Which, for a lot of people, is both ‘my entire lifetime’ and multiple generations. That kinda is “always” IMHO.
Colored? Seriously?
Ummm … it was John Fremont in 1860.
Yes. I used the archaic term on purpose to show Whitey Oldman’s view of Obama being so out of date.
Then people saying “always” should say when they thought it started. Reagan Era? George W. Bush? Gingrich’s Contract With America? That would put the argument into perspective.
Indeed. Bob La Follette was a candidate for the Republican nomination in 1912 (but lost the nomination to Taft), and then ran for president as a member of the Progressive Party in 1924.
It was Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Fremont was run in 1856.
I think enough people in this thread have done so, including me.
Derp!
Trump is very good at reading audiences, has a lot of experience with the media and being in the limelight, has a simplistic communication style which appeals to many, and has little evidence of remorse and conscience. He knows how to appeal to certain people.
Many Republicans, like many Democrats, did not take his candidacy seriously for a long time. Personally, I did - telling friends who found him entertaining that he was very competitive. He was able to get progressively more media attention merely by willing to say progressively shocking things, which some supporters found enthralling (and which appalled many others, which also sometimes helped him). He was able to get ample free coverage with reporters merely seeking his opinions on various things (hint: he did not like them). This coverage dwarfed that of serious and capable candidates. I like Clinton, but she lacks the charisma and political instincts of her husband and, rightly or wrongly, is really, really disliked by a lot of Republicans to the extent many were willing to vote for any alternative. It did not matter, as they perhaps believed the party would limit what any candidate could do.
Of course, the party caved when it saw how popular he was and, later, what happened to people who crossed him. Presumably their public and private opinions sometimes differed. He passed a number of policies many Republicans liked. He also had positions that appealed to those who cared a great deal about one issue (stacking the courts, foreign policy, lower taxes, values, immigration and many other things). This was to such an extent many still support him despite some very serious concerns (like democratic values, peace, good government, law). If one position on an issue did not suffice, he was willing to change it, and usually did without any apparent personal concern.
Concisely, the Reps originally underestimated his appeal and overestimated their ability to control or limit him. They did not speak up during many eyebrow-raising episodes. They lost the ability as he transformed the party base, either changing or better identifying what the party was, and once he could influence the fate of those who would challenge him few chose to do so.
By the time Trump-supporting thugs appeared in Cleveland, threatening physical violence to any Republican delegate that took any action to prevent Trump’s nomination, there’s no chance that any ordinary Republican operative could have been blind to what they had unleashed.
Simple enough. It started when LBJ decided to kick the racists out of the Democratic Party in 1964. They didn’t all leave immediately, and most of them are now dead, but up until that point they felt comfortable in either party, and most of them for historical reasons were Democrats. Again speaking roughly, they jumped ship gradually to the GOP in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s etc. with the prediction of shifting demographics being made more firmly with each passing year. By the year 2000, it was almost complete and the rise and election and administration of Obama made it a done deal. By 2016, with anomalous exceptions, every single racist in the U.S. identified more closely with the GOP than with the Dems.
I’d say it sprouted in about 1990-1991 when Rush Limbaugh and the other right-wing radio hosts started their phenomenon.
That’s the point at which (as I recall) things became much more adversarial- prior to that point everyone was Republicans and Democrats, but it was looked at as more of a personal choice kind of thing- like whether someone wore boxers or briefs, or had a beard or whatever.
But with Limbaugh’s instant popularity, it became a constant parade of “Democrats are stupid, Democrats are enriching the poor/black at your expense”, and so on. Basically fertilizing their base with the manure that came out of his mouth. Basically that’s the point when whoever was pulling the ideological strings started getting one-sided control of the message to their base. Prior to that point, it was all mainstream news, talking heads on “Meet the Press”, etc… and very little targeted political propaganda aimed at changing the minds of their base and unifying them.
Then a few years later, they were primed for the Contract with America in 1994 and all the nonsense shenanigans that surrounded Clinton’s impeachment in 1998. It’s been all downhill ever since with the Republican party.
Yeah, the false dichotomy. Implicit in their spiel is: The liberal media is biased and lying to you therefore I’m telling you the truth. While I do believe there is some value in presenting the other side, I couldn’t listen to him because of all the “dittoheads” calling in. And I’m sure there were some nuggets of truth that the mainstream liberal media weren’t telling us but try to sift that out of all the BS.I listened to Sean Hannity but stopped because while it was valuable for the soundbites he would play, the rest was just a pool of Trump is Good, Trump is Great.
President Johnson, an off-the-cuff observation he made to a young staffer, Bill Moyers, after encountering a display of blatant racism during a political visit to the South. Moyers tells it in the first person: We were in Tennessee. During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it,” he said. “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Did Lyndon B. Johnson Say This About The 'Lowest White Man' and 'Best Colored Man'? | Snopes.com
LBJ was not trying to predict the future there.
I agree these guys broght that to a wider audience, but where was their bitterness rooted (other than trying to make a buck)? Perhaps during the Reagan era, where Democrats didn’t show enough respect, or mocked and ridiculed Reagan. Or maybe back to the whole Nixon resignation (in disgrace)? Clinton, being a character himself, and following an embarrassing one-term R presidency (“read my lips…”, Dan Quayle), Rs were still smarting and gravitated toward the message that soothed them, and hit back at the winning Democrats.
That and FDR’s third term aren’t a bad place to look at for the start of all this.
I don’t know that your average voter is looking at it like that. What I recall is that there was always a perception of Democrats as being somewhat misguided, and that many of their presidential candidates were on the effete/ineffectual side- think Dukakis and Mondale especially.
But there wasn’t a perception that they were actively fighting what was good, or working against the general welfare. It was that the Republican/Democrat split was more along ideological, and unfortunately racial lines. But there wasn’t the animosity or culture war aspects until Limbaugh, et al… That’s their legacy- taking political affiliation from being what was basically a personal choice and something that generally didn’t divide people, and turning it into an identity and something that people self-segregate themselves with.
That bitterness wasn’t always there, or at least it wasn’t nearly so intense. There was some latent racist-based resentment like @crowmanyclouds points out, but it wasn’t really as overt or thought of as warfare. You didn’t like that the Democrats were doing stuff with your money for people you didn’t like, you voted Republican. And that was it; there wasn’t any sense of culture war or aggrievement about it- it was something you settled at the ballot box and got about your life.
Nowadays, there seems to be this sense that the Democrats are out to get you and yours- take your money, give it to the black people/gays/foreigners, and give them advantages that you (or your kids) don’t get because you’re white. And people on that side are terrified and angry- all they see and hear is how they’re getting screwed and someone else is getting enriched, and it’s the Democrats’ fault.
THAT started with Limbaugh for sure.
Again, the GOP was able to maintain civility ONLY AS LONG AS WHITE CHRISTIANS WERE IN THE MAJORITY. When the demographics turned on them, they had to choose between favoring majority rule or minority rule.
You keep pointing to cultural moments like Limbaugh and Nixon and Bush but those are irrelevant. They are merely markers in the numerical decline of White Christians voters.
Yeah I agree. Limbaugh definitely touched an exposed nerve with a large group of people, and activated what was previously somewhat latent hatred in that group, organizing and energizing it, and as someone else posted here, he “said the quiet part out loud” for all to hear.