C'mon man. The Reagan Democrats were not racists. They were more likely to agree with Ross Perot.
Who said that they were "racists?" I said that they were offended ("betrayed") by the Democratic Party's move to the Left in embracing a Civil Rights Movement, which if you analyze it, was certainly racist, in overturning all sorts of basic principles to obtain a race based objective. Or do you think that it is really the business of the Federal Government to police private employment choices; or school district school assignments; or to whom an individual rents a room in his personal residence?
The Reagan Democrats did not want to change American fundamentals, and represented a potential that William Rusher discussed in his 1975 book, The Making Of The New Majority Party.
William Flax