In a shockingly frank 1981 interview looking back at the 1968 election, the Republican strategist Lee Atwater explained how Nixon disguised his appeal to anti-black voters in the language of economic angst.
“By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.”