Good morning. There are long lines for coronavirus tests. Tech companies are pulling back from Hong Kong. And President Trump’s racial appeals don’t seem to be working. |
Why isn’t the ‘Southern strategy’ working? |
 | | Members of the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol lowering the old state flag last week.Rory Doyle/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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The so-called Southern strategy — appealing to white voters by focusing on racial issues — has worked very well for the Republican Party. It has helped the party persuade many frustrated white working-class voters that the Democratic Party doesn’t care about them. |
Richard Nixon’s campaign invented the strategy, and he won the presidency twice. Ronald Reagan praised “states’ rights” in a tiny Mississippi county known for a Ku Klux Klan triple murder. George H.W. Bush ran the notorious Willie Horton advertisement. The Southern strategy has been “the most successful strategy in the history of modern politics,” Cornell Belcher, a Democratic strategist, told me. |
The basic bet has been that Republicans win when voters focus on race. Steve Bannon, who helped run President Trump’s campaign, described the flip side of the idea, in 2017: “The Democrats,” Bannon said, “I want them to talk about racism every day.” |
Sure enough, Trump has put race at the center of his re-election message. He did so in two aggressive speeches over the weekend and defended the Confederate flag yesterday. “Almost every day in the last two weeks, Mr. Trump has sought to stoke white fear and resentment,” Maggie Haberman writes. (She’s also on today’s episode of The Daily.) |
And yet this time seems different: The strategy isn’t working. Trump’s poll numbers are slumping, and some of his 2016 supporters cite racial issues as a reason they plan to vote for Joe Biden. |
Why is the Southern strategy suddenly flailing? I count four main reasons: |
- The country is changing. It becomes more racially diverse each year. And most Americans under age 35 are quite liberal. The horror of the George Floyd video and the ensuing protest movement have also changed the minds of many Americans.
- People are afraid. Historically, many white Americans didn’t see how racism hurt them, Belcher said. But he now hears white voters in focus groups say they’re worried that the country is coming apart. “They talk about, if we continue on this trajectory, it’s going to be dismal for our kids,” he said.
- Trump has gone too far. Most white Americans remain moderate to conservative on immigration, affirmative action and more. But many also believe police departments are biased, and many don’t like symbols of slavery. Reagan offered an optimistic, patriotic message that let many voters downplay or overlook his racial appeals. Trump is practically forcing voters to take sides on racism, Terrance Woodbury, another Democratic strategist, told CNN’s Ron Brownstein.
- Voters are simply too unhappy with Trump’s handling of the coronavirus. “As long as that’s true,” The Times’s Nate Cohn told me, “I don’t see how he has the freedom to employ wedge issues.”
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Of course, the usual caveat applies: The campaign still has four months left. |
 | | A drive-through testing site in Dallas last week.Tom Pennington/Getty Images |
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As the United States nears three million coronavirus cases, many cities and states are still struggling with testing. Sites in New Orleans have run out of tests five minutes after doors open. In Phoenix, where temperatures have topped 100 degrees, residents have waited in cars for as long as eight hours to get tested. |
While testing has increased considerably since April, it has not kept pace with the recent explosion of the virus. Some experts blame the lack of a federal system, which has led cities to compete for testing labs and supplies. |
In other virus developments: |
2. Plans for the fall semester |
The fall semester is starting to take shape, with most colleges planning to open — but not with business as usual. Harvard will teach all courses remotely and no more than 40 percent of undergrads will live on campus. Georgia Tech plans to resume in-person classes without requiring face masks, leading more than 850 faculty members to sign a letter expressing concern. |
One deterrent for going online-only: Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced yesterday that international students enrolled at universities without in-person classes would have to leave the country or transfer to another college. It’s part of the Trump administration’s continuing crackdown on immigration. |
3. Unrest over Phoenix police shooting |
Another video of a shooting by police — this time with officers in Phoenix fatally shooting a man in a parked car over the weekend — is leading to protests. |
Police officials said the victim, James Porter Garcia, had pointed a handgun at one of the officers before he was shot. But a friend told local news media that Garcia was unarmed, and activists have demanded the release of body-camera footage from the officers who shot him. |
Here’s what else is happening |
- Google, Facebook and Twitter said that they would temporarily stop processing requests from Hong Kong’s government for user data.
- The Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil route opposed by Native American and environmental groups, must shut down pending an environmental review, a federal judge ruled. The Texas company that owns it said it would fight the ruling.
- Amy Cooper, a white woman who was captured on video in May falsely accusing a Black man of threatening her life in Central Park, was charged with filing a false police report.
- Fresh off a Super Bowl victory, the Kansas City Chiefs signed quarterback Patrick Mahomes to a 10-year contract extension worth $503 million. And Colin Kaepernick, the activist quarterback shunned by the N.F.L., has signed a deal with Disney to produce stories about race and injustice.
- Lives Lived: “If you don’t like the way I’m livin’/You just leave this long haired country boy alone.” So sang Charlie Daniels, and, if nothing else, he lived large: A brash, down-home singer, songwriter and blazing fiddler, Daniels had hits on both the pop and country charts while his politics swung from left to right. He died yesterday at 83.
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 | | Charlie Daniels onstage in Nashville in 2014.Larry Busacca/Getty Images |
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| IDEA OF THE DAY: POP CULTURE AT THE SUPREME COURT |
The two best writers on the Supreme Court are generally thought to be Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Elena Kagan, and neither is a stranger to pop culture references. |
In 2008, Chief Justice Roberts quoted (some say misquoted) Bob Dylan in explaining why the plaintiff lacked standing in a dispute between two phone companies. Instead of citing a case to back up a legal proposition, he cited a lyric: “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” (What Dylan actually sings, of course, is, “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”) |
The chief justice, 65, also drew on the classic rock canon at the argument of a copyright case in 2011. “What about Jimi Hendrix, right?” he asked. “He has a distinctive rendition of the national anthem.” |
Justice Kagan, 60, has made her own contributions. In a 2013 case concerning signs on trucks, she gave a hypothetical example of one: “How am I driving? Call 213-867-5309.” That was a sly reference to “867-5309/Jenny,” Tommy Tutone’s indelible 1981 hit, which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and will still get people of a certain age onto the dance floor at college reunions. |
 | | Joanne Chang’s maple-blueberry scones.Gentl and Hyers for The New York Times |
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They are big and glazed and possess a unique texture — tender and flaky at the same time — thanks to a technique for mixing the butter with flour. Created by the chef Joanne Chang for her Flour Bakery + Cafe in Boston, you can find the recipe here. |
“The Beauty in Breaking,” written by Michele Harper, chronicles her life as an emergency room physician through the lens of the patients she has treated. Each chapter highlights a different case, like a newborn baby who isn’t breathing. Along the way, Harper tells her own story — of experiencing abuse, divorce, racism and sexism, and of becoming a doctor. Elisabeth Egan, an editor at The Times Book Review, called the book a “riveting, heartbreaking, sometimes difficult, always inspiring story.” |
 | | The Giants working out in San Francisco on Sunday.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via Reuters |
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Major League Baseball announced that its season would begin on July 23 with a game between the New York Yankees and the Washington Nationals. But will it actually happen? Some players and managers are skeptical. |
At least four teams have canceled workouts this week because of virus-testing delays, and several players have already said they will sit out the season. “We haven’t done any of the things that other countries have done to bring sports back,” Sean Doolittle, the Nationals’ closer, told The Washington Post. “Sports are like the reward of a functioning society.” |
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David |
Today’s episode of “The Daily” is about Trump’s re-election campaign. |
Ian Prasad Philbrick and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. |
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