Thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, the South can now shape its congressional districts in a logical way without drawing formal charges of racial discrimination. That ruling inspired liberals to imagine the Confederacy is now rising from its grave.

“Confederate states are rushing through rigged maps to erase Black districts off the map,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on X.

“The ghost of the Confederacy has afflicted the United States Supreme Court majority and is invading and haunting the nation right now,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said. “And we take that seriously.”

“MAGA is the last dying breath of the Confederacy,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said about the South’s redistricting efforts.

The critics would have us believe that the Old South is back in the saddle—and with it, a determination to revive Jim Crow. Some conservatives, while dismissing the hysterical visions of Klansmen and lynch mobs, also like to suggest that the Old South is largely intact—though they posit that as a good thing.

“The South has had more progress in the last 160 years than any other region in the United States. Thankfully, it’s progressed economically while still maintaining its culture and tradition,” Nikki Haley’s son, Nalin, argued.

Both sides are mistaken. The South progressed, but it didn’t quite maintain its culture and tradition. Had it done so, the Confederate flag would still be flying near the South Carolina state capitol. Nikki Haley, with popular acclaim, removed it over a decade ago.

The New South is a different place from the mythical South that still inhabits the popular imagination, to the chagrin of both its admirers and detractors. Rather than prevailing as a parallel civilization, it reflects the mainstream of American life with all its ups and downs. The moonlight-and-magnolia vision is a thing of the past.

For its detractors, the South is still viewed as a reactionary backwater filled with dangerous (and incestuous) racists who can neither read nor write. Blacks still need to worry about the Klan riding at night—on horseback no less. Its political leaders still revere the Lost Cause and are ready to secede at a moment’s notice. The inspirations for this image aren’t the real-life travels of its proponents or even news from this century. They come, primarily, from popular media depictions of the South, such as Mississippi Burning and A Time to Kill, which are apparently taken to be documentaries.

This image of the South may have made sense in the distant past when fewer Americans traveled or lived there. But it makes zero sense when Nashville is the bachelorette party capital of America, six of the top 10 best cities for recent college grads are located in the South, and SEC schools attract tens of thousands of northern students. It’s very common today for non-southerners to travel to the region and to encounter images of the South in popular media that belie their old perceptions. Nevertheless, questionable stereotypes refuse to die.

The idea that the South is filled with old-fashioned racism is dispelled by its actual politics. While Tennessee Republicans happily eliminated that state’s lone Democratic district without caving in the face of charges of racism, other state legislatures aren’t so eager. Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina plan to keep at least one district majority black, largely out of fears of being regarded as racist. South Carolina State Senator Shane Massey even said it was necessary to keep the black congressional district to ensure the Democratic Party stays “viable” in his state. It is inconceivable that a Democrat would say that of Republicans in his state.

The South’s statewide officials are far from the reincarnations of George Wallace, let alone Jefferson Davis. Lindsey Graham, Thom Tillis, Roger Wicker, Tim Scott, Brian Kemp, and Bill Lee are hardly anyone’s idea of right-wing firebrands. This is the same region, after all, that gave us George W. Bush. These politicians care far more about business than they do for Southern traditions. Moreover, they mostly prefer liberal immigration policies, which would dilute the South’s historic population. And one can find little trace of what the left deems “racism” among them.

You will also find an absence of this kind of racism in the region’s favorite pastime: college football. SEC teams are overwhelmingly black. The white fans are not bothered by this. The desire to recruit black players will even cause SEC coaches to demand that their fans and states drop traditions if that is deemed necessary to attract athletes.

This was highlighted in the recent controversy over LSU head coach Lane Kiffin, who criticized his former school, Ole Miss. Kiffin claimed his old school was too racist for its recruits.

“‘Hey, coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi.’ That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” Kiffin told Vanity Fair. “Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’s diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that’s the real world.’”

The statement prompted a swift backlash from Rebel fans, who already hated Kiffin for leaving the school under unsettling circumstances a few months ago. The primary argument against Kiffin was not to defend those traditions, but to insist that the school got rid of them, and there’s now plenty of diversity at Ole Miss.

That brings us to Nalin Haley’s point about how the South has preserved its culture and traditions. Historically, the South expressed its distinctive identity through Confederate symbolism. It was Southerners’ way of demonstrating pride in who they are and their distinct identity apart from the rest of the country. They were still proud Americans and ready to fight for their country. But they also liked their distinctive culture, as exemplified in the Rebel flag.

That cultural heritage no longer prevails in the South, and a major reason is the region’s passion for football. Mississippi is an illustrative example. It wasn’t too long ago when fans would wave the Rebel flag in the stands, cheer on Colonel Reb as the team’s mascot, and sing “Dixie.” All three are long gone from Ole Miss’s stadium and from the university’s official culture. The Confederate flag was banned at the behest of then-coach (now Republican senator) Tommy Tuberville, who said it hurt recruitment. Then followed the abolition of Colonel Reb, a caricature of a plantation gentleman. Eventually, Dixie was banned as well for not aligning with the school’s new, politically correct image. At least the Rebels’ nickname remained, but it is now represented by a nonsensical landshark.

Still, none of that was good enough, it was said, to placate potential black players. The state of Mississippi also had to change its Confederate-themed flag to allay the fears of black players and the ire of the NCAA. Culture and tradition came second to college football.

Now, in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the NAACP is trying to persuade black players to avoid the South to pressure legislatures to preserve Democratic congressional districts. This kind of pressure worked in Mississippi in 2020; it could work again.

While a few states still have Confederate Memorial Days, few of its leaders proudly associate themselves with this heritage. They’re more inclined to apologize for it, as Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee did when photos emerged of him wearing a Confederate uniform at a college fraternity event long before he ever ran for office.

While Confederate statues and memorials remain in the South, they’re more ignored than revered. Since 2015, at least 220 Confederate memorials have been removed. Confederate flags are far less common than they were when I grew up in North Carolina and Tennessee in the ’90s and early aughts.

The South is not just the Confederacy, of course. But even its less controversial aspects are in decline. The world-famous Southern drawl, for instance, is rapidly fading as immigration and migration dilute the native-born population.

The region is still conservative in comparison to the Northeast or Pacific West, which is why liberals hate it. Its politics attract plenty of business and blue state refugees who want to live in places with lower taxes and less wokeness. But one shouldn’t mistake being less leftist than other parts of the country. with preserving a distinctively Southern culture and tradition.

The New South doesn’t want to dwell on the past, whether out of honor or shame. It is interested in business deals and in winning sports events.