> Southern strategy
> War on Drugs
> Enemies list
> I can't remember the name of the plan to hold enemies of the state.
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 06, 2009 at 12:32:39PM -0800, Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
>> What was there [about Nixon] for a movement conservative to like?
>> Jim F.
>>
The paradox of Nixon can be resolved when you discover that he was deeply influenced by two books - The Real Majority by Ben Wattenberg & Scammon (1970) and Kevin Phillips' New Republican Majority. The idea was to create a permanent majority by gathering Southern whites and blue-collar ethnics into a GOP fold whose natural base was the Silent Majority respectable middle class. But the crucial point is that we're talking about the pre-Reagan late 60's and early 70's here: At the time it was just obvious conventional wisdom, which Nixon believed as gospel, that blue-collar ethnics and southerners would never support any political force that opposed unions and New Deal programs. Anything that would smack of big-business or Goldwaterite laissez-faire, Nixon avoided like the plague.
Also, in his calculation - and he was right - the right-populist rabble didn't object to detente with the Soviets, or even with China, they just wanted to kick ass in Vietnam. Plus, Nixon was convinced that the key to success for a politician was to be seen as a towering world statesman, which only foreign policy could achieve. It gives the president an aura of throne-and-altar authority, even if - especially if - it means talking to official enemies. I've always thought there are so many ways in which Obama resembles Nixon as a politician, it's eerie. (I'm not talking about the Rabelaisian levels of ruthlessness.)
SA