The author of the video outlines some of the history surrounding the Southern Strategy of the 1960s US, whereby the opportunity of appealing to disgruntled white people using racist euphemism was recognized. He then describes how that has led into the political environment we find ourselves in today.

This is a video from 2018, so it’s a post-mortem of Trump’s election, and at the time was very incisive analysis, but retrospect has made it even more interesting to me and I am curious what people’s thoughts are here.

Essentially the death of euphemism should be taken as a warning sign that the far-right feels more confident that they no longer have to hold up a mask and that, rather than having to court moderate republicans by giving them plausible deniability, they are going to get to dictate the terms for the party going forward.

On some level this does seem the case now as far as the republican primaries (i.e. all the candidates are still scrambling to prove they’re as extreme as Trump), but Trump’s defeat and the public’s general rejection of extremist MAGA candidates in the last mid-terms indicate it’s more complicated than that for the nation as a whole.

What do you guys think? If Trump loses this next election will the Republicans take it as a sign that they’ve misjudged the timing of dropping the mask and try to find some way to court moderate right-wingers again? Or do you think they will continue to double down on extremism in the face of a 2024 loss (assuming a loss, of course)? How much losing will it take to change minds in the Republican establishment, and how do you see the future if the radicalized base won’t go back but doesn’t have the numbers to carry an election?