When political analysts talk about how key states can be in an election, they rarely mention New England or the South because while these regions of the United States have a large number of electoral votes, they are reliably either Democratic or Republican.
It makes no sense for a Democrat to campaign in New York, where they have won since 1992, and it makes just as little sense for a Republican to campaign in Mississippi.
However, the South is quickly becoming a thorn in the Republican party’s side, and could be part of the reason behind the split that is likely to occur in the next decade.
While the South is now solidly Republican, it was not that way until President Richard Nixon ran for president in 1968.
Still smarting from the Civil War and Lincoln’s legacy in the southern states, the South was reliably Democratic until Nixon.
This history can be seen in a lot of the previous ideologies of the Republican base.
They advocated for a good deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Tennessee Valley Authority, which used federal spending to provide energy and jobs to the underdeveloped Tennessee Valley.
However, the South switched party affiliations after many southern voters were angered over President Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Acts of 1965.
Seeing this, Nixon worked with the leader of the Dixiecrat section of the Democratic party to broker a deal that the Republican party would protect the traditional values of the South.
This strategy was originally successful.
It won the Republicans the White House for 27 years, and gave the a cushion in the electoral college.
However, it is the primary cause for the growing problems in the GOP today.
The Republican Party before the 1960’s comprised of mostly businessmen who wanted the government to focus on less regulation so that businesses could succeed.
After Nixon’s southern strategy, however, it consisted of two different factions: the businessmen and the southerners who believed the country was going in the wrong direction through liberal policies.
While the Republican Party has advocated for the social policies that its southern bloc wants, its primary focus was economic issues, and this caused the anger that is destroying the GOP.
As the most conservative region of the U.S., the South advocates for school prayer, as seen in Louisiana, and is more likely to pass laws like the religious freedom law that denies service to customers based on religious affiliation.
This explains why the Republican party is more likely to argue for these laws.
Former presidential candidate Bobby Jindal advocated for school prayer when he was governor of Louisiana.
However, moving forward, young voters are likely to view the Republican party as old-fashioned because of the rhetoric that they feel shows values that do not match their own values.
The problem with the Republican party is it tried to marry too many coalitions into one in order to win.
By doing so, it compromised one of its core values, smaller government and less government intervention.
On the West Wing, Republican presidential hopeful Arnie Vinick said “If this was Europe, the Republican party would be three parties. No one could hold all of those groups together.”
And after 10 years, he was right.
npatwari@indiana.edu
