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⭐ In the context of the New Deal coalition, Southern whites are considered to have played a significant role in its initial success, but later contributed to its decline due to a shift in political alignment. What primarily drove this change among Southern whites?

The source text indicates that Southern whites began to shift towards conservatism on racial issues, which contributed to the weakening of the New Deal coalition as they moved away from the Democratic Party's base.

⭐ Core Definition: Southern whites

White Southerners, historically called White Confederates or Southrons, are White Americans from the Southern United States, originating from the various waves of Northwestern European immigration to the region beginning in the 17th century. A uniform sense of identity among White Southerners emerged as part of a common Southern culture.

Academic John Shelton Reed argues that "Southerners' differences from the American mainstream have been similar in kind, if not degree, to those of the immigrant ethnic groups". Reed states that Southerners, as other ethnic groups, are marked by differences from the national norm, noting that they tend to be poorer, less educated, more rural, and specialize in job occupation. He argues that they tended to differ in cultural and political terms, and that their accents serve as an ethnic marker.

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👉 Southern whites in the context of New Deal coalition

The New Deal coalition was an American political coalition that supported the Democratic Party beginning in 1932. The coalition is named after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, and the follow-up Democratic presidents. It was composed of voting blocs who supported them. The coalition included labor unions, blue-collar workers, big city machines, racial and religious minorities (especially Jews, Catholics, and African Americans), white Southerners, and intellectuals. Besides voters the coalition included powerful interest groups: Democratic Party organizations in most states, city machines, labor unions, some third parties, universities, and foundations. It was largely opposed by the Republican Party, the business community, and wealthy Protestants. In creating his coalition, Roosevelt was at first eager to include liberal Republicans and some radical third parties, even if it meant downplaying the "Democratic" name. By the 1940s, the Republican and third-party allies had mostly been defeated. In 1948, the Democratic Party stood alone and won both the White House and both congressional houses with a mandate, surviving the splits that created two splinter parties.

The coalition made the Democratic Party the majority party nationally for decades. From 1933 to 1968, Democrats only lost control of the White House when Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in 1952 and was then reelected in 1956 due to his broad popularity. The Democrats typically controlled both Houses of Congress before the 1990s. The coalition began to weaken with the collapse of big city machines after 1940, the steady decline of labor unions after 1970, the bitter factionalism during the 1968 election, the turn of northern white ethnics and southern whites toward conservatism on racial issues, and the rise of neoliberalism under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, with its opposition to regulation.

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