FRDH Podcast

Mind of the South

If you want to know America, you have to understand the Mind of the South.

If you want to understand the dynamics that drove events towards the Charlottesville Outrage, you have to understand the mind of the south, or specifically the “white” Southern mind. That mindset did not just pop up, the day Donald Trump took office. It has been the driving force in American politics … all the way back to the foundation of the Republic.

White Southerners are a powerful force in American politics. Not a majority – but the largest single political bloc – in the country. In the century after the Civil War this bloc was attached to the Democrats – Lincoln was a Republican – and it acted as a drag anchor on the progressive forces that shaped the modern Democratic party. In response to the civil rights movement white Southerners shifted to the Republican party. Superiority is a key part of the white southern mindset, not just racial, but religious, as well. In the 18th and early 19th centuries the region saw a heavy influx of protestant immigrants from what is today Northern Ireland, Ulster.

In this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb talks with Southern historians about the region and the mind of the South and traces the origins of recent events to well before Donald Trump entered politics. And through the medium of the Republican party the mindset is spreading all over the country.