Buzzfeed News
By Andrew Kaczynski and Nathan McDermott
January 6, 2016
Segregationist
presidential candidate George Wallace’s daughter and two of his former
top aides said in interviews this week that candidate Donald Trump is
squarely in
Wallace’s racist, populist tradition.
“There
are a great deal of similarities as it relates to their style and
political strategies,” said Wallace’s daughter, Peggy Wallace Kennedy.
“The two of them, they
have adopted the notion that fear and hate are the two greatest
motivators of voters. Those voters that feel alienated from the
government. Those voters tend to make decisions based on an emotional
level rather than intellectual.”
“They
both understood, my father and Donald Trump, that low-information
voters, they tend to feed off of the threats to their livelihood and
safety without really considering
what that threat really is, or even if it’s real,” she continued. “So
daddy and Trump have this magnificent personality, a brave put-ons that
the average American wants in a leader.
Wallace,
who served four terms as governor of Alabama, is probably best
remembered for his attempt to physically block black students from
enrolling at the University
of Alabama. He ran for president four times (three as a Democrat) in
1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976, galvanizing white, southern voters behind
his opposition to integration and his attacks on blacks and the student
protest movement. His 1972 campaign was cut short
when he was gunned down at a shopping mall in Laurel, Maryland.
In
the 1980s, Wallace admitted to being wrong about race, and during his
last run for Alabama governor, appealed to and won the support of some
black voters. Wallace appointed
many black leaders to political positions in his administration and
personally apologized to James Hood and Vivian Malone, the pair he had
once blocked from entering the University of Alabama.
Still, many remember most Wallace’s legacy during the ‘60s and ‘70s.
“He’s
very similar to George Wallace in a lot of ways,” said Wallace’s 1968
campaign executive director Tom Turnipseed. “Both of them use a lot of
the same kind of scare
tactics and fear.”
“He
appeals to the fear,” continued Turnipseed, who describes himself as a
“reformed racist” (he became a civil rights lawyer and, at one point,
sued the Ku Klux Klan).
“That’s why he pushed the Mexican thing, and now he’s throwing the
Chinese in there too. He uses that same kind of thing, that fear thing
that Wallace did…. As far as the tactics they use, the scare thing, is a
lot alike to be honest with you. The way they
use the scare thing. In Trump’s thing it’s the Mexicans, the wetbacks
that we used to call them, the Chinese too a little bit. Back in
Wallace’s time it was African-American people.”
Turnipseed’s wife, Judy, who also worked for Wallace noted the similarity in his and Trump’s presentation.
“Their
style is a lot alike,” she said. “They’re both very charismatic. Their
rhetoric is really powerful, and they don’t really talk that much about
solutions, but the
fear and anxiety.”
Trump
and Wallace share a flair for the flamboyant. During campaign
appearances, Trump, like Wallace, uses tough language on those who
interrupt his events.
“I love you too, I sure do,” Wallace said to one protester. “Oh I thought you were a she, you a he. Oh my goodness.”
In another instance, Wallace said he’d run over a group of anarchists.
“And
when he was in California, a group of anarchists lay down in front of
his automobile and threatened his personal safety. The president of the
United States,” he said
of another protester. “Well I wanna tell you, if you elect me president
of the United States and I go to California, or I come to Arkansas, and
some of them lie down in front of my automobile it’ll be the last one
they ever want to lie down in front of.”
“Come up here after I’ve completed my speech and I’ll autograph your sandals for you,” Wallace once said to another protestors.
“I
don’t know that Wallace ever had much to say what he was gonna do about
things,” she continued. “Just, ‘the federal government,’ ‘the pointy
headed liberals’ were trying
to tell us what to do, and we were gonna stand up for ourselves and
stand up for America. That kind of thing.”
“Another
thing that I think is similar is that, a lot of people are saying that
Trump is saying out loud what people are thinking,” she added. “They
really said that about
Wallace. That he articulated what people were thinking. And a lot of
people are saying that’s what they like about Trump. That Trump says out
loud what lots of people are thinking and don’t have enough courage to
say. I’ve heard that a lot of times and that’s
one of the common things that people said about Wallace.”
Peggy
Wallace Kennedy, who has been vocal in her calls for “racial healing”
and was an early endorser of Barack Obama’s candidacy in 2008, made a
similar comparison.
“They
both can draw a crowd and work up a crowd,” she said. “My father was a
very fiery and emotional speaker and was able to tap into the fears of
the poor and working-class
white people. American voters are looking for a leader who can fight
first, rather fight first then seek rational solutions.
For her, the similarities even extended to campaign themes.
“One
of my father’s presidential campaign themes was ‘Stand up for America’,
and Trump’s is ‘Make America Great Again.’ Well the message does not
suggest how you do that.
It just reminds us that the average Joe who thinks America is in the
dumpster, which I feel it is not. But they make you think that it is,”
she said.
And
for her, there was one main difference between the two men: Wallace,
she said, did not go as far as Trump with personal attacks.
“I
think my father had more self-restraint and respect for the
institutions of government than Trump does,” she said. “I think my
father understood the limitation of the
executive branch of government, where I don’t think Trump does. And I
think Daddy, even though he used coded language to use racial themes, he
never attacked a culture based on their religion and race. He used
coded language to suggest the racial themes. But
he never specifically attacked a group of people based on their
religion and their race. And I think Daddy had a respect for the process
and the candidates. A great respect for the process and especially the
process. He would have never leveled vicious attacks
on the other candidates, especially those have been so personal. Daddy
never would have done that.”
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