1-The reason why southern racist politicians chose to mask their defense of racial segregation through “law and order” is because they didn’t want to violate the law. The advantages of this were that it gave them a reason to call out civil rights activists by saying they were causing “civil disobedience” whenever there was a protest going on.

2- Yes I do think the Southern strategy is still influencing politics to this day because, during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign run, he mostly appealed to the South by often talking negatively about minorities specifically Mexicans and Muslims even potentially banning Muslims from entering the country and even proposing that there should be surveillance in mosques, Muslims place of worship. Even after these racial remarks he still won the election primarily due to the South as they make up a majority of the population