Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently worried publicly that Donald Trump’s attacks on Latinos could damage the Republican Party, saying that when the 1964 presidential nominee, Sen. Barry Goldwater, voted against the Civil Rights Act, it “did define our party, for at least African American voters, and it still does today. That was a complete shift that occurred that year, and we’ve never been able to get them back.”
That’s often the story told about the civil rights realignment: National party leaders set off a dramatic reshuffling of coalitions. …
But that’s backwards. CONT.
Eric Schickler (Berkeley), The Monkey Cage