General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I spend a lot of time in the company of Trumpers. I've learned something important. [View all]misanthrope
(7,411 posts)Plenty of working men and women across the South voted against their best interests since the latter portion of the 19th century. Even though many of the politicians they elected were members of the Democratic Party, they did the bidding of the landed gentry, the "Big Mules" whose goal was always a one-party, oligarchical system hinging on Southern society's comfort with authoritarianism.
Plenty of them loved Dixiecrats and the monied interests that drove them, even though the working class and lower paid the price for such fealty. That continued with their support for Barry Goldwater. Nixon would have won the Deep South in 1968 were it not for Wallace.
Reagan was merely the best salesman, the one with the practiced avuncular image. He already had working people in the South in his pocket but what he did was sell it to the rest of the nation.