I am a historian best known for a book on how Richard Nixon became president by exploiting white Americans’ racial panic after the fourth straight summer of urban riots. And so a parade of reporters, podcasters and editors came calling: Was the same thing going to happen again? I repeated a basic observation: When chaos is everywhere, voters tend to reward politicians who promise calm — which is what Nixon seemed credibly to do in 1968. In the 1960s, the racial backlash followed an unprecedented flurry of civil rights and antipoverty legislation, championed by a liberal president. Because that legislation only seemed to be followed by more anarchy, it was all too easy for millions of white voters to conclude that liberalism was to blame.

Source: New York Times August 27, 2020 21:00 UTC