Did Reagan run on racism?

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

Given his statements on "state's rights" and that woman from Chicago...

[All Along The Watchtower]

Yes and he was better at it than Nixon.

[Mr. Smith]

Yes and he was better at it than Nixon.

How else could he support Apartheid South Africa? He literally ended up overridden by Congress for that.

[Lief 🗽]

No, no. It was just a funny coincidence that he gave a speech about state's rights a few miles away from the spot where civil rights activists were murdered.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Yes and he was better at it than Nixon.

How else could he support Apartheid South Africa? He literally ended up overridden by Congress for that.

He didn't support Apartheid any more than Obama is supporting imprisonment of dissidents by wanting to end the embargo against Cuba.   

[Rockefeller GOP]

No.  He ran on the bad record of his predecessor.  In 1980, the South was his worst region.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Given his statements on "state's rights" and that woman from Chicago...

NO

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

He used racial undertones IMO, though to compare him to a complete bombthrower like George Wallace (which no one has on this forum to be fair) would be completely unfair.

[Negusa Nagast 🚀]

Given his statements on "state's rights" and that woman from Chicago...

NO DOES NOT COMPUTE

Fixed.

He didn't singularly or overtly run on racism, but it was a component of his campaigns.

[Mr. Smith]

Given his statements on "state's rights" and that woman from Chicago...

NO DOES NOT COMPUTE

Fixed.

He didn't singularly or overtly run on racism, but it was a component of his campaigns.

This, never doubt the power of implicit while searching for explicit.

[Antonio the Sixth]

duh

[bedstuy]

He used racial undertones IMO, though to compare him to a complete bombthrower like George Wallace (which no one has on this forum to be fair) would be completely unfair.

He used racism to appeal to racist voters and supported racist policies. 

But, he didn't make a big deal about it and he tried to hide it?  Oh, all's forgiven then.

[Goldwater]

Racists were obviously part of the coalition that elected him, but I would hesitate to claim that the whole campaign was based on racism.

[Adam Griffin]

Uh, there's a reason "Reagan Democrats" were a thing.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Uh, there's a reason "Reagan Democrats" were a thing.

Race played a PART in Democrats voting for Reagan but certainly not all of it.  Many were socially conservative (and apparently finally willing to give the pro-business GOP a try) and were attracted to Reagan's foreign policy ... not to mention disillusioned by Carter.

Also, as I said earlier, Reagan's worst region in 1980 was the Deep South, and though he did very well there in 1984, he ALSO did very well everywhere else, too.  Not seeing the clear correlation between racists leaving the Democrats and getting Reagan his victories.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Uh, there's a reason "Reagan Democrats" were a thing.

Race played a PART in Democrats voting for Reagan but certainly not all of it.  Many were socially conservative (and apparently finally willing to give the pro-business GOP a try) and were attracted to Reagan's foreign policy ... not to mention disillusioned by Carter.

Also, as I said earlier, Reagan's worst region in 1980 was the Deep South, and though he did very well there in 1984, he ALSO did very well everywhere else, too.  Not seeing the clear correlation between racists leaving the Democrats and getting Reagan his victories.

While I agree with you that Reagan's natural base of support wasn't really in the South (more like the Southwest, if you consider suburban Southern California to be Southwestern ), he did expand and update Nixon's Southern Strategy with appeals to racist sentiments-though these tended to be coded in the language of "states rights" and "reducing welfare/government spending." Racism need not be explicit or obvious a la George Wallace in the 1960s.

And keep in mind that the Deep South still had a lot of black and poor white voters who remained loyal to Favorite Son Carter (though the latter-I suspect-went heavily for  Reagan in 1984). The broad middle and upper classes of Southern whites that were emerging in the growing suburbs of the South were-and are-extremely conservative.

By the end of the 1980s, the Democratic Party was hemorrhaging voters in the South, particularly in presidential elections but also (increasingly) in congressional elections. Even in the 1990s when Arkansas Favorite Son Bill Clinton appealed to a lot of poorer and working class white voters ( in the Upper South and parts of Appalachia), the South continued on its march to the GOP. It would take adopted Texan George W. Bush to seal the deal.

tl; dr the South's shift to the GOP has been a long, complex process. Opposition to the Civil Rights movement certainly played a significant part, as did the rise of the Religious Right (white evangelicals-in the South and elsewhere-becoming more politically involved in Republican politics). Reagan had a key role to play as well at a crucial point in this process-which did involve (mostly coded) appeals to racism.

[Maxwell]

That's stretching pretty pathetically thin to say "reducing spending" is racial code. Might as well just say being a Republican automatically makes you a racist.

[TNF]

Yes, every Republican since Nixon has run on the New Jim Crow platform of gutting welfare and locking up minorities.

[All Along The Watchtower]

That's stretching pretty pathetically thin to say "reducing spending" is racial code. Might as well just say being a Republican automatically makes you a racist.

I agree, if you take what I said completely out of context. We're talking about white Southerners who voted for Reagan, who talked a lot about fictional welfare queens from Chicago (gee, I wonder why?) and who launched his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, with a pro-"States Rights" speech. Coming off the heels of the 1960s and 1970s, when poor black people were implicated (rightly or wrongly) in urban crime and rioting and when many white Americans were angry at "welfare cheats" (and welfare is highly racialized in our political discourse), I think it's being naive and obtuse to say that there wasn't at least some exploitation of white racial resentment by the Republican Party in that time.

[Maxwell]

That's stretching pretty pathetically thin to say "reducing spending" is racial code. Might as well just say being a Republican automatically makes you a racist.

I agree, if you take what I said completely out of context. We're talking about white Southerners who voted for Reagan, who talked a lot about fictional welfare queens from Chicago (gee, I wonder why?) and who launched his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, with a pro-"States Rights" speech. Coming off the heels of the 1960s and 1970s, when poor black people were implicated (rightly or wrongly) in urban crime and rioting and when many white Americans were angry at "welfare cheats" (and welfare is highly racialized in our political discourse), I think it's being naive and obtuse to say that there wasn't at least some exploitation of white racial resentment by the Republican Party in that time.

Sure, but I do think that idea has been stretched beyond believability in some cases.

[H. Ross Peron]

Indirectly yes.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Not overtly, but he definitely exploited racist sentiments in the South.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Yes, every Republican since Nixon has run on the New Jim Crow platform of gutting welfare and locking up minorities.

H-Y-P-E-R-B-O-L-E.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Given his statements on "state's rights" and that woman from Chicago...

States Rights =/=racism.

Uh, there's a reason "Reagan Democrats" were a thing.

The phrase "Reagan Democrats" usually refers to Northerners.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Yes, every Republican since Nixon has run on the New Jim Crow platform of gutting welfare and locking up minorities.

H-Y-P-E-R-B-O-L-E.

Not really.