From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963--1994 (Revised)

This is a carefully researched and profoundly significant study of race in American politics. Whether or not you like Carter's conclusions, it is hard to dispute his well-documented findings. Race has unfortunately returned as a major factor in the 21st century American political scene. We can learn a lot from Dan Carter. I hope that it is not too late!

Dan T. Carter argues that George Wallace might be one of the more influential politicians in American history. He showed conservatives that racist rhetoric was a vote getter and that southern discontent over the civil rights movement could be mined for election to national office. Carter is a professor of history at Emory University whose research interests are southern politics. His previous works include The Politics of Rage, which solely studies George Wallace's subconscious and enduring legacy on southern politics. It shows that Carter knows his research in this still-troubling field. The Nixon campaign took careful notes of Wallace's 1968 and 1972 attempts because white racists subsequently became one of the groups backing the 1972 Nixon campaign. The Nixon campaign had marketed themselves as a return to simpler times, when everything was 'good'. Ignoring the sociolegal realities for most Americans, this approach then virtually presented civil rights policies as an encroachment upon that social standard. The southern strategy also implied that African Americans themselves were responsible for the resulting social disorder in their communities and had actually been making trouble where there initially was none. Blaming the victim was a convienient way to ignore long-festering racial problems and win elections in the south. It also yielded national election wins for the GOP in the once-solid south. The Republicans would exploit racial fears again during the 1988 campaign. Lee Atwater, Bush Sr's campaign manager ran a campaign against Michael Dukakis which ultimately elevated racist campaigning to an unprecedented level. Willie Horton was a convicted criminal who had committed a rape and armed robbery while he was out on a Massachusetts weekend release program. "Independent" television campaign ads supporting Bush emphasized that Willie Horton was a black man. The idea was to 'scare' white voters into believing that Horton would rape their families and/or themselves. Dukakis's election as president would have 'presumably' allowed black men across the country to run around raping whomever they wanted. Ironically, Dukakis was portrayed as a flaming liberal while he was centrist in comparison to the competing presidential campaign of Jessie Jackson. Both he and Dukakis's running mate, Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen publically called the ads 'racist'. Finally, welfare reform occurred in 1996 because conservative Republicans were long-convinced that 'welfare queens' were abusing the system and were able to convince voters of the stereotypes. Again, the play to racism paid off for the right. Many of the conservative Republicans who were elected in 1994 were more conscious of their need to appear publicly 'inclusive' than was the Wallace-Nixon generation, but they also did race baiting. Carter concedes that President Clinton (who was a moderate Democrat)did sign that same 'welfare reform' measure, but his analysis focuses on how the Cong

This book is four essays that deal with ideological drift of the GOP towards rightist and culturally conservative themes, and the appeal to white racism that underlies much of the GOP's appeal to the voters. The essays are chronological, the first one deals primarily with George Wallace, the others with Nixon, Reagan, and Gingrich.Carter uses George Wallace's presidential campaigns of 1968 and 1972 as his starting point - how a racist demagogue from a cultural backwater quickly develops a national constituency, appealing to whites who feel threatened by the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. He then analyzes Nixon's exploitation of the same fears in his building of his "Silent Majority", and Nixon's important role in transitioning the Wallace voter to the GOP in 1972 and after.The last two essays focus on Reagan and Gingrich, and how they in essence "deconstruct" racism to better fit their conservative ideologies and broaden the GOP's appeal. Nixon, Reagan, and Gingrich are far more circumspect in displaying overt racism than a Wallace, but Carter's arguement that their focus on exploiting the fears of middle class voters has its roots in the racism of George Wallace and his ilk is fairly compelling.Carter sometimes seem to take this theory a bit too far, but that will happen in a short four essay book. Carter is troubled by the GOP's appeal to white racial fears, and his viewpoint that the GOP is 'playing with fire' around these fears is always evident, and sometimes heavyhanded. This is a very readable thought provoking book.

In four clear, well-written essays, Carter shows how the conservative counter-revolution had its origins in white revulsion against the gains of the civil rights movement. From Montgomery to Milwaukee, whites found the prospect of racial equality frightening and unacceptable. In response to this--and, Carter acknowledges, other issues--a political realignment emerged. No one was more telling and important to this conservative backlash than George Wallace, the Dixiecrat from Alabama whose independent campaigns for the White House showed the Republican Party how to employ coded racial appeals to go from the party of the country club to the party of country music. This is a lively, thoughtful book with hard evidence and engaging anecdotes. And Carter is one of the best literary stylists writing history today. Better still is his magnificent biography of George Wallace, THE POLITICS OF RAGE, which describes the same transformations through the biography of a fascinating Southern demagogue who once received 34 per cent of the vote in my home state of Wisconsin!