Bigotry Bites Back: The racism that once served the GOP well is risking the party's future.
by John Stoehr
... It's well known that the Republican Party has pandered to the bigotry of reactionary politics since the 1960s when Richard Nixon, under the advisement of former Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, invented with the help of advisers Roger Ailes and Kevin Phillips something called the Southern Strategy.
The Southern Strategy was a bundle of political messages and policy positions meant to appeal to segregationist Democrats alienated by their party's passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act. It started with Nixon's call for "law and order" in 1968. It was later used across the country.
Ronald Reagan's decrying of "welfare queens"; George H.W. Bush's "Willie Horton" attack ad; George W. Bush's spreading rumors that Arizona Sen. John McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter was an illegitimate black child; Newt Gingrich's claim in 2012 that Barack Obama is a "successful food stamp president" – all of these are a variation on the Southern Strategy theme.
A consequence of this has been the whitening of the Republican Party to such a degree that Trump's attacks on minorities and Muslims had no effect on actual Republicans. Conditions changed after the first debate when Clinton reminded everyone of Trump's fat-shaming of a teenaged beauty, but even then, the injury was to Trump alone, not on down-ticket Republicans.
But after the video emerged – which also showed Trump boasting of sexual advances toward a married woman who he later wanted fired from the Miss Universe contest due to her pregnancy – it was clear the support of middle-class white women was in jeopardy. That was enough for high-profile Republicans like McCain to rescind his endorsement. More telling, it was enough for House Republicans to follow suit, even calling for him to step down as the party's nominee....
From U.S. News, October 11, 2016