“morality”? The Democrats began losing the South when Harry Truman integrated the Armed Forces–all the way through LBJ signing Civil Rights legislation. The Southern Strategy has already been mentioned–in which the Republicans decided to dump that old-fashioned “Party of Lincoln” crap…
so…you are saying that white southerners don’t have a lot going for them except the inherent conviction that, at least, they are better than the darkies?
I think the R/D divide is far more complex than that. Minorities all over the US want fairness, equity, opportunity, justice…Republicans know there isn’t enough of any of those qualities to go around, so have decided to keep them for themselves. so long as the blacks know their place, however, they are tolerated.
All said only partly in jest.
Yes, Damn Them All! Would they only had the patience of the Democrats under the man the Democrats dubbed “Our Beloved Leader”, George W. Bush. Alas, such tolerance, nay, love, will not be seen until there is a Democratic majority in the government again!
Yes, but only because there was virtually zero Republican Party structure in the South at the time. All the ideological fights happened in the Democratic primaries, where you’d see conservative Democrats running against liberal Democrats. Took a while for the Republicans to develop an infrastructure and financing to compete. When they did, you saw “conservative Democrats” in large numbers switching parties.
To the OP: The Democrats for a long time were called, “The Roosevelt coalition.” Somehow the party included blacks (where blacks could vote), Southern whites, north-eastern intellectuals, Jews (negligible), and labor unions.
The Republicans had the anti-labor crowd, midwestern WASP’s, and some ethnic groups like Italians who’d been burned by Woodrow Wilson.
The GOP tried to get some of the labor unions in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
The Reagan Revolution managed to gain dominance partly by an alliance of Southern-white churches peeling voters from the Democrats. With a rising “religious right,” and a decrease in the political liability anti-union sentiment, the Gingrich GOP broke the dominance of the Roosevelt coalition.
There are a couple things somewhat wrong here. For one, Truman issued an executive order to integrate the armed forces, but as a practical matter, integration didn’t actually happen until 50-51, under Eisenhower. Secondly, the Dems held the south pretty much 100% until 1960, over 80% until the 1990s, and didn’t fall below 50% until after 2000. Cite
I suppose it could be true that all those southern racists were so angry at Truman that a mere 40 years later they voted his party out.
I read somewhere it was Hubert Humphrey (later LBJ’s VP) who pushed for integrating the military. By 1968, “Democrat” was being used as a curse word. See the MAS*H novels (set, of course, almost 20 years earlier). Richard Hooker was not happy about the way Hawkeye was played in the TV show. Y’know, with a conscience.
Democrats need to win, even when they lose. If they win, it’s because the people endorse them. If they lose, it’s because they took a brave moral stand and the troglodytes voted Republican.
The reality is that with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, race was no longer a partisan issue. Since southerners were otherwise conservative, this enabled Republicans to begin competing for southern votes more effectively.
Wha-at now?
Amazing. Just … amazing.
Jesse Helms (R-NC) demonstrates his lack of interest in race: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIyewCdXMzk
Lee Atwater explained the strategy.
It’s … puzzling that **adaher **purportedly knows nothing about it.
My god… as many times as we’ve discussed this…
No. Through most of American history, most white Americans were white supremacists – they believed that white people were inherently superior, intellectually and morally, to black people. This was true well into the 20th century. By the time of Civil Rights this had changed to a large degree – but not to the same degree everywhere. It had changed a lot more outside of the South than inside. When the national Democratic party decided to embrace Civil Rights, this enraged most of the Southern white Democrats, which had up until then dominated southern politics. This created a vacuum – and the Republican party grabbed the chance to acquire that massive block of Southern racist voters. It’s not surprising that they did, of course – it would have been surprising if they didn’t… the voters were there for the taking. All the Republicans needed to do was tailor their message to appeal to racists, in many of the ways discussed by Atwater.
This strategy worked very well for the Republicans up until recently. At some point, not only were there not enough racist voters left to be attracted to this kind of rhetoric, but there was a significantly growing group of white voters who actively refuse to be in any whites-only club, whether the policy is enshrined in law or just perception – so the Southern Strategy not only turned off minorities, but also many whites who were so negatively inclined towards racism.
So now the Southern Strategy is mostly dead, except for some small number of local and state campaigns. But nationally, it’s a liability.
No, let’s unpack this. Modern movement-conservatism hinges on the following principles:
[ol][li]Always cut income taxes and other taxes that land especially on the wealthy, even if Congress is already running in the red.[]It is, however, acceptable, even desirable, to raise FICA taxes, sales taxes, and other taxes on the working class.[/li][li]Jobs are an end, not a means to an end. Environmental regulations, public safety, and the peace of the planet are not more important than Joe-Bob’s God-given right to work at the particular job he’s working at.[]However, the stockholders’ bottom line is more important, so Joe-Bob shouldn’t expect any job security or pension.[/li][li]Labor unions ain’t nothin’ but Bolsheviks, and Bolsheviks ain’t nothin’ but foreign enemies of our people.[/li][li]Affirmative action is “reverse racism.” Blacks shouldn’t assume they are entitled to equal opportunities with whites, and it is unscientific to assume the average black is equally capable to the average white.[/li][li]The flag, and other symbols of our civilization’s traditions, must be revered. (Easy piety for most of us, and noticing a politician who finds vexillolatry hard to swallow is a good way to spot an anti-American or a politician otherwise with non-standard principles he can’t hide. Those guys are a threat to the established order.)[/li][li]The Second Amendment guarantees a personal right to bear arms, or at least dumb people who already have guns think it does, so it’s safest to just pretend that’s all it says.[/li][li]Abortion gets Christians to the polls, so you’d better be more against it than your opponent. If you’re very lucky, you’ll be running against an avowed baby-killer. If you’re very unlucky, you may have to be somewhere to the right of the Vatican to win.[/ol]The white conservative populist south seems to like 3, 6, 7, & 8. Number 9 plays more to the more Catholic north.[/li]
Numbers 1, 2, 4, & 5 are for [del]Flavor-Aid drinkers[/del] hardcore free-marketers. Not sure those win very many white working-class votes. And since #1 is the most important to the GOP ruling class, it takes a lot of propaganda to keep that going.
I’m well aware of the Southern Strategy. It was an attempt to win the South in the wake of the Civil Rights Act by stressing issues where southerners agreed with Republicans. It didn’t involve a single change to the Republican platform.
That’s one way to put it, yes. 
It should be noted that the Republican emphasis on these issues didn’t just win them the South. It made them the party of middle class values in general because Democrats suddenly veered into wacko territory on issues like crime and poverty in an effort to pander to what they hoped would be a large new voting bloc.
They are making the same dumbass calculation with immigration. But either way they win, because they can just comfort themselves that they are the more moral party and America just doesn’t understand.
Oh, all right 
What *were *these non-racial “issues” that resonated so strongly in the Jim Crow states, far more than in the rest of the country? Were they the non-racial “issues” that Strom Thurmond and George Wallace and their like based their political careers on and eventually caused them to join the Republicans?
I’d love to give you credit for sincerity here, but it’s really really hard, you know?
That’s a lot of straw men there.
You mean Strom Thurmond. The number of Democrats that went Republican begin and end with Strom Thurmond. George Wallace remained a Democrat. And well, every other prominent Democrat stayed a Democrat. When Thurmond became a Republican, he arguably established a more progressive record on race than any of the Southern Dems who remained loyal to the party.