This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
GERALD HORNE: Sorry, I missed that.
PAUL JAY: I said, why do you think Reagan comes to power and is able to start undoing New Deal and 1960s legislation?
GERALD HORNE: First of all, contrary to popular opinion, there was no unanimity with regard to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There were many in Dixie who felt that by uplifting Black workers these white workers were being faced with stiffer competition and that was the grist for the mill of the counter-revolution ignited by Ronald Wilson Reagan. As well, Ronald Reagan was buoyed by the international gusts then prevailing. That is to say, there was still a lot of anger and resentment over the US defeat suffered in Indochina in April 1975, with the defeat in the Vietnam War. There was significant support in this country not only for the Cold War but for the underlying premises of the Cold War, which was supposedly the idea that government was taking too strong a role in the economy, as represented by the most diabolical view of socialism. That helped to propel a counterattack against government-sponsored programs, against the social safety net.
Keep in mind as well that for many in Dixie it was the federal government in Washington, D.C. that pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As President Johnson acknowledged at the time, this would cause many white voters in Dixie to defect from the Democratic Party, which they promptly did-
PAUL JAY: These are the Reagan Democrats.
GERALD HORNE: Not only that, but many of them switched en masse from the Democratic Party to voting for the GOP. Then, of course, you have this major third-party movement led by Governor George Wallace of Alabama, which got double digits with regard to a race for the presidency in 1968. I think it would be a mistake to underestimate the depth and persistence of mass opposition to anti-Jim Crow measures.
PAUL JAY: This creates the conditions for Reagan. Let me add one thing to that. It's also the time of the real expansion of globalization and the ability of companies to offshore production and really undermine the strength of American workers.
GERALD HORNE: Clearly. This is the era, for example, when US relations with apartheid South Africa are tightening. Keep in mind that apartheid South Africa had plants from General Motors and from Ford in Port Elizabeth, South Africa on the Indian Ocean coast. This is also the era, that is to say in 1971, when President Richard M. Nixon brokers this entente with China, which leads to runaway plants from the United States to low-wage havens in China, which of course has now backfired and created this juggernaut with consequences that are rather now still difficult to estimate. Certainly, US workers were whipsawed during the 1960s, 1970s and beyond, not only by these runaway shops that I've already made reference to, but for a certain class of white workers in Dixie, they felt that they were being subjected to unfair competition from Black workers who were being backed by the federal government in terms of their own struggle against Jim Crow measures.
PAUL JAY: Okay. In part two of this series with Gerald, I think it's part five in terms of the overall series, the next one will be six, I guess. I'm getting mixed up on the parts, but I think this one's five and the next one's six of Undoing the New Deal. We're going to continue discussion of what happens with Reagan but we're going to relatively quickly get to Bill Clinton's role in undoing the New Deal. So, please join us for the continuation of this series on The Real News Network.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
