Talk:Southern strategy/Archive 2

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Neutrality Dispute

This article does not read as neutral. Looking through the edit history it is clear that several references that refute the claims of the article have been dismissed. Editors have removed links to articles that refute the claims from the opening of the article. --129.59.79.123 (talk) 14:23, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Are you referring solely to your attempts to insert 'alleged' into the lead? I disagree that 'alleged' is the right word choice here, though their findings might be mentioned somewhere. gobonobo ^{+ c} 14:34, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

The problem is the lead of the article suggests the facts are not in dispute yet we have the same paper that started the claims (NY Times) also running an article that says the S Strategy is a myth. That alone should justify the claim "alledged". Furthermore, I see that previous attempts to add references that dispute the claim that the events are "true" have been removed. For example, why was the Revision as of 05:01, 31 December 2014 revision undone. Adding a section that disputes the claims is justified in an article such as this. --129.59.79.123 (talk) 14:42, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

The NYT article doesn't say that the Southern strategy didn't exist, it says that (according to one book) it didn't work. Changing the lead to say 'alleged' implies that the strategy didn't exist when it clearly did. Whether or not it worked is a different question. gobonobo ^{+ c} 14:48, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Can you point to any sources that refute the claim? TFD (talk) 15:04, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

It's clear we have some goal tending here. We have a few editors who are unwilling to follow Wiki rules and allow reputable sources that dispute their personal POV. --129.59.79.123 (talk) 18:53, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I've noticed that too. For instance, you keep removing any mention of the fact that the Republican National Committee in 2005 acknowledged and apologized for its "Southern strategy" of exploiting racial polarization to win elections. Why do you keep doing that? Because it looks like you won't allow reputable sources that dispute your personal POV. MastCell ^Talk 19:21, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Clearly reading isn't a thing for you. Your article says no such thing but hey, why let reality piss on your party right? Your article here doesn't say what you claim. It does NOT say the GOP admits to the "Southern Strategy". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.59.79.123 (talk) 19:25, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

The first sentence in that article is "The head of the Republican National Committee issued a sweeping apology to the NAACP yesterday for a decades-old practice of writing off the black vote and using racial polarization to win elections." The boldfaced portion of the sentence is the very definition of the Southern strategy. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 19:31, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps if you actually tried to THINK about the topic you would see the issue with what you just said. Let me help you with that. First, the article is a reporter's retelling of what happened. Do you know the difference between a primary and secondary source? That article is a secondary source. Second, the speaker did NOT say the Southern Strategy or the specifics of it were true or even acknowledge them. Admitting that the GOP has ignored the needs of black voters doesn't mean they tried to appeal to racist voters. Also, any statements made at an NAACP meeting must surely be seen in context of trying to win votes just as "If you like your plan you can keep your plan" was an appeasement. --129.59.122.58 (talk) 19:54, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Non-responsive. "Using racial polarization" is a great deal different than simply ignoring the needs of black voters, isn't it? Yes, the newspaper article is a secondary source -- you're apparently unaware that secondary sources are the preferred source for wikipedia. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 20:17, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Also, you (the IP) might want to look at both sources that you're committed to removing. The Washington Post source starts off thus:

It was called "the southern strategy," started under Richard M. Nixon in 1968, and described Republican efforts to use race as a wedge issue—on matters such as desegregation and busing—to appeal to white southern voters. Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, this morning will tell the NAACP national convention in Milwaukee that it was "wrong."

I mean, reading isn't a thing for me, and all, but that seems pretty explicit and hard to deny (not for lack of effort). MastCell ^Talk 19:41, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I looked at both sources. One doesn't say anything about a "Southern Strategy". The other has the reporter saying "Southern Strategy", with no quotes from the politician. Just because a reporter claims the Chevy "no go" Nova didn't sell well in Mexico, does that make it true in context of a story about marketing campaigns that failed across langauges?

Even if there are any sources claiming the Southern Strategy wasn't a thing, it would be fringe. Rhoark (talk) 03:57, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

This is certainly a dishonest view and calls your objectivity into great question. Do you consider the New York Times a fringe source?

MastCell, I see in the past you worked very hard to put stock in the supposed apology but why shouldn't we put as much stock in his statements to CNN on the subject (Talk, archive 14 October 2013). Here is Mehlman on CNN discussing that article and apology http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0507/17/le.01.html So he doesn't agree that there was some racist plan. Since he doesn't agree then we have to take the Washington Post article as in dispute with a second reliable source (CNN). Remember it is the WP that claims. From the CNN transcripts:

Look, the fact is that we both agree, and the president proves it every single day, that policies and the people that engage in politics that is polarize along race is wrong. It always interests me when people say it was a Southern strategy. The fact is that folks in the North, the South, the East and the West sometimes did this.

People up north sometimes think that this is a southern problem. If you look today, the number-one state in America that has African- American elected officials is Mississippi. There's one state in the country that has the most state-wide officials, Texas -- three African-American Republicans, by the way.

And today it's the Democrat Party that is engaged in racially polarizing politics. That certainly reads like some political talk but it doesn't support the idea that there was some sort of racist plan to get southern voters. --Getoverpops (talk) 19:36, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

The neutrality dispute has NOT been addressed and thus the tag should not be removed. Getoverpops (talk) 14:37, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

You were tasked with suggesting changes after our reliable sources discussion and haven't suggested any. This comment of yours doesn't progress the conversation and you've already admitted to being absent from the discussion because you've been preoccupied with other things. Just asserting that the dispute is still open, doesn't mean it is. There has been no meaningful contribution for nearly a month and your absence for the last month from this conversation can be seen as dropping the dispute. If you wish to continue the dispute, then please provide constructive suggestions.Scoobydunk (talk) 22:50, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

1. I was not tasked with anything. I was waiting for suggestions and further instructions from the neutrality dispute which you were working hard to derail. 2. Part of the reason why things seemed to go off track was your trolling of the topic. Getoverpops (talk) 00:37, 5 May 2015 (UTC) Because the neutrality dispute has been reopened the tag needs to be placed back on the article. I'm sorry you have trouble understanding this. Please read up on the rules. Getoverpops (talk) 00:39, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Southern strategy and Southernization

This section is questionable as supporting the major topic of the article. While the references may be sound the theme of the article is a strategy of appealing to racism in the south to win southern voters. However, at the same time, and especially in the 90s the GOP also was appealing to the religious conservative voters in the south. So do the articles in this section actually show that it was any "racist" appeal that was the issue or simply that in over emphasizing religious conservative interests the GOP lost many of the voters who might vote GOP for support of business or fiscal conservationism? If the article is going to be about racist strategy then the reference in this section should address a specific move away from that strategy. If they don't do that then they are not appropriate references. The primary source for the section appears to be an op-ed article that makes some interesting claims. First, it claims the democrats also had their own southern strategy along the lines of the one Nixon is alleged to have used. However, the article provides no proof that either "southern strategy" (GOP or Dem) was effective. This is an important point given that I have cited several scholars who claim that the shift to the GOP in the south was not due to racism but due to the GOP's values better fitting the values of the voters in question. The article was released a few days after the 2008 Obama election so it isn't surprising that people would want to attribute things to race but was that really the case or were people talking about race because the media was talking about it? Regardless, if this is an op-ed article then it should be treated as such. As used in the Wiki article it boarders on original research since it ascribes a cause to a result without offering other views on the subject.Getoverpops (talk) 07:45, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

The section is fully sourced and you have offered no sources that say something different. Your recent edit of the section misapplied a quote -- ignoring that three different sources are quoted by the NY Times article, thus supporting "some". The opinions are attributed in the text as they should be. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:01, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

PS I see you reverted me, but the new text you added works. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:09, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

What about breaking out a section on Nixon era and post Nixon "ss"

I would like to break some of the later information up into both Nixon era and post Nixon are discussions. In all the evidence presented it seems there is no evidence of "the southern strategy" being used for a GOP presidential campaign post Nixon. The Atwater quoted (taken from the Atwater page) shows that he said Regan didn't use such a strategy and the "code words" were already things that Regan had campaigned on during his time in CA. The Nixon section can talk about the evidence that a SS was discussed during his campaign as well as the extent to which people feel it impacted the campaign. Several of the sources I have found suggest that there is little evidence that Nixon actually tried to stop or slow reforms. Several of the sources also claim that the transition of the south was actually primed long before Nixon but that the southern politicians had a strangle hold on southern politics at the local level. Thus the south was reliably blue until the civil rights movement shook things up. After that the southern voters turned to the GOP which was in many ways that weren't race related, better aligned with the views of southern voters (this will be supported by peer reviewed references). Anyway, this can be added as a theory but I think it does the article a disservice to leave it out. I also think that if there is no evidence that the "SS" was used post Nixon for presidential elections the article should point that out. Many accuse the GOP of using such a strategy but I think we can see how someone opposed to the GOP would like such a claim to be made since it implies a GOP candidate is racist. Thoughts?Getoverpops (talk) 00:46, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

In this edit, sourced content was removed that introduced the concept of state's rights as dog whistle politics, which is necessary to understand why Reagan's speech was controversial. The same edit added a new section, 'Researchers Debate the Scope and Impact of the Southern Strategy', that is a WP:QUOTEFARM and seems to cherry pick sources to give a one-sided picture of the research. I think it's reasonable to present some of these views, as long as we aren't giving undue weight to marginal viewpoints. gobonobo ^{+ c} 14:17, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the information I added was biased in favor of the articles that discount the Southern Strategy orthodoxy. However, I disagree that the information is cherry picked or is not relevant to the article. First, since the Atwater quote is being used by one author to claim Reagan did use the southern strategy, it is reasonable to include a more complete quote which discounts this claim. Can we agree on that end? I think that is a separate issue from the academic views on the subject.

I also agree that I used a lot of quotes. However, I think I am justified in using lots of quotes if only because I have been accused of not supporting my claims. Thus I have posted a long list of quotes which do support the claims. Either we accept my claims at face value, include the quotes or you tell us what you think the articles claim. I don't think simply leaving them out is a valid option given they are from reliable sources and they add new information and balance to the article. I do think that we need counter weight quotes from others to balance the claims of the authors I have added.

I am going to re-add the extended Atwater quote but will leave the academic view material out for further discussion. Getoverpops (talk) 14:26, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Reagan/Neshoba nonsense

This part doesn't read like an encyclopedia. It reads like an opinion piece, is full of weasel words, and intentionally distorts the facts. Reagan did not "launch" his campaign with this speech, but it makes the propaganda sound more damning. It's also stated that civil rights workers were slain in the same county 14 years earlier as a potential motivation for location choice, yet leads out the ACTUAL reason for the location...it was a long standing tradition for politicians to give speeches at the Neshoba County Fair. So again, this reads like propaganda. Furthermore, the very phrase "His dog-whistle politics" is pretty much solid proof that whoever wrote this passage is a biased hack trying to force an opinion in spite of the facts. Clean this crap up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.184.85.85 (talk) 13:36, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Please provide reliable sources so support your claims. I count zero sources in your comment, while there are 6-8 sources for the material you've discussed in the article. I'm not saying that all of those sources in the article are the most reliable/strongest of sources, but until a source of equal/greater reliability directly contends with the material in the article, I see no reason to change it. Also, the dog-whistle phrase you referenced is directly quoted and attributed to the author that wrote it and it is not in WP's voice. After that comment, the article talks about how others contend that position. So both sides are represented in regards to that statement.Scoobydunk (talk) 06:58, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I would strongly agree with the IP poster. That section of the article is very questionable. I've added a few citation needed tags but really that section needs to be cleaned up. Far too many statements from things like opinion articles are taken as fact. Other claims are simply unsupported. However, I it would be best to focus on the Nixon era part of the article first in order to get more scholarship into the article. Getoverpops (talk) 02:53, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Can we add some source balance to this article?

When reviewing the references in this article it becomes clear that there is very little of actual substance behind many of the claims. First, I will start with an admission that having done more research on the topic it is clear that at least at some level some national GOP politicians tried to at some level appeal to southern voters based on the issue of race. They saw the cracks in the Democratic strangle hold of the south and wanted to appeal to those voters. That said, the extend and impact of these appeals and even the notion to which we should call them racists is questionable.

There are of course many, many sources that talk about the SS as a given. Melvin Small suggests this is because the first tellings of the events was the "Southern Strategy/ racial retreat" versions as described by Evens and Novak in 1971 . As is often the case the first telling is the one that sticks. Once it sticks you have many people who see anti-civil rights reform in many of his actions and future GOP actions. So with that backdrop it's understandable that many sources will mention the SS but most mention it as a given or as some recent edits, mention it in context of "the GOP is falling back on the SS again".

However, looking at the current list of references for this wiki page there are actually very few original sources discussing the scope and impact of the Southern Strategy other than stating it happened. To present a balanced view of the subject the Wiki should present sources that discuss the origin, scope and impact. I have found several peer reviewed sources that suggest the scope of the strategy was small and was rather innocuous. More importantly, a number of them state the transformation of the south from blue to red was not due to any appeals to inherent racism (regardless of scope or extent) but started with the civil rights movement breaking the long strangle hold the Democrats had on the south. Once that was cracked it is claimed many southerners voted GOP for reasons other than racism. Given the extensive background lead in that is part of this article it is reasonable to add a section that reviews various views on the impact and scope of the southern strategy. In addition to the references I added in May (which were quickly removed) I have several others below. Unless noted otherwise, all of these sources are from either peer reviewed journals or books published by academic publishers. I understand that some feel the views I'm attempting to get out are a minority view. That is fine. I'm not trying to prove these are the only valid articles, only that there is enough weight of research suggesting that the SS, as it is popularly understood, is incorrect at least in impact, that we should include these as a balance in the article.

While I understand that some found my eagerness to edit off putting, I was trying to adhere to Wikipedia's BOLD editing policy. Let's get this sorted out in talk and go from there.

From my previous entry Several political researchers have make the argument that Southern whites' move to the Republican Party had more to do with economic interests than racism. In The End of Southern Exceptionalism, political scientists Richard Johnston and Byron Shafer argued that Republican dominance in the South was driven by increasing numbers of wealthy suburbanites.

Gerard Alexander, a University of Virginia Professor of Politics, argues that a southern voters turned to the GOP's national platform more than the GOP moved to support the views of the south.

Wallace voters ended up supporting Nixon, Reagan and other Republicans, but much more on the national GOP's terms than their own. The Republican Party proved to be the mountain to which the Deep South had to come, not the other way around. This explains why the second assumption is also wrong. Nixon made more symbolic than substantive accommodations to white Southerners. He enforced the Civil Rights Act and extended the Voting Rights Act. On school desegregation, he had to be prodded by the courts in some ways but went further than them in others: He supervised a desegregation of Deep South schools that had eluded his predecessors and then denied tax-exempt status to many private "desegregation academies" to which white Southerners tried to flee. Nixon also institutionalized affirmative action and set-asides for minorities in federal contracting.

Alexander, also argues that the GOP's primary strategy in the South was to work with rather than against the "grain of Southern opinion". However, he argues against claims that the GOP crafted its core message to accommodate Southern racists and that GOP gains in the Souther were not due to such a strategy:

The mythmakers typically draw on two types of evidence. First, they argue that the GOP deliberately crafted its core messages to accommodate Southern racists. Second, they find proof in the electoral pudding: the GOP captured the core of the Southern white backlash vote. But neither type of evidence is very persuasive. It is not at all clear that the GOP's policy positions are sugar-coated racist appeals. And election results show that the GOP became the South's dominant party in the least racist phase of the region's history, and got—and stays—that way as the party of the upwardly mobile, more socially conservative, openly patriotic middle-class, not of white solidarity.

Matthew Lassiter also argues that the Southern move to the GOP was not about race but other factors of common interest:

The three-way contest allowed Nixon to stake out the political center, by design and by default, as the respectable choice for middle-class voters who rejected the Great Society liberalism of Hubert Humphrey and the reactionary racial populism of George Wallace. In the first national election in which suburban residents constituted a plurality of the electorate, the Nixon campaign reached out to disaffected blue-collar Democrats but aimed primarily at white-collar Republicans and moderate swing voters in the metropolitan centers of the Sunbelt South and West and the upwardly mobile suburbs of the Midwest and Northeast. Nixon forfeited the African-American vote to the Democratic party and conceded the Deep South to the Wallace insurgency, in recognition that the Goldwater debacle of 1964 had reversed Republican trends in the high-growth states of the Outer South.

In Reviews in American History David Chappell reviews Matthew Lassiter's book mentioned above.

In an original analysis of national politics, Lassiter carefully rejects “racereductionist narratives” (pp. 4, 303). Cliches like “white backlash” and “southern strategy” are inadequate to explain the conservative turn in post-l960s

politics.5 ... Lassiter scrupulously denies suburbanites their racial innocence. The suburbs are disproportionately white and the poor are disproportionately black. But he rejects “white backlash” partly because the term exempts from responsibility those voters, North and South, who have racially liberal roots. Their egalitarianism may be genuine. But unless liberals are lucky enough to live in secession-proof metro areas, whose judges have a strong commitment to comprehensive integration, they behave the same way as people who act frankly on their fear of large concentrations of black people. ... Racism has not been overcome. One might say rather that it has become redundant. One of Lassiter’s many fascinating demonstrations of racism’s superfluousness is his recounting of the actual use of the “southern strategy.” The strategy obviously failed the Dixiecrats in l948 and the GOP in l964. The only time Nixon seriously tried to appeal to southern racism, in the l970 midterm elections, the South rejected his party and elected Democrats like Jimmy Carter and Dale Bumpers instead (pp. 264–74). To win a nationwide majority, Republicans and Democrats alike had to appeal to the broad middle-class privileges that most people believed they had earned. Lassiter suggests that the first step on the way out of hypersegregation and resegregation is to stop indulging in comforting narratives. The most comforting narratives attribute the whole problem to racists and the Republicans who appease them. {Footnote 5:These clichés come in for further, long-overdue scrutiny in Byron Shafer and Richard

Johnston, The End of Southern Exceptionalism (2006).}

Thus we have a university published review of Lassitter's book (also university published) backing the idea that the SS was a non-issue in terms of impact but has proven to be a comfortable way to accuse one party of being racist.

I've found a few other book reviews that I think add weight to the SS was a minor/non-factor POV. Daniel Aldridge reviews Kotlowski's book Nixon's Civil Rights: Politics, Principle and Policy.

Kotlowski argues that Richard Nixon was, on the whole, a responsible leader who did not simply jettison civil rights in order to court a white backlash and pursue a southern strategy. In general, Nixon sought a middle ground by moving very slowly on matters that would have compelled racial integration in public schools and housing while being more willing to support initiatives that would enhance individual black's ability to enter the middle class

... Kotlowski believes historians have also been somewhat misled by Nixon's rhetorical and symbolic "southern strategy," which he maintains had a relatively limited influence on Nixon's civil rights policies. ... Nixon's Civil Rights is a solid and well-researched effort that succeeds in creating a more nuanced appraisal of Nixon-era civil rights.

Lassiter and Kruse coauthored a journal article that touched on the subject as well

A suburban-centered vision reveals that demographic changes played a more important role than racial demagoguery in the emergence of a two-pary system in the American South. This analysis runs contrary to both the conventional wisdom and the popular strain in the scholarly literature: the claim that the GOP came to dominate the new Solid South by repackaging the segregationist platform of George C. Wallace and capitalizing on a racial backlash that originated in the Deep South and the countryside. According to Whistling Past Dixie (2006), a widely cited book by political scientist Thomas F. Schaller, Republican presidential candidates from Barry Goldwater through Ronald Reagan implemented a "southern strategy" with "initial appeal to rural southerners [that] has expanded to the suburbs and exurbs, and to states outside the South." This interpretation [Schaller's] essentially reverses the actual process of realignment in the South and misleadingly attributes racial backlash nationwide to the effects of "sothernization" rather than to the dynamics of suburbanization itself.

There certainly are authors who are dismissive of some of the sources above. Dan Carter, already cited in the article, reviews a few books in Dissent. He is quite critical of Lassiter, Shafer & Johnston and others. The fact that Carter felt the need to review those works at all should be proof that the dissenting view I am advocating for the article is valid and that academia has not settled on a single narrative.

I think it is clear that there is a significant volume of work suggesting or even stating that any appeals to latent racism were non-issues for Nixon's elections and even after that. Several of the sources also state that the "racist" things done as part of the southern strategy were not as extensive or egregious as often claimed. With that said I would like suggestions for ways to integrate this material into the article. Clearly there is enough here to warrant inclusion.

I have no problem with the article mentioning Lassiter's viewpoint as a contradictory and minority point of view. My concerns arise when you talk about "balancing the article" because the work you've referenced above does not supercede the widely held view of scholars, historians, and academics and only acts as a breif mention of dissent. When you make claims like "academia has not settled on a single narrative." I believe this is disingenuous and ignores the fact that even your dissenting sources admit to an academic consensus held by most historians. Nothing is ever "settled" in Science and History, but that doesn't mean we can write the article portraying some huge hotly contested debate among historians and scholars. Similar to the last time we addressed this, it's not any others' responsibility to include information you want into the article. I recommend that you suggest a specific change and then we can address whether that change merits inclusion. Something along the lines of "Contrary to the view held by most historians, Matthew Lassiter believes the Southern Strategy had little to do with the changing political landscape of the South and that its transformation was mostly due to changing economic needs." <--Something along those lines would be a perfectly acceptable addition in my opinion.Scoobydunk (talk) 15:31, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

If you recall I previously did exactly that and included much of what I posted here in the article. You didn't comment on it in this talk page the day I added it but I'm encouraged to see that you are admitting that there are academic sources that don't agree with what Melvin Small considered the first telling of the events. I mentioned that in the opening of this section with the needed reference. Anyway, the problem with what you are saying is there actually isn't that much real evidence that there was a wide spread SS. If you look at original sources they are few. Many cite it as something that happened or, in the case of the Reagan references, cast actions or policies that may be perfectly rational as SS. One of the big issues with the later part of the article is the use of accusations as proof of a long term strategy without taking the time to ask if the accusations are reasonable nor if an alternative explanation is reasonable. Basically, as the later part of the article presents the SS it might as well be describing a conspiracy theory.

Incidentally, I would hope, given the way you are a stickler for academic references, that you would support fixing many of the issues in the article where low quality sources are used to support a view. That is largely the post Nixon era section.Getoverpops (talk) 20:29, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

What's relevant is what scholars say, not what we consider to be "much real evidence". Again, it is not our privilege to interpret evidence ourselves and write the article to reflect our interpretations. This is precisely why WP policy shies away from the use of primary sources and why secondary sources take priority. Unfortunately, I do not recall you suggesting a specific part of the article that you wanted to change like I just did in my previous comment. I'd like to stay away from long drawn out replies in this regard, and just stick to one change at a time. Suffice to say, it's not a requirement that I or others approve of the changes you want to make, but if you want to avoid conflict and work together on improving the article, then it's easiest to address one claim/change at a time. I'm not going to rewrite the entire article, but if there are any specific sentences from the article that you have an issue with, then I'll see if I can discover where the claims originated. I'll start with the citation's you've requested in the article, and I'm happy to help you with these. Regarding academic sources, I'm only a stickler about it when non-academic sources, like opinion articles, are used to try and counter scholarly sources. So, I don't have a problem using less reliable sources, so long as they aren't in contention with scholarly consensus. However, I do try and stick to using scholarly articles on WP so we can avoid slinging biased political articles at each other for months at a time, and can just immediately filter out all of the rift raft. So, let's go ahead and start with the post Nixon era section, if that's okay with you? I'll be out running errands today, so I won't have much time to look into the requested citations today, but I'll get started on it as soon as I can.Scoobydunk (talk) 13:49, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Well a significant number of scholars say the SS was not a factor in the shift of the south to the GOP vote. We have no scholarly work claiming the SS was extended into the time of Reagan and beyond. So if you think we should only accept scholarly work then it's time to cut some sections from the article. Again, I did make a change to the article and you quickly referenced it on a report page. Regardless, I agree that we should be careful about using politically motivated or biased articles. That again is a big issue in the later sections of the article. The primary sources are people who are building a case for "continuation of SS" based on flaky evidence. If Reagan wanted busing reform (something that has since come to pass and is generally thought to be a good thing) then why was it "SS" vs simply a desire to fix a broken system? A very big part of the problem with this article is the conspiracy theory like nature of the claims. As soon as you accept that there is a conspiracy then even truly innocent events/actions can be seen as proof of the conspiracy.

Anyway, with your help I will point out other parts of the article I found troubling and then we can discuss changes. I'm wary of using the BOLD tactic that is promoted here since a number of people took my BOLD edits the wrong way.Getoverpops (talk) 14:04, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I still don't see any specific suggestions in this most recent response of yours. Also, you clearly didn't read my previous comment because I said less reliable sources are okay, so long as they're not in contention with stronger academic consensus. Also, please refrain from trying to present your own OR arguments, because I'm not going to respond to them. I'm not concerned with your rational about how SS should be defined and what counts as evidence for it. I'm all concerned with is what reliable sources say. So, make a specific suggestion backed with a reliable source, and then we can get started.Scoobydunk (talk) 20:38, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, like you I had a busy weekend that kept me from editing. Given that this is a talk page I think it is perfectly reasonable to present my own arguments. The biggest is how can you decide if an action is really "southern strategy" or not. First, we have to assume there is some over arching coordination here. Second you have to be able to reasonably tell if an action that could be motivated by race really is. Take affirmative action in college admission. One might be against it because they are racist but they also could reasonably be against it because it means an applicant from a non-protected group with better marks gets passed over in favor of a lesser applicant. If you are the applicant who was passed over by someone with a lesser record it would be reasonable to be anti-affirmative action without being racist. Many of the sources DON'T address that critical issue.

Anyway, I will have to take a look at your sources and see how well they support the claims in question.

I think the two sections should be combined and it should be more clear that some pundits (and presumably academics) see evidence that some GOP actions after the Nixon era were attempts to appeal to racism. I think the Atwater statements should actually be removed from the section because they don't support the claims that Reagan was trying to appeal to racism. In fact they do the opposite. They could be used to support the idea that some GOP candidates did appeal to racism in the past. I think it would be good if you included specific quotes from your sources. In my previously reversed edit I did just that because I didn't want people to accuse me of spinning the contents of the articles. Beyond the above change I think it should be clear what the sources credentials are and what they are claiming. Some of the quotes seem to meld into their associated paragraphs. I will see if I can make small changes to the sections but really I feel like they need a total rewrite. I did that last time and my troubles were far from rewarded. Getoverpops (talk) 00:19, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

The way we decide if an action is really southern strategy is we report what sources say. It is not up to us to re-invent the wheel. TFD (talk) 01:23, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Then we should be highly suspect of any opinion articles and we should provide exact quotes for other articles that are "reliable". Seriously, what you are talking about is yes, I guess Wiki but let's use our heads here. If a Dem political pundit says an appeal to end say affirmative action is "southern strategy" are we going to just blindly say yes? Do you actually believe that? Do you personally think that if say the gov of GA says he is against affirmative action he is doing it because he is racist? Isn't it at least reasonable that he feels it isn't fair to non-minority students who get passed over by minority students with lesser records? Sure we can view affirmative action as a net public good but that doesn't mean those who are against it are racist. That is the BIG problem with the claims here. The article really gives a lot of weight to those who see things that COULD be racist but very reasonably COULD be for no-racist reasons and assigns them to the racist camp.

(SD) Your second edit is stronger but the source, in the section from pg 47-48 doesn't support it's claims. Both Dems and GOPs (noted as white in the text) liked the idea of moving control back to the states. Perhaps it was racist thinking but perhaps it was part of Reagan's larger "smaller federal gov" promise. Again, we should make it clear that this was an opinion of events, not a proven fact.

The paragraph started "In 1980" seems to be supported almost entirely with opinion articles. Look at the last sentence that claims to be supported by Aistrup's book. The claim is that Reagan's calls for welfare reform used racist "welfare queen" examples. He did state that opinion poling at the time said that southern whites (no mention if northern whites thought the same or even if blacks thought the same) mentally pictured blacks when their was talk of welfare queens. However, and I would have to re-find my source for this, Reagan's welfare and other messages were largely unchanged from his California days. So either he was looking to appeal to racist in California - in which case this wasn't a "southern strategy" or he was really worried about welfare reform and wanted a motivating example ie the welfare queen.

It is interesting to note that page 44 of Aistrup actually supports the view that southern white voters were motivated by economics. According to text quoted by Aistrup [italics is paraphrased by me] the southern white working class saw they weren't moving up and the government wasn't helping them. The saw the government helping others (blacks). They were against things like affirmative action because it meant they might lose a job to someone who wasn't better qualified but instead was black. Well that might be appealing to race but it's also could be just people looking out for their own. That was the point of one of the authors I mentioned who was talking about Nixon era "racism". Some of Nixon's "anti-civil rights" such as being anti-busing was not based on racism but on a sense that it was unfair. Here too we have an example were the "proof of racism" could reasonably be an sense that affirmative action was unfair to those that weren't black.

Really I think that section would be best if it were shortened, change the title and then simply say that some writers have seen things they view as continued racism. At the same time those accusations should include examples (such as the welfare reform/queen examples). I also think the next section should get the same treatment. I also think the counter views, the authors I have previously quoted should be given more space in the article. This is especially true when we are talking about claims that the south went to the GOP "because of" racist appeals but we should also not give quite so much "benefit of the doubt" to sources that say something is racist when it is very reasonable to see it as non-racist (hence the comments above). If we want to use things like Reagan and the welfare queen as proof then the supporting source text should be quoted so readers can decide if the source makes it's case.Getoverpops (talk) 01:47, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

SD-

Take a look at these two articles in context of the claims that the Reagan era campaign was based on racism. I think both have some weight since they are in response to the claims of racism by some of the authors cited in the Wiki article. Perhaps we can start with just looking at the claims that revolve around the Reagan era. We can state something like "Accusations of 'Southern Strategy' during the Reagan years. That would allow us to clearly state the views of those who say "yes" and "no" without making the section too long or making it read like the Wiki editors view this as a proven fact/all but given theory.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/222886/reagan-no-racist-deroy-murdock http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071110/news_lz1e10brooks.html

The more I write about this the more I think, would it be better to simply have a single "opposing view" type section? It could talk about the views that say the Nixon era "ss" was limited in size and impact. It could also provide views that say the GOP has not had a "ss" since. That would be a point to talk about the Reagan and later elections and offer articles which refute later claims. It seems that might be cleaner and I have to admit I fear that if I try to make any larger changes they will be just undone. Look at how quickly my addition to the Atwater quote was removed (later added back by an third editor).

Getoverpops (talk) 01:58, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

The first problem I see with your proposal is the title. This is called "editorializing" because you use the word "accusations" to trivialize what academia recognizes as an historical occurrence. The next issue I have is with the idea behind the section. This suggestion would be making a false equivalency by presenting the article as a matter of opinion by having X number of "yes" and X number of "no" responses. The strongest sources recognize Reagan's Southern Strategy as racist and the 2 articles you've listed above don't meet equivalent reliability standards. That being said, the strongest sources also recognize that Reagan appealed to religion and other topics that were important to different segmented groups in the south. So, I don't mind including information about Reagan's transformation of the Southern Strategy to address more than simply racism, but that doesn't mean the importance of race gets marginalized. Lastly, every section in the article presents or should present the mainstream viewpoint on the Southern Strategy, its components, and its evolution. There is no reason to have an entire section devoted to an "opposition view" because that, in essence, would be giving undue weight to minority viewpoints. Minority viewpoints can be represented, but they can't be represented with the same importance/weight that the mainstream viewpoint is given. In every article about "Earth" we don't carve out a section for people who think it's flat.

The way you identified areas that needed citations was a good step in addressing issues with the article. With you identifying those areas, we were able to quickly find sources that supported the material and now we have a better article for it. I'd like to continue with this type of approach since it seems to yield relatively quick results and fixes. I'm not saying we can't discuss more intricate problems here, I'm just saying that identifying specific sentences and statement within the article that need to be examined/reviewed is much more productive, and I'd like to continue that. Scoobydunk (talk) 08:13, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I disagree that the title is any more editorializing that the current method of presentation. The word "accusations" is correct given that these are claims made by sources but not proven as fact. I don't think you can rightly say academia recognizes this as "fact". They certainly don't agree that the south was won by the GOP using such a method. There is a strong body of evidence that says otherwise. Also, do accusations of racism, true or not, actually constitute a "southern" strategy or a national strategy? Given how quickly and easily many sources cry racism over things that are quite rationally explained as something else we should be careful about just accepting one source over the other. A better way to present this would be to offer the counter arguments and let the reader decide.

What if on the section on Reagan we change it to say what his message was (he appealed to points X,Y and Z). Then we can offer sources that say those appeals were coded racism and sources that say otherwise. What's important in that method is the reader can see not just that people claimed this was racism but what constituted "racism" and then they can decide if, say welfare reform, was actually a racist appeal or simply a small government appeal. This way we can still have the stronger sources make their case but the other sources can offer their view as well.

Note, I think it's a bit of a goose chase to find sources that will refute the racism claims. If you don't think the appeals were racist why would you even mention it other than to refute charges you think are false. It again is the conspiracy theory charge. If we talk about people faking the moon landing and say "NASA doesn't address the issue but this academic paper does" we wouldn't logically conclude that NASA faked it because no papers came out refuting the faking claims.

Also, every section should not present the "main stream" view. First, it is not clear that we have a main stream view. WE have a number of academics who say that the Southern Strategy was a non-issue and short term. They are the ones who would agree with Atwater that Reagan (and later Republicans) weren't appealing to racism even if some people feel their policies would disproportionately impact black people. Second, what about cases where the mainstream view is wrong? Take the Ford Pinto case where the mainstream view is Ford wrote a memo that it was cheaper to pay off the lawsuits vs fix the car. Academics have shown that view of events is not true. Anyway, I think each section should have a clear theme and narrative (the later sections fail in this regard) and it should be very clear where things are opinions or interpretations of things vs proven fact. I think a very good way of doing this is presenting the evidence used to make a claim of racism and allow the reader to decide if that evidence is sufficient as well as offering opposing views. Getoverpops (talk) 15:25, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Academic consensus doesn't have to be unanimous, and there is academic consensus. Of the sources you've listed previously, you only have 2 peer reviewed published viewpoints that I'd consider strong reliable sources. One is the viewpoint of Lassiter and the other is Kotlowski and both of them recognize the mainstream viewpoint held by historians and academia and that their viewpoints differ. So there is consensus. 2 of your sources were magazines that didn't go through an apparent peer review process, 1 of them was a book that wasn't published through peer review, 2 of them were reviews on Lassiter's work and aren't independent works which means they don't add any weight, and another one was just another work by Lassiter, who's viewpoint we already know and, again, this doesn't add more weight to a minority viewpoint.

It's clear you're seeking to try and rewrite the article to show a "debate" and this is the same type of rhetoric that climate deniers use to try and argue climate change or creationists use to argue against evolution. Wikipedia presents what the strongest and most reliable sources say on the matter. Trying to trivialize those sources by labeling them as simply "opinions" or "accusations" is an example of editorializing. Also, it's not our responsibility to try and determine "interpretations" from "fact". We let strong secondary sources do that for us, and that's how Wikipedia functions.

Instead of trying to rewrite the article to take on an apologist's point of view, I suggest we continue to work on what we have. If there is something that's obviously wrong or unsupported, we can address it, just like I did with your 2 previous examples. This is what's working. Sitting here and trying to argue about the veracity of academia, or facts vs. opinions didn't get us anywhere last time, nor will it this time. Instead of saying generalized things like "each section should have a clear theme and narrative (the later sections fail in this regard)", how about you actually express a specific section title you take issue with, why it's a problem, and a proposed change to it. Please also refrain from editorializing titles.Scoobydunk (talk) 17:16, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Academic consensus simply hasn't been reached here. How many strong academic articles support the claim that the south switched to the GOP based on appealing to racism vs other causes? Carter and Airstrup? We have at least three that say the "SS" was a non-issue in the conversion (Lassiter, Kotlowski, Johnston-Shafer). If you look at Black and Black they aren't really strongly supporting the idea that Nixon was trying to appeal to racism. Starting around page 210 of The Rise of Southern Republicans they talk about Nixon not going after the hard core racists but instead going after voters who were upset by some of the integration rules. Note that bussing in particular was opposed by many not for racist reasons but for other reasons.

When Black and Black talk about Reagan later in the above section it's talking about appealing to the economic and religious interests of white southern voters. Some claim that is an appeal to racism. However, the Wiki article should make it clear on what those who claim racism base their charges. That allows counter views to be included. If one says Reagan's campaign was racist how can we come up with a counter point. If we say Reagan's campaign was racist because... then we can see if other writers mention the same thing but don't see it as racist. I would also note that Black and Black cite other authors (Carter?) when specifically stating the SS was an appeal to racism etc. So I guess we can say they buy the claim but they aren't the source. Conversely then, academics who cite Lassiter and kotlowski are buying their view that the SS was largely a non-issue.

One more thing, I think the term apologist is unfair and suggests a bias on the part of the user. If we have good sources that say the SS wasn't the reason the South went to the GOP then it's not apologizing to want to give those sources proper weight. The same is true if we have sources that question the idea that Reagan's message was racist vs simply based on conservative principles he had already used in CA (even Carter says Reagan's message was carried over from his CA days. If so how does that make it a southern strategy, vs one that was already national?Getoverpops (talk) 19:34, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

There is consensus in academia and the 2 strong reliable sources that you have both speak to this viewpoint and recognize its existence. One of them says "This analysis runs contrary to both the conventional wisdom and the popular strain in the scholarly literature" and another one says "Kotlowski believes historians have also been somewhat misled by Nixon's rhetorical and symbolic 'southern strategy'". Both of these admit that their views are contrary to the views held by scholarly literature and held by historians. That means there is consensus, and they diverge from it as minority opinions in scholarship. Johnston-Shafer is not a peer-reviewed publication and doesn't have equal weight. Furthermore, neither of these sources say that race was a "non-issue", they merely say that racial backlash wasn't "simply" the cause and discuss other causes as well.Scoobydunk (talk) 17:04, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

It seems like all that has been accomplished is that the same arguments are being made by Getoverpops that failed to achieve consensus (or even agreement by another editor) before. The fact that his first entry in this thread (after a voluntary absence in lieu of a block) was 14,000 bytes indicates to me that this style of discussion will not be productive. I now noticed that he has tried to take this POV and add it to two related articles -- this is extremely bad form. Aim for small changes with short, concise proposals -- if your arguments are unreadable because of their size and digressions you are not going to get anyone to agree with you about changes. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 03:01, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

That is a very rude thing to say and claim. First, though SD and I aren't seeing eye to eye we are having a reasonably productive discussion. Second, as you can see I've provided at least two academic sources that SD feels are up to his standards. I also have several other references that are stronger than many of the references in this Wiki. As for the first entry, part of why I put so much into the entries was because it's too easy for people to claim the sources don't claim what I say they do. The easy way around that is to quote the text so people can read it themselves.

The short, concise proposal is we should add a section that offers the academic disenting view on the impact of the SS on shift of the south to the GOP. We have three strong sources that say it was NOT because of appeals to racism. The second proposal is any time we have a post Nixon claim of GOP racism, the basis for that claim should be included so readers can know what was considered to be racism (ie if a GOP position is anti-affirmative action the reader can decide if that really is racism or some other motivation.Getoverpops (talk) 13:52, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Regardless of the outcome of this debate, it should be understood that these are small minority views. If they can be supported by high-quality academic sources, they still stand against a much greater number of high-quality academic sources which take the position currently represented in the article. Because of this, it's inappropriate to place these views in the lede section of this article or Southernization. They belong in a more marginal position if they are to be included at all. --Sammy1339 (talk) 22:01, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Sammy, it is not true that these views are small/minority views. Furthermore, once you start looking into most of the academic sources you find that many are simply citing Carter. The comments about the Southernization article are not directly related to this topic and should be covered in that article's talk page. I strongly disagree that they are a marginal position. If you think so please show the evidence. So far I count as many strong sources claiming the SS was not the reason for GOP success in the South as not.Getoverpops (talk) 05:27, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

As a small minority view, there is no demonstrated need or appropriateness for a separate section on these views. This article is about a specific political program of the GOP and this should remain the focus of the article. This article is NOT about the total political history of the South during this era -- for that we have another article with a broader scope. As far as writing about "post Nixon claims", we follow the reliable sources and give proper weight to the information the sources provide. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 04:16, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

On what grounds do you base the claim that it is a "small minority view"? If you want the article to be ONLY about the GOP "SS" then the sections talking about things prior to the 1960s need to be removed. It also makes the later sections questionable given the evidence presented in the supporting sources. Conversely, if this article is going to claim the GOP and Nixon won the south BECAUSE of this strategy then it makes total sense to bring in sources that say otherwise GIVEN then are from reputable academic sources. Which do you want? Do you want the narrow scope in which case we remove information from the article or do you want the broad scope in which case the article should be open for more information.Getoverpops (talk) 05:27, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Opinion Pieces

@Getoverpops: You added two fairly weak sources to the Evolution section. There is an argument for including something from the peer-reviewed academic sources you provided, but not from these, because they are grossly outweighed by the numerous sources that say the exact opposite. There is someone with every opinion - it doesn't mean these opinions belong in the article; for the same reason we don't include creationist opinions in biology articles. --Sammy1339 (talk) 20:27, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this is a problem. It would be one thing if he were "balancing" Mother Jones or MSNBC or ThinkProgress articles with National Review opinions, but he's "balancing" NYT pieces with the National Review, which is going to tilt the article. — goethean 20:38, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Which ones are the low quality articles? The Brooks article was in the NYTs. Drum is hardly a GOP apologist and has a number of articles in Mother Jones. Herbert is an opinion article that ran in the NYTs. Well why shouldn't both be included? At the same time you say the articles I include are grossly outweighed but is that really true? Look at the other sources in that section? IN the paragraph that starts "In 1980" we have Herbert (op-ed), Jack White (also an op-ed article), Cannon is simply stating that the speech was seen by some after the fact as racist. In that regard he is restating the obvious. What he isn't doing is making a case that Reagan was trying to appeal to race. I can't access the Goldfield book so we can't tell if he is reporting the reactions (like Cannon) or making the claims (like Herbert). The same is true of the Walton book. Basically we have strong proof that some saw this as racism but that is a far cry from proof that Reagan intended it to be as much. If nothing else, if you look at Cannon's book it would suggest that Reagan was blind to the potential racial uproar his comments would cause since his advisors were suggesting he take the non-racial path. It also undercuts some of the "Reagan's campaign was planning to appeal to racism" claims when we have at least two sources that say his campaign advisors recommended against this speech. Getoverpops (talk) 22:32, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

I have restored the text that was added without any other editor agreeing to it. You need to cut out the edit warring. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 23:10, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be more reasonable if you would actually engage in conversation about the contents of the article rather than just revert my changes. Please justify the exclusion of the changes I've made based on their content. Getoverpops (talk) 23:57, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

I have commented in the numerous threads you started before your hiatus. My comments there stand. Just because you want to start completely over doesn't mean everybody else has to follow. The bottom line -- you continue to add material before you obtain any agreement, let alone consensus. Then when you're reverted, you simply revert back. You've made your case, such as it is -- now is the time for you to sit back and wait to see if anyone will agree with you. It should be clear to you that your current tactics are not working.Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 00:28, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually what you have previously commented on and the changes you just reverted aren't at all the same thing. I would ask that you actually read the changes I made and the comments in THIS section in good faith. Getoverpops (talk) 00:32, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Seems like the conversation has gone on long enough, and it is time to move on. TFD (talk) 00:04, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean move on to neutrality resolution? Really, where are the posts that actually address the concerns here? At least SD and Sammy are addressing the content of my changes. NS is engaging in edit warring by simply reverting without justification. Getoverpops (talk) 00:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

And what are the results of "SD and Sammy" addressing your proposals? You go ahead and make them without any agreement. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 00:32, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Sammy is raising specific objections which is a good place to start a conversation. SD suggested working on the article in chunks based on the suggestions I had made so we would have a starting point for discussion. I would like you to join in that discussion rather than just revert and claim edit war. Remember, part of the cycle is discuss. If you are going to revert changes you should be willing to discuss why. Also, at the beginning of this talk section I admitted I was wrong with some of my original edits. By your own admission you are confusing the edits I previously made with the current edits. That is why I would ask that you read what changes I've made, review the sources I've used and discuss the changes. Getoverpops (talk) 00:43, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I was made aware of this editing issue by Getoverpops on my talk page. The evolution section suffers from two things, when I first arrived: WP:QUOTEFARM & WP:BOMBARD. Therefore, I have tagged the section appropriately, and have bundled the references per WP:CITEBUNDLE.
Everyone please see WP:AVOIDYOU.
IMHO the long quotes do not help the topic. While the section does utilize WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, whether certain things should be given the weight that they are given in this section appears to be a matter of debate; hopefully one that we can discuss civilly and reach a consensus.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:18, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

The issue is weight. Five sources, three of which are books reviewed positively (with criticisms) by scholarly journals, that support the statement "The "I believe in states' rights" speech he gave there was cited as evidence that the Republican Party was building upon the Southern strategy again. Getoverpops wants to balance this with two political commentators, one of which (Drum) does not really support his position. If there is a counterbalance to be added, it has to be better sourced. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 02:19, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

PS There is an interesting and effective rebuttal to the other article (Brooks) by historian Joseph Crespino at [1]. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 02:42, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I have addressed those sources in this section. Per what I said before, we have Herbert (op-ed), Jack White (also an op-ed article), Cannon is simply stating that the speech was seen by some after the fact as racist. In that regard he is restating the obvious. What he isn't doing is making a case that Reagan was trying to appeal to race. I can't access the Goldfield book so we can't tell if he is reporting the reactions (like Cannon) or making the claims (like Herbert). The same is true of the Walton book. One of the books, Cannon, doesn't say the speech was racist. It says some accuse the speech of being racist. I can not readily search the Goldfield book but it is not from a university press but the author is an academic in the field. But we don't know if that book says "some saw the speech as racist" or says the speech "was racist". See the issue? The sources I was trying to add don't claim no one felt the speech was racist. Instead they offer an the view that Reagan's intent was not racist and the mention of states rights was consistent with his conservative message, not a racist code word. This is why I feel this is a balanced entry. Getoverpops (talk) 02:46, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree with RCLC in that the section in question is long and rambling with out a coherent theme. I think it and the sections afterwards should probably be condensed down two about 3-4 paragraphs. What about something like:

• Intro paragraph similar to the current section intro.
• Description of the charges against the Reagan and Bush campaigns. Footnotes could be used for the longer quotes and to clean up the whole section.
• Description of Clinton era stuff
• GOP apologies and current issues.

This would largely remove the content I've been trying to add about Reagan and the fair speech. It would also clean up a section that largely reads like a dumping ground for various articles people found that talk about more recent events. Getoverpops (talk) 14:30, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Last paragraph in the Roots of the Southern strategy section

Scoobydunk, I wanted to address your reason for editing the intro to the last sentence. You are correct that Lassiter describes the view as not with, "conventional wisdom" and "scholarly literature". However, the complete sentence is, "A suburban-centerd vision reveals that demographic change played a more important role than racial demagoguery in the emergence of a two-party system in the American South. This analysis runs contrary to both the conventional wisdom an a popular strain in the scholarly literature: the claim that the GOP came to dominate a new Solid South by repackaging the segregationist platform of George C. Wallace and capitalizing on a racial backlash that originated in the Dee South and the countryside." Note that the sentence does not claim the scholarly liturature was previously in agreement on this point. It only acknowledges that some scholars agree on the point. Thus it is better to leave the opening sentence so that it doesn't imply a weight to either POV. As a separate mater, I have added the Alexander references back to the section. While the sources are not as strong as the ones you left in, his articles support the other authors who don't see the SS as a critical factor. Alexander is also a scholar in the field and thus should be seen as more credible than someone like Herbert who is quoted widely in the Wiki article. Getoverpops (talk) 14:09, 18 June 2015 (UTC) Addressing the recent changes. Scoobydunk justified the change as: "The source says "capitalized on racial backlash", this proves scholarly consensus and that Lassiter's view diverge from that consensus. Stop trying to introduce doubt/debate, which isn't supported by the source." Again, Lassiter doesn't say his view diverges from an agreed scholarly view point. He only says it diverges from a popular strain in the scholarly literature. Thus I would like the more neutral intro stating that scholars don't agree on the impact. Saying "some scholars" disagree can be seen as using weasel words to add or diminish weight. Getoverpops (talk) 16:03, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

As I said above, both of your reliable sources admit to there being a consensus generally held by academia. I know exactly what the full quote says and it explicitly explains that the conventional wisdom/popular strain in scholarly literature attribute GOP dominance in the South due to capitalizing on racial backlash by repackaging a segregationist narrative. That means there is a scholarly consensus or majority viewpoint and Lassiter's opinion is a minority viewpoint, and the article should represent that.Scoobydunk (talk) 16:32, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Scoobydunk. If there is a large body of scholarly work dissenting from this view, where is it? Why do we only have a couple of sources? --Sammy1339 (talk) 16:36, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

First, SD, why would you open an edit warring notice based on this?

Second, the source SD uses to justify a "some" claim does not say "some". "Some" can be taken as a weasel word to downplay the significance of a counter view. What Lassiter says is "a popular strain in the scholarly literature". It does not say it is the majority view or that those who have really researched the subject largely agree. This is why I think the more neutral version we refined is better. Sammy, I would take your question and turn it around, where is the scholarly work, work that actually looked to address that topic, that says the GOP turn in the south was because of appeals to racism? Most of the work that mentions it (as I showed above) mentions it as a given, as popular understanding. Previously I mentioned the work of Melvin Small. His book makes it clear that at least when we talk about the impact of the SS (and even it's make up), the record does not show clear agreement among scholars. This is why the more neutral sentence is in orderGetoverpops (talk) 17:53, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

OK, I have on line access to Small's book and it's citations. The below is from chapter 12 of the previously cited book. The chapter is by Dean Kotlowski (an author we have agreed is produced at least two reliable works on the subject).

This “Southern Strategy/civil-rights retreat” thesis became the first, and thus the orthodox, interpretation of the administration's policies. It would be sustained, in the years immediately after Nixon left office, by two groups of writers. The first were those who used the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal as their points of reference for understanding Nixon's presidency. ...

There also was a connect-the-dots tone to the orthodox accounts that wrapped individual events – the 1968 election, Phillips’ book (which actually opposed an “abandonment” of civil rights as “self-defeating”), and delays in desegregation for Mississippi's schools – into a tidy, all-policy-is-politics thesis (Phillips 1969: 464). Evans and Novak, who began their study by proclaiming the president inscrutable, had, by the time they discussed the issue of race, made him one-dimensional. ...

Several writers challenged the orthodox interpretation, starting with Nixon himself. .... Whatever their weaknesses, the Nixonian accounts presaged a scholarly revision of the president's civil-rights record that began with A. James Reichley's Conservatives in an Age of Change. ...

Melvin Small's The Presidency of Richard Nixon (1999) was a case in point. Small, not unlike his subject, cast himself as middle-of-the-road, between “the legion of unreconstructed Nixon haters” and “the growing number of Nixon revisionists who view Watergate and other dark deeds as aberrations” – a reference to Parmet, Wicker, and Hoff. ...

Scholars wishing to write on Nixon and civil rights would be wise to keep two realities in mind. First, this topic, by its nature, has been one of the most debated, and contentious, aspects of Nixon's domestic policies. As such, it demands equanimity rather than polemics – by authors and by reviewers of their books. Second, whatever aspect of Nixon's policy is studied, this president's own complexity ought to be recognized. William Safire, a sympathetic but not uncritical observer, once compared Nixon to a cake, that is, consisting of a variety of layers – “progressive politician,” “self-made” man, “realist,” “hater,” “loner” – and covered by a “conservative” icing. “When you take a bite of the cake that is Nixon,” he warned readers, “you must get a mouthful of all the layers; nibbling along one level is not permitted”

The entire chapter continues much like that and covers different views and interpretations of Nixon, his actions and related outcomes. That should clearly show that there is not a single school of thought on the subject as viewed by scholars. Getoverpops (talk) 18:41, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

You keep trying to present a scholarly consensus as a debate, and that is directly contrary to what we've been discussing. You also need an equivalently strong reliable source to assert that there is disagreement among the academic field or is a debate, for that language to remain in the article. The Lassiter quote directly contradicts this and admits that there is a conventional knowledge held by scholarly sources and that his views are contrary to that conventional viewpoint. This is how we define majority vs. minority opinion. My use of "Some" is generous and actually gives the minority viewpoint of Lassiter more weight than it deserves. Though it can be considered a weasel word, it's not when I have sources that speak to the majority viewpoint conventionally held by scholarship. I'm happy to remove a statement speaking to "some" but it can not be replaced with an affirmative statement pertaining to debate/disagreement among scholars. Lastly, the quote from Wiley & Sons is not a peer reviewed work and is not of equivalent reliability. So it's irrelevant when being used to contradict the narrative held by stronger sources.Scoobydunk (talk) 19:48, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Scoobydunk and Sammy. I do not see that there is an active, academic debate. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 21:31, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

The fact that I have shown that scholars disagree doesn't prove the point? What about the fact that a peer reviewed author says there is disagreement? What more needs to be shown? Getoverpops (talk) 21:48, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

But you have not shown there is a consensus among scholars. I would like to see the sources you claim show the GOP's success in the south was due to the racist message. So far there aren't actually that many and it's far from a consensus. I agree with the "conventional wisdom" claim but Lassiter does not support your claim that there is a whole sale agreement among scholars. What he and Small argue is that the view point wasn't the first thus it is not conventional wisdom. Your use of "some" makes for a weasel word suggesting the view is insignificant or dismissed by most researchers. You haven't shown that to be the case. You are claiming a majority vs minority opinion but have not shown it. As for your claim that the Small edited book is not peer reviewed, I would suggest you look at Wiley-Blackwell's business. It is a publisher of peer reviewed, academic books and journals. It should be seen as at least as reliable as the U Kentucky press. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiley-Blackwell So how should we show that there was not a consensus view (at any point according the Kotlowski). How do we make the entry not read as if the view that appeals to racism were the key to GOP success in the South?Getoverpops (talk) 21:47, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Consensus, majority opinion, conventional wisdom, and popular viewpoint of scholarly literature are synonymous. Furthermore, Wiley-Blackwell is a separate parent company of Wiley & Sons publishing. Wiley-Blackwell is known for its peer reviewed publications, but this language isn't used for Wiley & Sons which is also known as the publisher of the "for Dummies" series of books. Just like Gap Inc. owns Banana Republic, Gap, and Old Navy, doesn't mean that something you buy from Old Navy is equivalent to something bought at Banana Republic. Your link suggests a false equivalency and Wiley & Sons is not equivalent to the University Press of Kentucky which belongs to the Association of American University Presses. It's just an academic book, which is certainly stronger than most non-academic sources, but not stronger than peer reviewed sources.Scoobydunk (talk) 00:44, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:BALANCE, Wikipedia should neutrally present the subject, and should not favor a POV that a Southern Strategy was driven by racism within GOP voters, at the same time presenting that certain reliable sources have written that it has. Wikipedia should not favor the POV that the Southern Strategy was not driven by racism, at the same time present that certain reliable sources have written as such.
Present both POVs, let the reader sort out which is the truth.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:29, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Scoobydunk, no, they are not synonymous. Note that Lassiter clearly states them as two separate things. Conventional wisdom does not imply the consensus view among scholars and that is where your argument falls apart. The fact that scholars like Carter feel the need to mention and write dissent articles in reply to Shafer and Johnson or Alexander at all is a strong indication that there is debate. You are really working hard to discredit the Small compilation book. Sorry, just look at the contributing authors. The quotes that I posted were from the section contributed by Kotlowski whom we have already agreed produced a reputable work on the subject. I think you are working really hard to dismiss this source for an unjust cause. It is clearly a compilation work by noted scholars in the field. If you still disagree perhaps we should take this to the reputable source noticeboard.

I agree with RightCowLeftCoast that we should simply state that there is a debate among scholars and present both sides of the debate without a subject sentence that favors one or the other. I don't believe we have that now.Getoverpops (talk) 01:42, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

@RightCowLeftCoast: There is no debate about whether "a Southern Strategy was driven by racism." Reliable sources all agree on that, and it's a fact. The objections here have more to do with nuances about the scope of the appeals to racism.

@Getoverpops: Putting aside the issue that this book is not peer-reviewed, the quote you provided does not even seem to offer a clear alternative to the orthodox view. It says that the interpretation of Nixon's civil rights record is contested by a minority of scholars - that's not directly pertinent to understanding the scope of the Southern strategy. It's not clear to me that the book makes the claims you claim it makes. --Sammy1339 (talk) 01:59, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Sammy, you are mistating the objection. The objection is the claim that, in effect, the SS had an impact on the shift of the south from Democrat to GOP dominated. Some like Carter claim yes. Others say no, it was based on other factors. They aren't saying racial plays weren't made but that those racial plays don't explain the changes. Currently we don't actually know if the Small book was or was not peer reviewed. Scoobydunk has made that claim without proof. Certainly the author's list shows it to be a major complication of reputable historians. I suspect if we put that up to the reputable sources noticeboard it would be considered quite reliable. The book, and specifically the section by Kotlowski, point out that you have an early group of writers who attacked Nixon on civil rights and claim there was racist southern strategy used to win over the south. That was what he called the orthodox view because it was the first one. He is illustrating the point that there are a wide range of views on Nixon, civil rights etc. It gets back to the core issue which is that there is lots of debate about all sorts of aspects of Nixon. Given that the "common wisdom" is the SS converted the south to the GOP, the fact that we have a lot of debate on the subject should make it clear that there is not a consensus view and thus the Wiki entry should not favor either position.Getoverpops (talk) 02:36, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Alright, this is getting silly. You're conceding that there was a strategy to appeal to racism, but contesting that the scholarly consensus is that the South shifted to the GOP after the Civil Rights Act because of racism? It was a stretch when you seemed to be saying "Okay, the South went to GOP side because the Dems embraced civil rights, but the Republicans didn't deliberately exploit this to their advantage." But now, you're saying that it was coincidence that the Dems lost their dominance of the South right at that time? Gimme a break. You need to show some very explicit statements from some very strong sources to convince anybody of that idea. I highly doubt any reliable source makes such a claim. --Sammy1339 (talk) 02:52, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Sammy, it is very discouraging that we might have been discussing different topics. I hope this is just a case of you getting confused by the long chain of replies. Here is what I [initially]. I said the degree to which any GOP appeals to racism (ie the SS) affected the shift of the south to the GOP were subject to debate. I proceeded to given sources that said it was a significant factor and others that said it wasn't. So what we have done since is try to refine the content of that paragraph. Critically, this is why I said my neutrality reviews were obsolete. I'm not asking the same question I put forth in the neutrality request. That question was "did it really exist". Enough scholars say yes. The second question (the current one) is did it really have any impact? Scholars debate that. Getoverpops (talk) 03:08, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

WP:BALANCE DOES NOT require that all views be given equal play. What it says is "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence. However, when reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both approaches and work for balance." In this case, the reliable sources ARE NOT "relatively equal in prominence". If a small minority present one view and the majority largely ignore it, there is no debate. What reliable sources speak of this raging debate that you claim exists? Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 01:50, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

NS, in that case I think it is up to you to prove that such a balance doesn't exist. The default assumption when prominent sources on both sides have been presented would be to give balanced weight. How many sources do we have that say the SS is why the GOP was able to turn the south into a reliable voter base? I've given at least four that argue against (Scoobydunk will argue about Alexander but he is a published academic). I can also add Michelle Brattain (academic but in a lesser journal). So that is 5 in favor. We also have Dan Carter, one of the key advocates of the SS being significant writing in Dissent in reply to the idea. I believe you have cited that one in the past. So if we have Carter discussing the works of Schafer and Johnson, Alexander and Lassiter all in a single article are you going to claim there is no debate?Getoverpops (talk) 02:24, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Just so I can understand what is going on in this article, as I am largely uninvolved, given the total number of edits in this article, and the number of my edits in this article. What editors want to advance the POV that Republicans are racist?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 03:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The overall picture is more complex but in this particular section the core question to what extend (if any) did the appeals to racism associated with the Southern Strategy result in the South moving to the GOP. [is my original edit to that end.] Some academics clearly feel the SS was not responsible for the GOP transmission. I think enough feel that way to justify a weight neutral presentation. Others argue the view is a minority view. I don't believe anyone has put together a list of academics who think the south would have stayed blue without the SS.

If by editors you mean Wiki editors I don't believe any here are simply trying to claim the Republicans are racist. That said, I don't think this article is even close to well balanced in it's overall presentation. Getoverpops (talk) 04:17, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

What are we talking about?

@Getoverpops: In your initial complaints earlier this month you made the following statements.

That said, the extend and impact of these appeals and even the notion to which we should call them racists is questionable.

...

I have found several peer reviewed sources that suggest the scope of the strategy was small and was rather innocuous.

More recently, you disagreed with my assertion that your objections consisted of nuanced questions about the scope of the Southern strategy's appeals to racism, and characterized your argument as follows.

I said the degree to which any GOP appeals to racism (ie the SS) affected the shift of the south to the GOP were subject to debate. I proceeded to given sources that said it was a significant factor and others that said it wasn't. So what we have done since is try to refine the content of that paragraph. Critically, this is why I said my neutrality reviews were obsolete. I'm not asking the same question I put forth in the neutrality request. That question was "did it really exist". Enough scholars say yes. The second question (the current one) is did it really have any impact? Scholars debate that.

If I understand correctly (and I probably don't) you are contending that academic consensus does not have it that the political shift of the South toward the GOP from 1964 onwards was primarily the result of race issues. This is a strong (indeed, unbelievable) claim. I am reluctant to accept that any reputable scholars have taken such a position, and none of what you quoted above indicates to me that they have done anything other than make nuanced points about the extent of the Southern strategy, without contesting the common wisdom that the Democrats' loss of control of the South was caused by race politics. It's true I am a little lost in the vast amount you have written. If you are indeed arguing that the political shift in the South was not the result of racism, please briefly list the strongest academic sources (and no others) which take this position, and indicate exactly what they say that supports such a claim. --Sammy1339 (talk) 21:52, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Sammy, yes I'm afraid you have missed a critical distinction. The articles I have cited state that the Southern Strategy was not a significant factor. Given this article is about the Southern Strategy the academic view of the impact of the strategy is a relevant discussion point. None of the sources claim race based issues weren't a factor, they claim that the Southern Strategy wasn't a factor. Incidentally Atwater seems to say something similar. I wanted to further discuss his quote in that section of the talk page. Anyway, I hope this clears up your question and thank you for asking for clarification. It certainly would explain some of the disagreement! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Getoverpops (talk • contribs) 22:33, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Cutting down of the Atwater quote

Sammy1339, your cutting out of the larger Atwater quote is problematic. Herbert's article is an op-ed article and thus a poor source for any claims. Yes, he is quoting a section of the Atwater interview but he has taken it out of context. The longer quote you removed and the other source put context back around the actual conversation. Furthermore by placing that quote, coming from an inflammatory op-ed article by Herbert, right before the Reagan discussion it implies something that Atwater specifically said wasn't true. If you want to use it as historical proof of how the SS worked then it should be in the previous section. If you aren't going to use the full quote (you can add the quote to a footnote while keeping the full context in the text) then I would remove the whole thing. Alternatively, you can use this link rather than the Herbert op-ed link. If the only intent is to quote Atwater, both links contain the same text. I added this quote a while back and Scott Illini replaced with justification when another editor removed it. I would suggest we figure out how to include the full quote using footnotes. Getoverpops (talk) 02:55, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:BRD I have reverted the reduction. It appears to advance the narrative that the Republicans are racist. While I believe it is done in good faith, a more balanced pruning of the quote, while giving part of the rebuttal, gives a more balanced presentation of the interview. Please, let us try better next time. Perhaps we should discuss what part of the quotes, if any should be kept in block quote form.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 03:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Your version is misleading. In particular, the claim that Atwater said Reagan did not use a Southern strategy is just not true. If you read the source, the whole thing was about Reagan. The mitigating factor claimed by Atwater is that the abstraction itself is an improvement over the bald racism of the previous era. This is a bit of a tangent, and is not included in the source Getoverpops wants to use for this (highly relevant and famous) quote. --Sammy1339 (talk) 03:52, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

My version? I only tagged, and merged references per WP:CITEBUNDLE to avoid WP:BOMBARD. The quotes were untouched.

IMHO it would be better to summarize the current quotes (all of them in the section), thus summarizing the racist claim, and summarizing the it was not racist claim. This presents both views neutrally. The trimming only provided the racist claim.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:06, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I would propose the Herbert reference to the Atwater quote be removed and replaced at least with the Lamis if not the Powerline version. Here is my reasoning. If you look at the Powerline source (and it contains links to the complete audio of the interview) it becomes clear that Atwater felt that Reagan's campaign was not trying to craft an appeal to racism. While I agree that the Powerline blog is a lower weight source vs Lamis, it does include more of the interview and critically a link to the complete interview. That said, Lamis's interpretation of the meaning of the quote is questionable if it's taken to imply Reagan was using coded racism. What it does is provide evidence that prior to 1966 Atwater felt race was a critical factor but he felt it was not by 1980. It also shows that Atwater was NOT saying the GOP used coded racism during Reagan's campaign. The full Lamis version of the quote is footnoted.. When you listen to the whole interview it's clear that Atwater saw the appeal to racist instincts as a non-winner for the campaign and thus not something to bother with. He also noted that as the "code words" become more obscure the intended audience doesn't actually understand the potential racist message. He said the real divide would be class, not race and it would be across the nation.

Anyway, Herbert has cut the quote in a way to make it suggest something Atwater didn't intend. Furthermore, the Herbert citation is used only as a source for the text. As such the other two sources Lamis or Powerline are more complete. The quote as it appears in the Wiki article is neither representative of Lamis or Powerline.

Also, I think the clean up tag should be returned to the article. There is still plenty in that section that needs to be cleaned up.Getoverpops (talk) 03:13, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Undue weight from primary source

The Atwater interview that currently exists in the article is given significance and weight by both of the sources that are used to merit its inclusion. One of them is a peer reviewed book that focuses on this part of the interview, specifically. The inclusion of the quote by Rightcowleftcoast is not given any weight or discussed in either of these sources. This inclusion is actually against WP weight policies, as the editor is giving weight to a specific line from an interview/primary source that isn't given any weight by a reliable secondary source. This is why I reverted the inclusion of the quote. WP represents what the most reliable scholarly sources say about a subject, it doesn't represent the arguments that editors want to include because they think they are significant especially when they are not given importance by equally strong sources.Scoobydunk (talk) 21:02, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

The inclusion of only one part of the interview creates a lack of balance in the article. Also including the entirety of only one part of the interview, creates a non-neutral perception of the GOP. Better to summarize what the quote says to give that part of the interview undue weight in the section.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:39, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

It seems your conception of "balance" hinges on left vs. right ideologies, which is not what balance speaks to. Balance speaks to representation of reliable sources. Here we have 2 reliable sources, one of them being peer reviewed, that specifically quote this passage from Atwater's speech. This gives significance to this passage and if it's important enough for those sources to directly quote it, then there is no reason why WP can't directly quote it as well. Note, we aren't including "one part of the interview" we're including what strong secondary sources say and our citation directly references those sources, not the interview itself. To make an argument of "balance" you'd have to demonstrate that there is an equally strong reliable source with an opposing view regarding the Atwater's speech or the passage itself that is not being fairly represented in this article. Your previous reversion didn't demonstrate this.Scoobydunk (talk) 20:35, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Please then attribute what sources only give that one part of the lengthy interview weight, and provide a link to the entirity of the interview, so that a reader can watch the full interview if they so wish.

Also, I will include information from the following reliable source, which gives weight to the other part of the interview: Joseph A. Aistrup (5 February 2015). The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South. University Press of Kentucky. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-8131-4792-5.

--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 03:29, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

We don't explain the policies of establishing weight or reliability within the actual articles themselves. It would actually be "original research" to put in the article "This quote from Atwater has weight because it was published in this book by XYZ". Establishing weight and reliability are mechanics that exist behind the scenes of encyclopedia articles. The quote is directly attributed to Atwater which is from his interview. That interview is a "primary source" and when citing sources we are discouraged from using primary sources over reliable secondary sources. Everything is in order with that quote, along with the context presented within the article. This context represents what the reliable sources say about the transition/evolution of the Southern Strategy. The only POV pushing I'm seeing here is your attempts to trivialize what scholarly sources say as "opinions" and trying to present a false "balance" argument when you haven't demonstrated a misrepresentation of "balance" regarding this quote or the interview. This is further exemplified by the fact that your last edit was a completely dishonest representation of what Airstrup said in his book. No where did Airstrup say "There was no 'Southern strategy' used in the Reagan campaign" and, as a matter of fact, Airstrup speaks directly to the Southern Strategy used by Reagan and how Reagan redefined the Southern Strategy. Scoobydunk (talk) 08:54, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Censorship of the editorial cartoon?

http://ww.littleafrica.com/incredibleart/58.htm

You can see the black guy's face on this version.

Was this thing written by the DNC? One sided, near slander and any editor who tries to add something that resembles objectivity is suppressed! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.133.75.162 (talk) 12:45, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Removal of verified content

@Sammy1339: I am not interested in getting into an edit war.
There appears to be a concerted effort to continue to deny balance in the article, and continuing to have this article portray the Republican Party as racist by utilizing a southern strategy. If there is an effort of active editors here to continue this perception, a single editor, such as myself cannot remedy the current imbalance, and this article will continue to have the imbalance it began with in the early days.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 03:45, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

@RightCowLeftCoast: Oh, I'm quite aware of that phenomenon. You should take a look at what's happening at Mattress Performance and Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol. It's very frustrating how some editors vigorously defend every detail of an obviously and severely biased narrative.

This is not quite like that, though. This is not an attempt to make the Republicans look racist - the Southern strategy is a fact, it happened, and even the source you cited (which takes a very unusual position) is highly nuanced, saying that what Reagan did shouldn't be called a "Southern strategy," but that he incorporated race politics into a broader set of economic policies. This is consistent with what Atwater says about race politics becoming more coded. Nobody says Republicans in 1980 were no longer appealing to white Southerners by exploiting racial tensions, so a statement like the one I just reverted demands a lot of qualification. --Sammy1339 (talk) 04:12, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

The problem with the recent addition is that it misrepresented what the source is saying. While Aistrup does write that Reagan "did not have a Southern Strategy per se", he is employing a particular definition of the Southern strategy and he describes how Reagan's strategy was both a product and refinement of the southern strategy used by Nixon and Goldwater. Aistrup also referred to Reagan's southern coalition as "the reincarnation of the Wallace movement of 1968". So I think twisting that into "There was no "Southern strategy" used in the Reagan campaign, instead appealing to populist messages that appealed to nationwide audiences." (and placing that at the lead of a paragraph detailing Reagan's use of the strategy) says something about the credibility of any claim to balance. gobonobo ^{+ c} 20:00, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Additionally, the Southern strategy was enacted by Republicans, for Republicans, for the sake of consciously and intentionally gaining the "black vote". It's not the Democratic Party's fault that they did this, and the Democratic Party doesn't need to defend anything. If you feel that Wikipedia has a Liberal bias, it might be because Wikipedia has a "truth bias". "Reality has a well-known Liberal bias." - Stephen Colbert. Liberal does not, and has not, always represented the Democratic Party - the switch primarily came after the Southern strategy. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party even fails to be Liberal on some issues. The truthful, Liberal bias will always remain - no matter who it comes from - because people want the facts. Today's Republicans and Tea Party, being represented mainly by Conservatives (who prefer Tradition, by nature, even when it means creating and enacting their own traditions, even when they're built upon falsehoods), often (but not always) choose to "muddy the water" by claiming to desire that "all sides are represented", as long as that means getting their own voices heard, even when their conjectures are false. This is a good concept, when the opinion is merely a matter of opinion, but when you're dealing with the facts, only the truth should be presented, not opinionated conjecture that refuses to acknowledge the facts. Knowledgebattle (talk) 18:17, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

The material you removed came from a peer reviewed, scholarly, secondary source which is the strongest type of source available. These sources can be as biased as they want to be, it's us editors that don't reserve that right when building Wikipedia articles. Furthermore, it is directly related to the southern strategy and your remarks/characterizations show a lack of comprehension of the material. The other is explaining how elements of the Southern Strategy is still used today by Republican's in fear mongering conservatives against an elected black president. It talks about a narrative that claims his election marks the end of the need for more civil rights initiatives, while at the same time threatening that more civil rights would oppress white conservative voters. You talk about "truth" being presented, but it's not our responsibility as editors to establish what's true and what's not. We simply convey what the strongest sources have to say about a subject and then we present those sources with the appropriate weight. If you have a position contrary to the one you removed that comes from an equally reliable source, then we can discuss altering the passage to appropriately reflect academia.Scoobydunk (talk) 03:47, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

I undid your undo, but after reading your explanation, then re-reading it, I undid my undo of your undo of my deletion. Lol. You were right, and I misunderstood the perspective it was coming from. It seemed as if a Conservative was trying to turn this around into a "Northern Strategy", in which I was thinking, "Then call it something different, because it's not the same thing," but after removing my preconception and re-reading it with a more open mind, I see what you mean by it being exactly the same tactic, revisited. Knowledgebattle (talk) 16:01, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

---

The Great Betrayal

In the "World War II and Population Changes" section, the sentence about "The Great Betrayal," for which is a "citation needed," appears to originate with an article on US politicain Allen Webb's blog at:

http://allenwestrepublic.com/2013/02/11/angela-west-why-the-democrats-virtually-own-the-african-american-voting-block-and-how-deep-the-reasons-run/

The piece in the blog is actually by Angela West; the "betrayal" here is that supposedly felt by Republican politicians in response to black voters abandoning them despite Republican support fo the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. The sentence that uses the term is actually reproduced word-for-word (pretty much plagiarized), and the following sentences are very lightly modified.

Here's the Angela West paragraph:

"In some Republican circles, the election after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was termed, “The Great Betrayal”. Even though some Republicans paid a price with white voters — in some cases losing seats — black voters did not return to the Republican fold. Indeed, in some cases, notably the re-election of Senator Al Gore Sr., a majority of black voters cast their votes for a man who voted against the Civil Rights Act."

Compare the wikipedia paragraph:

"In some Republican circles, the election after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was termed, "The Great Betrayal".[citation needed] Although some Republicans were defeated in the election, national party support for this important law did not attract black voters to the Republican fold in the North. In the South, most black voters were still disenfranchised. When Democratic Senator Al Gore Sr. was re-elected from Middle Tennessee; a majority of the still limited number of black voters in the region cast their votes for him as a Democrat, although he personally had voted against the Civil Rights Act.[citation needed]"

Interestingly, the term "Great Betrayal" also shows up in Race and Redistricting in the 1990s, by Bernard Grofman (2003), p. 63 (footnote):

"The solid South was an historical anomaly; once the Democratic party began to change its stance on civil rights after WWII, and especially after Lyndon Johnson's "great betrayal" in supporting passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, no one would ever be able to put Humpty-Dumpty together again."

Here, the term refers to southern Democrats' feeling of betrayal elicited by L. Johnson's abandonment of the southern Democratic Party's segregationist traditions, pretty much the opposite of West's usage.

I haven't yet found a contemporary (1960's) usage. I believe that "The Great Betrayal" or "The Grand Betrayal" is long and well known as a reference to the presidential election compromise of 1877 that ended Reconstruction and African-Americans' opportunity to enter American society. The use of this term to refer to civil rights events of the 1960's is obviously an echo (ironic or not) of the earlier usage.

Until actual 1960's usage of the "Great Betrayal" can be found, I recommend either removing the sentences under question, or rewriting them to better avoid plagiarism and providing proper citation, thereby indicating that West's use of the term is just her own, or re-writing it in a way to avoid the term altogether - this would be the most informative thing to do, as it would be simply including a citable point of view about the Southern Strategy. The question would then be whether it is even a notable opinion.

43hellokitty21 (talk) 17:28, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Took a sharp eye to spot that – good work, and I agree with you. Neither version ( betrayal of GOP or betrayal of LBJ) involves a scholarly analysis and I don't see any reason it should be included at all. Rjensen (talk) 17:39, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I will look to removing it. 43hellokitty21 (talk) 23:14, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Bob Herbert

Bob Herbert writes interesting commentary but he is not an expert RS on the 1960s and cites no scholarship in any discipline to support his opinions. Rjensen (talk) 01:52, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Though as a columnist for a major national newspaper, Herbert can generally be regarded as a reliable source. Are you proposing replacement text for the passages you removed? gobonobo ^{+ c} 22:41, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

he is a commentator on 21st century events but he never covered the 1960s and has never written more than a few sentences about that entire. He cites no RS for his opinions. Rjensen (talk) 23:17, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

@Rjensen: I have no interest in taking part in an edit war, so would you please observe WP:BRD and self-revert your edit here? This edit is problematic in several ways. It narrows the definition of Southern Strategy to only apply to presidential candidates, which is demonstrably wrong. It also introduces content to the lede that doesn't exist in the body of the article, which doesn't follow our manual of style which says the lede needs to summarize the body. These and the removal of sourced content that has existed in the article for a long time are bold changes and should be discussed on the talk page where we can hopefully reach a consensus on how to proceed. gobonobo ^{+ c} 23:18, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Most of the reliable sources (regardless of their position on the debate) have stressed the presidential role. For example one of the first major books was Southern Strategy: Race, Region and Republican Presidential Politics, 1964 and 1968 by Donald T. Wolfe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974). The Origins of the Southern Strategy By Bruce Kalk p 117 is explicit about Goldwater and Nixon as central. In 1972, Nixon distanced himself from the Republican Party, carried 49 states, and carried very few southern Republicans on his coattails. Evan Spencer Jones The Politics that makes Presidents (2008) says "The Southern Strategy was Nixon's effort to lure socially conservative southern whites away from the Democratic Party" p 120. And indeed if you look back to the late 19th and early 20th century, it's always presidential politics that are covered. Notice that the Republicans At the state and local level were weakly represented in the South before the 1990s. As for Bob Herbert, he is not a reliable secondary source when he talks about the 1960s. He's a good commentator on daily events in the 21st century. As for items in the lead that are not based upon the text itself, that is a problem we can fix: which are the sentences you would specify? Rjensen (talk) 23:43, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Already fixed.Scoobydunk (talk) 06:05, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

"Stressing" the presidential role is different than defining the term as applying only to presidential campaigns. I also have concerns that "appealing to racism against African Americans" is being watered down to the rather vague "appealing to racial tensions". Why remove African Americans from the lede? Also "Some writers allege" is weasel-y worded. Unless you want to deny the existence of dog-whistle politics, multiple sources and examples in the body of text affirm that coded language was used as part of the southern strategy. To say that "some" people "allege" the fact is inserting bias. And the opinion of Joan Hoff that is being added to the lede doesn't even exist in the body of the article. Further, the strategy extended well beyond the 60s, and the Bob Herbert references are reliable sources for the passages that they support, namely his own take on the phenomenon. gobonobo ^{+ c} 14:38, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

For just one example of non-presidential races where the strategy existed, see Aistrup, pp. 26–27: "Southern Republicans such as Martin and Workman were attempting to take advantage of the Northern Democrats' movement toward the pro-civil rights side of the debate..." "these GOP candidates were trying to 'out-nigger' their Democratic opposition." gobonobo ^{+ c} 14:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I think you make a good point but keep in mind that the part you quoted is not really "proof" of the application of the coded words etc that are how the Southern Strategy is supposed to be implemented. That said, I've seen several references to the 1970 elections which clearly aren't presidential. Would "national" elections work better? Springee (talk) 17:04, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I didn't realize that the use of coded rhetoric was in dispute. 'National' might be an improvement on 'presidential', but the strategy was also employed in state-wide races and at the state level (like in 1992 when Rod Shealy recruited an unemployed black felon to run for office in order to drive up white voter turnout). I'm not at all attached to the vaguery of 'certain elections', by the way, and am open to other formulations. gobonobo ^{+ c} 23:26, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that part is in dispute. I think that is at the core of the claims. I was actually going in the other direction, saying that even if a campaign is racist, it isn't "the Southern Strategy" unless it has coded language etc. If the politician is opening hostile to blacks then it lacks that sort of two faced aspect that seems to be at the heard of (what I think of as) the Southern Strategy. I mentioned your quote because I recall reading, I think it was about Wallace, that before this politician decided to be anti-civil rights and the like he was going to show that he was all for it. Only when he felt that hurt his election chances did he reverse. He said something like what you quoted but when you read what he meant it wasn't about the Southern Strategy. Basically, your quote didn't show that someone was employing "the Southern Strategy". The full passage might have but the quoted part didn't.

Also I think at the local level most of the work I've read said that both sides were bad about using racist appeals, even the southern Democrats after 1968. My understanding is that when people talk about "the Southern Strategy" they are really thinking about federal level elections. It does seem problematic that we have such a nebulous term. Do you have a suggestion for figuring out how to do a better job defining it? That way we would have some way to say what should and should not be included in the article. I'm sure some who are going to say X was southern strategy are doing so because accusing of racism is such an easy way to apply an ugly label (one that no one thinks is a good thing) yet is hard to defend since it basically forces the accused into proving a negative. Anyway, that's a bit of an aside. Do you think it would be helpful if we could define what behaviors are and are not?

Finally, what is your take on the dissenting POV in the lead? I feel like there is a very strong body of literature that says the strategy was not a significant factor in the change of the South from blue to red. Thoughts? So far this discussion page has been rather rancorous. Perhaps it's time we all step back, understand that we are all acting in good faith and discuss these changes. Thanks and I look forward to your answers. Springee (talk) 00:00, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Gobonobo, would you mind sharing your thoughts on my questions above? As I said, I see three issues. The first is that we as a group can't seem to decide what is and isn't the Southern Strategy. Second, we disagree that Herbert is an opinion. Rjensen and I see it as an opinion article and thus it can't be used as it is being used in the lead. Finally, we have the question of the alternative POV. It is very clear that there are quite a few reliable sources that don't agree that the Southern Strategy had a significant impact. That certainly is important enough to be in the lead. Perhaps, in a nod to Scoobydunk's concerns we should keep the lead limited to reference that specifically mention the Southern Strategy (I mentioned one previously in the talk section). Would that address your concerns as well? Springee (talk) 05:03, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree that not every racist campaign in the South is using some sort of southern strategy. A key element is trying to get the white vote by invoking or alluding to racial problems. As Atwater noted, the codified language became more abstract over time to the point that, in my opinion, the strategy was superseded by those abstractions. I've been refamiliarizing myself with the topic and picked up a copy of Aistrup's book. He notes that David Duke's campaign, which displayed a more overtly racist southern strategy, was disowned by some of his Republican contemporaries. The gradual change in language over time should be summarized in the lead, but stated as a fact, not as "some people allege". It is also important that alternative viewpoints are given due weight, however the claim that the strategy never existed in any form is really fringe. Due to the difficulty in reliably determining the extent that a single issue has on people's motivations for voting, a degree of skepticism should be given to claims of whether the strategy worked or not. gobonobo ^{+ c} 06:47, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

the "claim that the strategy never existed" is indeed fringe. But that is not what the critics are saying. The critics say that the importance of SS was much smaller--that is, Southern conservatives became Republicans for the same reasons that northern conservatives were Republican: economic issues like taxation, spending, & national debt; foreign policy (esp Vietnam War, amnesty); & social issues (abortion, school prayer, acid (drugs), youth rebellion, abortion, gay rights, ERA). In addition Joan Hoff & others argue that the SS was operational only briefly during Nixon's term. Rjensen (talk) 07:03, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

gobonobo, I agree the "didn't happen" when used to say the appeals were never used is fringe. However, we must be careful not to credit every claim of the use as valid. While it is somewhat hard to say why people voted some way, enough academics have attacked the problem to give us a good idea. We should not discount their POV and I think it is significant enough to warrant placement in the lead. I mean we have speculative claims in the lead, discussion of the impact of the strategy seems far more significant. Also, you didn't answer my question about the restoration of the Herbert citation to the lead. Herbert is clearly an opinion article and thus should be used as proof as in the lead. Perhaps we should use a WP:RS to make the same claim? Springee (talk) 11:08, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Springee, I've removed the Herbert references from the lede. With regards to discussion of the impact and strategy, I'm open to discussion on how to word that. I prefer to work on the entire article first though, as it may become more obvious what should be summarized there. To start with, the background information on the Reconstruction Era and the Solid South seems excessive for this article so I'd like to provide a briefer summary, retaining key points. gobonobo ^{+ c} 02:41, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Gobonoboo, thanks for removing those from the lead. I like the work you have done to stream line the article. I think holding off on lead changes until the body is cleaned up makes sense. Please let me know if I can help with the effort. Springee (talk) 02:57, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

gobonobo, any thoughts on when you would like to make the other article updates? I was thinking about adding to the academic debate section as well as working on the lead but I wanted to hold off for your changes. The changes to the debate section would be a few more authors who support the view that the strategy was a non-issue in terms of overall impact. That isn't to say they think it didn't happen but they back the view that the voters moved to the GOP for other reasons. In the lead I would like to add back the comments about the limited impact of the strategy and remove the comments about claims that the strategy is on going. The "on going" section seems to be far more about the claims of political pundits trying to influence the views of their contemporary readers (stain the present with the ink of the past). I don't think their views are supported well enough to have a place in the lead. However, that may be a controversial change so I wanted to see how more recent edits panned out before making it. Thanks Springee (talk) 13:59, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

The scholarly debate section actually needs to be trimmed, not added to. The majority opinion of racial importance in the realignment of southern voters is already declared in the opening sentence, but then the vast majority of the section reflects minority opinions and opinions not relevant to the Southern Strategy. Also, the section should discuss the debate, and shouldn't just be a plastering of quotes of people that disagree. This is a violation of WP:Weight. Furthermore, it doesn't matter if you think peer reviewed source's views "are supported well enough" to merit inclusion in the article, or the lead. The fact that they are published in the most reliable sources available and that there is no equally reliable source contesting the information, means it deserves inclusion.Scoobydunk (talk) 16:37, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't appear that people agree with you. I was planning on added additional scholarly works that disagree with your claim that these are insignificant minority views. It actually looks like of those who have seriously studied the work they are even perhaps a majority view. These views are very relevant to the article because some suggest the strategy is not as wide spread as other sources have claimed and they also suggest the strategy was not responsible for the realignment of southern voters. Are you going to suggest that we shouldn't talk about the impact of this strategy? The parts I was going to propose removing from the lead are not discussed in academic sources. Interesting that you are against including academic sources that say the impact was negligible in the lead but you demand we include other sources in the lead for the same reason. Since I haven't actually proposed the changes yet but just asked if gobonobo was done making changes before I made any change proposals it's odd that you are objecting so vigorously. Perhaps it would be best to take a wait and see approach? Of course you could always file an ANI attacking me to keep me from making changes you disagree with... oh wait, you did. Springee (talk) 19:11, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Scholarly sources DO agree with me, namely Lassiter, who admits that his emphasis on issues other than race in the realignment of southern voters is against the widely held view of other scholars. Lassiter says: "This analysis runs contrary to both the conventional wisdom and the popular strain in the scholarly literature". That right there is an admission and is evidence that the majority viewpoint on political realignment in the South differs from Lassiter's dissenting opinion. As per [WP:NPOV], to assert that there is a majority or minority opinion in an article, it has to directly expressed by a reliable source first. This is further reinforce by Valentino and Sears who also state that the conventional wisdom of southern political realignment during the civil rights era is that it was racially motivated. These are statements addressing the majority viewpoint and they render your personal speculation of majority vs. minority irrelevant. The fact that sources define the Southern Strategy and its importance to southern realignment as the "conventional wisdom", means there shouldn't be nearly as many dissenting/minority viewpoints that are currently in the article. This is a clear violation WP:NPOV per wp:weight. The rest of your accusations are blatantly false. I'm not against the strongest academic sources and have refuted this assertion multiple times. None of my comments had to do with RS issues and had to do with WEIGHT issues. I've even made recent reversions to this article respecting the removal of material that wasn't equivalent in reliability.Scoobydunk (talk) 21:18, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

And other historians since Lassiter have also picked up and agreed that the conventional wisdom is wrong. Furthermore you are taking that quote out of context. Conventional wisdom said the Earth was flat even though many scholars had long disagreed well before conventional wisdom had caught up. You make the same "conventional wisdom" argument twice but the whole reason to state "conventional wisdom" is to distinguish it from scholarly agreement. Rjensen explained this to you already but it seems you were unwilling to listen to him either. Perhaps we need an RfC to address this issue. Would you like to propose wording? Springee (talk) 21:27, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Regardless of whether those other historians say the conventional wisdom is "wrong", it's still the conventional wisdom and is the majority opinion. You've yet to submit any reliable source that states the majority opinion as any other position. Hence, those dissenters remain as the minority viewpoint and get less coverage in the article as per wikipedia policy. The burden of proof is on you to prove that they are not the minority viewpoint, and you do this through citing a reliable source that explicitly substantiates that claim. It's not based on your own OR analysis of the number of sources supplied. How about, instead, we go to dispute resolution third opinion and get an uninvolved editor to examine the evidence we have on what the majority viewpoint is. This way your argument can be addressed on it's empirical merit, instead of having a bunch of biased editors jump in levying red herring arguments and ignoring policies. I'd also support raising the issue on the OR message boards, since your assertion is a violation of original research. Scoobydunk (talk) 21:42, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

You are misrepresenting my POV. I'm saying a significant, scholarly view point backed by a large number of historians and researchers is worthy of inclusion in the lead. I'm not claiming it is the majority POV among... well you didn't say who you think the POV is among. For example, I previously quoted Glenn Feldman's Painting Dixie Red. Early on he notes that the number of scholars who are agreeing with Lassiter and the "suburban strategy" is "rapidly growing". This makes it not just a one off minority POV but a significant POV. The fact that researchers don't agree on this point is very significant. It is certainly, in my opinion, more significant than the POV of the unwashed masses ("conventional wisdom") as well as some political pundits who make all sorts of claims about things the GOP does today as proof they never let go of the Southern Strategy (and instead applied it nationwide which would make it less "southern"). But don't fret, I won't make any edits until we have some additional voices and until I actually propose the changes here. Springee (talk) 00:03, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

You are ignoring the fact that reliable sources admit that the majority viewpoint places emphasis on the role of race in southern realignment. Therefore, any opinion that dissents from this majority viewpoint is a minority opinion and by WP policy does not deserve as much attention or weight as the majority viewpoint. Almost all of the scholarly debate section are quotes from this minority viewpoint and it has far too much weight. This is the problem with attempting to add more, which is what you said you wanted to do, and I've accurately addressed. It doesn't need more, it actually needs less. Now, I'm pretty sure you were just arguing that it wasn't a minority viewpoint and even entertained an RFC about it. However, if I am misrepresenting your POV, then you're admitting that it actually is the minority viewpoint and there is no more need for discussion about it. It's hard to honestly argue that a minority viewpoint needs more representation, especially when it greatly outweighs the majority viewpoint in the scholarly debate section. No where did I raise objections to this part of the lead. The only objection about the lead I did mention was your desire to remove reliably sourced information about the contemporary state of the Southern Strategy. There is plenty of peer reviewed scholarly sources that speak to the modern day Southern Strategy and there is no reason to suppress that information from the lead or the article.Scoobydunk (talk) 02:39, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Not at all, you are ignoring what you don't want to address. I and Rjensen didn't argue that race played no roll in the realignment. Many of the authors we cite say race did play a roll, though not to the extent that some would claim. What these scholars have claimed, and it's a claim backed by MANY scholars, especially more recent ones, is that the Southern Strategy was a non-factor in the realignment. Rjensen backed that claim with a number of articles that talked about why the south changed that didn't mention the southern strategy as well as other scholars who specifically stated the Southern Strategy was a not a significant factor. It is a significant POV that the Southern Strategy was not significant in the realignment of the south because it gets to one of the important questions about the subject of the article. The GOP did this thing, did it work? You seem to want to downplay that answer because the historians that really studied that question, not the ones who just mention the Southern Strategy as a given, but the ones who didn't assume largely agree it was NOT a significant factor. That is why Rjensen and I have mentioned many scholars who support that view. Since you claim there is plenty of modern peer reviewed scholarship that points to a modern southern strategy please show it. Not writers who claim happens but ones that really prove it. We can replace the weak citations at the end of the article with your stronger sources. Springee (talk) 02:52, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm not ignoring anything and have addressed practically everything. You're the one ignoring Lassiter's statement. He was speaking to his views about the importance of race and the Southern Strategy in realignment of the south and admitted that his views goes against the conventional wisdom and popular strain in scholarly literature. You're arguing that the "many" scholars you've listed claim that the SS was a non-factor in the realignment of the south, is the same position that Lassiter held and admitted was not the majority viewpoint. This means it's the minority viewpoint and nothing you, nor Rjensen have supplied refutes that fact. So I haven't ignored anything and it's actually you thinking that the more scholars you find will somehow change what's considered the majority/minority viewpoint that's ignoring how majority viewpoint is actually established on Wikipedia. You'd have to find an author that specifically says that the dissenting viewpoint is now the majority viewpoint. Remember, there are already 2-3 separate sources that say otherwise, so even if you find one that examines the majority viewpoint differently, it still wouldn't overrule the other sources already provided that state otherwise. So until you can find evidence to the contrary, you're attempting to add undue weight to a minority viewpoint which is already over represented in the article. This is the contention I've raised about your proposed changes and you've yet to refute it. You say I'm downplaying historians that studied the question of "did it work" and I'm not. The majority viewpoint says it did work and cherry picking a few elections where it might not have been a factor doesn't change that. Valetino and Sears actually address the majority viewpoint and the minority viewpoint while conducting their own studies to affirm that race was central factor in the realignment of the South and that it's still integral to contemporary conservatism because it's ingrained in the issues of economics, policies, and class that dissenting historians typically use as scapegoats.

Finally, peer reviewed published sources don't have to meet your approval to merit inclusion into an article. Sorry, but you don't get to judge their arguments and decide what's valid or invalid. That's called OR. Their assertion is more than enough and is all that's necessary for inclusion, regardless of the reasoning behind it. These sources include the one from Valentino and Sears and from Thomas Edge. Both are peer reviewed sources and both speak to race being a key issue in contemporary conservatism, with Edge discussing a new Southern Strategy 2.0. That's more than sufficient and you're not going to find a more reliable source than a peer reviewed scholarly article. Of course, there's also the source quoting the RNC chairman who admits to Republicans playing on racial tensions throughout the decade and that comes from multiple reliable sources as well, though not as strong as the two previously mentioned.Scoobydunk (talk) 06:51, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

And you again confirm that you aren't interested in listening to views you disagree with (it reminds me of the RfC that didn't go your way). For example, Rjensen already explained why the "apology" you are clinging to isn't what you claim it to be. It seems you are happy to ignore the scholars who explain why the POV was not the first and why it is growing in popularity. It is CLEARLY a significant POV and worthy of mention in the lead. Really, just after the description of what it is, the fact that is wasn't effective seems like a very important point to make. Anyway, I'm done arguing with you about it since you are just going round and round and ignoring the substantial work which says the strategy was ineffective. Incidentally, you should try to understand the difference between "race is an key issue" and how the way the southern strategy worked. It seems you are confusing the two. Springee (talk) 11:55, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Your hyperbole isn't going to score you any points. I mentioned the "apology" once and even admitted that it wasn't nearly as important as the other two peer reviewed works that speak to the modern nature of race related conservatism. So trying to claim that I'm "clinging" to it is a gross misrepresentation and is a strawman argument. This is an example of you not being interested in listening. I've yet to ignore any scholars and you've yet to prove any of them claim their position is representative of the majority viewpoint. Sorry, but "rapidly growing" is not the same thing as majority viewpoint and you seem keen on ignoring the fact that minority viewpoints should be given significantly less weight. You also demonstrate your lack of interest in listening to others because you repeat arguments about the lead, when I've already said I don't object to including a mention of the minority viewpoint in the lead. You're the one going "round and round" and if you would have just read my responses and actually advanced a relevant rebuttal that progressed the discussion, then we would have been done a long time ago. Instead, you clearly ignore what I've been saying, and simply refuse to address WP policy regarding minority/majority viewpoints in scholarship. That's what my contention was and you've yet to address it. Instead you want make up a term called "significant POV" and pretend that has any sort of value. It doesn't. Either it's majority or minority/fringe and gets treated that way. I've already shown it's the minority and you've failed at proving otherwise.Scoobydunk (talk) 16:48, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

If you don't care about mentioning the view that the Southern Strategy didn't have a significant impact on the realignment of the south then why did we even waste our time arguing? Oh wait... "Either it's majority or minority/fringe and gets treated that way." That is not true. You are now trying to equate minority with fringe. That is not correct at all. A view held by 49% can be a minority view but that hardly makes it fringe. Regardless, if you agree that the lead can contain mention of the view that the Southern Strategy wasn't responsible for realignment why are we having this discussion at all? It really seems like you are the one not listening to others, not me (and round and round we go). Perhaps it would be best if we started a new section to discuss this topic and you CLEARLY state your POV. Not what you THINK I'm arguing because you haven't always got that right. State what YOUR POV is on how we should cover both scholarly debate and the related discussion in the lead. Springee (talk) 17:13, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Again you demonstrate your refusal to listen. I've already explained above that my objection pertained to your wanting to add more of the minority opinion to the scholarly debate section and your expressing a willingness to remove peer reviewed material about contemporary Southern Strategy. Not only were these the two things I discussed in my first response, but I also reiterated that these were my only concerns. At this point, your accusing me of not listening is projection. Also, i didn't equate minority viewpoint and fringe, I simply mentioned fringe because it's defined in WP policy. "Significant POV" is not defined when relating to majority, minority, or fringe viewpoints. So, again, this is another strawman argument. I already have clearly expressed my POV on the changes you've expressed wanting to make. You asking me to repeat them is direct evidence that you want to go "round and round" with this discussion instead of addressing the concerns I've expressed multiple time already. Go back up and read them if you're so concerned. If you actually suggest a proposal for the lead, then I'll be happy to share my thoughts. Until then, I've already expressed everything I felt needed to be addressed, and so far you've clearly ignored it.Scoobydunk (talk) 17:30, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

If that is what you think I have proposed then you aren't reading what I'm writing. I think it is clear that we will need input from others to resolve this. Springee (talk) 01:18, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

"I was thinking about adding to the academic debate section" and " The changes to the debate section would be a few more authors who support the view that the strategy was a non-issue in terms of overall impact." [2] Then, " In the lead I would like to...remove the comments about claims that the strategy is on going."[3] This is exactly what you proposed that I addressed. This clearly shows that I am reading what you're writing and you're now just being blatantly dishonest.Scoobydunk (talk) 03:10, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

The accusation of "blatantly dishonest" is uncalled for and a clear violation of WP:FOC and general civility guidelines. How can editors assume you are acting in good faith or feel that you will assume good faith when you make statements like that? "Adding to the" doesn't have to mean making it longer. It can mean adding a wider range of references. You are still free to remove content you don't like (assuming consensus) but it's hard to understand why you would refuse other academic sources that specifically mention the Southern Strategy. The contents in the lead such as the "apology" are not backed by academic sources. Since you have claimed academic sources view the issue as on going then those would be reasonable items for the lead. Perhaps if, instead of accusing me of lying you tried to be a bit more civil we could work out these small differences more readily. I am done with this until other, less hostile editors join in the discussion. Springee (talk) 04:06, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

There is clear evidence of your dishonesty and I've proven it in the form of diffs and quoting exactly what you've previously said in this conversation. It's only against guidelines if there isn't serious evidence to support the claim. This is how my claim differs from the numerous accusations you've made throughout this conversation which have been based purely on speculation and your refusal to read my responses for understanding. Example, you calling me "hostile" simply because I've mentioned and proved your dishonesty, is an example of an unsubstantiated accusation. I've also already explained how the section is already a violation of WP:Weight since it's a minority viewpoint in scholarship. The fact that you still don't understand why I'm against adding more minority viewpoint sources, again, proves you haven't been following the conversation. This is also the second time you've said you're done with this conversation. I think most people would see that you weren't being honest the first time you said that and would be surprised if you meant it this time.Scoobydunk (talk) 17:00, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Again, if you want people to assume you are acting in good faith do not accuse other editors of lying. Springee (talk) 17:12, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

I never accused you of lying, I proved you were being dishonest and your repeated misrepresentation of what I've said further proves it.Scoobydunk (talk) 01:09, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Historians have long memories, and the role of blacks and whites in the South and the Republican Party has been a central theme since the 1860s in the history of the GOP . Notice that several major scholarly books dealing with the early period emphasize in their titles that this was the origins of the Southern Strategy. So let's keep the background in. In the 1960s, furthermore, Southerners talked great deal about Reconstruction & how it bears on current issues. Rjensen (talk) 04:35, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

The Herbert article is clearly an opinion article (Herbert's opinion on something political). Per WP:RS it can only be used to show Herbert's POV. It should not be used in the lead as proof of anything other than that. The removal of the alternative POV from the lead is also questionable. Clearly there is a large volume of scholarship which is stating the Southern Strategy had little impact on the political shift of the south. That doesn't mean the scholars who say that are disavowing the impact of racism or claiming that appeals to racism didn't happen. What it does mean is that the impact of the strategy is low to zero according to many scholars. That is something that should be noted (and is in the debate section) and should also be in the lead. Springee (talk) 16:02, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Rewriting the lead

Gobonob, as I mentioned earlier I know you have been working on this article and discussed making changes to the lead. I'm thinking about taking a crack at it myself but I don't want to duplicate efforts. Do you have any current plans to make changes to the body or lead of the article any time soon? Springee (talk) 14:27, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

That's not Gobonobo's usernameScoobydunk (talk) 18:21, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, cut and paste error. Thanks Springee (talk) 19:37, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Adding opening paragraphs to Evolutions and Shift sections

The Evolution and Shift sections are currently quite messy. Gobonobo started to work to clean up this article and I think adding clear opening paragraphs to these sections would be a big help. Currently they read like [WP:COATRACK]s. For example the evolution section starts with a weak opening paragraph that suggests some would see state's rights as a way to block civil rights. Well that doesn't really lay out what is going to follow in the section. The section largely follows with examples of various sources claiming things but lacks an over arching narrative. What we are lacking is any voice saying if the accusations are reasonable, if other sources have disputed the claims etc. Without a clear opening paragraph how can we even know if a chunk of information should or should not be in the section?

The Shift section both lacks a strong opening paragraph and seems out of place in this article. If the strategy has shifted so far away from the origin is it the same thing? Shouldn't it be in some other article? As an example, an article about Mr Bugatti's car company should discuss his prewar cars etc as well as the company's collapse. While such an article might link to the current VW Bugatti brand, it would hardly be appropriate to include a large section on what is a brand that VW created from scratch and to which VW applied an old name, a company with only marketing tie to Mr Bugatti's company, in an article about Mr Bugatti's company. The sins in that section may be real but they don't fit the description of the Southern Strategy and thus it seems odd to include them in this article.

Anyway, I might be wrong about the above but clear opening paragraphs would make it clear what information should and should not be in each section. This would do a lot to help clean up what is really a very messy article. Springee (talk) 14:33, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

They could both benefit from introduction paragraphs that better outline the intent of the section. Some things to note: trying to trivialize what sources say as "accusations" isn't going to get anywhere, nor is it necessary to have a tangential source commenting on how "reasonable" other sources are. Also, regarding the "shift" section, if scholars still identify practices as being part of the Southern Strategy or a new Southern Strategy, then they belong in the article. I will say that I don't see a clear difference between the goals of the evolution section and the shift section, but better defining opening paragraphs could help with the distinction. Though both of these sections could benefit from revision, I think the glaring undue weight given to the minority viewpoint of the "suburban strategy" in the Scholarly Debate section needs to be fixed first. The undue weight in that section is a direct violation of WP:NPOV policies which would logically require attention before tidying up other sections. Of course, editors can work on both at the same time, I just want to make sure that it's not forgotten.Scoobydunk (talk) 18:11, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I would welcome it if you would take a first crack at the opening paragraphs. I also suggest that we replace some of the journalistic sources with scholarly sources. I would also suggest that the Scholarly Debate section is lacking a clear opening paragraph. Some of that information might work better in other parts of the article. Please note that "accusations" is exactly how some of the reliable sources describe what is in the article. We should probably have a separate discussion about including "New Southern Strategy". That seems like a way to WP:COATRACK via association with something negative. Either it fits the mold of the original strategy or it is a new strategy. Since we disagree on the suburban strategy weight I would suggest putting that topic aside or getting outside views to deal with that topic. We both agree that the sections in question could be cleaned up. Let's start where we have agreement vs disagreement. Finally, please do not be so quick to, in effect, accuse me of whitewashing. The "accusation" word is appropriate for some of the references and the way the text is phrased. Springee (talk) 19:08, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

This article isn't limited to what you consider to be the "original strategy". It includes all information about the Southern Strategy in all of its forms and progressions as described by reliable sources. If sources claim something is an "accusation" then it can be directly attributed to the source that makes the claim and quoted. Also, it's not that we disagree about the weight of the suburban strategy, it's that you're repeatedly ignoring what reliable sources are saying in lieu of your own original research, which you've again demonstrated above. This is not something that requires editors to come to an agreement with using their own personal views. It is explicitly stated in multiple sources, yet you feel you have the right to refute what those sources are saying or ignore them outright. It is not the responsibility of wikipedia editors to propose original research arguments like your google hits above to refute what reliable sources say. I suggest, again, that you familiarize yourself with WP policies regarding NPOV and tendentious editing. Scoobydunk (talk) 05:56, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

You have long said that scholars are the best sources (most reliable). Well Lassiter, a source that I have shown has been embraced by scholars, [WP:USEBYOTHERS], says that their are only four genuine implementations of the Southern Strategy. You have attempted your own for of OR by attempting to interpret his meaning to only include a narrow definition of "Southern Strategy". Sorry, Lassiter makes it clear that he disagrees with the tail that wagged the dog theories, "Southernization of American politics" and those who try to attach incidents such as Reagan's "state's rights" comments etc to the "Southern Strategy". Yes, we have reporters who make such claims but we have a noted scholar on the subject who dismisses those claims. I understand you [WP:DONTLIKE] this but it comes from a RS with [WP:WEIGHT] and thus can not be dismissed as readily as you wish. I would ask that you try to be constructive in this process and stop [WP:BLUDGEON]ing the subject. Let us instead focus on opening paragraphs for the other sections (or even the scholarship section). Springee (talk) 14:14, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

It's fine for Lassiter to disagree, but it does not serve as a rebuttal to debunk other scholarship, which is how you implied you wanted to apply it. It is simply a different opinion on the subject and the part that you specifically quoted, only speaks to what Lassiter considers "genuine" implementations of the SS, it doesn't speak to later/evolved implementations, which there is plenty of scholarly support. What would actually be constructive is if you'd stop ignoring what multiple reliable sources have said about Lassiter's viewpoint being a minority viewpoint. You also claim you want to focus on opening paragraphs, yet keep bringing up this Lassiter quote, which isn't constructive to revising opening paragraphs. So before accusing others, you might what to reflect on your behavior first.Scoobydunk (talk) 14:37, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm impressed that you are able to read my mind and tell me how I am going to use information before I have actually decided that myself. Since you claim there is plenty of scholarly support for the evolution part, please add it to those sections. They are largely based on non-scholarly work. Springee (talk) 15:05, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, don't be too impressed because you explicitly stated your intent and I didn't have to "read your mind". You said: "What I see there is scholarly support for the idea that later claims of "Southern Strategy" are false. It would seem reasonable to include that as part of the evolution section since it directly disputes the idea that the GOP continued to use the strategy after 1970." So there was no mind reading involved and I probably shouldn't have said "implied" since you explicitly stated how you'd like to include this information into the article. No where in your quote does Lassiter say later claims of the Southern Strategy are false, nor does this statement dispute that the GOP used the strategy later than 1970. Multiple scholars have spoken to the Southern Strategy's continued use as it has involved. I'll be more than happy to review the section and add scholarly sources.Scoobydunk (talk) 16:40, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Ah... I see. So you can take a speculative statement of mine and it becomes what you know is going to happen even before I do it... yet you will only allow the most narrow reading of a reliable source if any other reading disagrees with your own POV. Good to know. Again, I'm not worried about convincing you. It's other editors who will help decide these things. Springee (talk) 17:08, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm glad that you admit your statement was "speculative", which means the source didn't explicitly say what you claimed it did. That resolves the issue right there.Scoobydunk (talk) 19:03, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

That is a rather dishonest or foolish way to read what I just said. What I said was speculation on how we might use the source. You would have to be very dishonest in your interpretation of my statement to say I called Lassiter's statement speculative or to call what I said about his statements "speculative". Anyway, it's clear that talking with you is not productive. I guess I shouldn't expect more from one who has accused me of lying in the past. Springee (talk) 20:12, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

You admitted your statement was speculative and now you're saying I'm the one being dishonest. That's funny.Scoobydunk (talk) 20:23, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Are you totally unable to understand common language? I was speculating on how we might use some of the Lassiter information. That is not saying Lassiter's information is speculative. Again, you prove that it is pointless to try to discuss things with you. Springee (talk) 20:37, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

You admitted that the statement that I quoted was speculative. Only after I pointed that out, you tried to change your story that only part of it was speculative. That seems pretty dishonest to me. FYI, your interpretation of Lassiter is speculative, since it doesn't explicitly say what you're claiming it did. I already knew this, you admitted to it, and now you're trying to change your story.Scoobydunk (talk) 05:20, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry you are confused by the difference between speculating regarding how an editor might use information vs the information itself. Springee (talk) 12:01, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm not confused in the slightest. All the evidence clearly shows you admitted your statement was speculative and also shows that it's speculative even without your admission.Scoobydunk (talk) 02:54, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Oct 2015 edits to lead

I made two edits to the lead of this article. I would like to use this section to explain my changes and as a place for people to voice their views on those changes. The changes are first, a summary of the scholarly debate on the impact of the strategy on the voting patterns of the South and second, the removal of a GOP apology for ignoring the black vote.

I think the lead should include a summary of the discussion of the impact of the Southern Strategy. Clearly when describing a political event the long term impact of that event is a significant part of the story. In this case I think the long term impact can be seen in two areas, its political impact (how people view the GOP) and its impact on voting patterns. The articles in the scholarly debate section show that the impact is up for debate but a number, certainly a significant number, of scholars feel the strategy did not ultimately change voting patterns or CAUSE the change of voters from Democrat to GOP. If one reads Feldman and the authors he cites it's clear they are not claiming the GOP didn't try to appeal to racism nor are they claiming the voters didn't vote in part based on race. What they are saying is that the voters were often voting based on self interest, not because of a message from the GOP. Thus the impact of the strategy, how much it changed how people would vote was low according to those scholars. Regardless, we are now talking about significant scholarly opinion regarding the impact of the strategy. I can't see how that wouldn't be worthy of inclusion in the lead.

Conversely, the part about the GOP apologizing does seem questionable for the lead. In the history of this article it is clear there has been denial. I don't think that is what we have here. Instead what we have is an example of the GOP saying they have ignored the interest of black voters and they are trying to recover from that. That would support the view that the political legacy of the strategy still haunts the party. However the quote in question seems like just supporting evidence rather than something that should be in the article lead. It's not based on scholarship and, like many political statements, it may be carefully targeted at the audience to allow them to hear what they want to hear without actually admitting to anything in particular. At this time I don't see an issue with including that statement in the body of the article but it seems out of place in the lead. Do we have a scholarly opinion that says something similar? Springee (talk) 05:28, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree that there is a serious 50/50 split in scholarship between those who think the Southern strategy was "real" (i.e. that the GOP intentionally capitalized on Southern white racial resentment during the civil-rights era and, arguably, into more recent times) vs. those who think the South turned Republican for other reasons. I think it's pretty obvious that any consideration of due weight would favor the first interpretation. That said, I understand that there is a heavy push among editors here to downplay the mainstream historical view (which is certainly politically inconvenient) and play up alternative or minoritarian views, and I don't have the energy or interest in fighting it.

However... I do draw the line at outright revisionism and rewriting of history. The head of the RNC acknowledged in 2005 that the Southern strategy was real, and that the GOP exploited white racism to win votes in the South. Let me say that again: the head of the RNC acknowledged it. Numerous reliable sources attest to this. It is noteworthy, accurate, and relevant, and no matter how many partisan editors show up, I am not OK with removing such material. Just to be clear, here is what our source says: "It was called 'the southern strategy', started under Richard M. Nixon in 1968, and described Republican efforts to use race as a wedge issue—on matters such as desegregation and busing—to appeal to white southern voters. Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, this morning will tell the NAACP national convention in Milwaukee that it was 'wrong'." It doesn't get any clearer than that, and I'm not OK with a small group of partisan editors rewriting history here. MastCell ^Talk 17:17, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I think you are still misreading what the scholars are saying. They aren't claiming the GOP didn't try an appeal to racism (the extent is up for debate). However, those who are seriously studying why voters changed to the GOP are saying that coded racist messages from the GOP didn't cause the shift. The shift, in their view, was due to self interested voting. Given the weight of recent scholarship on the subject that does not support the "racist backlash" version of events I would argue that this is a very significant POV and likely the majority POV in recent times. Given the size of the scholarship section and WP:CREATELEAD, I think it absolutely belongs in the lead.

At the same time, given WP:CREATELEAD, I think the apology should not be in the lead on two grounds. First, it is not significant in terms of helping a reader understand the historical event. Second, it is a lower quality source. You claim it was a specific apology for the Southern Strategy but the text of the apology doesn't specifically support that claim. If we step back then one needs to ask under aspect of WP:CREATELEAD should we include that text in the lead (remember it was not removed from the article, just the lead). As a final note, I think the accusations of bias are unfair and don't assume good faith. Accusations of the reverse could also be made based on the same information here. Springee (talk) 18:24, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't think I'm misreading the scholarly sources. Instead, I'm arguing that the scholarly sources cited here on the talkpage are cherry-picked to over-represent a minoritarian view. The mainstream view is still very clearly that the Southern strategy existed and was central to the modern Republican dominance of the South. Numerous reliable sources attest to this (besides those already in the article, see Bloomberg 12/2014, The Week 6/2015, etc). It is, quite simply, the mainstream view. It is fine to mention dissenting, minority, or fringe viewpoints, but as a matter of fundamental site policy we cannot give them undue weight, which is exactly what I see happening here. I don't think the scholarly viewpoint is actually changing on this topic; instead, I think a small group of editors here, led by Rjensen, has assembled all of the minoritarian sources and presented them without the context of mainstream scholarship on the subject.

As for the lead, I'm sort of mind-boggled. The acknowledgement of and apology for the Southern strategy by the head of the Republican National Committee is so self-evidently a notable and relevant aspect of this topic that I cannot understand the effort to find rationales to exclude it from the lead. (Recall that the lead must summarize all relevant and noteworthy aspects of the topic). Moreover, you seem to be arguing that the sources don't support the apology, which is just plain silly. The sources couldn't be clearer about the apology, specifically tying it to the "Southern strategy" by name. If you feel that the Washington Post (among others) are "lower quality sources", then I don't think you understand this site's sourcing guidelines. MastCell ^Talk 18:46, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

The sources you listed are not scholarly works. The "mainstream" can often be what the casual reader/observer thinks rather than what the critical scholar thinks. In this case the critical scholar's view should be given more weight than the political reporter (as an example). I think your claim that Rjensen, myself and others are trying to assemble just miniroty views is again unfair. I would suggest if you disagree you find the majority scholarly work that has both studied the issue and then concluded that the Southern Strategy message had a notable impact on the realignment. Note, that these should be scholarly works that specifically look at the subject, not ones that either just cite previous work or cite the event as background. As for the apology, I don't think you are really reading what I'm writing. The apology, ie what the politician said, is general. If the source that provided the apology claims it was specifically in reference to the Southern Strategy then the RS guidelines would say accept it as such. However, the context of that apology seems to pale compared to scholarly work on the subject. We would be better served with a scholarly work claiming the same thing. In any case, I think you have an inherent bias that likely comes from having battled on this topic to keep whitewashing at bay. I think that makes you, understandably, predisposed to view anything edit that downplays the impact or the duration of the Southern Strategy as whitewashing vs simply offering a more encyclopedic article. Springee (talk) 19:15, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Lassiter already defines the scholarly viewpoint and admits that his dissenting view goes against the "conventional wisdom" and "popular strain" of "scholarly literature".Scoobydunk (talk) 20:18, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

First, "conventional wisdom" was not the total quote to which you are referring. Lassiter notes that this was an important dissenting POV. Feldman noted that Lassiter was one of the first to publish this POV but others scholars since have produced more evidence that supports the POV. Thus it's not clear that it is still a minority POV in contemporary scholarship. It is clearly a significant POV in contemporary scholarship. Furthermore, When discussing "conventional wisdom" Lassiter was not referring to the views of scholars. I don't recall the exact sentence at this time but it was clearly describing the views of scholars with one phrase and the views of the general public or those other than scholars of the subject as "conventional wisdom". You are simply misunderstanding the meaning of the statement. Springee (talk) 20:36, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

You're incorrect. Lassiter was referencing the conventional wisdom and popular strain found in scholarly literature. Sorry, but this directly confirms that his dissenting viewpoint is the minority opinion and you've provided nothing to refute this. You're the one trying to insert "the general public" when this quote made no mention of the general public and only referenced "scholarly literaure". So you're the one with the misunderstanding. He also explains this in other works as well. In his "The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South" he says "...most of the scholarship on modern conservatism remains wedded to a top-down viewpoint..." the top-down approach being previously defined as "many scholars and pundits have embraced a top-down thesis of electoral realignment that credits the regional base of the Republican party to a race-driven Southern Strategy..." This is the majority opinion and statements like "it's not clear that it is still a minority" are irrelevant. On Wikipedia we go by what the most reliable sources say on the matter, so expressions of ignorance don't override what has been proven by reliable sources. Of course, this is expressed elsewhere as well. Frymer and Skerentny's "Coalition-building and the Politics of Electoral Capture During the Nixon Administration: African Americans, Labor, Latinos" also confirms the majority opinion by saying "...most analysts of the period view Nixon's campaign as marking the end of the Republican party's century-old alliance with African-American voters, as well as solidifying a clear shift in the party system around racial issues."(emphasis mine).Scoobydunk (talk) 23:45, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

No actually you are the one who is not understanding what Lassiter has said and you are also ignoring the scholars who came after Lassiter and have backed his POV with additional work. I see no reason to debate the topic with you since this will just become a WP:BLUDGEON session. Rjenson, myself and others have presented a clear body of work that shows that this is a significant POV on the subject. Springee (talk) 00:03, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

You're clearly ignoring what sources say. Lassiter has admitted his viewpoint runs contrary to the mainstream/majority viewpoint in scholarship in multiple works. None of the scholars you've presented have offered anything to refute the weight of their opinion within the context of academia, as defined by Lassiter and others. Sorry, but "significant pov" doesn't stop it from being a "minority pov", which has already been proven by multiple reliable sources.Scoobydunk (talk) 00:43, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I cut the quote off earlier than you did because I was afraid you would disagree with the length. I'm OK with the full length of the quote, it shows what I've been saying, "conventional wisdom and a popular strain..." Note the "and a" which means these are two different things. He is saying in scholarship this is a popular strain, not that it is conventional wisdom among scholars. Anyway, I'm glad you are OK with the extended quote. Springee (talk) 13:55, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

The quote does not show what you've been saying and only adds context. The sentence can be rewritten as "contrary to the conventional wisdom in the scholarly literature and contrary to a popular strain in the scholarly literature. " For instance, I can say "Lord of the Rings describes the adventures of hobbits, dwarfs, and elves in Middle-Earth" and here the "Middle-Earth" applies to all three, that is to say, all three are found in Middle-Earth. It's the same with Lassiter's quote. Of course, it would be dishonest to say "there's no ambiguity" when working with conjunctions but the other quotes from Lassiter I've supplied puts this to rest. It's clearly the majority viewpoint. Even the quote you added from Feldman further proves it's the majority viewpoint because he directly uses the word "dissenting" which means "to differ in sentiment or opinion, especially from the majority". Just like when Supreme Court Justices write a dissenting opinion, it's the opinion that was in the minority. Adding the full quote actually further proves my point. It's ridiculous to think that the conventional wisdom among the general public is that "The GOP came to dominate a new Solid South by repackaging the segregationist platform of George C. Wallace and capitalizing on a racial backlash that originated in the Depp South and the countryside." Sorry, but most people don't know who George Wallace is and this description is entirely too detailed and academic to be regarded as simply "conventional wisdom". Instead of just saying "conventional wisdom", Lassiter says "the conventional wisdom" which implies that he's referencing a particular "conventional wisdom" which he explains is found in "scholarly literature." The description that follows is the viewpoint held by scholarly literature and is certainly not conventional wisdom as it pertains to the general population, it's only the conventional wisdom as it pertains to scholars on the subject.

Regardless, I have no problem having the full quote in there. I don't think anyone, save for those who ignore information, would think that the suburban strategy is anything but a minority viewpoint and that most of scholarship acknowledges the realignment of southern politics is due to race-driven factors. Thus, the paragraph accurately assigns weight on the subject. Now we need to start trimming some of this minority opinion from the article, because it's clearly given too much weight. It currently takes up most of the "scholarly debate" section which is one of the largest sections on the article, when they are expressing a minority viewpoint. We can start by deleting non peer reviewed works and then consolidating some of the scholars into a few sentences. We don't need entire paragraphs from each scholar that holds a minority viewpoint, and this has clearly created too much weight in the section.Scoobydunk (talk) 15:44, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

First, let me ask you to please assume a more WP:CIVIL tone. Second, your attempt to rephrase the quote doesn't make it right. If you assume "conventional" and "strain" both apply to the object scholars then the adjectives become repetitive. Basically it doesn't make sense vs reading "conventional wisdom" as applying to those who are not scholars of the subject and "popular strain" applying to a subset of scholarship on the subject. Anyway, rather than tag it in the article, I wanted to ask how the following sentence came from Lassiter's "The Silent Majority" pages 5-7; "Most scholarship on modern conservatism supports this top-down viewpoint in the realignment of southern politics." I see no place in the intro where he says "most" or even "modern conservatism". However, in the intro he did specifically state:

At the grassroots level, the Southern Strategy conspicuously backfired in each of the four genuine incarnations: the Dixiecrat revolt of 1948, the Goldwater debacle in 1964, the third-party Wallace movement in 1968, and the Nixon administration's disastrous experiment with race-baiting politics in the pivotal 1970 midterm elections. Lassiter, The Silent Majority page 6 of the intro.

What I see there is scholarly support for the idea that later claims of "Southern Strategy" are false. It would seem reasonable to include that as part of the evolution section since it directly disputes the idea that the GOP continued to use the strategy after 1970. Springee (talk) 18:42, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

My tone is more than civil and I suggest you focus on the discussion, rather than editors. The quote is not redundant, since "conventional wisdom" and "popular strain" refer to two different things. Conventional wisdom speaks to the body of ideas that are generally and commonly held by scholarly literature, while the popular strain indicates that it is also a recently prevailing viewpoint or focus with figurative roots/history in scholarly literature. What doesn't make sense is to try and insert "general population" in a secondary source that presents its own point of view while analyzing traditional scholarship. All of his evaluations of the subject have to do with previous scholarship regarding the topic and other scholars, never does he talk about the "general public", referencing some local dry cleaners. His sourcing for the book rely on other scholarly publications, not interviews with random people on the street, so there is no reason to believe he'd suddenly refer to the general public, unless he explicitly states as much.

The source is properly cited and on page 7, towards the bottom, it says "most of the scholarship on modern conservatism remains wedded to a top-down viewpoint". The link I supplied for the source takes you directly to the the GoogleBooks page where the very first entry is page 7 and "most" is highlighted. This is another example that his point of view differs from "most of the scholarship" which is an expression of the majority viewpoint in scholarship. Lassiter's views are already discussed at length in the article, to the point where it violates WP:Weight policies. Furthermore, what you quoted says nothing about modern day Southern Strategy, nor does it refute other scholars who recognize the GOP's use of the southern strategy persists later than 1970. So, "No" it doesn't "directly dispute" anything, he's just claiming it backfired in specific examples which is not a commentary about its use after 1970. That would be original research to make such a claim in the article, or to present it in such a way. Do you care to make a suggestion on how we can consolidate this minority opinion and make sure it doesn't violate weight issues?Scoobydunk (talk) 21:02, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Seriously, do you really think when "common knowledge" would only refer to the absolute masses who have never heard of the Southern Strategy vs say the political reporters who take it as a given but haven't studied the topic? It was illogical of you to take that comment to an illogical extreme. Your dismissal of Lassiter's statement that there have only been 4 genuine examples of implementation of the Southern Strategy is just plain wrong. He isn't just claiming it backfired in those instances. He is saying it was only truly used 4 times and the most recent was 1970. Given the book was written in 2006 it does say that, in his view, the Southern Strategy was not used between 1970 and 2005. Earlier on the same page 6 as the quote in question, Lassiter specifically noted that people try to link the top down schematic formulations to Reagan's "state's rights", Bush's "Willie Horton" ad and Gingrich's "welfare mothers". He very clearly intends that statement to extend at least into the 1990s. So that brings us to your quote... again context was removed. You left out the context around the quote and even parts of the sentence.

Scholars have only begun to examine the political culture of white-collar neighborhoods and the social movements of middle-class families in the sprawling suburbs of postwar America. Although most of the scholarship on modern conservatism remains wedded to a top-down viewpoint, recent books about the "suburban warriors" of the Sunbelt West have significantly expanded the grassroots narrative, from the Goldwater troops in the 1960s, to the tax revolts of the 1970s, to the evangelical mobilization of the 1980s and 1990s.

Thus what he is saying is that this is a new area of focus. However, as Feldman noted, it is growing rapidly. Thus this is a very significant POV that should not be downplayed just because it doesn't support the view that the Southern Strategy is on going etc. His arguments, backed by many other scholars are clearly significant. But I understand you will want to put all the arguments on a scale and say that wins the day. When surgeons first started performing minimally invasive surgery "most" surgeons practiced open surgery. I guess you would say that minimally invasive surgery wasn't worth discussing since only the "new" literature was talking about it. Anyway, I'm writing this not to convince you but to put the record out for others. It certainly is clear that at least one noted scholar on the subject has said that the "evolution" claims are wrong. Currently I don't think our article has much in the way of scholarship in the later sections. I would suggest we add additional sources both for and against. Springee (talk) 00:40, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

The fact that you write about what Lassiter "intends" is known as original research. Sources must explicitly say what you're presenting them as saying, so your extrapolations are meaningless. Furthermore, Lassiter says "genuine incarnations" which is a reference to the original or, in his opinion, the genuine implementations of the traditional Southern Strategy. This does not mean that the Southern Strategy wasn't implemented at any other time in whole or in part. As a matter of fact, many sources acknowledge the transformation of the Southern Strategy to move from focusing on strictly racial language, to promoting policies that inherently infused racial sentiments. So Lassiter is only describing what he considers to be genuine uses of the Southern Strategy, and this doesn't refute the fact that other scholars have different opinions and believe the Southern Strategy persists to this day in an evolved form. No where in your quote does Lassiter speak to the evolving nature of the Southern Strategy, so it certainly doesn't belong in the evolution section and presenting it as if Lassiter is speaking to the evolution of the Southern Strategy violates WP:OR. Also, extreme examples are not illogical and are actually logically valid ways to test if an argument upholds validity. Though I disagree I took it to an extreme, the fact of the matter is that the only thing Lassiter references is scholars and scholarship, he never references the "general population". Thus your attempt to claim that "conventional wisdom" applies to the general masses is unmerited. It's ultimately irrelevant since multiple other sources confirm the majority viewpoint in scholarship is the top-down approach,centered on racist sentiment, was the major cause of the southern realignment and the GOP's dominance in the south.

Also, Wikipedia does not recognize "significant POV" as a relevant factor when it comes to determining weight in a n article. What is relevant is what's considered the majority viewpoint and what is considered the minority viewpoint. This is not left up to our interpretations and WP policy explicitly says that if a viewpoint is a majority viewpoint, then there should be a reliable source that identifies it as such. I've presented numerous sources that speak to the majority viewpoint and also recognize that the suburban strategy held by Lassiter and others is the minority viewpoint. That's it. At no point did I say this minority viewpoint was "not worth discussing" but I have said multiple times that the amount of representation you and others are putting in the article is a violation of WP weight policies. Even after unambiguously establishing that Lassiter's opinion is the minority viewpoint, your proposed solution is to "add additional sources both for and against". Sorry, but this suggestion doesn't address the undue weight issues that have recently been created in the article and only attempt to exacerbate the problem. Repeatedly trying to give a minority viewpoint undue weight can also be considered tendentious editing as explained by WP:BALASPS. So, again, please consider ways to improve this article that reduces the amount of undue weight given to this minority viewpoint. Adding more of this minority viewpoint is not a solution and is a violation of WP:NPOV policy.Scoobydunk (talk) 03:47, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Is it a minority view?

Just a note about "minority view" here, when Lassiter's book was released in 2006 it was likely to be a minority POV since it was published 10 years after Carter and Airstups primary works in this article (both 1996). The number of times cited appears in Google Scholar for these works.

• Carter, Wallance to Gingrich: 165 times since 1996 (122 after 2006)
• Aistrup, Southern Strategy Revisited: 125 times since 1996 (79 after 2006)
• Lassiter, Silent Majority: 354 (published in 2006)
• Shafer and Johnson, End of Southern Exceptionalism: 138 (published in 2006)

Even allowing for a decade long head start, Lassiter and Shafter and Johnson have 492 citations to 290 (201 from 2006 and later). That suggests that the bottom up explanation is likely the majority, not minority view among contemporary scholarship and likely gained that position in the last half decade or so. I am not proposing that it be treated as a majority view but this should be sufficient to handle it as a view that scholars place on equal footing with the top down theory. Springee (talk) 01:17, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Additional Information: Feldman noted in his 2011 book, Painting Dixie Red, that the bottom up view was, at the time of his writing, likely no earlier than 2010, the "dissenting - yet rapidly growing - narrative..." He was correct. Of the 354 citations Lassiter's book received, 251 are from 2010 and later. He wasn't kidding about rapidly growing. Again, this should be more than enough to put the ground up vs top down arguments on at least equal footing with respect to WEIGHT. Springee (talk) 16:27, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Your original research isn't going to have more weight than what multiple reliable sources say. Multiple reliable sources say it's a minority view in some way, shape, or form and you've presented nothing to refute this.Scoobydunk (talk) 05:47, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

You are making excuses. You have long argued that scholarly works are the highest standard of RS. The number of citations a work gets is a clear indication of how the field views that work. WP has a [WP:USEBYOTHERS] guideline that addresses that point. So, using Google Scholar I just showed that these more recent works have been embraced by the scholars. While they might have been a minority view a decade back when they were first published (and thus cited by no one), they clearly are being cited more frequently by scholars vs the older works. Anyway, I don't expect you to change your mind but if you argue that the views of Lassiter are minority then you need to explain why scholars embrace his work. Springee (talk) 13:53, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

WP:USEBYOTHERS only has to do with reliability concerns, which are already well established because it's a peer reviewed work. It has absolutely nothing to do with weight or NPOV concerns, and your use of the word "indication" only further proves that this is a violation of WP:OR. I don't have to explain why scholars embrace his work, all I have to do is provide a reliable source that claims what the majority/minority viewpoint is and I've already provided multiple sources. FYI, Lassiter references and cites many sources that hold a contrary view to his. So not only is your analysis irrelevant and a violation of WP:OR, but it's also logically feeble and fallacious since many sources get cited by authors who hold differing opinions.Scoobydunk (talk) 14:18, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

You are making a ridiculous excuses. Lassiter's work was pioneering in the field when released so of course it was a minority view AT THE TIME. The statements saying it was a minority view date to that time. It is clear that in the decade after Lassiter and S&J published their respective works they have gained scholarly recognition. You are now claiming that the number of citations don't indicate how widely accepted the work is. Yes, some Lassiter citations will be works that don't agree with him. That same excuse applies to Arstrup and Carter. If Lassiter's work was unsound it wouldn't be cited because scholars don't bother citing bad work. Rather than arguing perhaps you could put some effort into finding scholarship that discredits Lassiter and S&J... or better yet, try working on the parts that we both agree need help. Alternatively, you are welcome to open a RS discussion on the topic to try to back your views. Springee (talk) 14:33, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

This isn't a RS issue, it's a WEIGHT issue. I suggest you try reading what others write because I've already made this distinction clear.Scoobydunk (talk) 14:39, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it's a weight issue you have decided regardless of fact. Springee (talk) 15:09, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

No, it's decided by WP policy and my arguments are entirely based on fact. I'm sorry, do you have a peer reviewed source that claims the majority/minority opinion is different from those established by numerous before mentioned sources?Scoobydunk (talk)

Well show us the scholarly work that shows I'm wrong. Remember, anything prior to 2006 is automatically excluded because it predates Lassiter, S&J. The most recent reference I've seen is Feldman, published in 2011 stating that the dissenting view was rapidly growing. That leaves the door open to show the growth. How about this question. Regardless of WP guidelines, would you agree that Lassiter, S&J are favored in the scholarly literature? In your opinion has the scholarship shifted (yes/no and explain why)? What is your opinion? Springee (talk) 17:13, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

I've already shown at length the sources that clearly indicate that the top-down view is the majority viewpoint and that Lassiter's view is the minority viewpoint. Also, "No" sources are not excluded based on your arbitrary time frame. We have multiple sources that clearly express the majority viewpoint and the minority viewpoint. Do you have a peer reviewed source that contradicts the multiple sources I've already provided? It's a simple yes or no question.Scoobydunk (talk) 19:01, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Have you? Where did you show this? Which scholarly sources did you cite? You also didn't actually answer my question. I'm not even sure I would call your reply a nice evasion. To answer your question, yes, the latest scholarly work says the bottom up approach was gaining acceptance as of 2010. The number of citations shows that as of 2015 the sources that put forth that theory are now more common in the literature. That is not 100% proof but it is sufficient to treat the theories as equal. So what scholarly sources did you show? Springee (talk) 20:09, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

No, that's not evidence to treat it as "equal" because that's called original research and is a claims not supported by any reliable source. Furthermore, the same source you quote for "rapidly growing" is also the most recent source we've examined that admits it's a "dissenting" viewpoint. This on top of 2 Lassiter sources that state the top-down view is the majority viewpoint and that the suburban strategy is differs from the majority viewpoint. Then, there's also the Frymer and Skrentny source that also says most analysts view a clear shift in the party system around racial issues. All of these speak to the majority viewpoint and/or show that Lassiter's opinion is in the minority. You've presented nothing but your own OR arguments to try and refute what multiple reliable sources have said. Sorry, but "growing rapidly" is not a statement that a claim represents the majority of scholarship. Referring to it as a "dissenting" viewpoint explicitly means that it's not.Scoobydunk (talk) 20:21, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Ah, so you now admit that your sources are too old to be reliable in judging the bottom up claims. It is totally illogical to say that Lassiter's statements, statements that represented not current thinking but the thinking BEFORE he published work that Feldman says is changing how people view the subject, would be the "state of the art". You are all but admitting you have NO current sources to back your claims. Certainly none that refute the Google Scholar data which supports Feldman. As of 2010 when he was writing the bottom up view was growing rapidly. Based on number of citations it passed the top up view around the time Feldman went to press. You are trying to claim OR because you don't have the scholarship you claimed to have. Springee (talk) 20:35, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

I just listed the multiple scholarly sources that directly define what the majority viewpoint is. You're the one here with nothing but original research in an attempt to discredit what reliable sources say. This is also an example of tendentious behavior. From WP:TEND: "You find yourself engaging in discussions about the reliability of sources that substantially meet the criteria for reliable sources." I never said anything about sources "being too old". That's called projection, you're the one arguing the reliability of perfectly good sources and are even using the very same source that explicitly says the suburban strategy is a minority viewpoint.Scoobydunk (talk) 05:14, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Where is this list of multiple scholarly sources? You just listed Lassiter and Feldman. Did you have more that you are hiding? Can you actually SHOW these other scholarly sources? Springee (talk) 12:04, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Again you prove that you don't bother to read what others actually say. I've mentioned the Frymer and Skrentny source twice now, quoting it the first time, yet you can't seem to recall something that's literally only a few responses above your last reply. That's pretty telling, espcially since I bolded parts of the quote and I pretty rarely bold things. So we have 2 sources from Lassiter, 1 source from Feldman, 1 source from Frymer and Skrentny, and here's another one from Bedolla and Haynie, published by Routledge in 2013, called "The Obama coalition and the future of American politics". In it, they say "By many accounts, the southern strategy, for decades, has been a successful tool for increasing white support and turnout for Republican candidates throughout the South. It is generally believed to be the primary force that transformed the once overwhelmingly Democratic South into a reliable GOP stronghold in presidential elections." The cool thing is, I only need 1 source that speaks to the view being the most widely or generally held, and here I have 4-5 source. I say 4-5 because one of the sources actually identifies the suburban viewpoint as a minority/dissenting viewpoint instead of articulating the majority viewpoint, but they are both different sides of the same coin as far as this discussion is concerned. And what's even cooler is that any single one of these sources takes precedence in establishing a viewpoint's weight on WP over your OR argument of your observed google citations. Again, I'm going to direct you to WP:TEND because demanding others to come up with sources to disprove your unsourced claim is an example of tendentious editing. It says "or you challenge them to find a source that disproves your unsourced claim." FYI, your unsourced claim is that the suburban strategy and the generally held viewpoint of the Southern strategy have "equal" support in scholarship. Not only is this claim of yours unsourced, but it's also already been debunked by any of the authors I've just listed in this comment and previous comments, yet you still refuse to accept it.Scoobydunk (talk) 02:52, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

(edit added later to address comment above) I just reviewed the Bedola and Haynie paper that you claim supports the top down vs bottom up argument. The paper contains no mention of the word "southern, south (other than "South America") Lassiter or Schafer. How can you justify that paper supports the top down vs bottom up consensus? Springee (talk) 13:06, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

That's funny because they have a whole section called "Death of the Southern Strategy". This is the third time you've failed to successfully execute a simple keyword search, yet you want people to take your citation search results seriously.Scoobydunk (talk) 15:59, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I just did a keyword search of this page. Neither time that you mentioned Frymer and Skrentny included a title or a publication date. The word Frymer doesn't exist in the article nor in the archive. The same is true of Skrentny. So how can anyone verify your claim? In other words, no you didn't provide the information.

Now you have at least added a new author. At least with the new author you have added you gave the name of the article. That's something. So you searched and found a paper that has been cited 3 times that has a vague statement that you now claims applies specifically to the views of academics. Your cited passage does not specifically weigh the academic acceptance of the top down vs bottom up theory. You are adamant that we not accept Lassiter's claim that there have only been 4 genuine uses of the Southern Strategy but you think that quote proves your claim? Sorry, that is a weak attempt. Your WP:TEND claim is false because my claim isn't unsourced. You simply WP:DONTLIKE it.

That's funny because I just did a crtl-F search and found Frymer right away with the title of the article. It's right here in this diff [4]. Also, the latest source clearly speaks to the majority viewpoint. No, it doesn't specifically mention academia, but it still proves what the generally held viewpoint is. Also, where is this source of yours that says the bottom up strategy is equally held by scholarship? Talk about missing sources, you've yet to provide a source to substantiate that claim.Scoobydunk (talk) 04:00, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, you are correct, I was searching while still in the showing change mode. I stand corrected in that regard. But now that I have the title I was able to do a quick search and see that your source is meaningless in this discussion. It predates Lassiter and S&J. I'm not sure what specific quote you think they put forth that backs your claim but it seems a bit intellectually questionable to compare the relative acceptance of the top down theory to Lassiter's bottom up theory 8 years before it was published. The latest source doesn't speak to the views of scholars and doesn't speak to the two positions we are comparing thus it's OR on your part to claim it does. Springee (talk) 04:09, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

I just reread the Frymer quote you said proves your claim. Even if it weren't for the fact that it predates Lassiter's bottom up narrative, I can't believe that you would object to some of my quotes yet try to pass that one off as proving the top down POV (even in absence of a competing theory). You quoted, "...most analysts of the period view Nixon's campaign as marking the end of the Republican party's century-old alliance with African-American voters, as well as solidifying a clear shift in the party system around racial issues." OK... so? That speaks to what the GOP did. It doesn't speak to why voters moved to the GOP. It doesn't tell us if voters bought into the appeals to racism or if voters were concerned about property rights, taxes, school busing etc (ie the issues that have been put forth in the bottom up narrative). So really you have nothing. In truth the only sources that you have speaking to the relative acceptance of the two narratives are Lassiter and Feldman! Springee (talk) 04:21, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

From WP:WEIGHT, "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public.". How do we determine prevalence in reliable sources? Well in scholarship we look at the number of other sources citing the source of the theory. I did that above and it shows that the bottom up sources are cited almost twice as much despite being around less than half as long. Seems like giving them equal weight is quite reasonable and within wiki guidelines. Springee (talk) 04:33, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Frymer reinforces the fact that most analysts of the time period view the shift in the party system around racial issues. It doesn't have to explain anything else, because that is more than sufficient to merit claims about what the majority of analysts consider about the time period. You have nothing to refute this interpretation of the majority viewpoint that is substantiated by reliable sources and is not the result of your own original research. Also, "No" you didn't prove the weight of your point of view. You have not demonstrated the viewpoint that the bottom-up theory is equally prevalent in reliable sources. Your Google Scholar search is not a "reliable source", nor are your assumptions that just because something is referenced, means that the article referencing shares its opinions. This is called original research. WP:Weight also clearly says "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts" The "commonly accepted reference texts" are reliable sources that can be quoted or referenced to support an idea. Multiple reliable sources support the fact that the top-down view is the prevailing view and that the bottom up view is the dissenting/minority view. The claims about the majority viewpoint are shared by all of the sources. You're the one who has nothing, which is why you had to resort to OR arguments.Scoobydunk (talk) 05:25, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

You are misrepresenting what Frymer said. Furthermore, Frymer's do not speak of the motivations of the voters, only the actions of the GOP. Claiming otherwise is OR. Springee (talk) 05:35, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

No, Frymer speaks directly to what "most analysts of the period view" and he says they view "a clear shift in the party system around racial issues". I haven't said anything about voter motivations, so there is no OR here. I'm simply using this quote from a reliable source to show the majority viewpoint held by "most analysts".Scoobydunk (talk) 06:03, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

I just want to make sure we are clear on this. You are saying that Frymer was comparing the scholarly acceptance of the top down theory to the bottom up theory 8 years before Lassiter published his bottom up theory? I mean that sounds kind of crazy so I just want to make sure we are on the same page here. Springee (talk) 07:03, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Where in my comment explaining Frymer did I say anything about the bottom up theory? Please quote it.Scoobydunk (talk) 18:00, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

On Aug 11 you complained that Rjensen's additions to the scholarship section, additions that offered explanations as to why voters turned to the GOP, didn't specifically mention the Southern Strategy and thus couldn't be seen as ruling out the top down approach. Now you are claiming that a passage that doesn't mention the bottom up approach is proof that the bottom up approach is the minority view. In addition to the double standard that you just created there are still two other issues. Your passage doesn't say ANYTHING about the motivation of voters, it speaks to the actions of the GOP. Thus the passage is worthless with regards to the claim you want it to support. And that is before we include the critical fact that you seem to want to avoid discussing... it was written 8 years before Lassiter and J&S published their work which kicked off the bottom up narrative. Perhaps you are suggesting that Frymer owns a Delorean? Springee (talk) 03:48, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

I see, once again, you have difficulty understanding what I said. Please quote where I claimed that Frymer said anything about the bottom up theory. It also seems you have difficulty understanding what Frymer said. Frymer was talking about what "most analysts" view, and that substantiates a claim about the majority viewpoint.Scoobydunk (talk) 15:40, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Show where Frymer says WHY voters voted for the GOP. Your quote relates to what the GOP did to try to win over voters. The top down vs bottom up narratives relate to the motivations of the voters, not the message delivered by the GOP. I hope you understand this critical detail. Oh... um what about the part that Frymer's view was published 8 years before Lassiter's work was published? I guess we should just ignore that detail? Springee (talk) 22:26, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

No, you're making multiple red herring arguments that are completely irrelevant. Frymer talks about the view of most analysts. This, therefore, supports claims of what most of those analysts view. According to Frymer most analysts view "...a clear shift in the party system around racial issues". That's it. This pertains to a statement about most analysts views, which is representative of what we call the majority viewpoint here on Wikipedia. Lassiter is irrelevant to this statement about what most analysts view. Not only is Lassiter irrelevant, but Lassiter doesn't contradict Frymer's interpretation of "most analysts" and actually agrees that most scholarship supports the view of realignment based on racial issues. Why voters voted for the GOP is irrelevant to claims about what scholars or "most analysts" say what the reason is. So, "Yes", we can ignore those details because they are logically fallacious when establishing majority/minority viewpoint when examining what Frymer said. Scoobydunk (talk) 06:14, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Ah, yes I see my mistake, I found a paper of the same name but different authors (Smith and King). The article you are asking for is behind a paywall. Perhaps it would be helpful if you actually provided links to the papers you want to cite. Given your false claims that Frymer supports the top down vs bottom up discussion we need quotes from you. I've requested an inner library loan to get a copy of the article but it would be best for all if you provided what you think is the relevant quote. It is also notable that you have avoided justifying reverting my edits as well as answering my simple questions regarding that revert. Springee (talk) 16:18, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

That's funny because most of those questions were already answered in the comment you've just responded to. Also, I've already provided the quote as well as the source.Scoobydunk (talk) 16:37, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, they were answered after I posted the above question. Perhaps you were in the process of editing when I asked the above but they were not answered at the time the above was posted. See how time of publication can be contextually important?Springee (talk) 16:55, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Again, you misunderstand. Yes, you preemptively commented while I was responding to other questions, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying that those questions have already been addressed multiple times in our discussion, one of them being my November 2nd, 6:14 edit, which is literally found in this comment chain like 3 responses up. That's what I was commenting on, not conflicting edit times.Scoobydunk (talk) 17:02, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

No, just as you did in many of our other interactions, you are just repeating yourself without actually addressing the concerns of other editors while bludgeoning the process. Springee (talk) 17:07, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Your relevant concerns have been addressed, you just refuse to read what others say and have demonstrated this multiple times.Scoobydunk (talk) 17:15, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

No, you haven't explained why you think a statement, made 8 years before Lassiter released his text can reasonably judge the contemporary balance between the two views. It is dishonest of you to claim otherwise. Furthermore, you have more than once tried to falsely attribute POVs to my statements. In the cases where you were confused or felt the phrasing was unclear you could have asked for clarification or read the other statements that made my intent clear. Thankfully we now have other eyes on the article. Springee (talk) 06:13, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I have addressed that claim and have explained that it's a red herring argument to establishing a majority viewpoint as defined by WP:Weight. I haven't stated otherwise, simply that your framing questions around your own POV is irrelevant to what's required by wikipedia. You've yet to refute this, yet keep regurgitating this silly argument. Also, just about every POV I've attributed to you is directly supported by quotes of things you've said and diffs. So none of them were "false". The only one being dishonest here is you, when you pretend that you didn't say the things you very clearly did. It is good that we have new eyes on the article, because those new eyes also recognize your OR arguments.Scoobydunk (talk) 06:23, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Round and round you go... kind of like you did with this one [5]... or this one [6]. Sorry, you didn't understand my statements but you were willing to falsely attribute points of view to me based on your incorrect reading of my statements. Any ambiguity could be cleared up if you bothered to read a bit more. Anyway, this is getting pointless and I'm not interested in engaging in an edit war with you. It's ironic that you didn't protest when I moved your source from describing the scholarly balance of views to simply an earlier point in the paragraph. You protest when I take it out but you don't care when I move it. Interesting. Anyway, I'm done with you.Springee (talk) 06:38, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

There was no ambiguity, you clearly argued that scholars view the two strategies as equal, and now you're trying to backtrack from that statement. No one is fooled by your intent here, and that's why multiple editors have commented on your OR arguments.Scoobydunk (talk) 06:49, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

The number of times a book or article is cited has nothing to do with the degree of acceptance of the opinions expressed in it. TFD (talk) 04:45, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

That isn't true. You would be right if you said absent other information it doesn't but we aren't working absent other information. In some cases a well known work might be referenced by many as they tear it apart. However, a theory that gains wide spread support is going to be cited by those who use that theory as a foundation of or part of their work. Additionally, in terms of weight we need to ask if other scholars reference the work frequently? In this case Lassiter's work is referenced more often than Carter's. Are you saying we can take nothing away from that? The scholars clearly see his work as important to cite even if only because they disagree with it. If the work is simply not compelling then it would be cited rarely and carry no weight. If this were the only evidence I would agree with you. However, in this case we one scholar who commented on Lassiter's work several years after it was published. He noted it was rapidly gaining acceptance. The citation count supports this POV. How do you explain that the primary proponents of the top down theory were cited half as often as the proponents of the bottom up theory? Perhaps we should ask Rjensen this question since we know he is a historian and would be able to offer the POV of a scholar. Springee (talk) 05:03, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Feldman offers another reason to give equal weight to the bottom up theory:

THe brewing debate between the "backlash" theorists and the "suburban school" is so important that I have chosen to include as many sides as possible in this volume.

Feldman, though saying it was a dissenting view at the time, also says it is a critically important view. In addition to all the other reasons why it should be given equal weight, we have recent scholarship stating the contrasting theories are both important and devoting equal weight to each. Springee (talk) 16:39, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Springee, yeah I am saying that. For example, the first publication listing in Google scholar as having cited the book says, "Others have told similar stories about southern resistance to school desegregation and busing (Lassiter 2006)...." [The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became, p. 36][7] Because of this one reference, one cannot assume that the author necessarily accepts Lassiter's view of the Southern strategy. Usually citations mean other authors rely on the facts presented in the source, and that tends to favor more recent sources and ones that have a lot of facts. TFD (talk) 23:08, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Concur with TFD here. I'm an academic, and what you describe in the opening paragraph is not how citations work. Gamaliel (talk) 23:21, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

My name has been in the academic literature since 2002. I would agree that absent other information citation count alone is not a guaranteed marker. TFD makes a good point that not all citations are endorsements. However, that same argument against Lassiter's citation count would apply to Carter's and Arstup's citation count. Also, I've presented 5 sources that note that while citation counts are not a perfect indicator they are an indicator [[8]]. If you disagree with those sources please explain why. Finally, absent other information about the scholarly view of the two theories I would again agree. But that is not the case here as we try to establish weight. First, the claims that these are minority does not mean that scholars consider the views unimportant. Feldman indicates that the top down vs bottom up debate is very important with respect to this topic. Second, Feldman's POV is the only one from a reasonable period of time after the bottom up narrative was presented. I think we can all agree that a POV from 8 years before the bottom up narrative was presented can not be considered representative of today. The same is true of Lassiter's comments made at the time his theory was being presented. Springee (talk) 00:49, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Quite often the reason for a new book or article on any topic is to present a new perspective. In order to have a shot at an audience, the writers need to ensure that their facts are correct and often present details not previously published. That makes their books excellent sources for facts whether or not one accepts their views. I would say that Lassiter's book is probably more reliable than those of earlier writers, since he has had the benefit of subsequent research. That does not mean his conclusions are better. And the way to determine which views are most accepted is to see what current textbooks and scholarly papers say. Their authors will say such things as "Lassiter's views on the Southern Strategy have now become accepted, while those of Carter have lost support." We know for example that Charles A. Beard's progressive view of history, while once the orthodoxy, has been superseded because historians say so. They do not just say, "I disagree with Beard," they say that historians no longer agree with him.

Now it could be that scholars conduct the same type of research you describe to draw those conclusions. But that is original research and cannot be carried out by Wikipedia editors. TFD (talk) 02:45, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

That is fair but I think we need to include a few more points. First, when discussing the weight an article should devote to a topic/theory/etc we are allowed to make arguments of this type. I'm not claiming that 50.1% or more of the scholars now see the bottom up theory as correct. What I am saying is that other scholars are discussing the theory and thus we should as well. The near 2x citation count has to mean the bottom up books had impact even if it was just to get people talking. So long as the article doesn't claim the bottom up theory has majority acceptance I see no OR in saying it is an important POV on the subject (Feldman makes that claim for me). I also think including the time frame for when a claim can be important and is not OR when the source publication dates are known.

I would also like to note my two objections to Scoobydunk's justifications for reverting my edits. First, was the claim that mentioning when a claim was made was OR. I totally disagree so long as the time frame is clear. A view on scholarly consensus that is 20 years old is likely less telling of today's consensus vs one that is 5 years old. Second, the Frymer citation simply does not speak to the issue. The issue of why southern voters started voting GOP speaks to the motives of the voters. Was the voter motivated by a message of white backlash or by suburban self interests? In either case the motives of the voter is the question. Frymer is speaking to the actions of the GOP. Now the message delivered by the GOP might motivate voters to racial backlash (the top down theory) but it can't be used to support the bottom up theory. So in addition to the fact that we are presenting a false comparison when we quote Frymer because his comment predates the bottom up theory, even if it didn't, it doesn't actually speak to the question of voter motives. These issues are independent of the question regarding citation count. Springee (talk) 03:02, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Understanding the significance of citation counts

For those who haven't worked in the area of scholarship citation count might be an unfamiliar thing. Citation count can't be considered an absolute metric but it is a good relative gauge when comparing works in the same area of study. A pioneering work will receive a high count as subsequent works that build on the information are published. This system rewards those who get there first. There is of course a Wikipedia article on the subject [[9]]. Here a are a few additional articles discussing the topic.

• [[10]] In your scholarly research, you may need to gauge the importance of a publication by counting the number of times it has been cited by other scholars. When you count the number of times an article has been cited in published research, you gain information about that article's impact on its discipline.
• [[11]] Citation analysis invovles counting the number of times an article is cited by other works to measure the impact of a publicaton or author.
• [[12]] General information about citation counts and the various systems that tally counts.
• [[13]] In general, the use of citations for evaluating research is based on the assumption that citation counts are an objective measure that credits and recognizes the value, impact, quality, or significance of an author’s work (Borgman & Furner, 2002; Cronin, 1984; Holden, Rosenberg, & Barker, 2005; Moed, 2005; vanRaan, 1996, 2005; Wallin, 2005).
• [[14]] One approach for measuring the impact and diffusion of academic research is by studying the quantity and pattern of citations to published research findings.

Yes, a pure Google Scholar citation count comparison is not a perfect way to measure impact. It would be a very flawed way when reviewed across multiple disciplines. However, as a relative metric when comparing works in the same area and on similar topics it is a very well established method. Springee (talk) 05:36, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Doing more original research isn't going to change the fact that you're doing original research.Scoobydunk (talk) 06:18, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Dishonesty on your part isn't going to make your case either. I've now linked to several academic libraries and related sources that back my claim that citation counts are a valid way to gauge academic impact. You asked the NOR noticeboard and appear to have received an answer you don't like. "Decisions about due weight can be based on editors' own arguments, but should bear some relation to weight in the sources. Rhoark (talk) 04:16, 31 October 2015 (UTC)" The above clearly shows that citation count is a measure of weight. Springee (talk) 06:24, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

No, Rhoark didn't comment on the fact that they are an attempt to discredit what reliable sources say. Yes, weight arguments can be OR, but WP policy automatically has weight guidelines for majority vs. minority viewpoints, and the sources clearly show that the bottom up strategy is the minority viewpoint. Sorry, but you can't use your own OR arguments to discredit what all those sources say. None of your sources claim the contrary to the majority viewpoint already established. So you're the one being dishonest here, and your arguments still violate WP:OR.Scoobydunk (talk) 17:24, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

You seem to just be coming up with excuses at this point. Feldman disagrees with you on the importance of the bottom up theory. He states, "The brewing debate between the "backlash" theorists and the "suburban school" is so important that I have chosen to include as many sides as possible in this volume." So the most recent scholarly author we have on this subject, and basically the only one who was commenting after Lassiter et al's work had been out for some time, says the debate between the two is highly important with regards to this subject. Sorry, we do have a source that says the bottom up theory deserves equal weight. It's the only source that was published after Lassiter et al to offer an opinion one way or the other. Are you going to still suggest we should accept a view published 8 years before the suburban school was articulated? Springee (talk) 17:59, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

No where in that quote does it say it has equal weight in scholarship. So your conclusion is an example of original research. That's not an excuse, that's a fact. Also, Feldman is not the most recent source, Bedolla and Haynie is the most recent source and they also claim that the general belief is due to a top-down strategy. So again, you have nothing to refute what the most reliable sources say, and instead only continue to post OR arguments and blatantly inaccurate misinterpretations of what others say.Scoobydunk (talk) 18:58, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry you have run out of any reasonable argument and have moved to [WP:DONTLIKE]. Discussions with you are clearly unproductive. Springee (talk) 19:19, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

This is called "projection". You're the one who doesn't like the fact that the suburban strategy is a minority point of view, and therefore have tried to put forward OR arguments to dispute what scholarly sources say. It seems you're the one who moved to [WP:DONTLIKE] a long time ago. No one has to accept your OR arguments over what multiple reliable sources say.Scoobydunk (talk) 20:44, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Frymer does not say what you claim. He only speaks to the actions of the GOP, not the reasons why voters cast their ballots. Furthermore, even if he was, his comparative claim was made before Lassiter et al published their work. It's OR to assume that the views of scholars have remained static in the interim. Springee (talk) 20:54, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Scoobydunk, I have posted this to the [Dispute_resolution_noticeboard] as I feel we will not be able to resolve it without third party mediation. Springee (talk) 21:28, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Springee, We're already in a dispute resolution noticeboard, so I'd be careful about forumshopping, especially considering your previous canvassing.Scoobydunk (talk) 21:32, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

NORN Discussion

As a group FYI, the relative weight discussion is being discussed here: [[15]] Springee (talk) 05:38, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Question about Lassiter

{u|Fyddlestix}, my reading of Lassiter's POV is somewhat different that what you added to the text. My read is that his general view is that race was an issue but not as central as I think you make it sound. Take the case of Brattain's easy where she talks about the suburban resistance to school busing. My read is the motivation for the suburban home owner was not racism but self interest. They moved to the suburbs for lower taxes, better schools etc. There motives aren't racist even if the result is a defact segregation. My reading of Lassiter is he does not forgive these people for in effect looking out for their self interest at the expense of minority interests. However, the critical difference is the top down case assumes it was anger about integration etc and a desire maintain race segregation that motivated the voters. The bottom up strategy suggest it was a class division and wanting to maintain the comfortable suburban lifestyle without having to pay for the inner cities that was the motivation. I would be interested in discussing this further because I think your edits make it sound like the two sides are nearly identical in view. Springee (talk) 06:04, 4 November 2015 (UTC)