The GOP Southern Strategy was but one in a series of decisions the GOP has made not just on race, but on feminism and religion as well, in what Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields call in their book, "The Long Southern Strategy."
In "The Long Southern Strategy," Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields demonstrate that this strategy was not, as political scientists might be tempted to think, just about electoral politics. Instead, to fully understand the contemporary Trumpism) one must look at the interdependence of racism, White Christian Nationalism and patriarchy inherent in the GOP's long southern strategy.
The Southern Strategy is traditionally understood as a Goldwater and Nixon-era effort by the Republican Party to win over disaffected white voters in the Democratic stronghold of the American South. To realign these voters with the GOP, the party abandoned its past support for civil rights and used racially coded language to capitalize on southern white racial angst.
Beginning with Barry Goldwater’s Operation Dixie in his 1964 bid for the White House, and continuing through Pres. Richard Nixon’s 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns, the Republican Party targeted disaffected white voters in the Democratic stronghold of the American South.
To realign these voters with the GOP, the party capitalized on white racial angst that threatened southern white control. However—and this is critical—that decision was but one in a series of decisions the GOP made not just on race, but on feminism and religion as well, in what is called here the “Long Southern Strategy.”
In the wake of the 1970’s Feminist Movement the GOP dropped the Equal Rights Amendment from its platform and promoted traditional southern gender roles in an effort to appeal to anti-feminist white southerners, particularly women. And when the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention became increasingly fundamentalist and politically active, the GOP tied its fate to the Christian Right.
Republicans embodied southern white male dominate culture by emphasizing an "us vs. them" outlook, preaching absolutes, accusing the media of bias, prioritizing identity over the economy, encouraging defensiveness, and championing a politics of retribution. In doing so, the GOP politicized evangelical fundamentalist Christianity as represented by the Southern Baptist Convention, nationalized southern white identity, rebranded itself to the country at large, and fundamentally altered the vision and tone of American politics.
Republicans began to mirror southern white culture by emphasizing an “us vs. them” outlook, preaching absolutes, accusing the media of bias, prioritizing identity over the economy, depicting one’s way of life as under attack, encouraging defensiveness toward social changes, and championing a politics of vengeance. Over time, that made the party southern, not in terms of place, but in its vision, in its demands, in its rhetoric, and in its spirit. In doing so, it nationalized southern white identity, and that has changed American politics.
The Long Southern Strategy was “long” because all three components of the strategy—choosing to exploit white racial angst, fear of feminism, and evangelical (southern) Christian righteousness—were necessary to build a solid red base in the states of the old Confederacy. The stark polarization that resulted from these partisan choices unraveled the New Deal coalition.
It also redivided white Americans not just along the Mason-Dixon line, but across the imagined fault line of southern identity. Thus, conservatism was redefined on the basis of white southern identity, and that definition became the baseline ideology of the Republican brand nationwide.
A partisan sorting and realignment followed. As a result, the distribution of white Americans who harbor Racial Resentment or Modern Sexist attitudes or who identify as Christian fundamentalists is no longer even across the parties, and now, within the GOP, there is not enough opposition to fully suppress such prejudice or religiosity.
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