As noted in the thread on Robert E.Lee, conservatives and republicans are very similar to Russians in that history must be revised constantly. Saints are rare in politics on both sides of the aisle but the republicans and their apologists are simply dishonest as well.
"You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nig-ger, nig-ger, nig-ger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nig-ger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a by-product of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nig-ger, nig-ger.” Lee Atwater, Republican strategist, 1981, describing the Southern Strategy
The interested reader is directed to this thread and book. http://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?62478-Dog-Whistle-Politics
It shows clearly how both sides have been involved in dog whistles. But for the thoughtful reader is argument really necessary? If I say Cadillac mom, food stamps, inner city, welfare, and a host of other words that are memes for the unthoughtful and ignorant, you already know what they about.
"The United States was founded as a white nationalist country, and that legacy remains today. Things have improved from the radical promotion of white people at the expense of all others, which has persisted for most of our history, yet most of us have not accepted the extent to which white identity guides so much of what we still do. Sometimes it seems that the white nationalists are most honest about the very real foundation of white supremacy upon which our nation was built."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/opinion/sunday/white-nationalism-american-history-statues.html
'Dog Whistle Politics As Strategic Racism' "Wallace, Goldwater, and Nixon constitute classic strategic racists. In the context of the times, they were all initially racial moderates. They may have harbored tainted beliefs, but racial animosity did not drive their actions. Instead, they concentrated hard, weighing and sifting, to figure out how they could most effectively gain votes. If a more promising route had been available, they would have taken it. But race seemed the most likely avenue, so each opted to harness racial divisions to their agenda of getting elected. This was not about racism, it was about winning. Also, they were not racially omniscient, moving instead within a settled framework of ideas about race that for the most part they took for granted. Even so, unlike most in society, these politicians thought long and deep about how to turn race to their advantage. We've previously defined strategic racism as purposeful efforts to use racial animosity as leverage to gain political power (or material wealth and social standing). By this definition, Wallace, Goldwater, and Nixon acted out of strategic racism. This last sentence sparks an important clarification. I write interchangeably of "dog whistle politics" and "dog whistle racism." The first is a less freighted term. But the truth is, racial dog whistle politics is dog whistle racism. It is a strategic manipulation of racial ideas in pursuit of political power and (especially once big money conservatives got behind the tactic) material wealth." p48 'Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class' by Ian Haney López
"What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a ‘nig-ger’ in the first place, because I’m not a nig-ger, I’m a man. But if you think I’m a nig-ger, it means you need him. The question you’ve got to ask yourself, is, if you invented him, you the white people invented him, then you’ve got to find out why. And the future of the country depends on that, whether or not it is able to ask that question.” Baldwin http://contemporarycondition.blogspot.com/2017/03/horror-blackness.html
"You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nig-ger, nig-ger, nig-ger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nig-ger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a by-product of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nig-ger, nig-ger.” Lee Atwater, Republican strategist, 1981, describing the Southern Strategy
The interested reader is directed to this thread and book. http://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?62478-Dog-Whistle-Politics
It shows clearly how both sides have been involved in dog whistles. But for the thoughtful reader is argument really necessary? If I say Cadillac mom, food stamps, inner city, welfare, and a host of other words that are memes for the unthoughtful and ignorant, you already know what they about.
"The United States was founded as a white nationalist country, and that legacy remains today. Things have improved from the radical promotion of white people at the expense of all others, which has persisted for most of our history, yet most of us have not accepted the extent to which white identity guides so much of what we still do. Sometimes it seems that the white nationalists are most honest about the very real foundation of white supremacy upon which our nation was built."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/opinion/sunday/white-nationalism-american-history-statues.html
'Dog Whistle Politics As Strategic Racism' "Wallace, Goldwater, and Nixon constitute classic strategic racists. In the context of the times, they were all initially racial moderates. They may have harbored tainted beliefs, but racial animosity did not drive their actions. Instead, they concentrated hard, weighing and sifting, to figure out how they could most effectively gain votes. If a more promising route had been available, they would have taken it. But race seemed the most likely avenue, so each opted to harness racial divisions to their agenda of getting elected. This was not about racism, it was about winning. Also, they were not racially omniscient, moving instead within a settled framework of ideas about race that for the most part they took for granted. Even so, unlike most in society, these politicians thought long and deep about how to turn race to their advantage. We've previously defined strategic racism as purposeful efforts to use racial animosity as leverage to gain political power (or material wealth and social standing). By this definition, Wallace, Goldwater, and Nixon acted out of strategic racism. This last sentence sparks an important clarification. I write interchangeably of "dog whistle politics" and "dog whistle racism." The first is a less freighted term. But the truth is, racial dog whistle politics is dog whistle racism. It is a strategic manipulation of racial ideas in pursuit of political power and (especially once big money conservatives got behind the tactic) material wealth." p48 'Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class' by Ian Haney López
"What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a ‘nig-ger’ in the first place, because I’m not a nig-ger, I’m a man. But if you think I’m a nig-ger, it means you need him. The question you’ve got to ask yourself, is, if you invented him, you the white people invented him, then you’ve got to find out why. And the future of the country depends on that, whether or not it is able to ask that question.” Baldwin http://contemporarycondition.blogspot.com/2017/03/horror-blackness.html