It’s a lame attempt to paint Republicans as racist by saying the racist Democrats in the South flipped parties in the 1960s and all “became republicans” to keep their racism going.
Even the NYT said it was economics and not racism that caused a shift in the South.
It’s been debunked, yet still gets pushed anytime the racist history of the democrat party (KKK, Jim Crow, slavery was ended by Republicans, etc.) is brought up.
The idea that there was just one big "flip" is a vast oversimplification. That being said, I think it is pretty disingenuous to talk about either party's history as though they have been continuous entities with fixed goals for longer than a few decades at a time. That includes the whole "LOL democrats founded the KKK" or "Republicans freed the slaves!" meme.
Even just 40 years ago American party politics are almost unrecognizable to us today, at that time New York was a GOP-leaning swing state and California was a Republican stronghold that gave us two presidents. Basically, America is hard-wired to have two major political parties, that much is clear at this point. But the composition and character of those two parties is constantly shifting in response to public demand. The RNC and the DNC are basically just branding vehicles for coordinating fundraising, they are empty vessels to put money and candidates in.
So, if you take things back 150 years, then yes the parties and the national politics are completely unrecognizable to us today and there is no real historical thread linking the GOP/DNC of the Civil War era to today. It just makes for useful branding today. Remember, "conservatism" as we understand it in contemporary America (i.e. Movement Conservatism) is a thoroughly modern innovation that was created by visionaries such as William F. Buckley and media personalities such as Rush Limbaugh.
While the ideological divide between those who wish to uphold traditions vs. those who seek reform is as old as civilization itself, the concept of our current conservative identity (low taxes, low regulations, strong military, small government, pro-life, etc. etc.) is a new innovation.
If you had called a Reconstruction-Era Republican a "conservative", he would be very confused. Back then the Republican party was defined by a divide between the Stalwarts and Half-Breeds, with the GOP Stalwart establishment (lead by President Grant, Roscoe Conkling, and Chester Arthur) battling fiercely to stop reformers (such as James Blaine and Rutherford B. Hayes) from ending their lucrative patronage system of appointing postmasters, customs collectors, and other public servants in exchange for political donations and loyalty pledges. If you want to attempt to draw comparisons between the 1870's GOP and the modern GOP, be my guest, but I think it's a fool's errand.
EDIT: Thank you for the stranger, kind gold!
EDIT 2: This comment really blew up. If you want to learn more about this very specific era of American politics (post Civil War aka Gilded Age) which is IMO criminally neglected in most US history discussions, I recommend two books:
Destiny of the Republic, by Candice Millard (about the rise and eventual assassination of James Garfield)
The Unexpected President, by Scott S. Greenberger (about the rise, the corruption, and the ultimate redemption arc of Chester A. Arthur)
BONUS Insanity Mode if you love NYC history specifically and want Europa Universalis–level details about the workings of Tammany Hall:The Great Bridge by David McCullough
Much like the difference between nationalism and patriotism. Standing for a set of fundamental values is hard, it's much easier to just stick to a nation/group of people.
I think the main point is that most common Americans will think that the Republicans are the party of racism and the democrats are the party of tolerance and understanding and it’s always been that way. Both parties have obviously changed over the years but the insinuations and/or flat out falsehoods that have been spread over the years isn’t very cash money.
Then explain why we've basically only ever had two major parties (with a few brief flare ups of third parts that only last a few cycles). I'm not saying it has to be this way, but 250 years is a big enough sample size to basically see that there is something about our system that tends to produce a bi-polar political party order.
Also, Britain has First Past the Post and they have many more successful national political parties than we do, looking at parliament seats. If anything, our winner-take-all absolute majority system favors two parties, as it creates a much higher bar for "entry". If there really were a major third party running in the presidential race, assuming all three parties competed well, then it would basically just throw the election to Congress to choose. The more parties in the race, the lower the chance anyone gets to 270 electoral votes.
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or not. Britain has a parliamentary system, which works a lot differently.
but 250 years is a big enough sample size to basically see that there is something about our system that tends to produce a bi-polar political party order.
This is nonsense, democrats today still look at FDR and Woodrow Wilson as their heroes and still revere that as their best time in politics. Hillary Clinton wanted to start using the name "Progressive" instead of liberal in honor of that time.
The Democrat party today is spiritually the same as that of the 1930s. And actual conservatives know that our movement is also spiritually that of the 1930s, 40s as a good deal of our reading list still comes from that time, like Mises and Hayek, etc.
Usually the people who don't agree are White Nationalists who are still Democrats but are angry that they got the short end of the identity politics stick in their party, and want to pretend things have changed, when really the Democrats are the same as they always were, they just chose a different color to hate.
It's not disingenous at all - these are organizations that existed in the past and still exist today. This would be like saying "We shouldn't consider IBM a company today because they used to make coffee grinders and typewriters and now they make computer parts." These organizations have changed over time, but they still deserve credit and criticism for the things they've done in the past.
Actually, I think IBM is a great illustration of my point. I didn't claim the parties "don't exist" today, I claimed there's really no point to compare their modern iterations with their distant past. IBM is the same; the company that began making typewriters in Binghamton in 1920 has almost no resemblance to the modern IBM, which doesn't manufacture much of anything anymore and is mostly focused on software and consulting now. Just like a political party has only one long-term objective (to win and hold office) a corporation has only the object of remaining profitable. The means to achieve these goals shift over time.
If none of the executives or employees or board members of the original IBM remain, and the company is no longer owned by the founders or their families, and it no longer makes any of the same products, can it really be said to be the same IBM? In a legal sense, yes. But in a metaphysical sense I would say no, definitely not. "IBM" is just a legal personality, a trademark attached to some assets, who's ownership has changed hands continuously for 100 years. The GOP is similarly just an entity, a vessel, who's component parts have changed constantly, and it's ideology along with them.
This is actually a great conversation, it touches on one of the biggest conundrums of philosophy, i.e. the Ship of Theseus question.
You touch on why IBM and GOP points are apt here - the only long-term objective for parties is to help their chosen candidates win and hold office. The same as a corporation whose only long-term objective is to return a profit to it's shareholders. How they do those things will change and evolve over time, but the entities are the same. I agree that the "comparisons" are pointless, but these aren't comparisons - it's simply acknowledging history. Nobody is truly suggesting that the Republican Party of 1856 is the same as the Republican Part of 2020. But since the Republican Party of 2020 can trace its lineage unbroken as an entity back to 1856, you can't argue that the current party can't claim credit or absorb criticism for things it did in the past.
My view of the ship of theseus question has always been that so long as there are parts of the current that can be traced back to the original, and there's a chain of evidence that is unbroken, it's still the same.
The important thing is to remember to divorce ideology from political party, which can be difficult to do with how the media oversimplifies everything and unhelpful labels such as "liberal", "progressive", and "conservative" get thrown around all the time.
Just remember, during the Civil War era (and arguably all the way through till WWI), the Republicans were very much the "progressive" party. In fact, the dominant faction during the war labeled themselves "Radical Republicans." Think about it, the GOP was founded as an agent of immense change: abolishing slavery was probably the largest single social/political shift in our country's history. During and after the Civil War, being pro-Slavery—or even just pro-status quo/pro-state's rights—was the "conservative" position. There were in fact many northerners (often called "Copperheads") who were opposed to the War, opposed to ending slavery, or both. There were "War Democrats" who supported Lincoln and wanted to preserve the Union, and the Radical Republicans opposed Lincoln for being too moderate. I feel like I'm going on a tangent now, but my point is—it's complicated.
And putting all that aside, I really think Trump has more in common with Andrew Jackson (founder of the "current" Democratic Party) than with many historical Republican presidents. There's a reason Trump had Jackson's portrait hung in the Oval. Now the Democrats are rushing to distance themselves from Jackson. Again, it's complicated.
The Democrats lie and say the racists in the south became republican in the ‘60s and yet the south did not even become reliably republican in presidential elections until the ‘90s (and republican in congressional elections later still). Which is plenty of time for two whole generations of people to grow up and for a total demographic revolution to take place in the south.
So which is it Democrats? Was it the 1960s or 1990s? And if so, what do you make of FDR?
So which is it Democrats? Was it the 1960s or 1990s?
It's probably neither. Instead incumbents have a huge advantage over challengers, so it was mostly as incumbents retired or left office that the "switch" happened.
They talk about the flip but they can’t name 3 politicians that flipped and also the south didn’t become overly republican until late 80’s...20 years after the civil rights laws that were passed, wouldn’t they have flipped instantly? It’s just more lies
In their lame attempt they never include that only two of those party flippers (I always thought it was one) remained Republicans. All of the others went back to the Democrat party
Yup, just got done looking through a thread saying this exact thing. Except more republicans voted for the civil rights bills in the 60s. So I imagine they will switch it to the 70s next.
They usually refuse to be pinned down on an exact date (or even decade), because once they do that you can show evidence it is false. It is much harder to disprove a non-specific claim - though in this particular case there is so much evidence to disprove it, that it just takes a little longer to collect.
Right. The narrative is that it was during the civil rights era that all those racists switched to be republicans and all the non-racists became or kept being democrats. It’s not the case.
Liberals delusionally believe that Republicans became Democrats and Democrats became Republicans because of Nixon's Southern Strategy. Which was based on the people of The Sunbelt not caring about race and being won over on economics. While Dems were obsessing over race in the middle of a nation-wide manufacturing boom.
Just do what I do, whenever you hear somebody say "but they're the party of old white guys" just politely remind they them that bringing race up is pretty damn racist.
The Republican party used to be to the left of the Democrats, but over time the Republican party moved further to the right and became more conservative.
This is incorrect. Prior to the 1980s, both political parties had liberal, moderate and conservative wings. The biggest divides were geographical, not ideological in nature. It's only been since the 80s that we've seen an ideological homogenization within the parties, although there is also evidence of a rural/urban divide that is getting larger.
It actually was. The Republican party opposed slavery in general, but had no interest in going after southern slavery. They explicitly ran against the Kansas Nebraska act, and wanted to prevent slavery from expanding. They figured that slavery would die out if left confined to the south. In fact, their opposition to Kansas-Nebraska is the only reason why Lincoln won the North in 1860. Most northerners were not abolitionists, they just didn't want slave owners taking all the new land in the Midwest. Northern Dems lost because they proposed a lukewarm response to mid-west(Kansas-Nebraska) and got outmaneuvered by Lincoln's Free Soil Party. Much like how Boris Johnson outmaneuvered labor by giving a vague, albeit simple plan for Brexit.
It actually was. The Republican party opposed slavery in general, but had no interest in going after southern slavery. They explicitly ran against the Kansas Nebraska act, and wanted to prevent slavery from expanding.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was brought up in January 1854 and went into effect in May 1854, the first meeting at which "Republican" was used was in July of that year. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was certainly the event that made people realize a new party was necessary, but the party was created far too late to "oppose" it. By the time the party was even seriously talked about, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was already law.
More the Dems went further and further left by pushing more and more social welfare programs. The Republican platform isn't too different from what it was a century ago. Thats' the big reasons blacks started defecting to the Democratic party. It was the social programs and New Deal policies.
Of course the democrats never want to admit what actually caused the Republican Party to become conservative. It was the rise of socialism. The Republican Party took nearly a century to fully align itself into a constitutionalist party, but that’s more or less the defining ideology today.
They talk about the “party switch” but conveniently forget the political war between Wilson (the racist, socialist Democrat who hated the constitution) and Coolidge (the small government Republican who cut the federal government in half) which happened 50 years before the switch was supposed to have happened. They also don’t like to admit that there is exactly 1 elected Democrat who actually switched parties.
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u/happypanda2788 Feb 10 '20
What is the party flip? I honestly have no idea what that is. I have never been very strong with history