If you search for any loaded term on Google it will lead to confirmation bias.
Can you find any stats showing that a White male has a harder time in America getting a job, getting a loan, getting a mortgage or lease, getting into college, etc than an equally qualified non White male?
If we agree that's a loaded term, perhaps we can also agree that in terms of dividing people by race and gender, Trump isn't so different from many leaders on the left. He's merely the first Republican who plays the game of identity politics that the left has played for so long.
I think it's a terrible shame that the dream of a race-blind, gender-blind society was abandoned...but the left, not Trump, is to blame for that.
It was a Republican, Eisenhower, who sent the army to enforce school integration after the Brown v Board of Education decision. Nixon [often accused of this "Southern Strategy"] was Vice President at the time.
And a much higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats in Congress voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Yes and after Lyndon Johnson - a Democrat signed the civil rights act, the south turned against the Democratic Party. But here is the southern Strategy in Lee Atwater’s own words.
Yes, I've heard of Strom Thurman. One of three Southern Democrats who switched parties, I believe.
I've also heard of the many racist Southern Democrats who opposed civil rights and remained Democrats after 1964 (many much longer), including:
John Stennis,
Herman Talmadge,
James Eastland,
Allen Ellender,
Russell Long,
John Sparkman,
John McClellan,
Richard Russell,
George Wallace,
Lester Maddox,
John Rarick,
Robert Byrd, and
Al Gore, Sr.
So why would Democrats switch parties if they didn’t think the other party was in line with their beliefs. Whike Zell Miller was purportedly a Democrat, he actively campaigned for Republican Presidential candidates.
But are you really going to defend the Party of Trump as being inclusive?
Are you really claiming that the Southern Strategy didn’t exist despite the words of Lee Atwater?
Rather than ask me to explain why three people switched parties, you should explain why so many Southern segregationists (all but 3) didn't switch parties if the Democrats were suddenly the party of civil rights.
And the claim that interview with Lee Atwater is talking about Republican strategy makes no sense. It starts with "in 1954 you start out saying n....r, n....r, n....r." But in 1954 the South was solidly Democratic and Republicans were sending troops there to force integration. The quote describes a supposed "southern strategy" beginning in 1954 that bears no relation to reality in 1954. Why should we believe the rest of it when it's wrong from the beginning?
He was talking about how you had to change your approach to appeal to racists over the years. In 1954, you could appeal to racists more overtly in the south to win them over. But over the years you had to be more careful.
But, parties change and they try to appeal to enough different coalitions to get elected. The Republican Party use to be about free trade, "pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and not blaming others for your plight in life" and at least give lip service to caring about the deficit. Now they are completely the opposite.
I don't like debating out of context quotes, but I suspect he was describing Strom Thurmond's campaign strategy. He worked for Strom Thurmond and that would fit in 1954 as well. But one politician's strategy is a far cry from a general Republican southern strategy.
I certainly agree that parties' political positions change. That doesn't mean any particular claim of change is true.
The Atlantic article was quite long and I read it in a good-faith effort to follow up on your citations, so you can drop the condescension. Elsewhere you concede that it's not the celebratory article you promised, so at least we agree about that.
But since you don't, what exactly do you expect me to say here that will convince you in 30 seconds?