"The Rational Southerner"
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2012-10-09/rational-southerner
In 2008, Barack Obama became the first Democrat to win Virginia since 1964. The Commonwealth’s evolution from red state to purple state was influenced by powerful historic forces: in-migration, economic growth, and shifting power dynamics within both parties. Kojo talks with political scientist Quentin Kidd about the evolution of partisanship in the South.
Guests
Quentin Kidd
Associate Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of Government, Christopher Newport University; Co-author of “The Rational Southerner: Black Mobilization, Republican Growth and the Partisan Transformation of the American South” (Oxford University Press)
Comments
Please familiarize yourself with our Code of Conduct and Terms of Use before posting your comments.
So, Kidd's argument that the realignment had nothing to do with racism seems to me a lot like the conservative argument that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, but rather with "states rights." Of course, the states rights in question were the perpetuation of slavery first, then through Reconstruction a racist regime throughout the south. Kidd himself veers dangerously close to making a racist argument: essentially saying that blacks want "job protection" whereas whites only want the government off their backs.
The southern realignment was absolutely driven by racist forces. To say, as Kidd does, that "sure the Civil Rights Act struck down the regionally popular Jim Crow regime, and immediately caused a large number of whites to flee the Democratic party, but that has nothing to do with *racism*. Instead, it has to do with the self-perceived interests of white voters versus black voters, etc, etc..."
Hell, you could just as easily use these hair-splitting arguments to argue that Jim Crow wasn't racist in the least either. After all, it was just a question of white southerners rationally pursuing their self-interests.