Don’t Tell Me Trump’s Tactics Were ‘Unprecedented’
I live in Alabama, where people remember George Wallace — but Shomari Figures’ victory offers hope
I should have taken it as a warning sign.
Yesterday I was walking home from my polling place when I ran into an older neighbor who’d lived all her life in our small Alabama town, which is quiet enough that people call it Mayberry on the Bay.
We got to chatting about the short lines we’d seen at the church where we’d voted, and she said that over in larger Foley, a friend of hers had waited for more than an hour to vote.
I told her I’d never seen lines that long here, even in presidential elections.
“Oh, I have,” she said. “It was when George Wallace ran for president.”
That was back in 1968, when Alabama’s segregationist governor ran as an independent against Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. Wallace carried five southern states, including ours, and won 45 electoral votes, nearly throwing the election to the House of Representatives.
Wallace had campaigned in favor of states’ rights on segregation, as Donald Trump did with women’s right to reproductive freedom.
