Maddow: That‘s pretty raw in 1960 comic book form, right?
Well, here‘s what it looked like in 1990. It‘s the same thing, this time in the form of a campaign ad on television.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: You needed that job and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair? Harvey Gantt says it is. He supports Ted Kennedy‘s racial quota law but makes the color of your skin more important than your qualifications.

You wrote on this issue next Tuesday. For racial quotas: Harvey Gantt. Against racial quotas: Jesse Helms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: The balled up white fist, the anger at what‘s being given to black people because it‘s being taken away from white people. It‘s a zero-sum. Black people are coming for you. They‘re coming for your job. They‘re coming to get you. You better band together not surrender, to fight back against the black people who were coming for you.

After the political success in the South, the politicians like George Wallace, who, again, remember, was elected four times as Alabama governor, after the political success of politicians like Lester Maddox, who used as his political symbol when he ran for governor in Georgia the pick ax handle he brandished to defend his segregated restaurant from black people.

That and after the civil rights era, the political strategy of terrifying white people about the threat posed by black people—black people coming to get them, coming to take what‘s rightfully theirs. That strategy got a new name, the Southern Strategy.

In 1970, Republican political strategist Kevin Phillips explained to "The New York Times," quote, "From now on, Republicans are never going to get more than 10 percent to 20 percent of the Negro vote, and they don‘t need more than that. But Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act." Meaning, if they blocked black people from registering the vote because he says, "The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That‘s where the votes are."

That‘s where the votes are. That‘s the way to get white votes, by counting on white people being afraid of black people. Make clear where the black people are, politically, and count on what Kevin Phillips calls Negrophobia—locking up all of the white votes on the other side.