George Wallace and American Conservatives: The Nexus

My argument is a revision of the view advanced by Kevin Phillips in The Emerging Republican

Majority, and reinforced by Richard M. Scammon and Ben J. Wattenberg in their The Real Majority. It is simple enough. Until it is possible for us as conservatives to bring the Wallace electorate and the 85 per cent of Republicans who are conservative together under one tent, without losing many from either company, and without defrauding either, we are condemned to be governed perpetually by the old familiar left-liberal coalition. Nothing about the union here envisioned is automatic. A McGovern can make it temporarily possible, but we cannot depend upon the availability of another such convenient adversary. Indeed, with each passing day, the prospects for this alignment grow dimmer. There is, however, an example which, if it were followed, might help achieve the end of a durable conservative majority. It is an example objectified in the political habitus of the Old South and in the organization of the armies by means of which that society almost achieved its independence.

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M. E. Bradford

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My argument is a revision of the view advanced by Kevin Phillips in The Emerging Republican

Majority, and reinforced by Richard M. Scammon and Ben J. Wattenberg in their The Real Majority. It is simple enough. Until it is possible for us as conservatives to bring the Wallace electorate and the 85 per cent of Republicans who are conservative together under one tent, without losing many from either company, and without defrauding either, we are condemned to be governed perpetually by the old familiar left-liberal coalition. Nothing about the union here envisioned is automatic. A McGovern can make it temporarily possible, but we cannot depend upon the availability of another such convenient adversary. Indeed, with each passing day, the prospects for this alignment grow dimmer. There is, however, an example which, if it were followed, might help achieve the end of a durable conservative majority. It is an example objectified in the political habitus of the Old South and in the organization of the armies by means of which that society almost achieved its independence.