Editing New Deal coalition (section)

===Decline and fall===
After the end of the Great Depression around 1941, the next challenge was to keep Democratic majorities alive. It seemed impossible after the GOP landslide in 1946.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Steven P. |last1=Erie|title=Rainbow's End: Irish-Americans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics, 1840—1985|year=1988|pages=140–143}}</ref> Journalist [[Samuel Lubell]] found in his in-depth interviews of voters after the [[1948 United States presidential election|1948 presidential election]] that Democrat [[Harry Truman]], not Republican [[Thomas E. Dewey]], seemed the safer, more conservative candidate to the "new [[middle class]]" that had developed over the previous 20 years. He wrote that "to an appreciable part of the electorate, the Democrats had replaced the Republicans as the party of prosperity."<ref name="lubell1956">{{cite book |title=The Future of American Politics |publisher=Anchor Press |author-last1=Lubell|author-first1=Samuel |year=1956 |pages=62–63 |edition=2nd |ol=6193934M}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=Sean J. |last1=Savage|title=Truman and the Democratic Party|year=1997|pages=23–56}}</ref>

In 1952 and 1956 [[Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower|Republican Dwight Eisenhower]] had been able to temporarily peel several elements of the coalition into the Republican column, notably some Northern farmers and manual workers and middle-class voters in the Border South. In the [[1960 United States presidential election|1960]] election, [[John F. Kennedy]] and his running mate [[Lyndon Johnson]] won back Southern voters.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Herbert S. |last1=Parmet|title=The Democrats: The Years Since FDR|year=1976|pages=95–115, 162–190}}</ref>

After the smashing reelection victory of [[Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson|President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964]], the heavily Democratic Congress passed a raft of liberal legislation. Labor union leaders claimed credit for the widest range of liberal laws since the New Deal era, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the War on Poverty; aid to cities and education; increased Social Security benefits; and Medicare for the elderly. The 1966 elections were an unexpected disaster, with defeats for many of the more liberal Democrats. According to Alan Draper, the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Action (COPE) was the main electioneering unit of the labor movement. It ignored the White backlash against civil rights, which had become a main Republican attack point. The COPE assumed falsely that union members were interested in issues of greatest salience to union leadership, but polls showed this was not true as the members were much more conservative. The younger ones were much more concerned about taxes and crime, and the older ones had not overcome racial biases.<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Alan|last1=Draper|title=Labor and the 1966 Elections|journal=Labor History|volume=30|number=1|year=1989|pages=76–92}}</ref> Labor unions began to lose their members and influence in the 1970s as the economy became more service-oriented and the proportion of manufacturing jobs declined. Companies began relocating manufacturing jobs to [[Sun Belt]] states, free of labor union influences, and many Americans followed suit. As a result, union membership steadily declined. Labor unions were painted as corrupt, ineffective, and outdated by the Republican Party.<ref>{{cite journal|first1=David J. |last1=Sousa|title=Organized labor in the electorate, 1960–1988|journal=Political Research Quarterly|volume=46|number=4|year=1993|pages=741–758}}</ref>

During the 1960s, issues as [[civil rights]] and [[racial integration]], the [[Vietnam War]] and the [[counterculture of the 1960s]], [[affirmative action]], and large-scale [[urban riot]]s further split the coalition and drove many Whites away, signalling that the coalition started to fall. The War in Vietnam split the liberal coalition into hawks (led by Johnson and Vice President [[Hubert Humphrey]]) and doves (led by Senators [[Eugene McCarthy]] and [[Robert Kennedy]]).<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Michael|last1=Nelson|title=The Historical Presidency: Lost Confidence: The Democratic Party, the Vietnam War, and the 1968 Election|journal=Presidential Studies Quarterly|volume=48|number=3|year=2018|pages=570–585}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=Maurice|last1=Isserman|first2=Michael|last2=Kazin|title=America divided: The civil war of the 1960s|edition=6th|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2020|pages=186–203}}</ref> In addition after the [[John F. Kennedy assassination]], the coalition lacked a leader of the stature of Roosevelt. The closest was [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] (president 1963–1969), who tried to reinvigorate the old coalition but was unable to hold together the feuding components, especially after his handling of the [[Vietnam War]] alienated the emerging [[New Left]].<ref>{{cite book|first1=Herbert S. |last1=Parmet|title=The Democrats: The Years Since FDR|year=1976|pages=248–284}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first1=Ronald|last1=Radosh|title=Divided They Fell|year=1996|pages=51–132}}</ref> Besides Johnson, another who came closest was Robert Kennedy, the likely Democratic candidate in 1968. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, in the space of just two months, seem to have been an almost fatal blow to the New Deal coalition prospects.{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}}

====Reagan Era and the Southern Strategy====
{{See also|Reagan era|Southern Strategy}}

During the [[Presidency of Ronald Reagan]] (1981–1989), Republicans took control of prosperity issues, largely because of the poor performance of [[Presidency of Jimmy Carter|Jimmy Carter]] (1977–1981) in dealing with [[stagflation]]. Reagan's new economic policy of [[neoliberalism]] held that regulation was bad for economic growth and that tax cuts would bring sustained prosperity.<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Monica|last1=Prasad|title=The popular origins of neoliberalism in the Reagan tax cut of 1981|journal=Journal of Policy History|volume=24|number=3|year=2012|pages=351–383}}</ref> In 1994 the Republicans swept control of Congress for the first time since 1952. The response of [[Presidency of Bill Clinton|Democratic President Bill Clinton]] was: “We know big government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem....The era of big government is over.”<ref>“State of the Union Address," January 3, 1996.</ref> Clinton went on to cut New Deal-inspired welfare programs and repeal some of the New Deal's restrictions on banks.<ref>{{cite book|editor-first1=Michael|editor-last1=Nelson|display-editors=etal|title=42: Inside the Presidency of Bill Clinton|publisher=Cornell University Press|year=2016|page=15}}</ref><ref>Kazin, p. 290.</ref> Clinton largely accepted the neoliberal argument, thereby abandoning the New Deal coalition's claim to the prosperity issue.<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Gregory|last1=Albo|title=Neoliberalism from Reagan to Clinton|journal=Monthly Review|volume=52|number=11|year=2001|pages=81–89|url=http://cf.linnbenton.edu/artcom/social_science/clarkd/upload/neo.pdf}}</ref>

While most Northerners supported the original civil rights movement, many conservative [[blue collar]] voters disliked the goal of racial integration and became fearful of rising urban crime. The Republicans, first under [[Richard Nixon]], then later under Reagan, were able to corral these voters with promises to be tough on law and order. The votes of blue-collar workers contributed heavily to the Republican landslides of 1972 and 1984, and to a lesser extent 1980 and 1988.<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Joe|last1=Merton|title=The politics of symbolism: Richard Nixon's appeal to White ethnics and the frustration of realignment 1969–72|journal=European Journal of American Culture|volume=26|number=3|year=2008|pages=181–198}}</ref><ref>Richard Moss, ''Creating the New Right Ethnic in 1970s America: The Intersection of Anger and Nostalgia'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017) [https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Right-Ethnic-1970s-America/dp/1611479371/ excerpt].</ref> At the presidential level, the GOP made inroads among urban, middle-class White Southerners as early as 1928 and later in 1952. Starting in 1980, Reagan pulled together both middle-class and working-class White Southerners. At the state and local level the GOP made steady gains in both White groups until reaching majority status in most of the South by 2000.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Earl|last1=Black|first2=Merle|last2=Black|title=The Rise of Southern Republicans|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2002|pages=2–11}}</ref>

Scholars debate exactly why the New Deal coalition collapsed so completely. Most emphasize a [[Southern Strategy]] by Republicans to appeal to a backlash against Democratic national support for civil rights.<ref>See {{cite book|first1=Angie|last1=Maxwell|first2=Todd|last2=Shields|title=The long southern strategy: How chasing White voters in the South changed American politics|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2019}}</ref> However, a minority of scholars consider a demographic change in addition to race. They argue that the collapse of cotton agriculture, the growth of a suburban middle class, and the large-scale arrival of Northern migrants outweighed the racist factor. Both viewpoints agree that the politicization of religious issues important to White Southern Protestants (i.e. opposition to [[abortion in the United States|abortion]] and [[LGBT rights in the United States|LGBT rights]]) in the "[[Bible Belt]]" made for a strong Republican appeal.<ref>{{cite book|editor-first1=Glen|editor-last1=Feldman|title=Painting Dixie Red: When, Where, Why, and How the South Became Republican|publisher=University Press of Florida|year=2011|pages=1–12}}</ref>