I speak here as a Son-of-the-South. My ancestors settled South Carolina long before we had decided we were not happy with the King. But one thing the South never forgot of was the fact that Slaves made a few people very,very rich and made the status of being white rank higher than the condition of being poor.
Both Slavery and Whiteness survived the Civil War under Segregation. When the Southern Democrats became National Democrats under the Civil Rights Law and the War on Poverty, the Republicans were glad to wave the Confederate Battle Flag. They replaced the White KKK Robe with Choir Robes and defended whiteness with a song & a prayer and the Christian Church and a White JESUS. I suspect the Republican adoption of White Southern Values was more about votes from poor whites for the Oligarchy of Wealth than the Pride of being White.
The Republican Party first sold out Blacks when the Abolitionist retired from Politics. When there were fewer White voters in the North to elect a Republican President they gave the South back to the Segregationist Dixiecrats and removed the Union Army in return for the promise of electoral votes. Rutherford B. Hayes became President in the Presidential Election of 1876
Under Richard Nixon, they had found a new tactic to keep the 1% in control. Republicans were, are, and always will be in the King's Court. Democracy is a useful convenience until it gets in their way.
http://www.alternet.org/books/how-gop-became-white-mans-party?akid=11398.205352.unCiv2&rd=1&src=newsletter946302&t=7&paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark
copyright © William Hodge 2014
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