This is America. Let it unfurl.

[David Morris]

Well stated, Joe.  AKA the "Southern Strategy" (but also applicable elsewhere):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to the late-20th
century Republican Party strategy of winning elections in Southern
states by exploiting anti-African American racism among Southern white
voters and appealing to states' rights. Though the "Solid South" had
been a longtime Democratic Party stronghold due to the Democratic
Party's defense of slavery prior to the American Civil War and
segregation for a century thereafter, many white Southern Democrats
left the party following the African-American Civil Rights Movement,
the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of
1965, and desegregation.

The strategy was first adopted under future Republican President
Richard Nixon in the late 1960s and continued through the latter
decades of the 20th century under presidents Ronald Reagan and George
H. W. Bush.[1] The strategy was successful in achieving its goals; it
led to the electoral realignment of Southern states to the Republican
Party, but at the expense of losing more than 90 percent of black
voters to the Democratic Party.


On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 9:44 AM, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is a common tactic for appealing to "values voters". Colin Powell
> and a few others have taken their fellow Republicans to task for
> implying, or outright stating, that people from urban areas and the
> coasts do not have American values, as if only small town and
> Midwestern values were genuine. This tactic essentially identifies the
> majority of the population as not really "True Americans". They are
> the "Others":.
>
> The Know Nothing wing of the Republican Party is playing on the fears
> of a white Protestant constituency that sees itself as losing cultural
> and political dominance. They fear being marginalized. They think that
> their way of life is dying. A mixed race President is a sign of their
> impending loss of power. They are right about this. So what? Evolve or
> join the dinosaurs that they think Adam and Eve rode before the flood.
>