Over the past few several weeks, well-known businessman, TV celebrity and presidential candidate, Donald Trump has sent the Republican Party in a political whirlwind. His ascendance to the top of the 2016 Republican presidential polls has proven to be a real dilemma for the GOP establishment.
As a person known for his brash, blunt, abrupt and confrontational style, Trump has been giving the his fellow Republican candidates, major party donors, as well as top officials, more than high blood pressure and a few headaches. His bombastic behavior, ranging from personal attacks (especially those attacks on GOP 2008 presidential candidate John McCain) to questioning the competence and intelligence of several of his GOP rivals, has angered many establishment Republicans and has struck fear, confusion and paranoia in the hearts and minds of others. Things have gotten so tense that party chairman Reince Priebus supposedly privately contacted Trump, asking him to tone down his rhetoric in order to quell the anger and chaos engulfing the party.
If his recent comments are indication, it is clear that Trump has no intentions of heeding Priebus’ advice or making nice with most of his political rivals. If anything, Trump seems to have doubled down, hurling verbal hand grenades into the GOP tent and leaving his rivals frustrated at their inability to quell his antics.
While certain Republicans see Trump as a political liability, the fact is that, for the past half-century, the Republican Party has engaged in the sort of behavior that has allowed individuals like Trump to rise and flourish in its ranks. Much of it can be traced back to the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco where the radical right elements of the party were successful in wrestling power away from the more centrist Rockefeller wing.
It was there that some of the few Black and other non-White delegates, including baseball legend Jackie Robinson, were verbally and, in some cases, physically attacked by the more racist delegates. This was also the year that the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Bill was ratified by Congress. Approval of this monumental piece of legislation caused vehement dissention and outrage among a number of conservative, mostly Southern Democrats ― including staunch Dixiecrat leader Strom Thurmond ― that they denounced the party and became Republicans.
Capitalizing on those sentiments, the GOP apparatus, led by its 1968 nominee Richard Nixon, employed the Southern strategy. This was a method (along with the slogan, “law and order”) that a number of Southern governors of the era, namely George Wallace, (also a 1968 independent presidential candidate) employed in their campaigns to appeal to White Southern Democrats who were growing ever resentful at what they saw as the growing diversification and radicalization of America. This was a message that played on the racial resentments of Whites while subtly, and in some cases, overtly promoted segregationist themes.
With Nixon successfully winning the presidency in 1968, this sort of political dog whistle politics among Republican operatives was the standard for more than two decades. It remained an effective strategy for more than a quarter of a century except for a brief period of derailment with the election of President Jimmy Carter in 1976.
