I’m posing this as a question because I really don’t know. I didn’t post this in GQ because I get the sense that it would be moved over here anyway.
Thanks for any input.
Not to be trite, but 150+ years of history. The Democratic party hardly resembles the same party it did in the 1860’s either…or even in the 1960’s. Since our parties are big tent parties, as society shifts so do the parties, incorporating in various groups that represent the majority of Americans (VOTING Americans I guess I should say) and attempting to represent enough of them to win elections. Since society has change radically since the 1860’s it would be astonishing if the Republican (or Democratic) party HADN’T had a polar shift (several in fact) in that time frame. If they hadn’t then they would be with the Whigs and Federalists I suspect.
What “polar shift” are we talking about? Is the fact that today’s Republicans support a vastly larger role for the federal government than Lincoln’s did? That would seem to be the biggest, most obvious difference between the two.
Short version: in the late '60s, with Democratic control of the “Solid South” threaten by the Civil Rights Movement, Republicans seized the opportunity to win over Southern white voters. This required a shift in positions to ones that would appeal to that electorate. Later, in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade, Republicans were able to appeal to a suddenly-political Christian Right, which required becoming still more conservative to appeal to them.
Over time, both parties grew more ideologically pure, as conservative Dixiecrats were replaced with Republicans, and nothern Rockefeller Republicans were replaced with Democrats. This purity has made the Republicans still more conservative, as the primary process weeds out any supposed RINOs.
This article from 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64984-2004Jul20.html has a nice history of how the political parties have shifted positions over the years.
Perhaps I went a little too far back. It used to be the republicans that were all for equal rights among minorities. Now, not so much. What happened?
Thanks. This is the answer I was looking for. I vaguely remember hearing this explained to me but I couldn’t remember the particulars.
The Southern Strategy?
Could you specify what you’re talking about? If you’re discussing gay marriage, I’m pretty sure that Abraham Lincoln never spoke out in favor of it.
The New Deal before that. Then the Civil Rights Act.
Lincoln republicans were in favor of the New Deal?
The OP is asking what caused the switch over the generations. The GOP was against the New Deal, as you may know. But it helped the blacks disproportionately, because they were poorer disproportionately, and that obtained the Dems a great deal of good will from them.
Oh come on. You know what Shakes is talking about, even if you think it’s wrong/over-simplified/whatever.
In the 1860s, the Republicans were seen as the progressive side. Now they’re the opposite.
One more for the list of key events: The 1876 presidential election, which was thrown into the House. The deal struck was that the Republicans would get Hayes as President, but had to end Reconstruction. The blacks knew they’d been sold out by The Party of Lincoln, and they knew it for a long time afterward, too.
The Southern Strategy approach has been appeared periodically since colonial days, actually.
The Rutherford Hayes vs Samuel Tilden election probably had something to do with it, too.
If I recall correctly, the election was razor-close (more so than Gore vs Bush 2000, even) and got tossed into Congress. The guys in the smoke-filled rooms reached a bargain: Hayes, Republican, gets the Presidency; but the Reconstruction gets gutted. So the Republicans basically bailed on their socially progressive anti-slavery history and didn’t really look back.
That’s not all there is to it (the Republicans supported the ERA as recently as the middle 1970s and they sure don’t support anything remotely feminist nowadays) but it counts.
ETA: dangit, Elvis! shakes fist !!
You were there? 
My mid-teens cousin was shocked to realize after watching Lincoln (excellent movie, btw, for those that haven’t seen it) that Lincoln was a republican.
Well, almost everyone does, including most Tea Partiers.
What makes you think there has been a shift?
-Nationalistic
-Belligerent
-Favor imperial presidency
-huge spenders
-big business cronyists
-religious panderers
-anti civil liberties
Should I draw a Venn diagram or do you get the picture?
The irony of this post will be lost here but I will point it out. Military occupation of the South is categorized as “socially progressive”.
Yes. Ditto for Eisenhower sending in Airborne troops to enforce civil rights.
When the forces of regress break the law, the forces of progress are led to enforce the law. (It works the other way around, too.)