those who made it possible. >> for only the second time in american history, a president was impeached on december 19th 1998. the house approved two articles of impeachment against president bill clinton, charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice. >> i ask the american people to move with me. to go on from here, to rise above the ranks. to overcome the pain and division. to be a repair of the breach, all of us. to make this company tree as one america, what it can must be for ourn we are about to embk on. thank you very much. >> and that's a looat what happened this week in history. all of these topics are in our crimes. you can watch them online at c-span dot slash history. >> next, historians talk about

republican efforts to increase electoral support among white southern voters, and how the strategy has evolved since the 1950s. this program was part of an american political history conference, hosted by purdue university. togetherjust to frame my book, l motivation for trying to get this panel together, is my current project, which is a biography of senator -- who passed away last spring. and in many ways, he money is seen as a crucial shaper of the southern strategy, or was responsible for my interpretation of the southern strategy. that, is how the gop won the south. what was their strategy to do that? now, today we are going to talk about different versions of southern strategies that benefit different groups. even democrats.

so, thinking about that is trying to position it within this constellation of actors. who engineer at the southern strategy, and situated him within them, and thinking about really, i guess, what are some different ways that people frame of the southern strategy? and also, i began to wonder, what is it? is it useful anymore? has it become so ingrained, systemically, in the american institutions that it's not just a regional strategy that benefits particular organization. so maybe i will just start off with a script here. in general, this is the framing for what i was thinking about. but the script goes a little bit like this, and this really happened. my father, a committed massachusetts liberal, called me just the other day and said

he had a solution to the nation's problems. he had solved it, and what we were going to do is we were going to succeed. right? so he has a whole map drawn out, where it connects. he said canada can join, to. lucky them. it kind of cut through, and joined the blue states. right? and in general, what he was trying to say was that he wanted to cut the south out. and i think he was channeling the division of, what is wrong? where does the problem lie? and i think a lot of this does reflect -- this talk about a southern strategy and the organization of america. which bruce talks about in the conference. and frames how we think about conservatism today, this regional emphasis is so powerful. but i wonder, is it still useful? or maybe even harmful, in thinking about really, what is going on. and especially i'm interested in how this concept interacts with different genres and

disciplines. so, how different ways of writing about history use this term in different ways? so thinking about local histories, i'm writing a biography, cultural history, economic history. which kate is going to talk about. we have hopefully a political scientist on the panel, taking these topics on. so genre can shift the focused. right? so i don't want to think about this as an idea -- it is fluid, it depends, it is changing. the lands i am moving to answer this question his biography. after, all bill brock played a vital role when he shape this of. in the 1960s, he was one of nixon's only real southern strategy successes in the 1970 midterms. that was known as the southern strategy for a reason. i am very interested in thinking about the the intellectual framing, and i'm

interested in what they have to say. thinking about conservatism, that it's not monolithic, and that is tempting these days to look back words air and see the fringes, perhaps, of politics. so how can i look at this individual more granular lee, to consider the regional dynamics of this backlash politics? what are some useful ways to define the southern strategy? i'm going to punch on that, for now. i think it might be useful, first, to ask who's strategy? who was using this strategy, and to what end? and who are the different players? who get a benefit, and what was the constituency that it won over? or, it's important to consider, what do you lose in using the southern strategy? that's an important lesson i say. so, there are many southern strategies, as we talked about.

many people reference the kevin phillips, terry dolan version of the identity politics that resonated with the voters in the south. but many scholars are questioning this interpretation that emphasizes nixon's law and order backlash strategy. so thinking about my principal character, how did he frame this and what did it mean, to make it something southern? and i think, it's interesting to do some backstory, thinking about biography. i don't know if this helps or hurts us to understand the systemic emphasis on this, to think about the personalities. but his family was not from chattanooga, tennessee. they came from outside. and they were commerce people, right? they were people who were starting manufacturing. and brock's grandfather on the other side, he had the chattanooga logging company.

they always denied their southern tennis. there are southern us wasn't something that they necessarily embraced, or encouraged. then you saw them constantly trying to downplay that, and looking at the minutes of the chamber of commerce. they were always trying to appear so more civilized. they wanted to attract outside business. they were focused on outside investment. and so, rock himself, when i was talking to him, he always said chattanooga is not in the south. which a lot of historians in the south laugh at, right? he was serious. he said, we were not southern. and i'm trying to figure out what he really meant by this. i think he meant that they didn't identify with southern heritage. but i think it's important to note that many in chattanooga disagreed, as brock's family had a cross burned on the front yard by the kkk when brock's

father fought to desegregate that need in the 1950s. so thinking about chattanooga, that is how you are defining heritage and thinking about it. chattanooga certainly has that history. so this raises questions for me about intentionality, and how important it is in the southern strategy, with an individual. should i be looking at rock, carefully trying to define, what was the southern strategy? was he responsible? did he intend to marginalize people of color, in order to build a white working class voter base? how important is it to prove that, to demonstrate that? to find the smoking gun, right? and we have them, we have them in the nixon administration. but for brock specifically, looking at his papers, he was offering the money forward thinking, youthful brand or responsible government and conservatism. defying our expectations of backlash and the southern switch. but when we get to the

political record, brock was not wallace. when we look at the political record, the distinctions blur. while barack called it the biggest mistake of his life, he voted against the civil rights act in 1965, against the voting rights act in 1964, against the voting rights act in 1965. he has many explanations for this, in seven days he opposed busing. in the senate campaign, he famously featured a billboard that said brock believes what tennesseeans believe in. really identifying with the southern heritage, in many ways. and none of this hurt rock in 1970 because he was running against al gore. this was against the civil rights act of 1964. so that distinction -- in 1976 brock got crushed with the black vote, by -- he lost his reelection bid.

he lost several districts, but his opponent won 95% of all black voters and a higher percentage of lower income african americans in tennessee. even in his hometown of chattanooga, his father had organized -- he collected a paltry 92 votes over 1700 in the black downtown precinct. so i've got a lot more here, but i want to move forward. i guess the big question here is looking at individuals through biography, we humanize that our own risk. and questioning intentionality, i am thinking about tony badger's book about how al gore senior seems to show that he was almost an intentional part of the southern strategy in the 1970s. i think it's more complicated. if you wanted a wider lens, and

you could actually hold him complicit in his own version of those tactics. and part of the politics that we are seeing intertwined with discourse. finally, i guess the question is if the southern strategy is in fact everywhere, like a.g. maxwell are, to include things like religion, gender, and other complex dynamics beyond just racist backlash, which matters in these spaces. if there are so many practitioners across the spectrum, has it lost its significance or accuracy or relevance? >> i argue, no. that there are appeals that influence the gop success in the south. i will leave that open ended,

sort of an argument that maybe you can help me find. but on some level, i just see that it matters still. and, so i will just leave it there. >> i think we have our other panelists now. >> my sincere apologies for my lateness. some technical difficulties on my end. it is so nice to be here, my name is kristina taylor. i am at ohio university, i am a political scientist and the center for law, justice, and culture there. i'm going to go ahead and introduce professor catherine dual. i think you're going to be up next. if i am right, then you haven't come yet. so doctor jewell is an associate professor in economics, history, and political science at fitchburg

state university, her recent book, dollars for dixie, business and the transformation of conservatism in 20th century came out on cambridge university press in 2017. dr. juul is a 20th century mark -- i will give you the floor. >> thank you all for coming. and thank you for teaming us up there with these provocative questions. the so i'm going to start by exploring this from another angle. and i will start also with a little anecdote. but i will go back to the late 1990s, when i was a college student in nashville. and in every history class that i took their, it didn't matter if it was the new south or medieval history. at some point, we would all have a debate about what constituted the south. and it usually had some general

variations. florida would sometimes get hacked off, or 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 prove constantly -- historians are no different. we have been debating about what constitutes the south, rather torturous, late for generations. we can look back to the 1941 book by w jake hasse, trying to diagnose the mind of the south, which took a very journalistic and narrative approach to identifying what he saw is central characteristics of the south, while also exploding these tried intrude myths about the cavalier tradition in the south, this genteel history. depending what he called the piety is that made their ways into homages of the south.

such as gone with the wind. historians have gone back and forth on this question and always revolve around this idea of there being a many south's. cash was writing in 1941, a moment when conservative southern democrats found themselves in the minority in a party with power in washington. thanks in large part to their longevity, and politics. due to with this one party system. for cash, this is still deep continuities. his south sounded a lot like what my classmates from the upper south or the piedmont regions defined as a south that they were kicking florida out of, or something like that. for cash southern identities strict longer across decades. up ended by the civil war, and

reconstruction, in fact much divided by his critics like stephen woodward, whose origins of the new south presented a transformation wrought by a new group of southerners, who had reshaped the south economy and political relations in the post reconstruction decades, these new men of the new south much like what the south we are seeing in brock's heritage. so, emerges this theme or this debate about internal continuity and change in southern history. a debate that once centered around post civil war transformations of the region. on the one hand, you have the plantation economy continuing well into the 1930s, organizing labor and commodity crops well after enslaved people a secure their freedom. and as rights secured the --

while cash does not address this forcefully, perhaps the greatest case for continuity in southern history remains or remained the -- maybe as we see the plantation system kind of way. but the power of this continuity thesis and historians come back to it -- and particularly in popular imagination -- there is this kind of singular southern mind that is warped in its defense of white hedge enemy and economic privilege and power. and some singular set of southern principles that are afferent from the nation that are there to be won or lost, whatever the era.

and exploited and manipulated to some other ends by outsiders seeking political power. now, sometimes southerners advance this thesis themselves. my lovely grandmother, when i asked her, what do you see as the biggest change in the south? because she was born in 1917, so she watched a lot of changes happen. and i asked my grandfather about politics and why the republican party made inroads in the south. he says i don't know, but anybody who ever got a paved driveway, that is when they started voting republican. and so, you know, people with paved driveways, there are a lot of paved driveways in the south now so i don't know how -- there is a lot of correlation may be going on in that thesis. but the story of the south one party politics is likely a

familiar one, as are probably the details of inter party dynamics. certainly, there are moments, long before 1968, 1972, when segments of the south went through the gop, whether or not they had paved driveways in 1928 -- tennessee, virginia, texas and florida's votes for eisenhower in 1952 -- but these votes reveal i think the dynamics in candidates in those particular elections and context rather than some signal planted of avery alignment yet to come. and they were not necessarily bellwethers that should support some theological narrative, pointing to the saliency of some future southern strategies. had gop leaders thought of the man, they could've exploited it at a particular moment. but that does not mean the developments in the south in these years were not

instrumental in shaping a viable political strategy. and it relied i would say that strategy relied more on capitol movement, perhaps suburban a station with all those northerners bringing their paved driveways into a formerly solid democratic stronghold. but for that movement to happen, you need to look at how economic elites in the south constructed their preferences for political economy, how they viewed the south competitiveness 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, it required a congruent of policy interest, political strategizing, a convergence of cultural vision and language and rhetoric. think of terms like free enterprise, as not being a term

that would be able to describe the southern economy in the national economy and perhaps do a lot of heavy lifting. as well as, you know, synergy that allowed political planners to construct a political identity that appealed across regional economic and class lines. much of that work, i would argue, was not done by political strategist outside of the south or in the gop, but by politically motivated interest in the south. we could call them astroturf as elizabeth tandy sure does, rather than grassroots actors, who sought to leverage their economic power into political influence to preserve those very economic arrangements that made them so powerful within the south. i look at a group, the southern states industrial council. yes, i did bring my book just two shouted out.

they convened in december of 1933 and chattanooga. that is where their first meeting was. and they did so with the professed purpose of advocating for the south economic future against the new deal. or in their minds, to carve out protections for the south, special economy. mainly, it's low wage base of labor and it's racialized employment structure within the new deal. they thought, we are in the democratic party, we have a voice, we will carve out specific protections for our regional economic model. and that proved increasingly more futile over time. and so, they found themselves having to be more flexible and instead, adopting a set of terms that were sort of coated for what they wanted that appealed to national interest that they found were more likely to be amenable to their policy vision for federal

minimum wages and maximum hours, unionization in particular. as well as enforcement or not enforcing civil rights and desegregation. it is this quest for allies outside of the south and within be south, for a political economy that preserved segregation and low wage labor structure, that ultimately ends up being the fulcrum for the development of the inroads of a two party south that i focus on. i will turn it back to -- and see who else has a theme to weigh in on their. >> okay. wonderful. thank you so much. so, up next is going to be professor ted miller, a historian of american politics, southern politics, and political culture and capitalism. he is an associate teaching

professor at northwestern university and author of -- i am so sorry. >> not a problem at all. just wanted to make sure my college gets the recognition. >> oh. i might have missed spoke. please go ahead. >> thank you very much and thank you for hosting this, purdue university. and thank you catherine for organizing this acts steamed event. among others, organizing this a steam event. my work has centered on a novel interpretation of the republican southern strategy and it breaks from the traditional understanding of the southern strategy, which saw barry goldwater, my book was called not a country, it came out in 2015.

the birth of the southern strategy and the rise of the far-right in dallas. and this book would break from the traditional version of the southern strategy that says barry goldwater, nixon, reagan would break the democratic parties solid self and also segments of the north by capitalizing on the reactions of white voters to the events of the 1960's, offense about the counter culture, the decline of our traditional -- they decrease and union membership, the tendency of whites to see themselves as homeowners, tax payers, school parents, rather than workers. we are reshaping the political thinking. but i also want to be sure the democratic party support for affirmative action, school

busing, welfare, race made these northern and southern white voters conclude that the party no longer protected their interest, but those of african americans. politicians lin order to attrae disaffected voters into the gop fold, it was politicians like goldwater and reagan and nixon, they developed the southern strategy and they framed color brined discourse of freedom, individualism, small government and appeal to the middle class suburbanites. now, republican color blind conservatism appeal to class advantage, economic rights, freedom of choice, cultural concerns, but race always hovered in the rhetoric. this meritocratic discourse, racial privileges --

the special segregation of suburbs -- justified a minimum diversity in schools. my book, not a country, which 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 south mentioned and was so instrumental introduced by angie maxwell, whose book was pioneer -- i argue that this new southern strategy that i developed -- didn't abel up, but talked about -- was born not in the 1960s, but in the 1950 southwest. and it was specifically more racial in motivation. so, intentionally racial and motivation and application. i argued that it was dallas

republicans, my book focused on dallas -- and dallas republicans, i argue, are blazing the trail for the gop southern strategy, making those racial appeals to white democrats as early as the 1950s. as early as 1956. and i show that it was a boost -- he was a dallas republican elected to congress in 1954, the first dallas republican since reconstruction. it was john tower, the texas republican senator elected in 1961 after lyndon johnson became vice president. john tower would serve until 1985 and a number of other folks from dallas, who would use specific racial strategies to capture these white voters. the whole point among them was

to make it very clear that the republican party was not sympathetic to the interests of african americans and i argue that it was all jurors 1956 campaign, which was an important precedent. it is an important moment for the racial-ization and the future of the southern strategy. because it marked the first time that a southern republican, at least i found, had abandoned this measured stance on desegregation, and embrace a segregationist, a harsh segregationist position, to not only maintain his seat, maintain his coalition, but build upon it. he was signaling to white voters that he was antagonistic towards the interests of civil rights and two blacks. it was tower who i argue did

the same thing. he argues early on, we need to abandon our position, the party, that is, the parties position, as the party of thaddeus stevenson, the heroic pennsylvanian who led the -- he was a radical republican who led the radical republican efforts during reconstruction. he is arguing for a more rachel -- racial promotion of the republican party. that is what tower is doing following in the footsteps of bruce alger. when one southern senator greeted tower when he won his

seat and came into the senate, he was greeted and the -- on one of his committees by a democrat republican senator -- excuse me, a democratic conservative senator -- when that democratic senator said, we want to welcome you -- welcome the south back to the confederacy. so it was towers moment. his moment was key. after that, you see other incidents. it was goldwater, who would pursue a southern strategy. first he demonized the civil rights act, which became law in the summer of 1964.

his team produced the team choice, which goldwater himself called racist and goldwater also introduces the treaty law and order strategy which is pursued by richard nixon, so roll -- goldwater is also complicit in this racial version of the southern strategy. this is continued of course in the campaigns of richard nixon, who argues for a more blatant law and order strategy. you also see it particularly in the campaigns of ronald reagan, who talks of welfare queens, who talks of strapping young

bucks. that was obviously a racial code. you also see it in reagan's decision to began his campaign in niche of a county, mississippi, with three civil rights leaders -- by the end of his term in 1988, three fourths of african americans were convinced reagan was a racist. so, i argue it was more intentionally racist from the beginning and i think that despite the twists and turns of this, as angie maxwell demonstrates effectively, it is a question of one step forward two steps back for the republican parties southern strategy.

but i think we can see by 2016 with donald trump's campaign, it is a more explicit use of race and that was proposed to him, of course, by steve bannon. steve bannon is arguing for more forceful, explicit, not interact, use of race. i think you can argue even mitt romney would apply these kinds of things because he would say, nobody asked me about my birth certificate. so, these are the racial aspects. i think the racial aspect has been the emphasized because -- i am not criticizing the work of going beyond and looking at the long southern strategy, because i think it has a lot of usefulness, but as we go in

that particular direction, i don't think we should lose sight of the fact that its intention, and attention is very important, was racial list in the beginning. that is what i produced. >> okay. wonderful. thank you so much for the three of you for such an amazing start to this conversation. i cannot wait to sort of dive in more and lean into some more conversation about this. what we have sort of proposed and maybe we have covered this already, is i will start out with a question. i had in mind a sort of very, not easy one, but a very plastic one about how we might define the southern strategy. but i think there has been so much richness on that that i will move on to the more sort

of substantial question that is still on the southern strategy, what we might call following -- the longer southern strategy versus the newer. also, i just talked about in the framing of a broad southern exceptionalism and to mid-century and a later southern strategies -- and i am wondering if we can think together about what in your view have a framing of southern exceptionalism or the southern strategy? either revealed about american politics right large or southern politics, i suppose, and what it has occluded or prevented us from seeing about the direction of american politics has taken since the mid 20th century -- us has it been a useful framing of southern political history? and then maybe this is where i am really interested in leading

us to think, it is in what respects or how deeply does it remained useful for us today? have we entered a kind of different kind of era? or not? i would love to hear some sort of comments from you guys. for those of you that would like to weigh in, i will open it up for you to discuss. >> i mean, i guess for me, the big question is, and i kind of post and kicked this around -- to what extent, when we talk about southern, are we really just blaming? looking backwards in this period of trumpism and sang, where does this all come from? right? and so, that is why i see some

important connections. it is great. i'm writing about the southern strategy. people are interested. there are all things trump. it is great for sales, but terrible for my children's future. and so, as we look back, are we, and this is what kate is talking about. we are all talking about this idea of the trajectory of the southern strategy. and how we have developed. and this is my father's idea. this myth that it has just always been -- and it actually goes all the way back to the confederacy, right? where was the problem? i think the irony that my father is offering the conclusion is secession -- the idea of regional distinction and identity -- i worry that this is what i like about brock is that he is somebody who dedicated the

republican party. i, mean i like him for a lot of reasons and i miss our conversations. i am struggling with the humanizing aspect because i know he played a role in systemically a direction -- my argument is that he played a role in the stomach direction of the southern as asian of politics and it's elements of appealing to white working class voters. and this includes the evangelical peace. it is not just race. right? and it has overall, eroded our institutions, something that he held sacred. that is the irony of my project. thinking about him as the sort of break, he really try to reorient the republican party towards black voters in 1976 and 1977, when he became the

chair of the republican national committee. that was his core emphasis, reaching out to black voters. and he is a tennessee southerner who was sort of somebody who charted the southern strategy and so, for me, i wonder, are we overlooking the degrees, right? that there are -- there is a spectrum. it is just not this pathway. and there are a lot of historians that are, i think, oversimplifying this for the wider public in ways that are useful and you bring attention to the southern strategy. but in all things, when scholarship meets public, it overlooks the exceptions and the dips and i think it also overlooks the human agency. where i think that underand the ways that peoe

decisions. it was not just this clear pathway and so, that is where the understanding the personalities and the people on the relationships and the tensions matter. but then again, i can't blame people doing that for water consumption because that is how you get heard. for me, the question is, how do scholars present the southern strategy to the wider public in ways that are nuanced and complicated, but also digestible. i think we are doing a pretty bad job of that right now. we have the digestible piece for people like my dad. but the second part of that story as we talked for a half hour, where i board him about, well actually -- i well actually my dad a lot. i think that is a lot. that was a long answer.

that is what i was thinking as far as your question. >> we have been circling around this concept of southern exceptionalism and i think there is this idea that the south contains within it some particular, like, exceptionally that relationship with white supremacy or racial-ization and there is something to be exploited there. if we eject the south, all of a sudden, the nation's problems with race will be solved. and that is a very attractive way of seeing the world. it is a simple solution. if you are looking for a solution to this. but the reality of course is much, much more complicated. i have some active learning here to do with everyone in the room. we are just going to collect three days. i have a quote for you. >> we have three suggestions as to when you think this quote comes from.

here we go. this is drawn bar. there is no reason you should know who this person is. he says, the southern states are no longer willing to play stage for elected democrats who attempt to use our party regularity as the means of delivering our party and country to alien borrowers who seek to caption control -- a fair diabolically un-american purpose. these minority groups overplayed their hands and overlooked the fact that we have the south where american first and democrat second. you have a gas? >> we have 64. 1910. one more. >> 1948. >> that is the closest! you end the price. i could give you my book. it was 1944.

so close! sounds a lot like dixie -- this was a man who was a new orleans pen manufacturer who was trying to draft bird for president. and they were advocating to be the regular democrats to take back the democratic party for the true south, the truly american, jeffersonian south, free from kind of federal intervention. they are anti-new deal. they felt themselves to be kind of pushed to the sidelines within this party. they were not going to take it anymore. so, what you see is this idea that we are going to throw off a -- they increasingly found themselves in the minority among new deal liberals. they might also compromise on civil rights. that was also intricately tied

up in their strategy to preserve the separate southern wage structure. it rests on a racialized view of the southern social structure. you can't separate their economic motivations from their social and cultural predilections. that is true. but this is also an era in which we see globalization beginning to rise or at least after the war, it was on the rise. i think it is no accident that we see the southern strategy narrative surrounding it and sort of the reshaping of this rhetoric occurring within the midst of the processes of globalization and these new strategies to construct america and u.s. capitalism. and a political economy, and where we see those dallas businessman -- they were extremely active in that 44 push to draft bird.

they were already mcenany. there was this whole electoral strategy that they were going to dump the texas regulars. they were going to come in and it was a whole nefarious plot to kind of take power back in the democratic party. -- that was obviously all about civil rights and at the same time, these business interests were very wary of disappearing as just a southern thing because they wanted to find those allies and to attract capital attention to the region, but also pave this pathway into the gop, where they aligned their economic and social interest, with what they saw as the policy agenda, pro business policy agenda, of the gop. so, they were very consciously

re-fashioning the idea of the south for political purposes so that it would be an attractive set of actors to people in these national party interests. >> ted. >> yes. i was going to mention george wallace because i think he realized before everybody else that racism plays in the north. when he went to boston, he debated a group of harvard students and many of the harvard students expected him to be outwitted. he really was instrumental in -- he blew them away at harvard. and just and his explanations -- he realized and did very well

in his elections and south boston. he realized early on that this is not just a southern phenomenon. this is an american phenomenon. and it plays elsewhere. so, i think it is insular if we were to determine that this is just a southern phenomenon. this is nation wide. and a lot was growing and at the same time in the 1970s, with the busing crisis, it was something that nixon began to realize. this racism is not just limited to the south. many there are northerners had even embraced this concept. we see this with donald trump, the idea of southern heritage, but it is their heritage. donald trump is from new york. even though he is a floridian

transplant now. so, it is -- i also think, i just wanted to make the point not to demonize the -- this is tangential, but i just want to make the point that it is not only the southern and a northern phenomenon. it is also a democratic phenomenon. it's hillary clinton who talks about super predators. she talks about -- there are other instances in that campaign, 2008, which were seen as race baiting. president biden mentioned -- he criticized obama early on. he was criticized as being a

clean candidate. remember, these lines, whether intentional in the moment, are not just republican. you can go down the line. you can look at jimmy carter. jimmy carter in part was able to, i would argue, defeat for by making the case that people should be able to live in the segregated neighborhoods of their choosing. so, it is not just a southern phenomenon. it is not just a northern phenomenon. it is an american phenomenon. but it also comprises both parties. conclusion renders the so, i am not suggesting that this conclusion renders the southern strategy --

studying the southern strategy not useful. but i think we should also realize the extent of this. >> i will just add briefly to that that there is a central tension and looking at the southern strategy between, is this some kind of top-down orchestrated strategy to build a new constituency, identifying voters amenable and apply both parties, whether they are vying for this constituency, how forcefully they are going to apply douglas or encoded racial language -- or is this something that is from the bottom up or the astroturf up? orchestrated by particular interest in the south,

strategizing for particular policies? do we need to look at the macro or the micro? that may be another way of categorizing this. >> i think that is really important because -- ted mentioned looking at looking at the 1964 civil rights act as a way to mention whether a politician was appealing to white backlash politics based on the southern strategy. for me, and this is his explanation -- he said this was the biggest regret of his life, was voting against the civil rights act. and so did goldwater. but they had a different rationale for it. they did not put this in terms of just segregationist, defending white supremacy. that said, obviously, he understood it significance and that it was in fact defending white supremacy. so -- and he understood that element

sort of and regretted it. but i wonder, was there any room for him politically in tennessee to vote for it? and if you look, i'll go our senior, as i mentioned before, voted against the civil rights act to. he is considered the liberal senator. and so, that i think feeds back to what you are saying. is this really something? i don't see it in his papers. he was not thinking, how can we stoke rochelle tension? and to some extent, the republican party was just following the constituency. is the southern strategy really a bottom up thing? it does not necessarily have that intentionality and that element -- i think that is maybe an important aspect that maybe we need to think about to

complicate it more. >> i love that question that you depended on. really excellent. i want to open it up for others to jump in with their own questions. if you are on zoom with me, you can use the raise hand function and i can go ahead and call on you. in the room, i'm idlest some help doing, calling on folks. and of course, panelist them selves, i will open it up to you guys as well. if you have not spoken yet, and you want to throw me a question or comment, maybe just introduce yourself before you get going on your question. >> we do have one question. >> can i go ahead? >> okay. hi. ted -- from the university of indianapolis. really enjoy this discussion. i am wondering, south, for your father, or kate, for your grandmother, as we think about region in a more complicated way, but especially when we are

in the 21st century, we are here in indiana today, which sometimes is described as the middle finger of the south. for those of you who don't know that -- i am wondering how much the 21st century version of this has built on southern strategies and how much the republican party was able to extend a vision that they might have sort of perfected in the south into states like indiana and ohio? you mention -- there is this quote annette where i think it is william -- a senator from ohio, says something like, he did not want to see his party surrender to the former confederacy. now it has. i am wondering how you all see that playing out of the 21st century, post reagan. maybe even pre-trump. >> that is a really good

question. one way -- and i could kind of turn this to ted. because he was going to mention a little bit about what his last project was on mergers and thinking about conspiracy. and how important a role that plays in the right today. and how that was i think an element. maybe if we want to extend the southern strategy to different places, get that conspiracy element -- the thing that surprised me about brock was his father was a democrat, kind of a tennessee valley authority, pragmatic democrat, who then turned against the new deal, but never left the democratic party, he was actually a senator for a few years. a special election type deal. just kind of was sort of appointed for being a local guy in tennessee because that is where he worked back then. he would listen to, what was

his name? fulton junior? the conspiracy theorist radio sort of conservative shock jock. fulton louis junior was his name. and he was a cold hysteric. the idea that the were some former democrats who are not listening to this conservative kind of anti-new deal but also cold war conspiracy element, it started to thrive and that was a part of this kind of fear that you are talking about this in your quote -- this fear of the un-american ways of people outside of the south and influencing them. that fomented a lot of this conspiratorial thinking that we see today. but this is really up your

alley. so i will stay in my lane and handed over to you if you want to talk about conspiracy and southern exceptionalism. >> first of all, i would like to say that i am not a conspiracy theorist. also -- but i study it. before i address that question, i just wanted to mention that i think in many ways, the southern strategy for republicans has been successful and now the strategy comes down to legalists tech methods like gerrymandering. that is how they win these elections. you don't have to do the southern strategy anymore. you can gerrymander and pick up votes. you can also restrict the vote, which we are seeing. the same types of methods which were employed during reconstruction. but as far as --

i hate to write a cookbook here, but if there was a direction that i see the republican party turning, it is this adoption of ridiculous, inane conspiracies like the 2020 election being stolen, the qanon -- whatever qanon is -- the pizza gate nonsense, the whole birther, which is tied up in racism, of course -- that seems to be the direction that, as far as strategy -- that is a -- if we look at this particularly if we call this a southern strategy --

those tend to be more prevalent as conspiracies in on northern states, but they are in northern states as well. it is a -- we see it in desantis. i think that is something that is a direction for a southern strategy. unfortunately, that scares me. that very much scares me. w do you slice it always slicing it at the state like a red versus what happens when you look at different constituencies? it's how do you slice that. are we slicing at the state level. red versus blue electoral

counts or are we looking more granular lee at different populations with different access to public services? reindustrialization? capitol movement? how are we assessed saying b is different subregions within the united states and are commonalities and i think that would probably have a lot more to do with what ted is talking about than, you know, some sort of national party identity and electoral behavior. but i want to return to the indiana question because i took a road trip to get here and i love road trips. who doesn't? on the way in, i drove by a nice new corporate headquarters off of a rural highway with a german flag, a mexican flag and a german name. and i thought, there it is. there is the new globalized business model. more foreign businesses located manufacturing in the south in

the 1990s than any other region. that includes places like indiana because they had the same development strategy that is now become the national norm. thanks to lucrative entitlements from states, enticing infestment, the promise of sheep on unionized nation -- we see that business model, that strategy of u.s. capitalism, becoming the national norm. under deval patrick in massachusetts, when evergreen solar game, that came because of a particular state-led strategy to entice that company to move there, and then, the sense of betrayal when that company picks up and move shot somewhere else -- it is replaced by another. if we are thinking about a southern strategy, there is a another one coming from within

that has become the norm. led by people like goldwater. and i will take another quote -- about capitalism that focuses on phoenix and the way that that strategy 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 is good to be people, although virtually. i might have seen them on social media and things like that. you know, with all the events happening with mass shootings, i wonder about gun rights. is there research being done or have been done with the gun

culture in the south? or is it another example of an issue that is covered in all parts of the country? the west in the north, the hundreds and things like that -- thank you. >> i will put in another plug, for another panel that is happening and there's a dissertation that is about to be defended by carey a bit ski at our alma mater, boston university, on the very subject and she looks at the nra's political strategizing and construction of a particular identity around gun ownership and sort of the armed citizen and i think we will get very much to the heart of that question. i have the dissertation in my inbox. i can't wait to read it. i know it will help us answer many questions. i'm not the one to answer that question. maybe south. >> i mean, i think this

actually is a very small issue, but it raises a topic that comes up again and again in my research and that is this bigger thing. -- how this amazing thread about the way that we should really get away from this -- model of the republican party. the southern strategy has gotten worse, right? or he definitely tries to draw this continuity that it is not a decline and he finds ways in which elements of trumpism existed in the 1950s, in the 1960s. that is good. again, and i will always like and retweet him. he is fantastic. i met him. he's great. we analyzi really do think we e a little bit more careful in

how we analyze that trajectory and i think that is something that keeps coming up. i definitely do see, in guns, that show up in brock's papers. but it is just one of many issues and so, do i look and say okay, evangelicals, that became the american parity. i should just say that he is the one who started it. guns -- he talked about guns. he talked about religion in school. does that mean that he is the one who sort of brought religion into the republican party? now. but he did play a role. we struggle with this. do we look back at every sort of piece of the republican strategy and say, it was always that republican strategy. it always revolves around runs. but it did not. i do think that there is a declension model that does

work. i do think that republicans have recently fallen in love with gun culture. it has gotten worse. it's not the same as it always was. i think sometimes historians do that too much with the southern strategy. they try to create that continuity. and i think we need to think of a better -- 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 it was not declension. because some people blaine nude. that is fair. but we need to find something other than, that is the southern strategy. that is not good enough. any other questions? >> this kind of gets away from the southern strategy right now because this would be more focused on a midwestern strategy. plenty of gun owners in the midwest, even in, massachusetts,

plenty of gun owners all over the country. the nra did not start with this concept of the ultimate goal -- was the abolition of the second amendment. the john birch society did, though. i think something like that could play into this conspiratorial angle that is nonsense. a lot of people are buying into that. that also scares me. sorry to be morrow's. >> well, i think what we are doing a circling around a much bigger question than just what the southern strategy is and i think the reason why this is such a perplexing question and there's this question of when does it start and when does it and our kind of red herrings.

because i think in the discussion of the southern strategy, what really talking about are different iconography's and rhetoric about american-ism, american democracy, american sitter ship, who is american and who is endowed with the kind of right to have a say and governance and shaping political economy. i look at the southern states industrial councils rhetoric about another southern strategy by the cio to unionize dixie, operation dixie, post world war ii. and the president -- i have another quote. i was at quotes. he says the cio is coming south because he realizes that there is more true americanism here than an idea they're sector of the country. this is another round of carpetbaggers coming in here to try to destroy something truly american. what he is doing there is trying to appeal to the sense of identity and americanism, linked to a constructed form of

southern identity that of oaks that jeffersonian kind of ideal. he talks about faith and religious identity, rights of the individual, and posits this standing back against unionization as standing as the bulwark of democracy. that is literally what he calls it. that the south is the bulwark of democracy. whether he side as pernicious policies -- they will be saving the nation by doing that, he thought. when we think about the way that these policy issues stand in for much bigger questions about american democracy and the workings of government to reflect these different interests, that when we're talking about the southern strategy, really what we're talking about as a bigger set of questions. how we define political

identity becomes very much bound up in this question. rather than slicing and dicing these different constituent groups to think about who will win votes in this particular election. >> and i think, for me, also, we look at all these different southern strategies and differences and ted and i were at a panel one-time, a distinguished historian sat up and said, you know, you have all these different variations for conservatism. and even democratic conservatism. but for people of color and black folks, it does not matter. it all looks the same. for brock, a moderate, good government conservative, and he lost all but a handful of votes in his home city, it did not matter. i think it is really important. for me that makes me wonder if

the term is actually as meaningful as we think or maybe that is its core meaning. and so, it is about perspective. if you look at it from an economic perspective or a national perspective or a party perspective, the way we frame it changes. and i think the way it gets tossed around is, again -- maybe it doesn't always bring that value in. we don't get that voices always so that we get a clear interpretation of what the southern strategy means and why -- it is amazing when i talk to republican organizers in my interview process and i asked them, why did your party struggle so much with black voters in 1976 and they all have horrible things to say about jimmy carter. but none of them acknowledge their role in marginalizing black voters because they don't see themselves as wallace -- that could not have been.

they were moderates. and so, they see that distinction between their perspective and this is something that i am struggling with -- i am trying to get the perspective of other groups that did not necessarily see a difference between brock and wallace, whether they're white or black voters, because many did not. >> i guess i have one that i like to sort of pose again to whoever wants to take it up and this one has to do with the teams that we have already sort of talked about a little bit in the conversation. but it strikes me that one of the features of the southern strategy, as it is typically understood, even in my discipline, political science, is that it invites -- and i guess this is true for -- it invites the view that southern politics is more or less dominated or holy defined

by white conservatism and i would like to invite the panelists to comment on or complicate that view of southern politics or that view of the southern strategy. because i sort of wonder what we can actually see by understanding the kind of suturing of conservatism to the southern strategy, but also, what are we maybe missing or what would be -- in the complexities of southern politics as that relates to american politics writ large or the histories of, say, black southern politics -- what are we able to see, what are we not able to see, if we are working from an understanding of the southern strategy as it is sometimes understood as more or less

aligned completely with conservatism? i'm just kind of curious for your views on that. i will open it up for push back against that question or responses to it. >> i actually wanted to take a chance to throw that question right back to you. i know that you have done some political science research and cultural studies and thinking about mass incarceration and the south and i think that feed into that question specifically. i would also like to see maybe from what you're hearing on the way we're talking about it and the way that we have talked about 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. >> i would be happy to comment. ted, i will go to you first. go ahead and then i will

collect a few thoughts to say in the meantime. >> sure. my answer is very quick. i was thinking that yes, we have a situation here where we are focusing on these generally white males who are focusing on the southern strategies, all though not all white males -- we do lose sight of african americans. but we do have an opportunity. i was just thinking we have an opportunity to study those who were excluded from the republican party. alaceon their own volition, like jackie robinson. they criticized what was going on at the towel palace in goldwater's campaign. we have an opportunity to look at the grassroots and see how those formerly african

americans, who were part of the republican party, who comprise the republican party, who lead the republican party during reconstruction. we can take a look at those individuals, who are left out of the republican party. martin luther king was associated with the republican party. it seems to me that a provides an opportunity to look at those who walked away, who walked away from the republican party and it enrich their history. >> okay. yeah. thank you. yeah, so, a little bit of background about my research. i am in political science and i study how -- regimes transform.

and one of the ones that i am particularly interested and understanding and what my research has been based on is the transformation of the sort of institutions of jim crow, specifically the chain game system -- exploded into the very robust prison system, which happened around -- the process was longer, but this starts to happen around the 60s and 70s. and it is funny. it is sort of a parallel story in a way to a kind of southern strategy type of explanation. but one of the kind of groups of politicians that i am focusing on in my research our self described moderates in north carolina and georgia. they really take up a lot of the language of kind of mid century racial liberalism -- they almost sound like truman

in a way. there is a kind of -- one of my things that that's sort of well with the southern strategy lang -- it really seems to really be in alignment with the conservative of the southern strategy. but at the same time, you see these notes of other sort of differently oriented policy makers, who are trying to re-articulate the south as not the south. you see that in some of your works and your comments today. south, i was thinking about what you were saying earlier about what you are saying about just not being the south, just bought articulation that you hear from time to time. i am not southern a sort of something that mid century political moderates were saying to themselves and this goes in,

kate, with your research to. the kind of northerners and westerners who businesses are trying to get into their states. there really is for me this complication to southern strategy. it becomes for me this really slippery concept, almost immediately. like, just when i think i have a grasp on, it it's like there's another element to it that seems to come in. that is sort of my discombobulated answer to my own question and partly why i wanted to pose it to you guys is to get some clarity on that because i do see elements of racial liberalism in their. i see elements, to some extent, of more conservative leaning black politics in the region. that would be more true today as well. i will throw back out there and also, we have a couple more

minutes for last-minute questions as well. >> i will pick up a little bit on that. i teach a class on marijuana and american history. it was the first class on that topic, according to google. the class is very popular. it is a real head. so, this is on c-span. so, the students -- some students write really interesting papers about whether or not the marijuana legalization movement should shift from a state by state strategy to a federal strategy because many of the arguments go, the south will never go along state by state, that it is sort of the solid south when it comes to cannabis legalization. there are a few exceptions and maybe some places on some medical areas, but really, it is not happening. we talk about jeff sessions, can take the vote out of

alabama, but you can't take the alabama out of the boy -- and a lot of ways, he said that bad people smoke marijuana. that is all sorts of coded language. so, i do see distinct contours. this connects with race. i am thinking about the amount of mass incarceration that is in the south in the united states. mass incarceration is a federal, national problem, but it does have regional specific. thinking about the way that marijuana legalization connects with religion and how important that is and how people perceive the issue. there are all different ways in which there are particular issues that i think exaggerate the american political system -- that indicates for me that there is something different.

that doesn't mean that we need to go in for the southern exceptionalism. but there is something unique going on. there is a certain mixture that resonates and a political message that resonates specifically in this constituency. >> i want 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 apply that historical lens very finally. one of the cattle cory's we talk about is the rural or agrarian south. the agrarian south, very supportive of the new deal because they did not -- instead, that opposition really grew from industrial centers and urban areas of the south and that would only grow as promoters of capital push

forward for these business friendly policies. but that came with a sort of and that it, more coded language around tyrant practices and who was -- >> it is a good note to and on. i want to thank everyone for coming and i want to thank my fellow panelists for your research on this question of the southern strategy. very good. all right. thank you everyone. >> our weekly series, the presidency, highlights the politics, -- lincoln scholars, michael berlin gave -- mark abraham lincoln's birthday with a conversation from the national constitution center -- they talked about the 16th presidents speeches and what they reveal about his views on the constitution. here is a portion of the

conversation. >> well, let me start by saying that plenty of people have looked at the gettysburg address and seen classical, greek overtones and those are unquestionably there. but the speech is also as a fuse with biblical language and a practical ideal of morality and it is the beginning of lincoln articulating his own moral vision of the -- in the second inaugural address, he is most explicit about doing that. but he started doing that in the -- and two americans in the 19th century, almost all of them were protestants. biblical language meant general morality. 19th century americans believed that morality was derivative of the bible. they were heavily protestant and protestants thought that you should read the bible. and through the bible, you

would get access directly to morality. lincoln could not determine the history of the united states in those moral terms. so long as the constitution enshrines slavery, which he knew to be a moral wrong. up until the emancipation proclamation, he was committed to the constitution under the rule of law. but then he was committed to a compromise that included a compromise with immorality. and that put him in a contradictory situation. after emancipation, he was not able to describe the constitution as fundamental a moral. when he saw that the constitution -- that our country was not only conceived of liberty but dedicated to the proposition of liberty, he could not have said that about the constitution until he broke the constitution because the constitution was not dedicated to that proposition because the constitution enshrined slavery. once emancipation was an established fact by lincoln, he could reconceptualize the country in those terms. and this is where the new birth of freedom part comes in and i have talked about this with

peter wagner who i think is in the audience who is one of the earlier readers of my book -- new birth is a very resident phrase for 19th century protestant christians, all of whom i think would've recognized immediately the idea of new birth and crisis. i'm not arguing that lincoln was making a conscious argument. i am saying he was drawing upon the common thread of protestant moral thought, which was derivative of christian ideas, to express a new idea. and the idea here was just asked the old testament had been superseded by christian liberty and the new testament, so the new birth of freedom would supersede the slavery president in the original constitution so that the country would then be reborn and he plays out this more fully -- as a moral country. one that would be -- of the ideas in morality that were present in the original

but we're not present in the constitution -- so, i think that is the explanation for why he was able to use this kind of religious language, both in the gettysburg address and ultimately in the second inaugural, because he was freed up to do so by emancipation, which ended the moral qualities of constitutional compromise and open up the possibility of a moral accounting. of course, that was very appropriate for a funeral. -- and eventually, in the second inaugural, lincoln would give specific, sacral meaning to the deaths of the people who had died fighting this war. >> you can watch the full program and other programs of that u.s. presidents on our website, c-span.org slash history. weekends on c-span two are an intellectual feast. every saturday, american history tv documents america

story. and on sundays, book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span two comes from these television companies and more, including buckeye broadband. ♪ ♪ ♪ buckeye broadband supports c-span 2 as a public svice. here's a look at some significant moments that happened this week. on christmas night, 1776, george washing ten and the continental mommy across the delaware river across the snow and storm against haitian trips. washington's gamble worked. and the victory at the battle of trenton. on december 24th, 1814, the treaty of ghentwas signed

ending the war of 1812. america and british representatives manned the city to negotiate peace terms including the british for announcing their claim to the northwest territories. and both nations committing to an end of the slave trade. the apollo 17 mission to the moon ended on december 19th, 1972. with the spacecraft splashing down in the south south pacific. astronauts for the last man to land on the moon. >> as i step off, -- they like to dedicate the first step of apollo 17, to all those that made it possible. >> for only the second time in american history,, on december 19th, 1998 the house had to arnold about beach mint against bill clinton. charging him with obstruction with the justice. >> i ask the american people to move with me to rise above the

rank. to overcome the pain, division, to be a repair, all of us. to make this country as one america. what a candidate must be for our children. in the new century about to dawn. thank you very much. [applause] >> that's a look at what happened this week in history. american history tv has programs on all of these topics that are in our archives. watch them online at c-span.org slash history. >> who is the man behind the mythic confederate general, historian allen, talks about his book robert ealy, a life. on american history tv. >> lee could not ignore however in 1861, more two factors. first, light horse harry lee, for all of his revolutionary

fame had been a hard luck husband and father. and, left his family for the west indies one robert was only six years old. the shadow that light horse harry cast over the lead aim. was one that robert struggled to redeem. hence the broad street perfectionism in his behavior. but robert also yearn to breathe free of his fathers occupation another ways. he wanted independence, he wanted to be his own man. and in one sense, his marriage to mario gustavus wasn't an attempt to stake out realm for herself. but he also yearned for security. the security that his father had denied him. so, most of leads contemporaries at this point left the army. as soon as they had received

their taxpayer provided college degrees. and good decently resigned and go into private engineering practice, or other professions. lee stays with the army. as the one certain professional and paycheck he could count on. the hinge factor in this pursuit of independents, security, and perfection, was arlington. it was as much to protect arlington from his family, as it was for virginia. but he chose to resign as commission, and refuse the author of command. but that's not the only factor, the other factor in leeds decision was the expectation, that there would be no war after all. hard as it is for us to appreciate this, because we're looking from the president backwards.

in april of 1861, even after the succession of the southern states, even after the firing at fort sumter. it was still by no means clear, that the crisis would only result in a civil war. we could have simply resigned his army commission. and stay neutral. for, he could accept the invitation, extended time to take command of virginia forces, and play the role of mediator between virginia and the union. and that, of sochi a peacemaking. a famed greater than his father had ever enjoyed. but of course it did not turn out that way. like many, many others. lee found the secession crisis galloping away from him. and in the end, step-by-step,

incrementally. he found absolved by 1862 as the commander of the army of northern virginia. he played that role, as perfectly as he had tried to play every other role in life. that he failed. it didn't necessarily surprise arm, on the way to apathetic white house -- he frankly admitted that he is always expected that the war would turn out the way appomattox truly work. but at least his conduct would show how he could rise, even above to feet. in the end, he would keep his perfection intact. >> watch this program in its entirety on line, anytime, at c-span.org slash history. >> c-span's american history tv continues now. you can find the full schedule for the weekend on your program guide or at sp