Dem
51
GOP
49
Let's get this back on track! We've had so much material in the last couple of weeks that there just wasn't room. Recall that since ties are relatively common in soccer, we've decided that any matchup decided by less than 5% of the vote will count as a tie. And with that said, here are the results (winners in bold):
| Slogan 1 | Pct. | Slogan 2 | Pct. |
| The Chinese Must Go! | 43.2% | Kill the Indian, Save the Man | 56.8% |
| The Chinese Must Go! | 9.7% | Better Dead than Red | 90.3% |
| The Chinese Must Go! | 20.1% | Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever | 79.9% |
| Kill the Indian, Save the Man | 17.4% | Better Dead than Red | 82.6% |
| Kill the Indian, Save the Man | 22.3% | Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever | 77.7% |
| Better Dead than Red | 39.2% | Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever | 60.8% |
That produces these results for Group E, Round One:
| Slogan | W | L | T |
| Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Better Dead than Red | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| Kill the Indian, Save the Man | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| The Chinese Must Go! | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Somewhere, the ghost of Denis Kearney is shedding a tear. Once again, slogan A (Better Dead than Red, in this case) had the better performance against common opponents, but slogan B (Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever, in this case) had the far better performance head-to-head.
Here are some reader comments on this round:
B.S. in Ottawa, ON, Canada, writes: I would be blown away if "Better Dead Than Red" didn't come out of this group as the top seed. The first two are fairly well aged, and while they were impactful for the time, perhaps didn't linger around in popular memory so much. "Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever!" made a big splash at the time but it was the scream of someone about to take their biggest loss with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Whereas "Better Dead Than Red" still plays today, almost a hundred years later, any time a Republican wants to paint a Democrat as a freedom-hatin', money-redistributin', social class-upliftin' socialist (and ensure that the base ignores that they're suddenly in favor of Russia).
G.M. in Vista, CA, writes: Although George Wallace's statement is emblematic of its time, it is definitely not the most famous or impactful of the four. It was the battle cry of an already failing cause with less time in service than the F-80. By 1967, Governor (Lurleen) Wallace's attempt to stall integration by making it a school-level function had backfired, with one suit victory before the Supreme Court forcing immediate integration in all schools. Even new Georgia governor Lester Maddox, who explicitly ran on a pro-segregation platform in '66, turned out to be not quite as bad as feared (not terrific, but not quite as bad).
As for Wallace's personal fortunes, '68 turned out to be his swan song. For immersive purposes, I read the local paper every day from 55 years ago. And as I write this, today, December 7, 1967, he is in my hometown stumping for votes for his Presidential bid. In a decade, he's going to get shot and then personally recant for his awfulness.
So my vote is for any of the other three for causing the most damage rather than reflecting the most damage.
J.M. in Stamford, CT, writes: This one was easy: "Better Dead Than Red" is both the catchiest and easiest to remember, and had at least as much impact on U.S. history as any of the others. As you noted, can we say "Korean War," "McCarthyism," and "Vietnam War" without thinking that it's better that many people die or have their lives ruined than risk the onset of Godless Communism either at home or abroad?
Second is "The Chinese Must Go!", not because it's memorable or catchy but because it does capture the long and hateful career of anti-East Asian sentiment among nativist Americans in the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. Short on memorability but long on impact, in other words.
"Segregation Now, etc." is memorable for its rhetorical flourishes of triple repetition and hyperbole, but its impact is actually quite minimal, as your writeup concedes. Segregation barely made it to Tomorrow, much less to Forever. 10 points for rhetoric and memorability, 0 points for impact on American life.
The slogan about the attempted assimilation of the American Indian was new to me, for all that it refers to a fraught and long-term issue in our history. So it's Numbah Foah in my book (I'm originally from the Boston area). I am surprised you didn't propose instead the even less ambiguous and much better known alternative in a parallel vein about the same social issue: The Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian.
S.S. in West Hollywood, CA, writes: The "Reactionary Slogans" did not sit well with me. Why would you make a game out of these racist and offensive slogans that had done so much harm to so many? I don't find that entertaining and I really don't think it provides a benefit to the readership. I think it's in poor taste and respectfully ask you to consider that before moving forward on something like this next time. (Maybe I'm being hypocritical for even voting, but I couldn't bring myself to vote for any of the overt hateful slogans, so I voted for "Better Dead than Red" only and left all the others blank.)
P.W. in Springwater, NY, writes: It's amazing—sadly—how many of these slogans resonate today. Today we have "Build the Wall" and the "crisis" at the southern border. Although the arguments are different, the focus still seems to be on who is deserving of entry into the U.S. The attitude that immigrants from south and central America are not welcome—both those seeking a better life, as well as asylum seekers fleeing so that they can stay alive—has similar racial undertones to "The Chinese Must Go." Instead of "taking gold that 'belonged' to the white man" they are supposedly taking their jobs (and bringing in all manner of diseases and drugs). Labeling some people as "the other" has not changed in over 170 years.
"Better Dead than Red" seems almost quaint given the end of the Cold War, until you listen to Republicans who call every program the Democrats put forth socialist and who attempt to scare the population that the U.S. is only a few years away from losing "our culture" and turning into a communist nightmare. And while they are not actively promoting cultural genocide ("Kill the Indian, Save the Man"), Christian Nationalism certainly seems to suggest that the country would be better off if we all simply accepted the idea that the only "right" culture is one defined by right-wing Christianity and that the government should actively promote (or enforce?) that.
Finally, there is "Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation Forever." Echoes of that can be heard in the recent attempts to suppress voters of color, but the bottom line is that the slogan suggests that the rights of some should supersede the rights of others, be they the rights of minorities, the rights of women, the rights of the LBGTQ+ community, etc. So maybe the impact, as you suggested, was nebulous, but I would argue that the sentiment that some of us are privileged and others are not has never died.
S.D.R. in Raleigh, NC, writes: Time Magazine has repeatedly said over the years that their Person of the Year is intended as acknowledgment of impact, not an award for positive impact. The general public still views it as the latter, and Time itself has made some obvious concessions to this fact over the years (for example: their 2001 Person of the Year was not Osama bin Laden). By a similar token, I expect your comment that "the standard here is impact, not necessarily positive impact" will have little effect. Once any of these slogans get out of group play, they will likely fall in fairly short order no matter who they're up against, simply because no one wants them to win.
The ballot, pitting the martial slogans against the reactionary slogans, is here. And we are very glad to receive comments on this round here.