I know what narrative the Democrats have tried to push in order to take political advantage of race issues and revise history to make themselves look better. The fact is, Democrats haven’t changed, their constituents have. Now they just give special preferences to minorities instead of whites. And are actively hostile and racist towards minorities who dare to be conservatives.
Facts aren’t something that slows down some people.
That’s profoundly ignorant.
So, 98% of African-Americans are too stupid to figure out that the Democrats are lying to them? Their own personal experiences during that switchover of constituencies doesn’t count for anything as far as credit for THEIR switching of parties? It’s interesting that your claim that Democrats are lying about how things went down between 1940 and 1970 depends on African-Americans being either dumb, gullible or having a childlike nature such that they can be led by the hand down the wrong path by those devious Democrats.
That’s a big leap of logic, and it’s wrong. African-Americans became overwhelmingly Democrat long before Democrats even gave a rip about civil rights. African-Americans are under no illusions about the nature of the Democratic Party. They are well aware that with the exception of Barack Obama, African-Americans are expected to only run in black districts. They vote Democrat today for the same reason they voted Democrat in FDR’s time. They prefer the Democratic strategy for reducing poverty.
I’m sure this won’t make a difference, but you (or anyone else who thinks your post here is remotely accurate) should read this.
Blacks in the US did have a Democratic lean, in presidential elections, prior to 1948. But party ID was close to even until there was a president (Truman) who started taking positive steps towards Civil Rights.
Eisenhower also took steps towards civil rights, as did Nixon, the next Republican President. The Republicans losing the African-American vote has nothing to do with racism, because the Republican party has never had a particularly racist past or present. What they do have is indifference to African-Americans as a group with particular needs, and that’s what killed them.
Eisenhower supported civil rights as president, and was rewarded with quite a high share of the black vote for a Republican. Has any Republican candidate done better amongst blacks since the Great Depression?
As for Nixon - do you suppose the Southern Strategy had nothing to do with courting racist white Dixiecrats?
The Southern strategy was not racist. The Republican Party didn’t start supporting segregation, nor did they renounce their support for the Civil Rights Acts. What they did do was capitalize on southern disenchantment with the Democratic Party to show southerners that there were reasons to vote for Republicans now that civil rights were now a fact.
So the Republicans ran on states rights and law and order. The only problem with considering these positions to be racist is that those were always the GOP’s positions. But I have to admit, the Democrats were successful in portraying it as “coded” racism and still attack supporters of the 10th amendment as racists. Although Republicans won the latter debate over law and order quite soundly.
Finally, as for the Dixiecrats, another bit of revisionist history the Democratic Party pushes is that all or most of the Dixiecrats switched parties. Strom Thurmond switched, and a few others, but the vast majority of Dixiecrats remained in office as Democrats in good standing and remained Democrats until they retired or died. The irony is that not only did the Dixiecrats continue to do well among African-American voters, demonstrating that African-Americans know full well who they vote for and why, but Strom Thurmond, the most prominent party switcher, did more to court black voters than any of the other Dixiecrats. The attitude of the Robert Byrd/John Stennis types has always been that being a Democrat is penance enough. Thurmond was about 10 years ahead of both men in terms of making amends for his previous views. Byrd admits not changing until 1982, and in 1982, Stennis voted against the Martin Luther King holiday. Thurmond not only voted for it, he co-sponsored it. JW Fulbright was another one who never changed, either party or his views.
I’ll give you this, there was more effort put into that utter nonsense than we usually see.
Oh yes, it’s all about changing the ‘rhetoric’. Anything to avoid changing the actual (loser of a) platform.
What part of the platform do you think needs to be changed? I don’t think there’s anything in the platform that turns any particular group off.
So you think the anti-gay parts of it don’t turn younger people off (not to mention LGBT folks)? You don’t think the anti-immigration parts don’t turn off Hispanic voters? You don’t think the anti-choice parts don’t turn off women? Please proceed, GOP…
The anti-gay parts are a problem. The platform is not anti-immigration, it’s pro-enforcement. The abortion plank doesn’t cause Republicans to lose women, women are just as likely to be pro-life as men.
I guess it could be a legitimate plank to oppose immigration laws, but Democrats haven’t done that, so there’s no honest debate between the parties to be had on that issue. Both claim to have the same position for the most part, it’s just that Democrats wink to Hispanic voters. If they had a little courage and integrity, they’d call for ending immigration enforcement.
The abortion plank might not lose them women, but the rape plank certainly does. As for immigration, remind me again which party wanted police obligated to stop anyone Hispanic-looking they saw and demand proof of citizenship from them?
There’s no rape plank, that goes back to the rhetoric I was talking about. Some Republicans stepped in it, Democrats capitalized, and it hurt us with women. The immigration law you’re referring to is a state law, and it was distorted to make it seem like it was something it wasn’t. In the end, it was mostly upheld and most Americans supported it. It’s never foolish to take the majority position politically. Republicans would gain nothing doing better with Hispanics if it costs them voters from among the 65% or so who favor Arizona-type immigration laws.
http://www.pollingreport.com/immigration.htm
The fact is, Republicans believe laws should be enforced. Democrats support laws because they have to to avoid electoral disaster. They play a double game, and they get away with it.
Like the GOP didn’t try to stop the Violence Against Women Act, and Franken’s anti-rape amendment. At some point you’re going to have to face the lot you’ve cast yourself with.
Not to mention the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
The Republicans were perfectly happy to renew the Violence Against Women Act, Democrats wanted to add more stuff to it. As for Franken’s “anti-rape” amendment it was actually an anti-arbitration amendment and it gave Democrats and President Obama heartburn, although it eventually passed and was signed. The only difference between Democrats and Republicans on the issue was that Democrats didn’t have the balls to vote against it, even though they wanted to.
The Republicans should have supported that, I’ll grant you that one. Sometimes they get too worried about the trial lawyer boogeyman.
But I do see your overall point, the Republicans are getting put into bad positions with these bills, making it easy to paint them as hostile to women.
But again, that has nothing to do with the platform, it has to do with winning these debates. Republicans have tried unsuccessfully to tar Democrats in much the same way. During the Obamacare battle, they got Democrats to vote against an amendment that would deny Viagra to sexual predators. Maybe they just weren’t subtle enough in their attempts to set the Democrats up. That’s a problem of political tactics though, not positions.