1. It would have made no sense for Nixon to pander to racists, covertly or otherwise, in 1968, because George Wallace was running as an overt racist. It would be like Romney campaigning in California or Obama campaigning in Texas in 2012--it's pointless because those voters are safely in your opponent's column. Nixon's running mate, Spiro Agnew, was a strong supporter of civil rights who had defeated a segregationist Democrat for governor of Maryland in 1966. That's no smart way to win the votes of bigots. Plus, if race was still such a hot issue in 1968, then why would overt racism have backfired on Nixon but not on Wallace?
RY/9236_12_02_13_4_59_48.png[/img]
It absolutely made sense for Nixon to pander to covert racists, since Wallace had a lot of support among the "overt" racists but little support outside of that.
However-and this is something that needs to be understood especially by
you-whether you were Democratic, Republican, or Independent back then, or even now, if you were a white American, chances were, you were at least a covert racist.
Racism is by no means,
no means limited to "uneducated hicks" from the rural South or Appalachia, etc... There were (and still are)
plenty of educated, "mainstream", suburban (and urban) middle-class and affluent white Americans who, though they may
say they are "tolerant" or "progressive" on issues like, say, most civil rights issues, would not want (or be at best, somewhat uncomfortable with) black or other (mostly) non-white "undesirable" elements in their neighborhoods, in their schools, in their churches, marrying their children....the list goes on.
Someone openly segregationist and bluntly anti-intellectual like George Wallace, in 1968, offended most educated white middle-class suburbanites. But someone like Richard Nixon (or indeed, Ronald Reagan in 1980) talking about "urban crime" and "law and order" or "welfare queens" or "states rights"...well, such ideas were (and still are, frankly) quite mainstream among white middle-class Americans. Indeed, there were millions of this "Silent Majority" of Americans who were upset by (among other things) civil rights legislation going "too fast", and Nixon took full advantage of such white middle-class fears.
Racism is not merely a personal belief or prejudice. It is an ideological framework for political and social control. This needs to be understood.
Poll
