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Issue with Scholarly Debate

I think the inclusion of a "scholarly debate" sub-section is a good addition. However, I feel Lassiter is given too much weight. Lassiter recognizes that his view is a minority opinion and he's really listed as the only scholarly detractor from the historians that focus on the racial aspect of the Southern strategy in the section. Currently, the first paragraph in the section and the last paragraph in the section almost entirely consist of Lassiter's point of view. I think his point of view can be combined into one area and can be trimmed so it's not given too much weight. I don't mind including opinions from other peer reviewed works, but Lassiter is certainly given too much weight. He's basically getting an entire sub-section and Valentino and Sears are just commenting on the fact that Lassiter's opinion exist. I think there needs to be less focus on one scholar who holds a minority opinion, and more focus on multiple scholars.Scoobydunk (talk) 19:16, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

As it happens are quite a few scholars who have been contributing to the debate on the southern strategy. I just now added summaries of the work of two of them: Glen Moore, "Richard M. Nixon and the 1970 Midterm Elections in the South." Southern Historian 12 (1991) pp: 60-71 and Bruce H. Kalk, "The Carswell Affair: The Politics of a Supreme Court Nomination in the Nixon Administration." American Journal of Legal History (1998): 261-287. in JSTOR. They deal with topics that had not previously been touched upon here, such as the 1970 elections in the South and the Supreme Court nomination issue. Rjensen (talk) 15:37, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
The sources you've added not only don't belong in the section, but attempt to give a position more weight than it actually has in scholarship. This area should strictly be about strong sources that speak to the disagreements held amongst scholars. The sources you added don't speak to the debate or conflict...at least not the text you actually wrote in the article. This section should be precise and accurate, and shouldn't be muddied by throwing in ancillary factors that might have been important during the 1970s. Just because some scholars think Supreme Court appointments have an impact, doesn't mean they are debating notions generally held regarding the Southern Strategy or speaking to a debate. To make this implication is a form of OR in violation of WP:Synth. Lassiter clearly says he disagree with the majority of his scholars and says race wasn't the biggest influencing factor. This is a clear example of what this section should consist of, not irrelevant red herring arguments about SC justices and byrd machines.Scoobydunk (talk) 18:21, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
I'd also like a direct quote from Mayer please. Mayer doesn't mention the Southern Strategy at all in this source and actually admits the importance of race/civil rights in domestic politics which is what the Southern Strategy is. Mayer's comments about "American politics" does not serve to refute sentiments regarding the Southern Strategy because the SS was not a nationwide strategy, but one that focused on localized sentiments in the south. To this source of Mayer and try to apply it to debate/refutation of the Southern Strategy is another example of original research through synthesizing. I appreciate your moving the other sources out of the wrong section, but comments on the Bird Machine and SC justices aren't relevant to this article at all and certainly to speak to the "roots of the southern strategy". I ask that you please remove them and stick to sources that actually speak to the Southern Strategy.Scoobydunk (talk) 18:36, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
I don't have a strong opinion on the content in question yet (although my gut instinct is that it's a combination of undue weight and original synthesis). But if these sections are kept, they need extensive copyediting. The section on Virginia and the Byrd, or "bird" [sic], machine is particularly mangled. I'm not investing the time yet since it's not clear that the content actually belongs, but if Rjensen feels strongly then perhaps he could copyedit it the next time he re-inserts it. It's hurting my eyes. MastCell Talk 18:37, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
He already reinserted it in another section. I think that shows some progress, but it's still irrelevant to the Southern Strategy.Scoobydunk (talk) 18:40, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Is this a strategy irrelevant to Virginia???? that seems a very strange line of argument. The fact is Virginia had a strongly and attached conservative Byrd organization and the Republicans build up their own organization to displace it, and largely succeeded. To carry out a southern strategy, you have to handle every state in the South, and every state had a different structure in place. That's why historians study the states. Rjensen (talk) 18:42, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
No, this article is about the Southern Strategy and not the individual state by state localized politics. That type of information might belong on articles directly relating to Virginia politics/history, but not in a general one about the Southern Strategy. Also, please address the issues expressed above.Scoobydunk (talk) 18:45, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Every politician knows that a national election is a combination of state elections. There's no such thing as a regional southern election, there are elections in southern states and each one has a different combination of demography, established politicians, and localized issues (like TVA) that they in fact address separately. When a candidate hopping from state to state accidentally praises the wrong governor, it's a serious mistake because it proves he's not paying attention to the voters and needs of the state that is actually in. Rjensen (talk) 18:59, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
This article isn't about what "every politician knows", it's about the southern strategy and information about the southern strategy. Continuing to post information not relevant to or speaking to the Southern Strategy can be seen as POV pushing and OR. To claim or imply that these complete separate micro-issues are related to the southern strategy when the sources themselves don't analyze them in relation to the southern strategy is original research as well. They might be relevant to a topic about political realignment in the south, but they are not directly related to the southern strategy.Scoobydunk (talk) 21:16, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Scoobydunk talks about "POV pushing"-- is he trying to say that he is innocent of that entity in fact has no appeal the agenda on this topic?? Rjensen (talk) 21:57, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
I'm interested in accurately representing what reliable sources have to say about the Southern Strategy. Trying to include sources that don't speak to the Southern Strategy and asserting they do and refute what historians say about the southern strategy is a violation of multiple WP policies.Scoobydunk (talk) 22:18, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
There's been a request for a direct quotation from Mayer. OK here it is: Goldwater's staff also realized that his radical plan to sell the Tennessee Valley Authority was causing even racist whites to vote for Johnson. A Florida editorial urged Southern whites not to support Goldwater even if they agreed with his position on civil rights, because his other positions would have grave economic consequences for the region. Goldwater's opposition to most poverty programs, the TVA, aid to education, Social Security, the Rural Electrification Administration, and farm price supports surely cost him votes throughout the South and the nation. cite Jeremy D. Mayer, "LBJ Fights the White Backlash: The Racial Politics of the 1964 Presidential Campaign, Part 2 " Prologue 33#2 (2001) pp: 6-19. Rjensen (talk) 18:53, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
As I thought, this quote says NOTHING about the southern strategy and Mayer only speaks to some of Goldwater's oppositions costing him votes. This is not representative of a debate nor does it speak to a debate regarding the importance/impact of the Southern Strategy.Scoobydunk (talk) 19:00, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
wrong. the southern strategy = a) a technical term and b) a strategy to use race to win for GOP. Mayer says that in 1964 Goldwater brought up other issues (like TVA etc) that led southern racists to vote for LBJ. that is, the southern strategy did not work. The Southern Strategy TERM was invented later, but Mayer in fact uses the Southern Strategy term in his article and therefore he has it in mind. Rjensen (talk) 19:34, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Nothing in that quote spoke to the southern strategy or to scholarly debate surrounding the southern strategy. Please supply a quote from Myer that talks about the southern strategy, so far, nothing you're supplied is relevant to this article. Your claim that Myers quote asserts "the southern strategy did not work" is entirely the manifest of original research.Scoobydunk (talk) 21:10, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Scoobydunk should read this article. it's full of politicians and history, as well as scholars. The scholars are trying to figure out the strategy that politicians were using at different points of time in different states. In Wikipedia OR only means no footnote and everything is well footnoted here. Rjensen (talk) 21:41, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Your understanding of WP:OR is fallacious and I even specifically identified the parts of WP:OR that you've violated, which is WP:Synth. No, WP:verify speaks to things not being properly sourced/footnoted which is not the same thing that original research addresses. Nothing in your last response substantiated your mischaracterization of Myer. Also, your Shafer source is another example where the "southern strategy" isn't mentioned ONCE in either sources so to use it to try and make claims about the southern strategy is another example of original research.Scoobydunk (talk) 22:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
First things first--NPOV : does Scoobydunk claim that he is neutral on this topic and has no political agenda? Rjensen (talk) 22:16, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
This is the second time you've attempted to comment about an editor instead of policies relevant to the discussion. This type of behavior can easily be seen as disruptive as it serves as a distraction from the actual discussion. My POV is irrelevant since I'm not trying to push information into the article that doesn't speak to the Southern Strategy, nor am I trying to misrepresent scholarly opinions about the southern strategy by inserting irrelevant information or making my own OR conclusions about that information.Scoobydunk (talk) 22:22, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Scoobydunk wrote at 21:16 today "Continuing to post information not relevant to or speaking to the Southern Strategy can be seen as POV pushing and OR." He introduced the issue and now refuses to answer about his private agenda. he says his POV is "irrelevant"--he means secret. I challenge that: his extremely narrow view of the topic is a personal POV that is hurting the editing process. If an article agrees with him he allows it otherwise he says it is OR or synthesis or something. That is not helpful. Rjensen (talk) 22:35, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
I think it is always good to present other ideas, but also that the section could better describe who holds dissenting views and how accepted they are. When mentioning Lassiter, it should point out his unique views on racism and the South, which probably influence his views on the Southern strategy. See his intro to The Myth of Southern Exceptionalism.[1] TFD (talk) 00:30, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
I don't think Lassiter is much of an issue with the exception of how much weight his opinion is given. He clearly disagrees with the conventional wisdom regarding the southern strategy and he admits that his opinions run contrary to the majority of scholarship. The problem is that a bunch of nonsense has been added to the "scholarly debate" section where the authors aren't contesting the importance of racism and/or don't even mention the southern strategy ONCE in their articles.Scoobydunk (talk) 07:20, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
WP policies explicitly and clearly describe what original research is and what editing synthesis is. Taking an article that says absolutely nothing about the Southern Strategy and attributing to a stance on the southern strategy is a violation of WP:Synthesis. Also, I've supported the inclusion of Lassiter on multiple occasions, which shows I adhere to WP policy and am willing to look at sources regardless of their positions. I've looked at your sources and most of the sources you've added don't speak to the southern strategy or they address issues not relevant to the southern strategy. When you're asked for a quote supporting the edits you've included, you provide nothing that speaks to the southern strategy or criticizes the scholarly view on the southern strategy. Now it seems you're more focused on making personal attacks, rather than addressing the issues identified above.Scoobydunk (talk) 07:20, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest looking at 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". I think Scooydunk is correct, focusing on just one scholar doesn't show debate. Others who share that point of view need to be included. Springee (talk) 01:40, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

That's not quite what I said, but I did welcome the topic being fleshed out with a bigger array of opinions contrary to the conventional view of the southern strategy. However, the majority of the sources added are either misrepresented and/or don't mention the southern strategy ONCE in the entire source.Scoobydunk (talk) 07:20, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
This article defines the southern strategy as "a Republican Party strategy of gaining political support for presidential candidates in the Southern United States by appealing to regional racial tensions and history of segregation." That means a) Republican Party strategies for winning presidential elections in the South; and b) the SS is at work when that strategy focuses on appeals to racial tensions. A major question in the scholarly literature is whether the SS is actually at work in election X. scholar A says Yes because the racial appeal was important; scholar B says No because the racial appeal was not especially important & other appeals, like economics or foreign policy, were more important. I am arguing that coverage of both A and B fits the appropriate guidelines and should be included. Scoobydunk seems to be saying that he only wants to see coverage of scholar A. Evidence against the SS hypothesis somehow don't count. he seems to believe that A is absolutely true, and therefore B is outside the bounds of Wikipedia. That is his own personal POV-- he has prejudged the historical situation ow what actually happened based on his own personal private politics. Rjensen (talk) 11:29, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
This is basically an admittance to adding in information not relevant to the Southern Strategy. On an article about "Granny Smith Apples" it would be defined as a "type of apple or fruit" but that doesn't open the door for the article to discuss golden delicious, red delicious, bananas, pears, and XYZ. You're admitting to adding information about the LARGER UMBRELLA of political elections with sources that don't discuss the Southern Strategy. You say "A major question in the scholarly literature is whether the SS is actually at work in election X" which is true, but is only accurate if the scholar is actually saying "No, the southern strategy wasn't at work, these were the things that were". If they aren't commenting directly on the SS, then they are simply talking about the larger umbrella of presidential elections or voter realignment and to assert that this is a stance/criticism about the southern strategy is a vioalation of WP:OR. The Southern Strategy is a SINGLE APPROACH to presidential elections and voter realignment, that doesn't mean every other example is relevant or disproves that the southern strategy existed and was used. They are different strategies. This article talks about southern strategy, not political realignment or presidential elections in general. Hence why many of the sources you've added have zero relevance to this article and should be added to articles with broader subject matter. This isn't a "narrow pov" this is how articles are written on WP. Scoobydunk (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
The southern strategy is academic hypothesis about the motivation of the Republican political strategies. some scholars think the SS was very important, and other scholars think it was much less important than other factors like economics or the Vietnam war. A scholar who says "economics was the most important reason" is stating evidence downplaying the SS. That evidence should be included. Scoobydunk only wants to include evidence that supports this hypothesis. I suggest we can't write encyclopedia articles without giving both sides of a controversial issue. Somehow the text never mentions that Nixon explicitly rejected the idea that he ever used a "Southern strategy" see >Joan Hoff (1995). Nixon Reconsidered. BasicBooks. p. 79. Rjensen (talk) 17:51, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
I don't think that the "Southern strategy" is solely an academic hypothesis, nor do I think there is any serious doubt about its existence. After all, the strategy was expressed verbatim, and unapologetically, by some of its architects in the GOP, including Kevin Phillips and Lee Atwater. FFS, it was even acknowledged explicitly by the head of the Republican National Committee in 2005, in the course of an apology to the African-American community. I get the sense that a lot of effort is being expended here to pretend that the strategy didn't exist, or may not have existed, or is simply an academic conjecture, when in reality it was acknowledged both contemporaneously and in retrospect by the Republican Party. The fact that Richard Nixon—an individual not exactly renowned for his integrity or honesty—denied employing the strategy is perhaps worth mention, but does not falsify the underlying reality. MastCell Talk 18:27, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
I just read over the Atwater links. I don't think they say the GOP used said strategy to run for the White House at any point in time. He certainly and strongly suggests that all more recent claims of the Southern Strategy are questionable. Even the stuff Phillips is saying can be read in more than just one way. If you look at what Atwater says, not just the short clip but the full interview, he is saying two things. First, he is saying that in the past some candidates (he didn't specify party or which election) did try to appeal via racial messages. However, the more important point he makes is that the moment you make the message indirect/coded/subliminal most voters are going to miss the code. Thus the coded message stuff is really so much hot air because the voters won't understand it to be racist and thus it doesn't appeal to their racism (for those who are racist). Rather than saying Reagan did use a message designed to appeal to racists (as the article suggests) Atwater is actually saying he didn't because even if he did such a message, by virtue of being coded, is lost on the reader. This fuller message is included in the Lamis interview but not in the Wiki entry. Lamis uses Atwater to show how things happened in the past, not prove that such a plan was still in use. The Atwater "coded message is a lost message" view supports the scholars who say that the south went to the GOP for reasons other than race politics. Those reasons do include "class" politics with suburban voters not wanting to pay higher taxes to support low income inner city residents regardless of race. A number of the critics of the Southerns Strategy theory (of the GOP rise in the south) note that the GOP did make class based appeals (protect your suburbia from paying for the issues of the inner city) but the appeals were not based on race. I think this article needs to decide if it is narrowly about a strategy that was used for some period of time (how long is not agreed) in which case much of the background needs to go. Or it's an article that discusses things in broader terms in which case what Rjensen is adding should stay because it's related to the elections and the validity of various claims presented by sources. Springee (talk) 20:28, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
I think your interpretation is pretty far off base. The whole point of using a coded message is that the code is clearly understood by its target audience, but provides plausible deniability and wiggle room to avoid accountability. Atwater is saying that public values had changed to the extent that it was no longer acceptable or politically profitable for Republicans to use explicitly racist language, and that they shifted to more abstract and coded language (e.g. "states' rights", "forced busing") to couch their continued appeal to white racism in politically tenable terms. Reagan, Bush I, and other Republicans used such coded language in their campaigns (the constant references to "welfare queens", the Willie Horton ad, pretty much anything from Jesse Helms, etc), and the code was not particularly subtle. Again, I'm not interested in debating whether the Southern strategy existed, when it was acknowledged both at the time and in retrospect, by its architects and employers. How can we pretend it didn't exist when the RNC has already apologized for it? MastCell Talk 21:27, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
The RNC did not apologize. Its chairman said: "Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here as Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong." SS means only presidential campaigns & he did not mention them. Rjensen (talk) 22:48, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
Wait, what? Look, when someone describes a reprehensible action and then says "we were wrong", they are apologizing. It's a waste of our time (and an insult to our intelligence) to pretend otherwise. Likewise, the RNC chairman blamed "some Republicans" (unnamed) for exploiting white racism. You claim that this has nothing to do with the Southern strategy because he didn't explicitly call out specific Presidential candidates, which I think is similarly a very weak and tortured argument. I'm past the stage in my Wikipedia career where I spend hours arguing with people who are intent on denying obvious realities, so if this is the level of discussion going on here, I'll leave you to it. MastCell Talk 23:53, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
It's made to sound like an apology but he carefully has no examples, names, dates, states or candidates. he does not call it "a reprehensible action". he does not use the word "racism." he does not say the RNC ever did any of it. he did say "we were wrong" -- we took a poor approach to winning the black vote. you wanted him to say much more but he carefully did not do so. Much of this debate is about code words & historians are trained to look very closely at the exact wording and at what is left unsaid. Rjensen (talk) 00:38, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
Look at the Atwater quote in Lamis (our current quote is cut down from the Lamis quote). He starts by saying that Reagan isn't using such a strategy. He then, in the text quoted in the Wiki page, explains why such a coded message doesn't work. The recipient of the message doesn't understand the code. This become even more obvious when you read the Nation's take on the interview but even Lamis's version makes it clear this isn't a Reagan thing. Springee (talk) 21:51, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
The Atwater interview is a primary source and primary sources don't take precedence over reliable secondary sources. So to make so much of an effort to try and interpret what Atwater said is ultimately fruitless in the face of reliable sources. Historians have thoroughly analyzed and discussed Atwater's interview and we highlight what those reliable sources say about the interview and the parts relevant to the southern strategy. Regardless, I'd like to bring the focus of this discussion back to the fact that the article has been littered with entries from sources that don't even discuss the southern strategy and that Rjensen is in clear violation of WP:OR and WP:NPOV.Scoobydunk (talk) 06:41, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
The text of the Atwater interview is a primary source. You are correct about the order of precedence established by Wikipedia. The primary sources at to the interpretation of the interview are Lamis and Perlstein. Lamis only says that Atwater is explaining how such a process of coding worked. He doesn't make a claim about any particular election where it was used thus it is WP:OR or WP:SYNTHISIS. Perlstein, writing from a clearly hostile POV on the subject also does not say that Atwater was saying the strategy is effective or currently in use (during Reagan's time). Rjensen's additions are relevant because they are in a section that discusses if the strategy had any impact. Thus it is reasonable to discuss the larger picture during the elections in question. Why are you so concerned about removing material that shows that appeals to racism were not the primary factors in the GOP shift but you aren't concerned about removing a long intro section that clearly predates the southern strategy? Rjensen seems to be adding real content to an article that looks like a place for people to dump all sorts of racist charges against the GOP. Most of the evolution and later material looks to be of poor quality at best. Springee (talk) 13:24, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
This isn't a discussion about Lamis and Perlstein's interpretations, it was about your interpretation of the Atwater interview and how it's irrelevant in the face of what secondary sources say, and irrelevant to the article because of policies concerning OR. The section in this article isn't about "if the strategy had any impact", it's strictly about scholars who debate contemporary/historical understandings of the Southern Strategy. That's why Lassiter, Valentino, and Sears are perfect additions, because in their works they specifically talk about people who debate aspects of the Southern Strategy. Almost none of the information supplied by Rjensen speaks to the impact of the southern strategy or about debate concerning the southern strategy. "No", this article isn't about every"election ever held nor is about every time the Republican party realigned, it's specifically about a single strategy called the Southern Strategy. If the articles don't discuss the southern strategy, then it's a violation OR to takes excerpts from those articles and present them in away that refute the southern strategy and its impact. I only say "almost" because after checking the first 2-4 sources Rjensen added, it was clear those sources had no relevance to the Southern Strategy and I haven't checked the latest ones.
Again, this article isn't about "the GOP shift", it's specifically about "The Southern Strategy", hence why I don't support adding sources that don't even mention the Southern Strategy once in the entire work. The Southern Strategy was about appeals to racist sentiments in southern voters, hence why it's presented that way in sources that discuss the southern strategy. Even Lassiter, who disagrees with its impact, admits that the Southern Strategy was a tactic to appeal to racist attitudes. I'm not concerned with rewriting the entire article, so you're welcome to fix the long intro, but adding in OR and clear violations of NPOV are not how articles get fixed. Furthermore, why is it you require editors you disagree with to discuss on the talk page before making changes to the article, but here you commend Rjensen for adding in tons of OR, POV, irrelevant material without discussing it first?Scoobydunk (talk) 07:12, 14 August 2015 (UTC)


On the subject of Atwater: The way the sources are currently used is OR. Lamis uses Atwater's quote to show how things worked in 1968 and their about. He does not mention Reagan at all. The Wiki article uses Atwater's comments as proof that the Southern Strategy had evolved. That clearly isn't what Atwater said (and we can use primary sources, they just aren't given as much weight). Lamis does not say the strategy evolved... at least not in the section that quotes Atwater. If he says it elsewhere then that, and not Atwater, should be quoted. The Nation is, according to Wikipedia, a magazine with an editorial bias. Thus we can view those comments as such. Even with that bias, Perlstein does not say Reagan continued to use the strategy. To that I would add two more references. Hinderacker discusses the topic here [[2]]. While The Powerline is a web blog, it should be given some level of credibility as Time Magazine named it blog of the year (according to Wikipedia). In terms of reliability it should be considered similar to the opinion article by Perlstein. Hinderacker supports the view that once the message is too coded then the voters are voting based on race but instead are voting based on other factors such as economics. Hence if a GOP candidate opposes welfare they aren't doing it to appeal to racism in voters but to appeal to the voter's wallet. I understand that guts most of the claims of "Southern Strategy" in the later parts of the Wiki article but that is what Atwater is saying according to Hinderacker. I would also add the view of Reva B. Siegel in an article in the Harvard Law Review[1]. From her footnote: "Lee Atwater, a political strategist for President Reagan, gave an anonymous interview in 1981 to political scientist Alexander Lamis in which he discussed the evolving terms in which candidates could appeal to racial resentments. It is not entirely clear whether he thought that, in changing the code for racial issues, candidates were moving beyond race or simply finding new ways of talking about race that were more acceptable in the civil rights era." Thus she is saying it is NOT clear that Atwater was trying to appeal to racism vs other factors. The Atwater quote is clearly being misused in the wiki entry. I'm going to fix the citation so the quote comes from Lamis and is the full Lamis quote. I'm not going to move it because the article is just too big a mess to bother with.

  1. ^ Siegel, Reva (Nov 2013). "Foreword: equality divided". Harvard Law Review. 1. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

On Rjensen's edits: You feel that if an article doesn't mention the Southern Strategy it can not be part of the debate section. That simply isn't true. We are discussing why the south moved to the GOP (in national elections). Some people claim it was because of the Southern Strategy. Articles that support that POV will have to either directly mention the Southern Strategy or talk about appeals to racism via coded language (though Atwater, someone on the inside, says that doesn't work). Authors who don't agree might mention the Southern Strategy to state it didn't mater but others will simply not mention it. Their failure to mention it while citing other factors is evidence that the strategy failed. Thus you are wrong when you make a blanket claim that any article that doesn't cite the Southern Strategy can not be evidence against the racism appeal theory. Sadly I think any attempt to do the wholesale fixes that this article needs would be just as ugly as the American's for Prosperity article. Springee (talk) 14:03, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

On Atwater - You're wrong. Most of what concerns Atwater is the quoted interview where he talks about the Southern Strategy. That is not original research in any way shape or form. Furthermore, Atwater does discuss Reagan in the interview and it's Lamis who includes the "[the new Southern strategy of Ronald Reagan]". So this portion of the article is not a violation of WP:OR and it directly relays what the source says. No where in the article do we claim that Lamis speaks to the evolution of the Southern Strategy due to this quote. This quote from his work is simply a characterization of the Southern Strategy, it's other historians who describe the evolution over time. However, this information is still relevant to the section since it's a point on the chronological evolutionary timeline of the southern strategy. Also, your Hindracker blog post is completely irrelevant when compared to peer reviewed scholarly works, so it doesn't "gut" anything. Lastly, you prove the inclusion of Lamis quoting Atwater with your source from Siegel, who explicitly said Atwater was explaining the "evolving terms". So the Atwater quote isn't being "misused" in any fashion. Furthermore, Siegel's quote confirms that the Southern Strategy was an appeal to racism, and he only expresses doubt in what Atwater thought. No where in this part of the article does it claim Atwater believed the party was moving beyond racial coding or finding new ways to do it.
On RJensen - No, we are discussing the scholarly debate surrounding the importance/impact of the Southern Strategy. This isn't a section to include every single election in the history of the united states, or discuss the importance of other factors UNLESS the source explicitly relates it to the Southern Strategy. If the source isn't talking about the southern strategy, then it's a violation of WP:OR to try and use those sources to debate the importance of the Southern Strategy. That's what WP:OR explicitly prohibits. If an author talks about the importance of Baseball in american history, it's a violation of WP:OR to cite authors talking about basketball, hockey, or football to try and debate the importance of Baseball. The only time you would be able to include those arguments, is if the author/source explicitly said something along the lines of "Baseball wasn't as important as XYZ" or "Baseball had little affect on the world of sports, Foorball is what radically changed blah blah blah". This is what Rjensen did and you're clearly supporting this violation of WP policy.Scoobydunk (talk) 00:45, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
On Atwater: No, actually it is you who is incorrect. Do a quick Google search for where Atwater and Reagan's names appear in Lamis's book. Aside from where Atwater mentions Reagan's name, the two don't appear together in the text. If Lamis says Reagan used the Southern Strategy then that should be quoted. As is Lamis only uses Atwater to say how the strategy came about in the Harry Dent period. Implying that Atwater's statements is proof that the Southern Strategy was continued during Reagan and later is WP:OR because Lamis does not say it when he quotes Atwater and Atwater specifically says it isn't true. You are wrong that the article doesn't "claim that Lamis speaks to the evolution..." etc. Sorry, if you want to find where Lamis says Reagan was using the Southern Strategy quote that section of his work, not an interview with Reagan's political strategist where Atwater says it doesn't work and why it doesn't work. By placing that Atwater quote in the evolution section that talks (makes claims) about Reagan there is a clear implication that the Atwater quote supports the claims that Reagan used the strategy. That is not supported by Atwater quote nor the Lamis material around the quote and thus is OR even if you are unwilling to see it. I would suggest you read Lamis, around page 400-403. It's clear he is saying the Reagan and Bush era politics were not focused on race as the key factor.
You are somewhat correct about the Hindracker blog. You are correct in that it isn't as reliable a source as Lamis. However, since the Lamis text doesn't say what you claim we have to fall back on other sources. Hindracker specifically says Atwater's quote refutes claims that Reagan was using the Southern Strategy. You are wrong about Siegel as well. Siegel states that we can not decide if politicians are trying to appeal to racism by using coded language or if in fact they are actually appealing to exactly what they claim. If they are then the whole idea that this "coded language" is to appeal to racism is wrong and its actually an appeal to the voter's self interest. Either way, the quote does not support that Reagan used the Southern Strategy. If you want Lamis to support that claim, please find the actual supporting quotes. The Atwater quote would be better placed in one of the earlier parts of the text.
On Rjensen: You are simply trying to justify excluding sources that don't support what you want the article to say. The problem with trying to attribute the success of the GOP to an appeal to racism is that anyone who researches the topic and finds reasons other than racism and thus doesn't mention racism is, according to you, not a valid source. It's a common issue with disproving fringe theories. You can't actually prove a negative. I support Rjensen's additions to the topic. They speak to the actions of politicians who were accused on using the Southern Strategy and to other (and honestly more credible) reasons why the South turned to the GOP. I've been looking for additional sources we might cite. Specifically, I'm looking for sources that talk about the rise of the GOP in the South even if they never mention the Southern Strategy. Those sources are just as relevant as ones that claim the GOP wouldn't have won the South without appealing to racist voters. Springee (talk) 04:36, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
On Atwater: Where does the article say that Lamis is commenting on Reagan with the Atwater quote? You used the word "implying" which leads me to believe that the article doesn't actually express this, and this is just a strawman argument of your own making. So this is not a violation of OR, the article simply uses Lamis to include a quote from Atwater, and makes no relationship between Reagan and the Southern Strategy in WP's voice. However, Wikipedia could express this relationship because Lamis is the one who wrote "[the new Southern strategy of Ronald Reagan]". Furthermore, "No" just because a person is mentioned in a section, doesn't mean that entire section is about that person. This section is about the evolution of the Southern Strategy. Atwater's quote speaks to this evolution and deserves to be in the section. That's not OR in any way, shape, or form and your Seigal quote further proves that its inclusion is appropriate. The evolution follows a pretty clear, logical timeline and there are no statements about Lamis making claims about Reagan. It's a completely separate paragraph and you're welcome to take it to the OR message board.
I've made no wrong assertion about Lamis. So your attempt to give relevance to Hindracker is fruitless. I'm also not wrong about Seigel. Seigel says the uncertainty is whether Atwater thought the candidates were moving on from race, or had to create new racial coding. This copy and pasted from your post "It is not entirely clear whether he thought that, in changing the code for racial issues, candidates were moving beyond race or simply finding new ways of talking about race that were more acceptable in the civil rights era." He is "Atwater" so in this part of this quote of yours, Seigel is only speaking to Atwater's position and is not explaining his own. Also, I didn't say Seigel's quote had anything to do with Reagan, only that it had everything to to with evolution of the Southern Strategy. Therefore, the Seigel quote proves that Lamis's mentioning of the Atwater quote belongs in a section titled "Evolution". You keep trying to bring Reagan into this, and it's not relevant.
On Rjensen: You're just plain wrong and you refuse to address the very clear logical examples I give that prove how your position is erroneous. This is a violation of WP:OR, you are supporting taking comments made about other reasons for transitions in southern political alignment and use them as a way to refute the effectiveness of the Southern Strategy, even though the sources don't present that argument. That's exactly what the WP:OR policy speaks to. Do you need me to quote it? From WP:Syn, the first line, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." If the sources don't explicitly refute the effectiveness of the Southern Strategy, then you can not include them into the article in a way that implies that that they do refute its effectiveness. This is a clear policy violation. Also from WP:Syn "'A and B, therefore C' is acceptable only if a reliable source has published the same argument in relation to the topic of the article." The topic of this article is the "Southern Strategy" not "Political Realignment in the South". So if the source doesn't even mention the Southern Strategy, you can not take arguments from it and present in the article to refute the academically held view of the Southern Strategy. Your assertion that I want to exclude information I don't agree with is absurd. I've already supported the inclusion of Lassiter, Valentino, and Sears which have differing opinions. I'm interested in following WP policy, not in supporting editing that's a clear violation of it.Scoobydunk (talk) 08:30, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
When leading scholars say that racial issues played a smaller role than economics, religion and foreign policy, that speaks directly to the question. The topic of the article is the Validity of the Southern Strategy. is Southern Strategy a valid historical statement of what happened? we need to include eminent scholars who provide negative evidence by Wiki's NPOV rule. Ian Haney-Lopez for example, emphasizes their importance for studying the SS. She says, "Just as some scholars doubt the significance of the Southern strategy by noting the election of Democrats, others dismiss its power by pointing out the class dimensions of the political realignment in the South. See, for instance, Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston, The end of Southern Exceptionalism." [Ian Haney-Lopez. Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Wrecked the Middle Class (2014) p 239] Rjensen (talk) 02:02, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
No, the topic of this article isn't about "the validity of the Southern Strategy", it's just about the "Southern Strategy". It's not a battleground for you to try and discredit its existence. The Southern Strategy was an appeal to racist sentiments held by southern voters. Its effectiveness is only a very small portion of what the overall topic is about and the sources you've added give way too much weight to that specific issue. Also, funny how you left out the part where Lopez says that the viewpoint "race didn't play a substantial role" is "ultimately untenable" because it supposes that there is a neat division between race and class. Scoobydunk (talk) 07:34, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
It's POV to ASSUME all that. Did the strategy exist--was it important? When did it start/end? These are basic questions in the RS you do not want asked. Why is that? Perhaps you think it's an evil that has to be exposed?? The job of the editors is to summarize what the scholars have to say about it. How important it was in deciding presidential elections is one major aspect (low/medium/high? Which years? why?) Rjensen (talk) 07:54, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
Assume all of what? You're clearly giving a very small aspect of the Southern strategy undue weight, especially when it's regarded as the minority viewpoint. Scoobydunk (talk) 17:25, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
The impact of the strategy is clearly a very important part of the overall story and thus should be front and center in the article. Claims that it was a major factor in the GOP's success in the south seem to be welcome in the article. Scoobydunk's view that scholarly work that doesn't mention the Southern Strategy should not be included in the article is simply wrong. If a researcher is looking at the topic of why the GOP gained a foothold in the South and doesn't mention the Southern Strategy then that can be taken as a clear indication that the strategy had little to no impact. Springee (talk) 11:30, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
I quoted the parts of WP:OR that prove you wrong. Do you not know what "explicit" means?Scoobydunk (talk) 17:25, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
Actually you are wrong in your reading of WP:OR. I see nothing that excludes what Rjensen is including but you are welcome to provide the exact quote again so we can read the paragraph that you feel is related. As far as I can tell it says we can't included unrelated material but we are allowed to include clearly related sources. For instance if we were discussing a conspiracy theory regarding the cause of Chicago Fire it would be very reasonable to include historical sources that say it was a cow that kicked over a lantern even if they didn't mention the conspiracy theory. The reason is the both directly relate to the cause of the fire. Articles that discuss the causes of the GOP conversion of the South are relevant even if they don't mention the Southern Strategy. This is because this article has some references/comments which state the Southern Strategy was critical to/cause of/etc the shift of the South to the GOP. Failure to mention the Southern Strategy shows that said author didn't think it was important. Thus if this article is going to have some sources that claim the strategy had a large impact it is reasonable to include other sources that didn't consider the impact significant enough to even merit discussion. That is not the synthesis you are concerned about. If you have a particular passage you disagree with then perhaps you can work to edit that passage.Springee (talk) 17:59, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
Nope, From WP:Syn, the first line, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." If the sources don't explicitly refute the effectiveness of the Southern Strategy, then you can not include them into the article in a way that implies that that they do refute its effectiveness. This is a clear policy violation. Your perception that these authors "didn't consider the impact significant" is not explicitly stated by the sources. You are drawing a conclusion from what you feel is implied, and this is not permitted by Wikipedia policies regarding original research. So if you still don't understand this, I suggest you research the difference between "explicit" and "implicit".Scoobydunk (talk) 00:14, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
I disagree that what you are concerned about is happening here. You are welcome to open up a RfC or similar to get additional opinions. Springee (talk) 00:27, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
It clearly does. Please give me a quote where Shafer explicitly discusses the Southern strategy and its effectiveness.Scoobydunk (talk) 00:35, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
It's a misreading by Scoobydunk. The rule says "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." He misreads that as "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by ALL of the sources." Rjensen (talk) 02:07, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Never have I required that it be a position held by "all" sources. The amount of sources is irrelevant in regards to OR. What matters is that the source that you're using as a reference has to explicitly say what you're trying to include into the article. If the source explicitly says what you're trying to add, then you can use that source as a reference. Shafer doesn't say anything about the Southern Strategy and so it's a violation of WP:OR to say that he refutes the effectiveness of the Southern Strategy or a to present the information in that way.Scoobydunk (talk) 05:05, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
If the SS says "A and B and C happened" and if source X says "A and B did not happen" then source X is appropriate for citation. no Wikipedia rule requires source X use the words SS Does Shafer in fact confront the SS? Scooby says no. But the RS say yes, and we go by them: "The 2006 publication of Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston’s The End of Southern Exceptionalism was met with critical acclaim, even winning the coveted V. O. Key Award for the best book in southern politics. Their premise was that the realignment of the South with the Republican Party was a function of the economic and class changes that transformed the region in post–World War II America. The thesis challenges the widely held belief that the “reddening” of the South was based solely on the Southern Strategy initiated by Richard Nixon’s 1968 and 1972 campaigns. " [in Angie Maxwell, " The Duality of the Southern Thing: A Snapshot of Southern Politics in the Twenty-First Century." Southern Cultures 20.4 (2014): pp 89-105]. Rjensen (talk) 05:28, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
Yes, you can use what Lopez and Maxwell said because they are the ones likening Shafer's work to "challenging" a widely held belief about the Southern strategy. However, this doesn't mean you can cite Shafer for those positions because those are other peoples' interpretations of his work and must be properly accredited to them. This doesn't mean you can take Shafer's work and directly quote the parts you want to refute the widely held view/conventional wisdom of the Southern strategy because Shafer makes no such explicit criticism and to do so is a violation of WP:Syn. In essence, Lopez and Maxwell are the secondary sources and they are referencing Shafer as a primary source exemplifying authors who challenge the conventional wisdom of the Southern strategy. Though Shafer's work is a secondary source in some context, in examining the scholarly understandings of the effectiveness of the Southern strategy, his work is being used as a primary source. From WP:Primary "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." Also from WP:Secondary "Whether a source is primary or secondary depends on context. A book by a military historian about the Second World War might be a secondary source about the war, but where it includes details of the author's own war experiences, it would be a primary source about those experiences."
So, again, Lopez and Maxwell are perfectly fine to include because their work explicitly talks about the Southern strategy and different scholarly viewpoints about the Southern strategy. Shafer does not. This has nothing to do with a personal POV position on my part, but about being consistent with WP policy. If your accusations of pov pushing were true, then I would be rejecting all of these sources and I'm clearly not. You don't even have to quote Maxwell or Lopez, you can simply say in the article "Some scholars challenge the view that the political realignment in the south was solely based on the Southern Strategy. Authors like Shafer argued that the "reddening" of South was a function of economic and class changes." Then you would obviously list Maxwell and Lopez as the references. Shafer could be added to the article in the "Further Reading" section. Glad we cleared that up.Scoobydunk (talk) 09:12, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
goodness you're busy making up new rules. You misread the written Wiki rules and have not found a Wiki rule to support your policy of telling editors what RS they cannot cite. That's nonsense. Rjensen (talk) 07:51, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
You should try actually reading WP policies because I linked the rules that explain how what you're doing is wrong. So again, do you have a quote from Shafer where he explicitly discusses the Southern Strategy's effectiveness?Scoobydunk (talk) 18:47, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
please quote that Wiki rule again. Rjensen (talk) 19:17, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
From WP:Syn, the first line, "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." Also WP:Primary "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." You're interpreting Shafer to be refuting the effectiveness of the Southern strategy, yet you've yet to provide a quote from Shafer that actually explicitly expresses his position about the Southern strategy. So where's that quote?Scoobydunk (talk) 08:18, 26 August 2015 (UTC)


Based on that reasoning we would not be able to use the MANY official tellings of the moon landings to dispute the claim that the moon is made from green cheese. Since NASA said the moon is made of (NASA's claims here) but didn't mention dairy products you would have us believe that we can't use NASA's reports to dispute claims that the moon is made from dairy products. Sorry, the passage doesn't work that way. What it says is if one source says "The South turned red because of X,Y and Z, and not the Southern Strategy" then we can include other sources that say "The South turned red because of X/Y/Z" even if they don't mention the Southern Strategy. The other sources support the one that explicitly says X,Y,Z not Southern Strategy. If you still disagree I would suggest setting up a question on perhaps the RS noticeboard. Springee (talk) 14:11, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Your moon example is fallacious because, with caution, you an use primary sources as long as they explicitly say what you're trying to say. To your second point, the source has to explicitly discuss the topic of the article which is the Southern Strategy. Shafer does not discuss the Southern Strategy and including tangential sources is a against WP:Coatrack. This article/topic is about the Southern Strategy, not about all forms of political alignment. So, if you include Shafer under the premise that he talks about something "related" to the Southern Strategy, then it's a violation of WP:Coatrack. If you include Shafer under the premise that he is talking about the Southern Strategy, then it's a violation of policies concerning WP:Syn and WP:Primary. Either way you want to look at it, it's a violation of WP policy unless you can provide a quote where Shafer actually discuss the Southern Strategy in his source.Scoobydunk (talk) 06:04, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Opening Paragraph edits

Scoobydunk, you have twice reverted my edits to the opening paragraph without justifications in the talk section. Based on your edit comment please explain the following

  1. How is noting the time of publication of various scholarly claims OR so long as the time of publication is not in disupute?
  2. How can Frymer be considered a RS for the relative scholarly acceptance of the top down vs bottom up theory when it was published 8 years before the bottom up theory?
  3. The Frymer quote you have included says that scholars agree that the GOP turned away from the political needs/wants of African Americans around the time of Nixon. How does that support the view that new GOP voters were motivated by racial backlash/a top down motivation? Springee (talk) 12:52, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
  1. You didn't note the time, you tried to make a claim based on the time period which is not supported or made by any reliable source. That is called original research. You even admit on this talk page that a consensus made 20 years ago is less reliable than a consensus today. That is your own opinion and CAN NOT be included in the article as if it's a matter of fact or as if a reliable source explicitly made that claim about the sources you're so intent on trying to discredit.
  2. This is called a red herring argument in the form of a strawman argument. I didn't say he mentioned the bottom-down view at all. So this question of yours demonstrates a gross dishonesty, especially since I've already refuted it.[3] Frymer and Skrentny do make a claim of what most analysts of the period think, and that supports the top-down view that the partisan shift was around racial issues. That substantiates a claim that the majority viewpoint is that the political realignment in the south during this period was due to the racial aspects of the Southern Strategy.
  3. The frymer quote actually has 2 claims in it, and you've repeatedly ignored the second claim, even though I've previously bolded it for you. Frymer says "most analysts of the period view Nixon's campaign"
A. "as marking the end of the Republican party's century-old alliance with African-American voters"
B. "as solidifying a clear shift in the party system around racial issues."
It's claim B that substantiates the top-down viewpoint, known as political realignment due to the racial issues of the southern strategy.Scoobydunk (talk) 16:31, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
  1. I did note the time period, "At the time the bottom up narrative was put forth, primarily by Lassiter but also by Shafer and Johnston most scholars supported the top-down viewpoint" Would you be happier if I changed the quote to include the year 2006? Both Lassiter's assesment of the relative acceptance of the views and his work were published at the same time. Sorry, there is no OR in that statement.
  2. It is not at all a straw man. You claim that Frymer's opinion of scholarly consensus can relate to consensus even though it was expressed almost a decade before the new theory we are talking about. So if you wanted to say "prior to the introduction of the bottom up theory" then you might have a claim (were it not for point #3. Since you are trying to have readers believe this speaks to the current consensus you are wrong.
  3. The Frymer quote lacks any claim that you need to support how you want to use it. Claim B does not support the top down view. The question is why did voters decide to vote GOP vs Democrat. Frymer's quote says there is consensus the GOP changed their focus. It doesn't say voters responded by changing to the GOP because of that shift. Lassiter and Feldman do talk about that, they speak to the motivation of the voters, not the actions of the GOP. Were voters motivated by a top down GOP message or a suburban self interested POV? Both of those speak to the voter. You can't say the appeals to racism work if you can't speak to why the voters voted the way they did. Hence Frymer doesn't support the claim you are trying to make with his quote. That is why I removed it. Springee (talk) 17:04, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
  1. You don't understand. Noting the time period would simply be "in 2006 Lassiter published XYZ". What you did was make an OR analysis of the time period, which is against WP policy. The way you commented on it was an attempt to discredit its relevance today, which is strictly your own OR opinion.
  2. It is a strawman argument. To prove a majority viewpoint, I just have to quote what reliable sources have to say about "most analysts" or something of the sort. I don't have to include anything about voter motivations or what Lassiter said. It's irrelevant.
  3. Frymer clearly says that most analysts of the period view Nixon's campaign as solidifying a shift in the party system around racial issues. A "shift in the party system" is the same thing as "political realignment", and it's centered "around racial issues", which is the top-down viewpoint. So, you're wrong.Scoobydunk (talk) 17:13, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
  1. Stating "at the time of publication" is not OR.
  2. To prove a majority viewpoint you must first show that your supporting evidence relates to the question at hand. Yours does not but that is point #3. Point #2 is that you can't claim a historic position represents the contemporary position unless if a new thing comes about after the claims are made that would upset the status quo.
  3. A "shift in the party system" is not the same thing as a "political realignment". One speaks to the party, the other to the actions of the voters. Springee (talk) 17:48, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
Scoobydunk, in your edits to the opening paragraph you accused me of adding OR. Please justify your claim that Feldman is "Another supporter of the "suburban strategy" ". That is your POV, not one that Feldman makes. It is hypocritical to accuse me of adding OR while doing so yourself. Springee (talk) 18:24, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
  1. "at the time of publication" combined with whatever you have coming after it, is OR. It's also a violation of WP:Editorial which says that this language must be verifiable. It also clearly expresses your pov that they are not currently accurate, which you've admitted to having that pov on multiple pages now.
  2. No, I don't have to play around your questions. The only question I have to speak to is what is asked by WP:NPOV about majority viewpoints, and the source/quote meets that requirement.
  3. They are the same thing. Even the book that Frymer and Skrentny cite says the same thing. In "Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics" Carmines and Stimson say "Accounting for realignment on race following the 1964 Senate elections is an easier task" and "The 1964 Senate elections contributed to further issue realignment on race in two ways." Of course, there is also the publisher's summary which says "This book will be a major contribution to the study of realignment and political change, and will be as important as the works of Sundquist, Clubb, and even Key. The authors' interpretation of realignment marks a distinct advance, resolving significant theoretical muddles in the study of American politics." Political realignment encompasses all of the factors, both from the party and from the voters. This quote is sufficient in describing that the majority viewpoint is that political realignment was mainly due to racial issues.
It's only hypocritical if I say it's okay for me to do it and not for you to do it, which I haven't done. However, are you saying that your entire entry into the Scholary Debate section regarding Feldman is OR? Would you be satisfied if we removed "another supporter" and just write what Feldman says? While we're at it, the search tool yields 0 results on Amazon for Feldman's book saying "non factor" or "non-factor". Do you have an actual quote of Feldman saying that the southern strategy was a "non-factor", or is this another example of OR?Scoobydunk (talk) 19:49, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
  1. 1. That is your opinion. How is that any more or less a POV vs your phrasing of Feldman's view and using words like "admits" when describing Lassiter's statements?
  2. 2 NPOV only applies if the RS supports your claim. In this case it does not. That is why it was removed.
  3. 3 They are not the same thing. You are the only person who has made that claim. Your new quote again doesn't speak to the motives of the voters and certainly can't weigh in on the POV of scholars. It's a bad joke that you think that a source that is 8 years older than the alternative theory can support the view that the alternative theory currently deserves less weight than a theory that Frymer doesn't even address. Now you are stretching to claim the publisher is a RS for the book's content. Why not just provide a better quote?
  4. 4 Yes, it is hypocritical because you are doing it. You added a POV to Feldman that you assume he has but where is your evidence? Your last question is a nice red herring of your own making. Where did I say Feldman weighs in on which theory he things is right or their relative impact?
  1. It's not an opinion, it's wikipedia policy and you were clearly attempting to use WP's voice to make a claim not presented in reliable sources that was full of OR and your personal POV. We can change "admits" to "recognizes", but this is a different discussion from what your original objection was and what you tried to change in the passage.
  2. Uh, the quote most certainly does meet a claim about what most analysts view. So, again, you're incorrect.
  3. They are the same thing and multiple sources speak to Frymer's book discussing the realignment of the political south. Sorry you don't like what reliable sources have to say. I'm also not "stretching", I'm showing you that my understanding of the passage is not OR, it mirrors what other sources say and, of course, demonstrates a competent understanding of the English language.
No, that's not how hypocrisy works. If I'm mistaken about something, I'm happy to change it. That does not make me a hypocrite. I already made a suggestion to address this issue, and you've completely ignored it. Again, you're showing that you don't bother to read what others write, which is very disruptive to the discussion. Also, my last question isn't a red herring argument. Red herring arguments ignore what the actual argument is to distract to an irrelevant topic. I did address your concerns about Feldman and his support or lack thereof, and I made a suggestion to fix the issue. Now, after researching Feldman's book and comparing them to how you originally inserted that information into the article, I decided to ask a follow-up question. A question that went unanswered. So again, please provide a quote from Feldman where he says that the Southern Strategy was a "non-factor"Scoobydunk (talk) 00:03, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
Wash, rinse, repeat. You have not shown that my phrasing was OR. You fail to even understand the difference between a source that says what the GOP did vs a source that says why voters picked a party. You fail to address how a source that is 8 years older than the alternative POV can provide a reference for the current balance between the two views. You fail to justify claiming Feldman had picked any side. As to your question, show where I said Feldman said the Southern Strategy was or was not a non-factor. We are clearly at the point of pointlessness. We will have to address these content disputes via 3rd party means. Springee (talk) 01:09, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
So no quote then to support feldman claiming that the southern strategy was a "non-factor". That's very telling since you're the one who added it, yet can supply a quote to support that statement. FYI, I can't physically show you that the book doesn't use the word "non-facotr" once in the entire publication, but you've provided nothing to refute this very simple matter. Also, multiple editors have now told you that your position is an example of original research and have disagreed with you. Scoobydunk (talk) 05:20, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
Your gross mischaracterization of the whole discussion makes discussing the topic with you pointless. You have dishonestly framed my POV and continue to try to insert Frymer's POV on the Lassiter POV even though the quotes you provide predate the top-down vs bottom-up discussion by almost a decade and don't speak to the motives of voters. Springee (talk) 05:54, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
I've been able to supply numerous examples to prove that you're the one mischaracterizing things. Whether it's from scholarly sources, to things I've said, to things you've said, you constantly attempt to change your tune and deny things that can be easily verified through keyword searches or diffs. Your red herring and OR arguments aren't going to change what reliable sources actually say on the matter.Scoobydunk (talk) 06:08, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Supporting the restoration of a passage in the scholarship section

A passage was removed from the scholarship section a few days back [4] The reason for removal was that the source didn't support the passage. That was actually true due to an error on my part. When adding the passage I flipped my authors. The passage was stating Fledman's view when in fact it was meant to be Lassiter's view according to Fledman. The restored material is supported by page 16 of Feldman's Painting Dixie Red. [the suburban school] insists that post-World War II white southern suburbanites were relatively "color blind" in their approach to politics. The argument goes on to reject the notion of a distinctive South as well as to downplay - and even at times dismiss - the role of race in motivating white southerners to leave the Democrative Party for the GOP. Race was just not something they cared a whole lot about' Springee (talk) 20:35, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

And where do you explain why Lassiter's minority viewpoint needs to be included a 5th time in the article?Scoobydunk (talk) 21:20, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
The sentence you removed was probably at this point a bit redundant. Note that when it was first added the intro to the section was different.
You have my permission to edit the Ferymer citation without seeing that as any kind of revert. It really should be removed as WP:OVERCITE but I assume you wish to keep it. Anyway, I'm guessing you aren't familiar with citing journal papers. I didn't remove the specific reference page number with the intent of listing all the pages. Instead, the correct way to cite any journal paper is to include the page numbers of the article because the article appeals as part of a bound volume (or e-volume anymore). Thus the page numbers are to help people actually find the article in a physical book. The Journal Cite template does have a separate field for "page" vs "pages". Page is for the location of the information. Typically not critical in the case of a paper vs a book or thesis. Anyway, I won't fuss if you add the material back.
One other thing, I had rewritten this sentence, "Matthew Lassiter is one historian who supports the "suburban strategy"". I did so because it seems odd to say one of the three scholars most credited with proposing the "suburban strategy" and the one who coined the term would be referred to as "one historian who supports it". Since that was your phrasing did you really mean it that way? Cheers! Springee (talk) 04:17, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
Do you have a quote crediting Lassiter as the one who coined the term. If that's the case, then I think it's fine to phrase it has him being the originator.Scoobydunk (talk) 05:59, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Lassiter, The Silent Majority, intro page 5.
  • [5], " he supplants the familiar "southern strategy" interpretation with one of a "suburban strategy" driven by color-blind arguments, individualism, and free-market consumerism at the grassroots. "
  • Tim Boyd's essay, writing in Feldman's Painting Dixie Red, page 80, "...meant adopting what the historian Matthew Lassiter has called "suburban strategies" that stressed economic prosperity and racial moderation, rather than the "southern strategy" of appealing to white backlash." Springee (talk) 06:42, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
Those quotes certainly substantiate a claim that Lassiter called it a suburban strategy, but not that he was the creator/originator of the idea. Scoobydunk (talk) 06:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
Yes, it is totally possible many other people used the term first but Boyd decided to phrase his sentence, "adopting what the historian Matthew Lassiter has called "suburban strategies", to sound like Lassiter, a guy who's book features the phrase in several locations including as a section title, while promoting a new theory on the subject, was actually using a phrase someone else coined. I mean, we can't PROVE it can we. So I guess you are right. Perhaps you should just change it to "co-author" or "originator" of the theory rather than the term. Either way, phrasing it to sound like he wasn't an originator can create a false impression. It's a bit like deliberately cutting someone's quote. Yes, it might be literally what they said or what he supports, but it also leaves out critical context. Springee (talk) 07:34, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
No, it's the other way around. Phrasing it to make it sound like we was an originator, can create a false impression since you've yet to supply a source that claims he's the originator. That's called original research.Scoobydunk (talk) 08:06, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
You seem to be grasping at my claim that he coined the term as justification to retain a sentence that says he is just a supporter. There is not question in the literature (my references above) that Lassiter, along with S&J are credited with originating the theory known as the "suburban strategy". A sentence that implies otherwise is OR. Previous versions of this sentence were more true to the references. I'm not sure why it was changed to this less accurate version. Also, when the Feldman reference to the paragraph it was added with phrasing and presentation order based on the original source. It is also not clear why it was changed to a sentence that could be read as dismissing the importance Feldman placed on the suburban strategy narrative. Was the original phrasing less true to the source? I'm the editor who added the mutually agreed RS (Feldman) and when I added the text regarding the relative acceptance of the two narratives I used phrasing that followed Feldman's own text. [6] Since you are, at a later date, both changing my addition and changing it in a way can be seen as altering Feldman's own emphasis (note in his text "rapidly" is used in italics) I think you should justify why your revision is better than my original addition. Here [7] you followed my lead by including Feldman but you did it in a way that was less true to both my original addition and what his text actually says. In fact you did it in a way that contained an outright error (claiming Feldman was a supporter of the theory). Your revisions to the way I added the reference can be seen as attempts to downplay or cast doubt the significances of the dissenting view. That is adding OR in the voice of WP. Here[8] I corrected the incorrect information as well as adding a publication time frame. You objected to the time frame though I would challenge you to find any Wikipedia guideline on which to base that objection. But in the process of stripping out the publication dates you also removed the more neutral phrasing that both matched my addition of Feldman and better followed what Feldman says in his text (this claim is supported by the section of Feldman text I quoted on the talk page). Since you are changing original additions from RSs, please justify why you feel your versions are better than mine. Springee (talk) 14:46, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
To claim he's an originator without a source that explicitly makes that claim is OR. Feel free to take it to the NORN if you disagree. The arrangement of Feldman's view more accurately fits how the suburban strategy is received in scholarship. It's the dissenting and minority viewpoint, which by Wikipedia policy, gets less emphasis and maybe only a brief mention, like Blueboar explained to you.Scoobydunk (talk) 15:16, 9 November 2015 (UTC)


We have several RS which state that Lassiter + J&S are the originators of the theory. If you claim otherwise please find a RS that refutes Feldman, Boyd, etc.

  • [ By focusing on the complex interactions of race, class, consumerism, and the politics of metropolitan space, he supplants the familiar "southern strategy" interpretation with one of a "suburban strategy" driven by color-blind arguments, individualism, and free-market consumerism at the grassroots. ] Scholarly review of Lassiter's book, " By focusing on the complex interactions of race, class, consumerism, and the politics of metropolitan space, he supplants the familiar "southern strategy" interpretation with one of a "suburban strategy" driven by color-blind arguments, individualism, and free-market consumerism at the grassroots. "
  • Feldman, Painting Dixie, page 16,
All of this leads us, finally, to the dissenting - yet rapidly growing - narrative on the topic of the southern partisan realignment as represented in this book most clearly in the Time Boyd, George Lewis, Michael Bowen, and John W White essays. All - to greater and lesser extents - follow the lead of the historian Matthew D Lassiter in The Silent Majority (2006) as well as that of the politcal scientists Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston in The End of Southern Exceptionalism (2006). Lassiter, and others since, have argued strongly against what they term the "white backlash" narrative of the South becoming Republican in reaction to national Democratic identification with civil rights and racial liberalism. The "Suburban school," as it may now be called, stresses a "suburban strategy" versus what it deems a "southern strategy" - and insists that post-World War II white southern suburbanites were relatively "color-blind" in their approach to politics. The argument goes on to reject the notion of a distinctive South as well as to downplay - and even at times dismiss - the role of race in motivating white southerners to leave the Democratic Party for the GOP. Race was just not something they cared a while lot about - this better-educated, upwardly mobile, suburban elite. In this volume, the suburban school approach is probably most clearly exemplified in the essays authored by Tim Boyd on Georgia and John W White on South Carolina, though it pops up in Dan William's and Leah Wright's essays, as well as elsewhere.
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.
  • Tim Boyd's essay, writing in Feldman's Painting Dixie Red, page 80, "...meant adopting what the historian Matthew Lassiter has called "suburban strategies" that stressed economic prosperity and racial moderation, rather than the "southern strategy" of appealing to white backlash."
  • The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Clay Risen, [9] "Lassiter... persuasively argues in "The Silent Majority" that Republicans gained in the South not because of regional racism but because of the meteoric growth of the Sun Belt suburbs"

I really hate to take this to a 3rd party because you are refusing to follow WP best practice with regard to citing reliable sources etc. You are the ONLY one who has claimed the Suburban Strategy didn't originate between Lassiter and S&J. Stating he is just a supporter deliberately understates his position as one of the originators of the theory. I can only take this as an attempt to obstruct.

When citing reliable sources we should first, use the most reliable phrasing of the source. You are justifying a less reliable phrasing on the grounds that it fits with your perception of the status of the minority view. That is OR. You are taking Blueboar's comments out of context because he was replying to a strawman argument of your creation. He was not stating that you should provide a less accurate summary of Fledman's statement. Springee (talk) 17:09, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Not a single one of those said he was an originator.Scoobydunk (talk) 17:17, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
Then how about Lassiter. In "The Bulldozer Revolution" Lassiter and Kruse state (bottom of p 699), "As we have argued elsewhere..." That section describes the suburban strategy argument and then cites the Silent Majority. It doesn't cite some other author's work. It cites Lassiter's work.
Given the lack of defense for your rephrasing of Feldman's passage, a rephrasing to something that is less like the original than what I originally added when I added the reference, I take it then that you agree that we should represent the comments of sources in a way that most closely follows that of the source.
Were you planning on quoting something that says that Lassiter is the "creator" or "originator"? Lassiter citing himself, does not support a claim that he's the originator and that's a completely OR conclusion. I recommend you take a look at these sources that discuss the suburban strategy in relation to politics in the early 1990s, way before Lassiter published "The Silent Majority".
  • "The Electoral College—Not Just Every Four Years: Some Exercises in Political Geography" written by Kendyl Depoali, from the Journal of Geography published in 1993, and
  • "A Historic Moment: Black Voters and the 1992 Presidential Race" writtin by C. Lusane and published by the Trotter Review in 1992.
  • "The Suburban Century Begins" by William Schneider, published by The Atlantic in July 1992.

The way Feldman is presented in the sentence in question is fine as is, and correctly reflects the scholarly consensus regarding the top-down viewpoint being the majority viewpoint.Scoobydunk (talk) 18:14, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Those sources do not speak to the bottom up theory that has been called the "suburban stragey" in this discussion. You are attempting to show that someone in the past talked of a suburban strategy of some time and thus Lassiter, S&J aren't the originators of the theory in question here. These are very flaky arguments. As for the Feldman sentence, please explain why my original addition shouldn't be retained. Mine was a reliable reporting of the source material. Your view that your rephrasing of my original addition better fits what ever is OR since it applies your opinion to the presentation of the source. Springee (talk) 19:17, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
I have added a compromise solution. Lassiter, I hope even you would agree, is more than just a supporter of what the article is calling the "suburban strategy". I used the phrasing of Feldman "leading" to indicate he is a significant contributer and others are following in his work. That should in all reasonableness address your concerns about the lack of an exact phrase stating the origin of the theory. I also used a compromise Feldman quote solution. I simply quoted his exact text. That is as close as we can get to what he said, not your or my interpretation of his statements. If you are willing to accept these changes I think we can call this dispute closed. Springee (talk) 19:34, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
I disagree, they aren't "flaky" arguments, even Lassiter in his book The Silent Majority, says that there have been recent authors discussing the "sunbelt warriors", which means people were talking about it before he was. Regardless, I think your edits are a fair compromise. Feldmen does refer to Lassiter as a leader when it comes to supporting the strategy. Also, I support a direct quote for Feldman.Scoobydunk (talk) 19:53, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
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