George Corley Wallace is remembered as a symbol of American racism. Folks remember the image of him standing in the school house door to block integration and his words “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”. Folks remember his two runs for the White House on a “Law and Order” platform that seemed to be entirely built out of racist code talking and dog whistles. Wallace worked hard to earn his status as an icon of racism.
And yet, I don’t think George Wallace was a racist. Rather, I think he was an ambitious man who decided that pandering to racists was his best path to power. In his early political life, Wallace was liberal–a progressive. He was an alternate Democratic delegate to the 1948 Convention and did not join most of the Alabama delegation as they walked out to protest the Civil Rights plank Harry Truman had added to the platform. He returned to Alabama and served on the Board of Trustees of Tuskegee Institute. He was elected a Circuit Court Judge and was remembered as being pretty damn fair regardless of race. In 1958 he ran for Governor and sought the endorsement of the NAACP while speaking out against the KKK and refusing their support. His opponent pursued the opposite strategy. Wallace lost badly and told a friend “you know why I lost that governor’s race?… I was outniggered by John Patterson. And I’ll tell you here and now, I will never be outniggered again.” In response, he tossed his values and beliefs overboard and perfect the pander to assholes as a winning political strategy.
And this brings me to Willard “Mitt” Romney. He is just as ambitious as George Wallace and like the former Alabama Governor willing to say and do anything in the pursuit of that ambition. Like Wallace, Romney has decide that pandering to racists and stoking their fears is a winning political strategy.
Following in the footsteps of George WallacePost + Comments (88)