Don't forget to vote

[Dill]

(11-06-2019, 05:55 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: [url=https://www.270towin.com/historical-presidential-elections/][/url]So, did the southern states switch their votes out of spite because a Democrat proposed the civil rights act legislation and his Vice President, also a democrat, passed it? Did the Republicans shift their strategy after the Civil Rights act to pick up the southern racists (coined: the Southern Strategy)? Did some Democrats switch parties after the civil rights act? Did the two parties kind of mix and meld based more on geography than party and re-emerge as they today? Was it a combination of all these things? Or did something completely unrelated to the Civil Rights Act cause that particular voter base shift?

The truth is Democrats and Republicans of the past were, generally speaking, more right wing than the average person is today, so they'd all probably identify as Republicans if they were plopped into modern politics anyway. So the switch of the 1960s doesn't really concern me. I focus more on the actual policies of the politicians of today, rather than discussing what the politicians of the past may have done and who gets credit for what policies.

The bolded=YES!  As for "melding" based on geography and other causes, part of the shift to Republican dominance has to do with the kinds of people moving to some places like Georgia and Florida from northern states (Dinesh d'Souza argues this). But for the most part, the Dem stand on civil rights, coupled with the Repubs SOUTHERN STRATEGY, best explains the long term trend.  Most of my elderly family members from Texas shifted from Dem to Republican, once LBJ was no longer running--and Dems' firm stand on civil rights was their central gripe. The one exception was my grandfather, who voted four times for FDR and just couldn't change.

I should add that after 1980, a "cleansing" of the GOP began, as it drove further and further right, forcing their "liberals" to become independents or Democrats. Seems like each new generation became more radical, defining the previous generation of radicals as "RINOs."  The parties have, over the last 50 years, 'unmixed'--one to become more purely "conservative" (until Trump) and one more purely "liberal." (Though both are still versions of "liberal"--not socialist or fascist (yet)).

You make an interesting point about how our ancestors might vote today-- BOTH Dems and Repubs. They would certainly have problems with gays, blacks and women running for office. Over the long term, progressive values have tended to win out in the US. As time passes, conservatives embrace what conservatives formerly opposed as what conservatives have always stood for, and the historical struggle--history itself--is revised and to some degree erased. That's why it is better to discuss historical trends with substantive labels like "liberal" or "conservative" rather than party brands.

As it turns out, "the switch" is still pretty important, because few Republicans would want to publicly acknowledge that our ancestors would prefer their party for the retrograde reasons given above.  So the debate over "the switch" remains a debate about the heart and soul of each party. And it remains central to political strategy, as on the conservative side it is consistently denied that protests, strikes "resistance" and feminists and unions and the like have had an important hand in shaping what the country presently values.

That is why it is so important for Ann Coulter, d'Souza, Hannity, Levin, Tucker and the rest to remind us that the Dems were the party of the Klan and the Republicans were the party of Lincoln and Reconstruction, more Repubs voted for the Civil Rights Act, etc., forgetting (deliberately) to add BEFORE THE SWITCH (which they utterly deny occurred; southerners in formerly segregated states just began recognizing how sensible Republican economic doctrine was for the country, lol. REAGAN won them over) .

And that is why it is so important for Dems to explain why, even though they WERE the party of segregation in the 1950s, 90% of African Americans NOW consistently vote Democrat-- I.e., AFTER THE SWITCH.

NB: not sure our ancestors would have preferred Trump to other candidates. The vulgarity and incompetence would be every bit as shocking as a woman president.