Recently political commentators and columnists have begun to compare Trump’s overt appeal to racist sentiments to the rhetoric of George Wallace, the pugnacious governor of Alabama who carried his strident racism into an independent campaign for the presidency. Trump’s appeal to white nationalism, however, owes more to Orval Faubus, the six term governor of Arkansas. In his “Gothic Politics in the New South,” a study of Southern governors elected on segregationist platforms, journalist Robert Sherrill entitles his chapter of Faubus “How to Create a Successful Disaster.” It was the Successful Disaster strategy that propelled the careers of George Wallace, Lester Maddox and others.
Faced with a tough reelection fight, in 1957 Faubus needed a successful campaign issue. The Little Rock school integration crisis of of that year provided him one. Little Rock’s political leadership, school officials, and civil rights groups had developed a token integration plan they expected to see implemented that fall. Faubus intervened, overriding the local plan. He then made defying the federal court order to integrate the Little Rock schools and the retention of rigid segregation essentially the sole basis for his campaign. President Eisenhower sent federal troops into Little Rock to insure the implementation of the local plan and the safety of the few African American students who carried it out. In terms of his goal of championing segregation, Faubus’s actions were a disaster, one which he created. It was also a highly successful disaster, ensuring his reelection and providing an issue that would continue to keep him in the governor’s residence. Wallace, Maddox, and others immediately adopted Faubus’s successful disaster strategy, with similar results.
Trump’s strategists may not know about Faubus. They are certainly aware of Wallace. Trump is a far more accomplished creator of disasters than Faubus or Wallace, as his immigration policies and proposals demonstrate. Unfortunately, his racist posturing, by keeping him in the White House, may prove successful, but not disastrous in the sense that the segregationist stance of Faubus and Wallace was. Trump’s successful disaster may well be the United States after his reelection.
Southword 