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P resident N ixon's Broken Promise to “Bring the A merican People Together”
Author(s) -
Peretz Pauline
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
presidential studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.337
H-Index - 5
eISSN - 1741-5705
pISSN - 0360-4918
DOI - 10.1111/psq.12155
Subject(s) - ethnic group , ignorance , political science , monopoly , rhetoric , administration (probate law) , politics , political economy , public administration , law , sociology , economics , theology , market economy , philosophy
To secure his reelection, P resident R ichard N ixon tried to dismantle the N ew D eal coalition and form a new R epublican majority; to do so, he attacked the monopoly D emocrats had on racial and ethnic votes. N ixon's racial and ethnic politicking represented a rupture with past R epublican ignorance of minorities; it was going to be one of his key legacies to his party. This article shows that, driven by consecutively defined electoral goals, his administration systematically favored group‐specific measures over universalistic policies addressing common ethnic claims, and that these measures were accompanied by a divisive rhetoric and implemented in an antagonistic fashion. It argues that N ixon broke his promise to reunite the country, and used racial and ethnic politics as an instrument of electoral engineering rather than as a way to correct legacies of past discriminations.