3 votes

George Wallace's base has found a home in the Republican party

2 comments

  1. vord
    Link
    Appreciate the additional visibility, but it's not exactly news: https://youtu.be/asP2BHnyUTo

    Appreciate the additional visibility, but it's not exactly news:

    https://youtu.be/asP2BHnyUTo

    2 votes
  2. Kuromantis
    (edited )
    Link
    A pretty interesting article on the similarities beteeen Trump and George Wallace's base and rhetoric. I'll have to point to this segment in the article though: This movement was always around and...

    A pretty interesting article on the similarities beteeen Trump and George Wallace's base and rhetoric. I'll have to point to this segment in the article though:

    Given what we know of the Wallace vote’s past, what else can we say about its present and future? For one thing, it is a formidable bloc of voters. In his heyday, according to polling in 1968 and 1972, a fifth to a quarter of the public supported Wallace. Judging from Gallup’s finding that about a quarter of the public approves “strongly” of Trump’s handling of the presidency and a third approves of Trump “as a person,” Trump’s base of core fans and admirers today looks to be comparable or a bit larger, in the neighborhood of 25 percent to 30 percent of the public. Moreover, about 30 percent of whites identify strongly as white, according to Jardina. They don’t all vote for Trump, but most do.

    We also know that the Wallace movement was not a one-off, or even a two- or three-off. It erupted in Patrick Buchanan’s insurgent 1992 and 1996 Republican presidential bids. In 1992, recall, Buchanan previewed Trump’s hostility to immigration and free trade, stole the Republican spotlight with a searing convention speech that declared a “cultural war,” and contributed to the defeat of an incumbent Republican president. In 1996, shortly before winning the New Hampshire primary, Buchanan chortled over the chaos he was causing. “This is too much fun, this is too much fun—we’ve got them all on the run,” he told a boisterous rally. “The establishment in Washington is shaking in its boots at what’s going on here,” he said. “All the peasants are coming with pitchforks.” The Wallace vote erupted again in 2008, when Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, mocked intellectuals and elites in contemptuous tones that could have come straight from Wallace’s own mouth.

    How long that will be the case is impossible to know, but we should prudently assume that the Wallace movement will emerge from the Trump era transformed and strengthened by its spell in power: more organized, sophisticated, determined, and feared than ever before. We should prudently assume, in other words, that the Wallace movement will be a major force in American politics long after Trump has left the scene. It will generate candidacies, attract money and talent, and be catered to by mainstream politicians. The days when it could be elbowed aside or contained or controlled are over.

    This movement was always around and will be around in the future, meaning that stopping it will take much more than just outvoting them.

    1 vote