capital investment to the region, but also this pathway into gop where they aligned their economic and social interests with, what they saw as the policy agenda a

pro-business policy agenda of gop. and so they were very conscious. lee re fashioning the idea of the south for political purpose says so that it would be an attractive set of actors pull in these these national party interests. ted yes. well, i was going to mention george, because i he realized beyond before everybody else that racism plays in the north. when he when he went to boston he debated a group of harvard students and many of the harvard students expected him to be outwitted. he he really was was enstrom.

mental in he blew them away at and he was just in his explanations but he realized and did very in his elections in south boston and he realized early on that this is not just a southern phenomena and on this is an american and it plays elsewhere. so i think to to it's insular if we were to determine that this just a southern phenomenon this this is nationwide and it it it was was growing and at the same time the 1970s with the bussing crisis. it was something that nixon to realize that this is a this this racism is not just limited to the south many many northerners even embraced this concept.

we see this with donald trump the idea of southern heritage that it is heritage. donald trump is from york, although he's a he's a florida floridian transplant. now so it's but i think it it's i just wanted to make the point that we're not to demonize the this is a little tangential i just want to make the point that it's not only a both a southern a northern phenomenon. it's also a democrat phenomenon. it's hillary clinton who says we talk about super predators. she talks about. there are other instances that in that campaign, 2008, which seen as race baiting, it was, it was president who mentioned in

criticize president obama early on it was called the he was criticized as being a clean candidate. remember this these these lines whether intentional in moment are are not just republican. i mean and you can you can go down the line can look at jimmy carter jimmy carter in part was able to i would argue defeat ford by making the case that people should live be able to live in in the segregated of their choosing. so it's it's not just a southern phenomenon. it's not just a northern phenomenon. it's an american phenomenon. but it also comprises both parties. so and. so i am suggesting that this is

that this conclusion renders the southern strategy studying the southern strategy. not useful. but i we should also realize the extent of this. so i'll i'll just add briefly to that that that there's a central tension in looking the southern strategy between, you know, is this some kind of top down orchestrated strategy to build a new constituency see identifying voters amenable and, you know, applying on both, you know, whether they're vying for this, you know, how forcefully, they're going to apply dog whistles, coded racial language, appeal to it. and, you know, that there's a sort of cabal all at the top trying to kind of come down and identify something or is something that is from, well,

say, the bottom up or the astroturf up orchestra guided by particular interests within the south, strategizing for particular policies, you know, do we have to look, you know, the macro or the micro, i guess might be another way of of of categorizing this? i think that's really important because for, you know, you know, ted mentioned, you know, looking at maybe something like the 1964 civil rights act as a way to whether a politician was appealing to white politics based on the southern strategy. but, you know, for me you know, and this is brock's explanation for why he said this, his biggest regret of his life was voting against the civil rights act. but his argument and so did goldwater but they they had a different rationale for it. it wasn't you know, they put this in terms of just of defending white supremacy. that said, obviously it brock

understood its significance and that it was in defending white supremacy. right. so you know and he under he understood that element sort of and regretted it. but i wonder you know was there any for him politically in tennessee to vote for it? and if you look you know, al gore senior, as i mentioned before, voted against the civil rights act to he's considered this sort of made, you know, senator. and so that, i think, feeds back to what you're saying is, you know, is this really something new? and i don't see it the brock papers he wasn't thinking, you know, how can we stoke racial and you know to some extent the republican was just following the constitu anc and so is the southern strategy really a bottom up thing and it doesn't

necessarily have that intentionality that that element. and i think that's maybe an important aspect that maybe we need to think too too complicated more. i love that that question you ended on was really excellent. i want to open it up for others to in with their own questions. if you're on zoom with me. you can the raise hand function and and i can go ahead call on you in the room. i might enlist some help doing that calling on folks of course panelists themselves. i'm going to open it up to you guys as well. if you haven't spoken yet and, you want to throw in a question or a comment. you could also just introduce yourself before get going on your question. so, okay, so we do have we do one question here, right? can i go ahead. okay. hi. ted frantz from the university of indianapolis. i really enjoyed this discussion.

i'm wondering, seth, for your father or kate for sort of your grandmother. we think about region in a more complicated, but especially moving into the 21st century. what you were here in indiana today, which sometimes is described as the middle finger of the south, for those of you who don't know that. right. but i'm wondering how much the 21st century version of this has built on southern strategies and how much the republican party was able extend the vision that they might have sort of perfected in the south into states like indiana and ohio. as you think about it, because you mentioned kabaservice that there's this quote in it where it's i it's william saxby, who's a senator from ohio, who's who says? something like he didn't want to see his party to the states, the former confederacy. and so i'm wondering now it has.

and i'm wondering how you all see that playing out in the 21st century post. reagan or maybe even pre-trump in era. thanks. that's a really good question. i mean, one way and i could kind of turn this to ted because he was to mention a little bit about what his his last project was on the birchers and thinking about conspiracy and how important that a role that plays and the right today and how that was i think an element maybe if we to extend the southern strategy to different places that that conspiracy. i mean the thing that surprised me about brock was that his father was a democrat kind of a tennessee valley authority pragmatic democrat who then turned against new deal but never left democratic party. he actually was a senator for a few years as a special election type deal, just kind of was sort of appointed for being kind of a local guy in tennessee. i guess that's the way it worked

back then. but, you know, he. he he would listen to what's his name, fulton junior. is this conspiracy theorist radio, sort of like conservative shock jock fulton lewis jr was his name. and so and he was a cold war hysteric. and so this idea that there were like these former democrats who are now listening to this conservative kind of anti anti new deal, also cold war conspiracy element, it started to feed and i think thrive. and that was a part of this kind of fear of you were talking about this in your quote right this you know fear like the unamerican ways of people outside of south and influencing them and that that i think in

lot of ways fomented a lot of this conspiratorial thinking that we see. but ted, this is really up your alley, so i'll stay in my lane and hand it over to you if you want to talk about conspiracy and southern exceptionalism. well, first of all, i have to say that i'm not a i'm not conspiracy theorist. oswald did it alone. and and but i study it and. but but before i address that question. i just wanted mention that i think in many the southern strategy for republicans has been success fall. and now it comes down to strategy, down to legalistic methods like gerrymandering. that's how they win these elections you don't have to the southern strategy you you you can gerrymander and pick up votes. you can also restrict the vote.

we're seeing the same times take the same types of methods which were employed during reconstruction. but as far as i to give hate to write a cookbook here but i mean it's if there was a if there is a direction that i see the republican party at least the republican party turning is this adoption of ridiculous inane conspiracies like the 20 election being stolen and the q and on whatever and on is the the pizzagate nonsense, the the, the, the whole birther which which is tied up in racism, of course that seems to be the direction that as far, as, as strategy because that is a, you

know, if we look at if we look at the particularly if we call this southern strategy, those to be more prevalent, those conspiracies in non northern. non northern states. but they're there in northern states. well but it's a we see it of course in desantis in some of the moves that desantis has made. but i that that's that's something that is that's something that is a direction for a southern strategy. and unfortunately, that that's a that scares me that that that very much scares me. but what happens when you look within states right at different

constituencies these states or with different constituencies the north and i think you know it's how do you slice it always slicing it at the state like a red versus blue counts or we looking more granularly at different population lines with different access to education public services. the industrial re industrial asian capital movement, how are we assessing you know, the these different subregions within the united states in their commonalities. and i think that that would probably have a lot more to do with is talking about than, you know some sort of like national party and electoral. but i want to return to the indiana question because on the drive in here, i took a road trip to get here because i love road trips. who doesn't? and on the way in, drove by and knew corporate headquarters off of a rural highway with a german flag. a mexican flag and a u.s. flag outside. and a german. and i was like, well, there it is.

that's the new globalized business. more foreign businesses are located manufacturing in the south in the 1990s than any other region in that. but that includes places like indiana. they had the same development strategies that has now become the national you know thanks lucrative entitlements states enticing investment and poor promise of cheap onion denies labor or right to work laws which are now the nation the national norm. thanks the janus decision essentially the that we see that business model that strategy of u.s. capitalism becoming the national norm. you know, under deval patrick in massachusetts, when evergreen solar came that came because of, you know, a particular state led strategy to entice that company to move there. and then, you know, the the the the sense of betrayal when that company then picks up and moves

shop someplace else, only to be replace it by another and that, you know, so if we're thinking about a southern strategy, there's another one coming from within that has become the norm led by people like like barry goldwater. and i'll just give another for elizabeth. sandy shurmur's book. sunbelt capitalism which focuses on phenix and way that that strategy of of capital investment has become kind of the story of american capitalism u.s. capitalism great brian go ahead. thank you. can everyone hear me. thank you for this great panel. and it's good to see people even although virtually what might have seen on social media and things like that, you know, i with all the events happening, mass shooting. right.

i wonder about gun rights is research being done or have been done with the gun in the south or is it another of an issue? right. is covered on all parts of the country, right? the west and the north, the hunters, you know, things like that. so thank you. i'm just going to put it in another plug for not another that is happening. and is a dissertation that is about to be defended. kari babbitt ski at our alma mater at boston university on that very subject and which she looks at the nra's political strategy and construction of a particular identity around gun and sort of the armed citizen and i think we'll get very much to the heart of that question i can't i have dissertation sitting in my inbox and i can't wait to it because i know it's

going to help us answer a lot of those questions. so i'm the one to answer that question maybe seth or i could take that. i, i think this actually is a very small issue, but it raises a topic that comes up again and again and again in my research, and that is this bigger thing. seth cotler, who's a great follow on twitter, had this amazing about the that we should really away from this declension model the republican party that it's strategy has gotten like worse right or and he definitely tries to draw this continuity that it's not a decline line and finds ways in which elements of trumpism existed in the 1950s and the 1960s. that's again. and i will always like and retweet. he's just fantastic and i've met

him and he's great. but i really think we need to be, you know, a little bit more careful and in how we analyze that that trajectory and i think that's something that that keeps coming up. so and i, i definitely see in guns that show up in brock's papers but it's just one of many issues. and so this is what i do. i at and say, okay, evangelicals that became the republican party. i should just say that he's the one who started it guns. he talked about guns. he talked about, you know, religion and school so does that mean that he's one who sort of brought religion into the republican party? no. right. but he did play a role. and so this is how we struggle with this that, you know, do we look back at every sort of piece of the republican strategy and say, aha, it was always that

republican strategy always revolved around guns. it didn't it was really a tie. so i do think that there is a declension model that does work. i do think republicans have of recent fallen in love with gun culture it has gotten worse. it's not that it's not the same as it always was. and i think that sometimes historians that too much with a southern strategy is is to try to create that that continuity. and i think we need to think of a better that if it did change we need to start finding a point where it did change and we let ourselves off the hook by saying it was a sort of monolithic that that there was no declension because i do see a break i mean, some people blame newt. that's fair but just find somebody to blame. right. we've got to find problem besides saying like that's the gop that's the southern strategy. it's just it's not good enough any questions? well, this of gets away from the southern strategy right now because this is this would be

more focused on a midwestern strategy plenty of gun owners and in midwest and even in flying a gun owners all over the country nra did not start with this concept that the ultimate goal was the was the the abolition of the second amendment. but the john birch society. they did and i think that that that something like that could play. now that this conspiratorial angle that's nonsense. but lot of people are buying into and that also scares me that that's sorry to be morose but well i just i think we're i think what we're doing is is circling around much bigger question than just the southern strategy is. and i think we are the reason

why this is such a perplexing question. and this question of when does it start and when does it end are our kind of red herrings? because i think in the discussion of this southern strategy, what we're really talking are different iconography fears and rhetorics about americanism, american democracy, american who is american and is endowed with the right kind of have a say in governance and shaping political economy. you know, i look at the the southern states industrial councils rhetoric about southern strategy by the cio oh to unionize dixie operation dixie in post-world two and you know the president i've got another quote i'm i have always got quotes he says the cio is coming south because they realize there is more true here than any other section of the country. and he painted as as another round of carpet, you know, coming here to try and destroy something truly american. and what he's doing there is

trying to appeal to this of of identity. and america ism linked to to a constructed form southern identity that evokes, you know, that jeffersonian kind of ideal and, you know, and he, you know, talks about faith and religious identity rights of the individual and posits this, you know, standing back against unionization, as, you know, standing as the bulwark of democracy. that's what he calls it. you know, that the south is the bulwark of democracy against he saw as these pernicious policies of of socialism and communism that they are going to be saving the nation. they're by doing that. and that's i think you know when we think about the you know the way that these issues stand in for much bigger questions about american democracy and the workings of of government to reflect the different interests

that when we're talking about the southern strategy, really what we're talking about is that bigger set of. and so you know how we define political identity becomes very much bound up in in this question rather know sort of like slicing and dicing different constituent groups to. think about who's who's going to win votes in any particular election and. i think for me also, you know, we look at all these different southern strategies and differences and. ted and i were at a panel one time and, you know, a distinguished historian stood up and he said, you know, but you know, you have all these variations of conservatism and shades of conservatism and even democratic conservatism that appealed. but for people of color and black folks, it doesn't matter. it all looks you know, it looks the same. so, you know, for, you know, brock, a moderate good government, you know, can it of and he lost all but like a

handful votes at his home city it didn't matter there you know so it's i think it's really important that for me that makes me wonder if the term actually is as meaningful as we think or maybe that is its core meaning and so it's about perspective you know if you look at it from an economic perspective if you look at it from a national perspective, the party perspective, the way we frame it changes and. i think the way it gets tossed around is again, kind of maybe always bring that that value and we don't get those voices always so that we get a clear interpreter of what the southern strategy means and why. it's amazing when i talk to republican and my interview process and i asked them you why did your party struggle much with with black voters in 1976 and they all have horrible things to say about jimmy carter but none them acknowledge their

role in marginalizing black voters. right. because they don't they don't see themselves, as wallace writes, they couldn't have done that. that couldn't have been them. they were. and so they they see that distinction between from their perspective. but and this is something that i'm struggling with is, you know trying to get the perspective of other that that didn't necessarily see a difference between brock and wallace whether they're white voters or black voters because many didn't know i guess i have i. one that that i like to sort of pose again to whoever wants to take it up and this one has to do with themes that we've already of talked about a little bit in the conversation but it strikes me one of the features of their southern strategy is as it's typically understood even in my discipline political science is it invites the i

guess this is true for for laypeople. well, it invites the view that southern politics is more or less dominated or wholly by white conservatism. and i like invite the panelists to comment, comment on or complicate that view of southern politics or that view of the southern strategy, because it's a sort of wonder like what that, what we can actually, by understanding the kind of suturing of conservatism, the southern strategy, but also what are we maybe missing or what kind of gets excluded? our view perhaps in the complete cities of southern politics as that relates to american politics writ large, or the histories of black southern politics like, what what are we kind of able to see? what are we not able to see if we're sort of working from

understanding of of southern southern strategy as, it is sometimes typically understood, you know, as more or less aligned completely with conservatism. i'm just of curious your views on on battle opening up for pushback against that question or respond to it? i wanted to take a chance, kirsten, to throw that question right back to you. i know, that you've done some political science research and and carceral studies and thinking about mass incarceration in the south. and i think that feeds into that specifically or and would i also like to see maybe just from what you're hearing, the way we're talking it and in the way that we've talked this in political science, how. this idea of southern strategy, politics plays out or how you treat it or, how it intersects

with your own work. okay. yeah, i would be i'd be happy to comment. i'm going to go to you first. your hand went up. so go ahead and then i'll a few thoughts to say in the sure, my my my answer is very is very quick i was thinking that rather we we have a situation in here where if we're focusing on these generally white males who are introducing these these southern strategies, although not white males, we do lose sight of african-americans, but we do have an opportunity. i was just we have an opportunity to study those who excluded from the republican party who on their own volition, like jackie robinson, who criticized what was going on at the cow palace and in

goldwater's campaign, we have a we have an to look at the grass and see how those african-americans who were part the republican party, who comprised republican party, who were led who led the republican during reconstruction like revels. we can take a look at those who were left out of the republican party martin luther king was associated with the republic party. so it to me that it provides an opportune to look those who walked away who walked from the republican party and enriches their history so. okay yeah. thank you. yeah. so a little bit a little bit of background about about my

research. as i study, i'm in political science and i study how carceral regimes transform in one of the ones that i am particularly interested in understanding and what my research has been based on the transformation of the sort of carceral institutions of jim crow, specifically the chain gang system into sort of explode did very large and robust prison system which happened around that the process was longer, but this starts to happen around the sixties and seventies and it's it's funny it's sort of like a parallel story in a to a kind of southern strategy type of explanation. but one of the one of the kind of groups of politicians that i am focused on in my research are were self-described moderates in north carolina and georgia are the two states that i focus in on. and they really take up a lot of

the language, the kind of mid-century, you know, racial liberalism that. you know, it almost they almost sound like truman in a way. right. so there is a kind of one of my sort of things that sort of sort of well, sort of well with the southern strategy language is that it really seems to to to really be an alignment of conservative ism with the southern strategy. and at the time you see these notes of other sort of differently oriented policymakers who are trying to re articulate the south, not the south right now. you see that in some of your your your work and some of your today interested in something similar, right. so i was thinking about your what you were saying earlier about. yes, like just like not being the south. right just sort of like that articulation that you hear from time to time.

i'm not southern. right. it's sort of something that mid-century re, you know, political moderates where we're saying to them selves and to and goes and kate with your research too that the kind of northerners westerners who is whose businesses they're trying to get into their states. so there really for me this complication to the southern it becomes for me this really slippery concept almost immediate like just and i think i have a grasp it it's like there is another element to it that that seems to come in. so that sort my discombobulated answer to my own question and partly why i wanted to pose it to you guys is to get some sound like hopefully some clarity on on that one because i do see of of racial liberalism in there i see elements to some extent of more conservative, meaning black politics in the region.

and that would be more true today as. well, i'll of throw throw it back out there. and also we have a couple more minutes for last minute questions as well. yeah, i mean, i'll just pick up a little bit on that castle piece i teach class on marijuana in american history. it was the first class on that topic. according to google, the classes very popular it's a real hit. so this is on c-span. the so you know but the students some students write really papers about whether or not the marijuana legalization movement should shift from a state by state to a federal because of the arguments go, the south, will never go along state by that it's sort of the solid south when it comes to cannabis legalization, there's a few and maybe some on some medical

areas, but really, it's not happening. you know, we talk about jeff sessions. you can take the boy out of alabama, but you can't take the alabama of the boy. and you know that. and a lot of ways he said that, you know, bad people smoke marijuana, which is all sorts of coded language. and so, you know, i do see distinct contours. now, this connects with race, thinking about, you know, the amount of mass incarceration that is in the south, in the united states, the massacres racial is a federal national problem. but it does have regional specifics. thinking about the that marijuana legalization connects with religion and, how important that is and how people perceive of the issue. and so there are all different ways in which there are, you know, particular issues that i think exaggerate aspects of american political the american

political system. and so for me that indicates that there is something difference, right? there is. that doesn't mean that, you know, we have go in for the southern exceptionalism, but that there something unique going on is a certain mixture that that resonates and a political message that resonates specifically this constituency well before we i wanted to add an exclamation point and a caution to be very cognizant of when talking about these trends when that language of southern exceptionalism or continuity creeps in and to you know apply that historical lens very you know, one category sort of categories we haven't talked about today is the herbal or urban and rural or agrarian in south you know, the agreement in south.

very supportive of the new deal because didn't threaten the south's racial caste or its its hiring practices instead of that opposition really from industrial centers and urban areas of the south. and that that constituency would only grow as those promoters of of capital push forward for these these business friendly policies. but of course, that came with a sort embedded, more coded language around hiring practices and who who was the sort of benefit beneficiaries of this industrial policy. it's a good note to end on perhaps. i want to thank everyone for for coming and for this to work. to my fellow panelists, for your excellent research commentary on this question of the southern strategy. very