From the GOP's embrace of
Dixiecrats who fled the Democratic Party over Lyndon Johnson's civil rights initiatives, to Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy, to Ronald Reagan's dog whistles on state's rights and anecdotes about "young bucks" and "welfare queens," to George H.W.
The Great Exception carefully reconstructs the confluence of political and social forces, from southern
Dixiecrats to moderate Republicans, that advanced the New Deal.
The convention adopted a progressive civil rights plank, Deep South
Dixiecrats walked out and nominated the South Carolina horndog Strom Thurmond for president, and Mayor Humphrey no longer ached in anonymity.
The truth of it is that when you list the
Dixiecrats --a group that numbered between 100 and 200--we are talking about senators, congressmen, and in some case governors, these are either people who joined the racist
Dixiecrat party or voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
"Look for the enemies of Medicare, of higher minimum wages, of Social Security, of federal aid to education and there you will find the enemy of the Negro, the coalition of
Dixiecrats and reactionary Republicans that seek to dominate the Congress."
If that sounds to you more like the southern
Dixiecrats or yore than the party of Lincoln, you understand our concern.
In the 1930s, President Roosevelt bargained with Democratic members of Congress from the South, known as the "
Dixiecrats," and in the process, traded off the rights of certain African American and women workers to get enough votes for bills providing a minimum wage and overtime and the right to join a union.
Truman's support for civil rights, a group of segregationists broke away and founded this party, also known as the
Dixiecrats. Their 1948 candidate for president, South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, won four Southern states totalling 39 electoral votes but lost to Truman.
Remarkably, although President Harry Truman lost four Southern states to the breakaway
Dixiecrats in November, he nonetheless won the election against New York Gov.
Conservatives, mainly
Dixiecrats and Republicans in Congress have a long history of nullifying social and economically based legislation by using racial tactics to appeal to white voters.