Racist Democrat voters stayed voting Democrat locally until they were replaced by young voters voting Republican. Alabama state legislature had a Democrat majority in both houses until 2010, Arkansas had Democrats control both houses until 2012, Florida until 1994, Georgia until 2004, Louisiana 2012, Mississippi 2010, Missouri 2010, North Carolina 1996, Oklahoma 2006, South Carolina 1994, Texas 1996, and Virginia 1996.
It is crazy to think that Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and then racist voters didn’t realize it for 30 years and then suddenly started voting Republican.
I guess it depends on what “voting Republican” means to you. It is indisputable that in 1964, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina voted for a Republican presidential candidate (who won only one other state) for the first time since Reconstruction. It is also indisputable that the 1964 election was held four months after the Democratic candidate for President signed the Civil Rights Act into law.
It would certainly be crazy to think this, especially because the Deep South was solidly Republican (for the first time ever, IIRC) in the 1964 US presidential election.
And why do you think Jesse Helms and many other prominent racist Democrats switched to the Republican party?
Who did Southern states generally vote for, for President, from '64 on, after pretty much a solid century of straight Democratic votes (i.e. the “Solid South”)?
'64: R (Goldwater)
'68: I (segregationist George Wallace)
'72: R (Nixon)
'76: D (Southern governor Jimmy Carter)
'80: R (Reagan)
'84: R (Reagan)
'88: R (Bush)
'92: Split, but more R than D (Bush over Clinton)
'96: Split, but more R than D (Dole over Clinton)
'00: R (Bush 2)
'04: R (Bush 2)
'08: R (McCain)
'12: R (Romney)
'16: R (Trump)
So that’s the real history. The South voted Democratic virtually exclusively for more than 100 years for President, and then when a Democratic president supports Civil Rights for black people, they turned on a dime and vote against the Democrats in pretty much all but one election (a very weak Republican, Ford, against a Southern governor).
In the real history, Southern white racists started voting Republican for President, for the most part, after the Civil Rights movement gained some success.
The charts in the Wikipedia article The Solid South give graphic evidence (heh) of the magnitude of the shift in presidential voting and governorships.
Politics of the Southern United States has a similar but more expansive chart covering the 21st century. Note that every member of the Confederacy has a Republican majority delegation in both houses of their state legislature. Every last one.
If a tidal wave is over your head, it doesn’t really matter if it’s ten feet higher or two feet higher.
Interesting that you would start the list in 1964 and imply that the Democrats had always won the south before then.
In 1952 Republicans won 5 southern states, in 1956 they won 8, in 1960 they won 5, after the Civil Rights bill they won 5 southern states in 1964, 7 in 1968, 14 in 1972, and 2 in 1976.
The first time the GOP had a majority of governorship was in 1987, 23 years after the Civil Rights bill.
There were not that many who switched. Of the 21 Democrat Senators who voted against the Civil Rights Bill, one switched and the other 20 retired as Democrats the last one in 2010.
The Democrats did “always win the south” before then. In '56, the Democratic candidate won the majority of Southern states, and all the “Deep South” states but Louisiana. And that’s nearly all they won against Eisenhower, but the South stayed “solid”. Same in '52, even more so. Starting in '64, the Democrats lost the majority of Southern states in every election but '76.
It was a massive change, whether you recognize it or not. Before '64 the Democrats pretty much always won a majority of Southern states. After '64, they never did.
State politics were entirely different, for various reasons. But in terms of national politics, the Southern strategy was real, and even obvious – why wouldn’t the Republicans have tried to attract racist white voters who suddenly felt that the national Democratic party was their enemy?
The ones who stayed Democratic disavowed racism, for the most part. Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond didn’t, at least not for a long, long time.
Why do you think Helms and Thurmond switched parties?
If you want to argue that southern Democrats used racial politics more effectively than southern Republicans, and that southern and northern Democrats had an unholy alliance, I’ll agree with you. But I’m inferring something else from your argument.
There was a book I read recently (and damn me for not being able to remember its title or author) which postulated that American politics has always been nasty and dirty, except for a the post World War 2 period from 1945 to 1975ish, when most of the people in government (all branches) had been thru the Great Depression and World War 2 together and thus worked together to accomplish things, despite their differences. The author’s thesis was that that period was the exception, not the rule.
I’ve heard of that theory too, but only second-hand. As with any zeitgeist, it wasn’t a perfect time, but from the perspective of those born during WWI, growing up during the depression, and young adulthood fighting WWII, the '45 to Watergate must have seemed pretty nice.
For some it was still an improvement, notwithstanding foreign relations, sexism, domestic civil rights, asbestos, etcetera.
Taking a more theoretical view, politics is all about representing sectional interests and managing the conflicts between them. I’m no fan of Lenin, but he summed it up succinctly when he said it’s all about “Who whom?”
So one shouldn’t be surprised how often (depending on who holds how much power) “the interests of the people” turn out to be “the interests of our people”, just as some people’s earnest prayers turn out to reveal that God wants them to do what they wanted to do all along.
It was a massive change but it did not start in 1964. From 1876 to 1952 Democrats won the majority of Southern States every election but one, when the catholic Al Smith ran. They won every Southern State 9 times, and except for Smith they never lost more than 3 states.
In 1964, after the Civil Rights Bill, they won more states than they did in 1952 and 1956. In 1952 the Democrats ran a segregationist southern senator as vice president and Eisenhower had the best results the GOP ever had in the south. In 1960 after Eisenhower had used federal troops to desegregate, which LBJ came out against, Nixon still won 5 southern states which was the same number as Goldwater won in 1964.
Why would state politics be different? All of the Jim Crow laws were local and state laws. Race had always dominated state politics in a way that national politics never did. Why would voters vote for a party they considered their enemy for 30 years. The actual reasons voters changed parties was the chaos of the late 1960s had proven that the Democrats could not govern.
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The ones who stayed Democratic disavowed racism, for the most part. Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond didn’t, at least not for a long, long time.
Why do you think Helms and Thurmond switched parties?
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They switched parties for the same reason all politicians do everything, to get elected.
1964 was immensely and fundamentally important in this, with Civil Rights at the absolute center (the Democratic candidate in favor and the Republican opposed), and if you are unable to admit or recognize this, then there’s not much point to any further discussion.
Eisenhower won almost everything. He was a monster candidate. And still he lost the majority of Southern states.
Goldwater was a terrible candidate, and lost almost everything. Except for the South – he won the majority of Southern states.
In both cases, the majority of the Southern states went for the more racist party’s candidate, and against a much stronger opponent who won almost every other state.
State politics were different because local and state Southern Democrats could (and did) claim that they were opposed to the national party efforts to advance civil rights.
We live in different universes, such that there’s not even much point in discussing this further. Civil Rights was immensely important and hugely polarizing. Before the Voting Rights Act, black Southerners generally couldn’t even vote. Most white Southerners were incredibly strongly opposed to giving black people rights, including the right to vote, before, during, and even after the CRA and VRA. The idea that the national Democratic party strongly pushing for the CRA and VRA, and the national Republican party (represented by Goldwater at the time) opposing these, wouldn’t have some impact on these extremely racist white Southerners’ voting habits, is just too ludicrous to discuss.
Seriously. Why do you think that Goldwater pretty much only won Southern states, and very little elsewhere? Why did LBJ lose most Southern states? If you don’t believe Civil Rights was a huge part of this, then you live in a factual universe so far removed from mine that we might as well be arguing the shape of the Earth.
Nixon won five states, and dyed-in-the-wool segregationist George Wallace won five more.
Do your references only talk about the Democratic and Republican candidates? Want a real comparison?
Take a look at 1956. Do we all agree that was the Republicans’ deepest penetration into the South pre-1964?
Now look at 1960. What are those strange colors? Those are 15 electoral votes that went to the Democratic segregationist Harry Byrd - who never publicly even said he wanted to be President - rather than the Civil Rights softie JFK.
Granted, a lot of history books gloss over Harry Byrd because of the tightness in the popular vote totals.
That brings us to 1964. Do you see a pattern here. The truth is that even in 1960, Southern Democrats were abandoning the national party over Civil Rights.
Good heavens! Is April 29th going to be a red-letter day in history? Ditka uttering a word in defense of the Democrat side? :eek:
Imagine that!
As noted in several other threads, it’s one of the reasons for the conservative strategy to dominate the textbook content boards – and why we repeatedly see news about those boards deciding to White-wash and Christianize the curricula.
In other words, the Past is not the direction in which to look for examples of American Socio-Political Greatness.
[COLOR=“Navy”]I’m tempted to create a bumper sticker with a circle-slash over a capital T that says, [/COLOR]
20/20 MARG
All things in perspective, let’s
Make America Really Great*
…but, ultimately, President Rump is merely the figurehead/symptom of the problem.
I also thought of making a (reply) bumper sticker that would say
BLESS AMERICA
It’s needs the help,
but gods have nothing to do with it.
…but I knew my truck wouldn’t stay intact for a week. :mad:
–G!
*I think it would be similar to the Democrats responding to Dole’s mistake (“We Republicans are Building a Bridge to the Past!”) by promising “We’re Building a Bridge to the Future!”
1964 was important but it was not a huge break with previous elections. The South was rock solid democrat from 1967-1948 in a way that no party comes close to today. Starting in 1948 the great migration of black people from the south to northern cities for war jobs and greater freedoms meant that the democrat party had two bases, the segregationist south and northern cities with large black populations. This contradiction lead gradually to democrats rejecting segregation at the national level and eventually at the state level. This was what the Thurmond’s run in 1948 was, an attempt to show the democrats that they still needed the segregationists to win elections.
Because of the seniority system the most powerful democrats in congress were segregationists and they were able to arrest progress on civil rights legislation during most of the 1950’s. At the same time the civil rights movement led in congress by Republicans and by Eishenhower’s attorney general in the courts, started convincing more and more people. Thus the salience of the race issue for the democrats was lessening and the power of the northern cities grew. In 1948 the Dixiecrat, Thurmond, got 87% of the vote in Mississippi and in 1960 the Dixiecrat Harry Byrd got 39% of the vote in Mississippi. Support for diehard segregationists even in the deepest south was waning. In 1964 the democrats finally abandoned the segregationists and lost several southern states, though not as many as they did in 1956. After the election in 1965 the congress passed the voting rights act and once again Republicans voted in much higher percentage for it than the democrats did, just like they had done for the civil rights bill. In 1968 the last segregationist candidate Wallace said there wasn’t a dimes worth of difference between the Republicans and Democrats.
Other issues such as the cold war, the Vietnam war, the skyrocketing crime rate, the great society, and the economy started to dominate the political landscape and the issue of race stopped dominating southern politics. Today southern voters are no more one issue voters about race than midwesterners are about bimetallism or New Englanders are about tariffs.
