Stupid Political Questions

[khaosworks]

I'm too busy and/or lazy to look this up right now, so you get to teach me something.

The Democrats were the party of white supremacy and states rights and protecting the people against big government.

The Republicans were the ones who abolished slavery and saved the Union.

(okay, so even back then the Democrats were the party of personal liberties and the Republicans the party of public morality and the Protestant faithful)

When did the switchover happen?

Comments

[lawgeekgurl.livejournal.com]

I would say during Reconstruction. Although the Democrats remained in power in the south throughout Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, and really up until the Nixon years and shortly thereafter, they weren't "Democrats" in the sense of what the rest of the party was doing. They were Dixiecrats, and now just generally call themselves Republican. See Zell Miller, et al.

[osj.livejournal.com]

The switchover was probably solidified in the 1960s, when JFK introduced the Civil Rights Act (?), which was finally passed following his death, during LBJ's presidency. As both were Democrats, that probably pushed many Southern Democrats into becoming Republicans for good.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

It didn't occur all at once, but the critical changes occured during the Harding administration, and really bore fruit when FDR became President.

Let me confuse you further...

[osj.livejournal.com]

I can't answer your question, but I just started reading 'Party Of The People', a recently-released mammoth history of the Democratic Party by Jules Witcover.

Guess what? The Democratic Party's original name was the Republican Party...

Re: Let me confuse you further...

[tnatj.livejournal.com]

Actually, in the history texts I've seen, what has become the Democratic party has been refered to as the "Democratic-Republican" party before the advent of the Republican party in the 1850s.

My Off the Cuff Short Political History of the Republican/Democratic Realignment

[tnatj.livejournal.com]

Gradually. Now the following is my own take on this.

One of the issues of the Democratic party (or the Democratic-Republicans they sprang from) is that it is an extremely old party in the United States that originated in opposition to the more overbearing policies of the Federalists. As a party of opposition, it is often defined more in the way of what its policies are not, rather than what they happen to be. Will Roger's famous quote, "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat." is very indicative of this.

Partisan power bases has been divided by regional as well as philosophical borders. A classic case is the yeoman farmer in Western Michigan in the late 1800s was most likely a Republican, where the farmer of the same stock in Arkansas was likely a Democrat.

The strains between the Northern Democrats and the Southern Democrats existed to some extent at least since the Civil War, as the power base of each became divergent (the Northern Democrats power base tending toward immigrant labor).

There was a very definite split by 1948, with the Democrats actually splitting into three wings (Progressive, State's Rights/Dixiecrat, and Regular) and denying Truman an absolute majority of the popular vote.

I think that the traditional Southern Democrat felt abandoned after the Second Civil War of the 1960s. Perhaps "stabbed in the back" by the Lyndon Johnson administration is too strong a term; but the Johnson administration's support of Civil Rights back then planted the seeds of George Wallace's Independent Party run in 1968. This election certainly began the realignment of the political landscape between Democrats and Republicans, and assuredly opened up the Republican "Southern Strategy" that sprouted in the 1970's and reached fruition in the 1980's and 1990's.

Re: My Off the Cuff Short Political History of the Republican/Democratic Realignment

[(Anonymous)]

Margaret Middleton here; not really anonymous
Just not an LJ subscriber

As far as a lot of Southerners becoming Republican, that shift definitely followed the Civil Rights legislation of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Johnson expected this to happen, in fact, according to the biography (vol. 2 of 3 planned) MASTER OF THE SENATE (I'm losing the writer's name just now).

[figmo.livejournal.com]

It started during WWII, when Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, a progressive Democrat, was "president for life" (or so it seemed to folks who grew up in that era, such as my parents). FDR was definitely left-of-center.

Later on the JFK administration with its civil rights push further made the Democrats the "party of civil rights." They supported folks like Martin Luther King, a southern Democrat. LBJ continued that trend.

Note that there are still hangers-on from the old era. Most of the prominent black Republicans are from The South. Condoleeza Rice's family has always registered Republican because when her grandfather went to register to vote, the Democrats wouldn't let him, but the Republicans would.

[hoo.livejournal.com]

To my recollection the flip-flop was finalized by desegregation in the South during the civil rights movement. Look to people like Strom Thurmond, who started his political career as a Democrat, went with the segregationists and ended as a Republican.

http://www.cnn.com/books/beginnings/9904/ol.strom/Old.Strom.html

I had a similar question before my last history class. What happened to the Puritans in New England?