State's rights Dixiecrat and segregationist Strom Thurmond joins the GOP in 1964 and is welcomed by Barry Goldwater; "The parties never switched sides"; John Ehrlichman identifies "blacks and hippies" as political enemies of the Nixon administration, helps launch the drug war against them; Democrats become the party of civil rights, Republicans the party of state's rights, and former Democrats/Dixiecrats run as Republicans; In 1980 Ronald Reagan uses state's rights dog whistle at campaign rally just 7 miles away from the infamous Freedom Summer murders; In a 1981 interview Republican strategist Lee Atwater talks about southern strategy in appealing to racists by using dog whistles like "state's rights"; RNC chairman Ken Mehlman apologizes to the NAACP in 2005 for GOP southern strategy
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