How? Initially because it was expedient and then later because it became a central pillar of the platform. In the 70s and early 80s they adopted the southern strategy and dog whistles to flip over all the Jim Crow southern democrats who were fuming at LBJ and the democrats for going along with the civil rights movement.
Like, they’d lost the debate about “the new deal” in the 40s and 50s and “the great society” in the 60s, and knew that actually repealing such things would be electorally unpopular, but they still wanted to get rid of them and all the taxes on the rich that funded them. So, gotta find some wedge big enough to convince some people to look past losing such popular programs, they went with “racisms”.
The racist shit started earlier. Daughters of the Confederate and so on.
Nixon was a racist shit and a republican who was pivotal in the war against drugs. He also was recorded saying the war on drugs was to get black people. He disproportionately sent blacks and poor people to war.
How? Initially because it was expedient and then later because it became a central pillar of the platform. In the 70s and early 80s they adopted the southern strategy and dog whistles to flip over all the Jim Crow southern democrats who were fuming at LBJ and the democrats for going along with the civil rights movement.
Like, they’d lost the debate about “the new deal” in the 40s and 50s and “the great society” in the 60s, and knew that actually repealing such things would be electorally unpopular, but they still wanted to get rid of them and all the taxes on the rich that funded them. So, gotta find some wedge big enough to convince some people to look past losing such popular programs, they went with “racisms”.
The racist shit started earlier. Daughters of the Confederate and so on. Nixon was a racist shit and a republican who was pivotal in the war against drugs. He also was recorded saying the war on drugs was to get black people. He disproportionately sent blacks and poor people to war.
https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminalize-black-people/
Then there’s Reagan. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/31/747041525/historian-discusses-recording-of-reagans-racists-comments-made-to-nixon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy