Colin Woodard’s big piece in next month’s Washington Monthly is an interesting read. I’m not too enamored with these efforts to explain everything by reference to regionalism, but the article is thought-provoking. There’s one part of it that really resonated with me. It’s the part where he discusses the culture of the Deep South and how it explains what we’re seeing from the Republican Party right now.
The Deep South
Established by English slave lords from Barbados as a West Indies-style slave society, this region has been a bastion of white supremacy, aristocratic privilege, and a version of classical Republicanism modeled on the slave states of the ancient world, where democracy was the privilege of the few and enslavement the natural lot of the many. It spread apartheid and authoritarianism across the southern lowlands, ultimately encompassing most of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana, plus western Tennessee and southeastern Arkansas, Texas, and North Carolina. Its slave and caste systems smashed by outside intervention, it continues to fight for rollbacks of federal power, taxes on capital and the wealthy, and environmental, labor, and consumer safety protections.
And:
The goal of the Deep Southern oligarchy has been consistent for four centuries: to control and maintain a oneparty state with a colonial-style economy based on largescale agriculture and the extraction of primary resources by a compliant, low-wage workforce with as few labor, workplace safety, health care, and environmental regulations as possible. Not until the 1960s was it compelled by African American uprisings and external intervention to abandon caste, sharecropper, and poll tax systems designed to keep the disadvantaged majority of their region’s population out of the political process. Since then, they have relied on fearmongering— over racial mixing, gun control, illegal immigrants, and the alleged evils of secularization—to maintain support. In office they’ve instead focused on cutting taxes for the rich, funneling massive subsidies to agribusiness and oil companies, rolling back labor and environmental programs, and creating “guest worker” programs and “right to work” laws to ensure a cheap, compliant labor supply.
I’m sure many will object to Woodard’s harsh characterization of the Deep South, as well as some of his history, but it’s hard to argue that he’s wrong about the big picture. It’s really quite remarkable how the Deep South has been able to move from a one-party Democratic region to a (nearly) one-party Republican region. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but there’s something strange about that. It’s like their culture can’t really tolerate political instability, and it’s not all that interested in democracy. I suppose that makes sense because they’ve always felt that their way of life is under threat, which means they have to stick together. It also might explain why Republican politicians like Mike Huckabee are so fond of voter suppression. Seriously, it’s been remarkable how aggressively and unapologetically the Republicans have turned to voter suppression over the last couple of years. It seems totally foreign to me, as if it isn’t something that should ever happen in this country, and then I realize that the GOP is now carrying the heritage of Jim Crow. It’s the party of the Deep South, and it’s beginning to act in ways that just don’t compute for most of the country.
We don’t want to be treated like sharecroppers. We don’t want to be governed by people like Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.
great article
very enlightening
Colin Woodard:
“The goal of the Deep Southern oligarchy has been consistent for four centuries: to control and maintain a oneparty state with a colonial-style economy based on largescale agriculture and the extraction of primary resources by a compliant, low-wage workforce with as few labor, workplace safety, health care, and environmental regulations as possible.”
That paragraph doesn’t just describe the Republican prescription for the Deep South– that’s their agenda for the whole damn country.
If you’re looking for a still bigger historical picture of similar material, check out David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America.
And they have never come to terms with losing the Civil War, and that their secession was a treasonous act (I so love seeing an American and Confederate flag on the same pole). The Tea Party infusion into Congress last year is a perfect storm of Confederate thinking. They came to tear the place down, as they failed to do in the 1860s.
There is no difference between the ethos/culture of the Deep South and Royalist England. In both cases, the king&royalty/plantation owners call the tunes, while the slaves/serfs did the work. Today, the serfs of the South have the same view of corporations that people did of kings in the past.
In many European countries, kings and royalty did not pay taxes. You pay taxes to them, they didn’t pay taxes – they collected taxes.
Today’s serfs believe that modern corporations can do no wrong, and that the corporations should not pay taxes. They believe that we should pay taxes to the corporations.
he really needed to write this article?
like anyone would sense hadn’t already come to the same conclusion:
they miss slave days.
I thought what was interesting was that, whether Democratic or Republican, the South has historically been “one party,” as if (at least according to booman – I haven’t read the article) the culture couldn’t tolerate the “political instability” of a two-party system.
Another piece I’d like to toss into the mix is the strong Celtic tradition in the South and its fondness for “lost causes.”
The other part to this is the condition of white immigrants to the southern English colonies. Most at least in the 17th century were unfree in some way, and most had been expropriated in some way in England/Scotland. Fear was deeply embedded in their experience, and that fed into the culture in the longer term. I say this not to say these were bad people but that the circumstances were destructive and the results long-term.
I have noticed a number of books recently about how slavery never really went away, and is still very much alive and well and living in our prisons and the slave subculture they feed.
One I am re-reading right now is Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow.”
I thought it was just a metaphor, but there are examples of it being quite literally true that slavery was never really eradicated.
That was why Nixon’s law-and-order re-emphasis ran in parallel with his Southern strategy.
In some rural areas of South Georgia during the 1970s, debt slavery was common. Local businessmen and farmers would trade the debts of poor blacks in order to compell someone to do a job that they wanted done. It was almost cashless. It was not widespread, but it was still there.
I live in Texas, and not in Austin — and I find the observations here to be spot on, except perhaps for Martin’s about one-party politics. I think that, to understand that phenomenon, you have to taken an even broader view of Southern culture, which is obsessed with keeping up appearances. There’s an old joke about Baptists that sums it up:
Q: How do you keep your Baptist friend from drinking all your beer when you go fishing?
A: Invite another Baptist to join you.
Most voters here are completely detached from politics. They know that they liked Reagan. The fear of intrusive federal power is handed down from generation to generation, just like the need to love Jesus, or at least appear to love Jesus. Most white voters live in de facto segregated communities and have little firsthand knowledge of racial minorities — so they accept the stereotypes as gospel without ever thinking much about it. Hence, they’re afraid of anybody with brown skin — most of whom vote Democratic. For these reasons, these people vote with their clan (no ‘k’ meant) — it’s the respectable thing to do, like going to church or driving a shiny new pick-up truck.
Because there are more of them than they are of everybody else, they win every election.
Things are about to change real quick, though. Texas will have a hispanic plurality by 2020. GOP vote suppression tactics will save them for a while, but not forever. The 20’s will probably be fraught with violence, but the oligarchy will eventually fall. It’s just a matter of time.
When I lived in Arizona, that was often told at bars about Mormons. The key is that Mormons aren’t supposed to drink. But they DO. Just never around other Mormons.
I saw this first-hand once on a Delta flight from Atlanta to Salt Lake City. The older couple sitting in my row with me were obviously Mormon. When the flight attendant came along to take drink orders, they ordered non-alcoholic beverages and then I was last (sitting at the window) and I ordered a scotch and soda. The husband started sort of itching, like he was ready to start salivating. Then he said “You know, that sounds really good. I’d like a scotch and soda instead.” His wife literally groaned and the flight attendant complied with his request. As soon as they realized I wasn’t one of them, he felt comfortable ordering a real drink.
That is simply priceless. If they still allowed smoking, he would probably have lit up too.
I had a Mormon friend whose drink of choice was a White Russian, or two or three. What she might have been like outside my corrupt little circle I do not know. Still it doesn’t really surprise me too much – there are many faces we humans put on depending on where or with whom we happen to be.
Check out:
Flight to Canada by Ishmael Reed
It’s got the aristocratic flavor of southern slave owners down.
http://www.amazon.com/Flight-Canada-Ishmael-Reed/dp/0684847507
A short read, highly recommended.
Reed is one of the most enlightening, entertaining and underrated authors ever. His work cannot be recommended often enough. Every two or three years, I re-read Mumbo Jumbo. Seeing American history as an ongoing war between rival secret societies always explains so much.
Only if it were so simple. I would like to see a similar article on the culture of Arizona or eastern Oregon or Wyoming or central Pennsylvania.
There is one hell of a lot of conflict hidden in Colin Woodard’s broad brushstrokes. And a lot of obscuring the cultural differences of the Deep South, even the regional differences within supposedly monolithic Southern states like Alabama and Mississippi. Not to mention more complex states like Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Virginia.
Is there a political class that has continuously tried to hold power. There sure as hell is. Just look at the history of the Ravenels of Charleston, SC. Or the Cameron descendants of central North Carolina.
But there were strong democratic and populist movements that briefly came to power and upset that class. Using prohibition and farmer-worker alliances, some of the most racist Southern politicians were enemies of the old aristocracy. And some of the most progressive and forward looking governors and legislators in the South were small farmer’s sons turned ambitious lawyers.
What articles like this one do is give the illusion that the South will never change. When there has been striking changes and and influx of non-Southerners into the South. And most of the Southern conservative politicians do not fit the mold. Newt Gingrich is a non-Georgian who came to Georgia to teach at a state college. Sue Myrick was born and grew up in Toledo, Ohio, was in a federal agency as a PR flack during the Nixon administration, married a Charlotte PR flack, and the rest is history.
A lot of progressive Southern governors–road builders, education governors–sold their states to out-of-state and foreign corporations in order to bring good paying jobs into the area. And then were outfoxed politically when they wanted these corporations to pay for improving the schools and infrastructure that would bring the next round of prosperity.
It was not the aristocratic class that killed desegregation of the public schools in places like Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, and other cities. It was outsiders like Ronald Reagan who gave rural segregationist voters permission to hate again and stirred up suburban (and significantly transplant) voters to fight desegregation.
And the future is not closed. Diverse peaceful Occupy Wall Street events cropped up this weekend in Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, Columbia SC, Macon, Savannah, Birmingham, Biloxi, Tyler TX (Louis Goehmert country), Amarillo, Jonesboro AR, Naples FL (Rick Scott’s home), and Valdosta GA, among others.
Since Saturday, there have been occupations at the South Carolina state capitol (which has not been hassled by police) and the North Carolina state capitol (which has, including 20 arrests). Houston and Dallas persist in occupations against city pressure. San Antonio and McAllen TX continue, as does Pensacola.
Interestingly, it is still the Democratic mayors and governors mostly who are coming down hardest on the Occupy Wall Street encampments. The worst actions have been in San Francisco, Sacramento, Seattle, and Denver. Atlanta was supposed to be evicted today. Raleigh police have been trying to confine protester to the sidewalk, stripping them of supplies, and requiring them not to sit or lay down on the sidewalk. In Durham, which began its occupation yesterday, the City Parks Department has turned off the lights in the park, normally on 24/7.
And then there is Michael Bloomberg.
We are entering a new realignment of politics in this country. Check out the livestreams of the general assemblies in the cities that currently have occupation encampments.
Interestingly, it is still the Democratic mayors and governors mostly who are coming down hardest on the Occupy Wall Street encampments.
You forgot Rahmbo in the cities you listed. Why all the problems with “Democratic” mayors/governors? I bet most of them are DINO’s, like Rahmbo. HMO is that the GOP Governors/mayors are trying to ignore them. After all, what got the press attention? When the cops started cracking down.
Rahmbo unleashed his guys over the weekend.
I was frantically trying to keep up with what was going on in the South and Kentucky. Like 150 at Occupy Valdosta GA on Friday for a march. The occupation of Pensacola, Raleigh, Durham, and Columbia SC. A march in Macon GA of 25. Twenty or so each in Paducah KY and Owensboro KY. A march in Shreveport LA and Biloxi MS. One heck of a YouTube from the general assembly in Jackson MS.
Well, maybe not DINOs, but business-oriented Democratic officials. But those are the types usually elected governor or mayor.
“And the future is not closed.” This. A thousand times, this.
David Hackett Fischer (on whose work in “Albion’s Seed” some of Woodard’s own work is based) writes regularly about “contingency”—the uncertainty of the future and the role of human action (individual and—especially—collective) in creating it.
For example, I’m not exactly sure what Woodard means about the Midlands expanding into the Tidewater, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with trying to explain the fact that Obama won Virginia and North Carolina in 2008—which lots of “experts” were sure couldn’t be done.
Political developments going back a few years have convinced me that the distinction between the Deep South and the Upper South are no longer valid.
Once upon a time, North Carolina was in the Deep South, while Tennessee was in the Upper South. Now, Tennessee might as well be Alabama, while North Carolina went for Obama.
Today, the distinction is between the Atlantic South and the Interior South.
Look at the red-blue county map of the 2008 election. The one that has the shading to purple for the closeness of the vote. You will see that the distinction is not so much geographical as social. Urban centers, some university towns, and black majority counties tend blue. Suburban rings around New South cities, small towns, and rural areas tend red.
And you have to look within states. North Carolina is different from Coastal Plain to Piedmont to Mountains. South Carolina has strong UpCountry-LowCountry differences. Georgia is Atlanta vs. everything else. Alabama is northern and southern (approximating the Auburn-Tide sports divide) and Gulf Coast. Mississippi is Gulf Coast, Central, Delta, and Uplands (around Tupelo). Virginia’s divisions are Tidewater, Southside, Piedmont, Metro DC, Great Valley, and Southwest Virginia. The culture and politics play out much differently in each of those regions. Much as Chicago is different from downstate.
Having lived here for 60 of my 66 years, I can say that it is indeed true that Illinois is a Southern State (Arkansas- Kentucky flavor) plus Chicago. Chicago + suburbs constitute 50% of the voters. Chicago is some 90% D (97% in black wards). So the battle for control goes on in the suburbs, which are increasing high tech, brown, and Asian, all spotlighted in “The Emerging Democratic Majority”. There are a few other D pockets, East St. Louis (poor and black) and the Springfield area (government workers and contractors).
I asked a black friend of mine about that 97% and why it wasn’t 100%. His answer was “rich black folks”. That was after Clarence Thomas but before Herman Cain.
P.S. He is as embarrassed at Thomas as I am at Scalia.
The city-suburbs-rural divide exists in every state, even in Massachusetts.
But still, states qua states have characters and identities. There are differences in both the ratios between city-suburb-rural, as well as variations within each of those categories.
And the differences in the characters of the southern states make it much more useful to talk about Atlantic-vs.-Interior than about Upper-vs.-Lower. The major metro regions – taking the regions as a whole – of the Atlantic South are Democratic enough to make those states competitive. The major metro areas of the Interior South does not. It’s best just to consider South Carolina to be a non-urban part of the Atlantic South.