occupied
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- Nov 8, 2011
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Apparently they did care somewhat. You have to understand that in the 70s every white voter was still stubbornly democrat and simply picked the most conservative one every time. They were also not happy about the increasing black presence in their party. At this time the Klan made a remarkable comeback in reaction to the civil rights movement. They were organized, conservative and blanketed Alabama with literature that just happened to match up nicely with what the republicans were saying. It seemed like the Klan was everywhere while Carter was president. Priming people to abandon the democratic party for abandoning southern values. As I said, nothing happened overnight.Well then that brings us to the strange tale of Fob James, the first republican governor Alabama ever had. First he was a regular old southern democrat who served one term in the eighties then swapped parties to republican and came back to win another term in the nineties. As a democrat he further integrated state government and was fairly progressive. As a republican he set to work undoing progress and making Alabama into the the embarrassing economic shithole it is today. Fob James clearly illustrates what happened after republicanism infected the south. All progress stopped and Alabama doomed itself to be the place where the GOP does experiments on making people accept less and less for their tax dollar.It's strange in hindsight but it's not like he changed overnight or that fomenting racial strife was all he was . Looking back I think it was the junior college system he implemented or the free immunization program or the electrical infrastructure programs or the road programs or a bunch of other stuff he did to finally bring Alabama out of the 19th century. When I was born in the mid 60s there were still parts where electricity was fairly new and half the roads were still dirt. .I grew up in Alabama during the later half of the civil rights battle.Yeah I remember him. His late life search for redemption does not excuse his pandering to the racists.
Not the point I was going to make.
Does it seem strange to you, that he won elections AFTER he flipped on the Civil Rights issue?
The fact that his base did not feel betrayed by his flip, greatly undermines the narrative of the Conventional Wisdom of the South being sooooo deeply racist.
Not to mention the Myth of the Southern Strategy.
If George FUcking Wallace, could flip on Civil Rights and not lose his base, why would the parties do so?
Just reviewed him in Wikepedia, what do you mean he "undid progress" in his second term?
And how is this relevant to the point about Wallace and his base not caring about his flipping on the Civil Rights issue?