Last Person to Receive Civil War-Era Pension Dies(wsj.com)
wsj.com
Last Person to Receive Civil War-Era Pension Dies
https://www.wsj.com/articles/last-person-to-receive-a-civil-war-era-pension-dies-11591141193
125 comments
I'd also point out that while slavery may have supposedly ended after the civil war, crimes were created and applied selectively to black people.
Combined with racial violence, sharecropping that kept black people in constant debt, and other policies, many black people were still forced to labor against their will.
Even now, prison labor is still regularly exploited. For example, low level offenders in California are a big part of the fire fighters that fight wildfires, but they are paid below minimum wage (like a dollar an hour), and then, despite that training, they typically can't work as firefighters after release because of their criminal history.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/14/california-is-paying-inmates...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4928680/Haunting-pi... https://theconversation.com/exploiting-black-labor-after-the... https://listverse.com/2017/06/21/10-ways-american-slavery-co...
Combined with racial violence, sharecropping that kept black people in constant debt, and other policies, many black people were still forced to labor against their will.
Even now, prison labor is still regularly exploited. For example, low level offenders in California are a big part of the fire fighters that fight wildfires, but they are paid below minimum wage (like a dollar an hour), and then, despite that training, they typically can't work as firefighters after release because of their criminal history.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/14/california-is-paying-inmates...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4928680/Haunting-pi... https://theconversation.com/exploiting-black-labor-after-the... https://listverse.com/2017/06/21/10-ways-american-slavery-co...
rowawey(3)
The past isn't that far away:
"Samuel James Seymour (March 28, 1860 – April 12, 1956) was the last surviving person who had been in Ford's Theatre the night of the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. "
"Two months before his death, Seymour[4] appeared on the February 9, 1956, broadcast of the CBS TV panel show I've Got a Secret."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_J._Seymour
"Samuel James Seymour (March 28, 1860 – April 12, 1956) was the last surviving person who had been in Ford's Theatre the night of the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. "
"Two months before his death, Seymour[4] appeared on the February 9, 1956, broadcast of the CBS TV panel show I've Got a Secret."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_J._Seymour
I would be curious to find out how many Americans today have ancestors who lived in America during Civil war. Even more detailed question is with percentages cohorts based on how many ancestors were in America vs somewhere else during that time.
Some of my ancestors arrived as early as the 1620s. There have been several books about them. Here's one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1333427255
My Civil War era ancestors were in Nevada at the time, where we've largely remained since.
My Civil War era ancestors were in Nevada at the time, where we've largely remained since.
There's a lot of us, especially in the South. My great-grandfather was a child in the siege of Petersburg. My mom still tells the story of how the family house was struck by a Union cannonball as they were sitting outside it. She heard it directly from her grandfather when she was a child herself.
Possibly a lot, given the potential exponential descendants 1 person could have. I have several ancestors and their relatives that fought for the North.
My kids could trace 5-6 generations back to the civil war, meaning 32-64 ancestors to consider.
My earliest ancestors came over in 1620, the last came over in the 1850s. So during the civil war, all my ancestors were already on this continent. However, none of them participated in the war since they all lived out west, beyond the boundaries of the USA, throughout the war.
The West was involved in the war in various ways. California was a state and Nevada became one. Gold and volunteers were sent east. There were troops sent to secure New Mexico from the confederacy.
None of those are places my ancestors lived.
The civil war took place after the Mexican-American war and the establishment of the border with British Canada. What is the western US now was under US control. Some parts were states, some territories. There was military and political activity all over the region related to the civil war. My ancestors lived in Utah. They didn't go fight, but that doesn't mean they were entirely isolated from the events.
1620 huh? You might be my distant cousin.
In gangs of New York they portray immigrants getting off ships, being recruited and then being put on other ships to head south. Doubtless there's a good dollop of artistic licence involved but it possibly was a thing
Through census and immigration records, it looks like every branch of my family tree came over between 1890 and 1910.
Thing is, only one of those branches was even well-known among my family, the others are all lost history. Out of curiosity I've asked some friends and co-workers and several have said similar things - they don't know when their ancestors immigrated, their personal family history just doesn't go back that far.
Thing is, only one of those branches was even well-known among my family, the others are all lost history. Out of curiosity I've asked some friends and co-workers and several have said similar things - they don't know when their ancestors immigrated, their personal family history just doesn't go back that far.
It takes some legwork, but both my wife and I (thanks to our parents' curiosity during their retirements) have been able to go back to the 1700's for at least some lines. Even the europeans were moving around a lot internationally, though.
The portion of my family tree from the US is about half pre-Civil War, of which most were pre-Revolution. (and my father told me that, while researching, he found the Mormons for some reason have records on way more people than just their adherents. Could be useful)
The portion of my family tree from the US is about half pre-Civil War, of which most were pre-Revolution. (and my father told me that, while researching, he found the Mormons for some reason have records on way more people than just their adherents. Could be useful)
Regarding Mormons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_for_the_dead#Genealogy...
They believe the dead can be baptized, which is a driving force behind their mission trips to other countries - if they convert one person with a very different family tree, they not only save one soul, but they enable all of that person's dead ancestors to make it into heaven as well.
They believe the dead can be baptized, which is a driving force behind their mission trips to other countries - if they convert one person with a very different family tree, they not only save one soul, but they enable all of that person's dead ancestors to make it into heaven as well.
Wow, that is an interesting fact... thanks. I've never heard this before, and I don't think it's common knowledge among non-Mormons like myself. Interesting stuff...
The Mormons believe they can baptize people after their death (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topi...).
That’s why they collect lots of genealogical information, world wide (https://www.familysearch.org), so that they can baptize all forefathers of current Mormons.
The baptizing leads to critique, for example when they baptize people of other faiths. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/21/mormons-holoca...:
“Mormons have recently posthumously baptised at least 20 Holocaust victims, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe and the Queen Mother, according to a researcher who has spent two decades monitoring the church’s massive genealogical database.”
That’s why they collect lots of genealogical information, world wide (https://www.familysearch.org), so that they can baptize all forefathers of current Mormons.
The baptizing leads to critique, for example when they baptize people of other faiths. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/21/mormons-holoca...:
“Mormons have recently posthumously baptised at least 20 Holocaust victims, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe and the Queen Mother, according to a researcher who has spent two decades monitoring the church’s massive genealogical database.”
Suddenly Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead" makes a lot more sense to me.
How does one baptize a death person?
They baptize a living person, who acts as a proxy. If I remember correctly, there's some stipulation that the person in heaven has to actually accept the baptism, they're not just being forced into it. I don't remember the specifics of that though, I left the church a few years ago.
> there's some stipulation that the person in heaven has to actually accept the baptism
Would the unbaptized not be in limbo or hell? I'm a bit confused by the mythology of all this - it seems to be offering a lifeline(deathline? spiritline?) out of eternal torture. If you're in heaven, baptism seems irrelevant, or are there levels of heaven? What good is an act of faith when you're literally experiencing the truth of the claims at that very moment?
Would the unbaptized not be in limbo or hell? I'm a bit confused by the mythology of all this - it seems to be offering a lifeline(deathline? spiritline?) out of eternal torture. If you're in heaven, baptism seems irrelevant, or are there levels of heaven? What good is an act of faith when you're literally experiencing the truth of the claims at that very moment?
The LDS church teaches that all spirits await the resurrection in a 'spirit world,' which is divided into different conditions for the just and the wicked, that heaven is divided into three 'degrees of glory,' and that baptism is a precondition for attaining the highest degree of glory. In this system, nearly all spirits go to heaven after the resurrection. Those who do not accept Christ as their savior receive some punishment / hell in the spirit world, but eventually end up in the lowest kingdom of heaven (so not 'eternal' torture).
> What good is an act of faith when you're literally experiencing the truth of the claims at that very moment?
I don't know what kind of information spirits in the spirit world have, but the LDS church teaches that there's some teaching of the gospel still going on in the spirit world, so presumably spirits don't automatically have complete information. The LDS teaching is that baptism is prerequisite for attaining the highest degree of glory, and all spirits have the opportunity in the spirit world to accept baptism by proxy if they did not have an opportunity during their life to be baptized or chose not to be.
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_of_the_unlearned#Latter-d...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_world_(Latter_Day_Saint...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_of_salvation_(Latter_Day_...
> What good is an act of faith when you're literally experiencing the truth of the claims at that very moment?
I don't know what kind of information spirits in the spirit world have, but the LDS church teaches that there's some teaching of the gospel still going on in the spirit world, so presumably spirits don't automatically have complete information. The LDS teaching is that baptism is prerequisite for attaining the highest degree of glory, and all spirits have the opportunity in the spirit world to accept baptism by proxy if they did not have an opportunity during their life to be baptized or chose not to be.
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fate_of_the_unlearned#Latter-d...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_world_(Latter_Day_Saint...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_of_salvation_(Latter_Day_...
Thanks for the information! It's disheartening to know the afterlife has so much bureaucracy.
[deleted]
Had to google that. You use a stand-in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism_for_the_dead
[deleted]
Why on earth should this post be greyed out? Just the mere mention of Mormons?
~31 million Americans in 1860, so it's likely to be a large number.
Half of my family, of German Dutch ancestry, dates along the east coast to before the Revolutionary War, and spent the better part of 200 years as farmers in the northern Union Appalachia region (the last generation that were farmers is almost gone now; the family farm land - which isn't very valuable land - has been gradually sold off over the past century; the area is difficult land to farm, it's a rough way of life, and it's nearly impossible to compete with modern corporate farming). The other half came over during one of the large immigration waves toward the end of the 19th century.
Half of my family, of German Dutch ancestry, dates along the east coast to before the Revolutionary War, and spent the better part of 200 years as farmers in the northern Union Appalachia region (the last generation that were farmers is almost gone now; the family farm land - which isn't very valuable land - has been gradually sold off over the past century; the area is difficult land to farm, it's a rough way of life, and it's nearly impossible to compete with modern corporate farming). The other half came over during one of the large immigration waves toward the end of the 19th century.
I have ancestors living in America in the 17th century.
That is a pretty wild Wikipedia page.
I heard that the last Civil War soldier died in the 1950s.
I know someone (born in 1951) who said they remember a school announcement that the last Civil War soldier died. That matches what you had heard.
WW2 ended 75 years ago, so someone 16 serving in 1945 would be 91 today.
If I remember correctly the "why we fight" series of WW2 propaganda films opens with elderly American Civil War veterans participating in the 1940 Washington DC memorial day parade.
I have serious doubts about Sylvester’s claims - people just don’t live to 130.
That seems completely irrelevant to GP's point.
If a Civil War veteran were born in 1845, served in his late teens, and died at 85, then anyone older than 90 could have spoken to him.
Play with assumptions a bit, or go back a few decades, and the numbers become much less extreme.
If a Civil War veteran were born in 1845, served in his late teens, and died at 85, then anyone older than 90 could have spoken to him.
Play with assumptions a bit, or go back a few decades, and the numbers become much less extreme.
I think Russ Roberts of econtalk went into this pretty in depth.
EconTalk: John Cogan on Entitlements and the High Cost of Good Intentions http://www.EconTalk.org http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2017/Coganentitlement...
Ironically, everyone here seems to be angling at the political angle, not the fact that pensions can be easily survive well beyond what they were intended, especially public ones.
EconTalk: John Cogan on Entitlements and the High Cost of Good Intentions http://www.EconTalk.org http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2017/Coganentitlement...
Ironically, everyone here seems to be angling at the political angle, not the fact that pensions can be easily survive well beyond what they were intended, especially public ones.
A friend of a friend married his carer or nurse instead of paying her wages. He was not expecting to live long and needed 24/7 care.
It was agreed that she would be written out of the will, so his children got all the inheritance which was not diluted due to years of a full time carer. She got a lifetimes worth of pension payments, in exchange for a few years work (and forgoing other romantic relationships). She lived with him so I assume her living expenses were covered.
Risky for both sides, she could contest the will or the pension provider could find a loophole or accuse her of fraud.
It was agreed that she would be written out of the will, so his children got all the inheritance which was not diluted due to years of a full time carer. She got a lifetimes worth of pension payments, in exchange for a few years work (and forgoing other romantic relationships). She lived with him so I assume her living expenses were covered.
Risky for both sides, she could contest the will or the pension provider could find a loophole or accuse her of fraud.
My uncle got engaged to his carer when he had cancer, but he thought it was genuine love even though she was 20 years younger. He wound up recovering and she dumped him, and then he fell into alcoholism for a year. He did eventually pull himself out of the hole and lived another 15 years before another cancer got him.
That's quite a story. I guess you never really know when your number is up.
I think this might also be a way for any two people, not too closely related such that the marriage is illegal, to dodge estate tax.
Civil partnerships, brought in for the purpose of giving the same legal rights for gay couples as married ones had, presumably also granted these rights. Since then gay marriage has rendered these redundant for their original purpose but they still exist. Some overtly non-romantically involved, long term, co-habitees are now using civil partnerships to protect the surviving person from estate duties upon the other's death.
The anomaly now is that the people have to be of the same sex and there is pressure to allow people of the opposite sex to form them.
Can't you just accomplish the same thing with a trust? Admittedly it's a few hundred dollars instead of whatever the marriage license fee is, but, really?
I don't know but in the occasional debates I heard around this issue, trusts were never mentioned. Maybe that's a more possible solution in the USA. The attraction of civil partnership as thought of for these cases is that it's understood to just be a legal arrangement that confers all the legal rights of spouses to property automatically. Because it's possible for same sex people I've heard of two widowers who share a house entering such an arrangement.
What's interesting is that this and some other loopholes could be fixed pretty well by making estate tax apply to married/partnershipped couples and also making it directly proportional to the age gap between the deceased and recipient (with appropriate tax credit measures in the opposite direction).
Personally I don't see them as loopholes, they should be brought in, in my view. I think it's awful that when two people have shared a house for as long as many married people have, can be facing homelessness for other when the "wrong" one dies.
What are you talking about? Estate tax doesn't kick in until $11.8 million.
That’s the Federal Estate Tax; individual states still have their own estate taxes. In Oregon, for example, the estate tax kicks in for assets above $1 million, and is graduated from 10-16% depending on the value of the estate.
Edit: the tax does not apply to assets going from one spouse to the other, though.
Edit: the tax does not apply to assets going from one spouse to the other, though.
I don't live in America, didn't know it was so different there, I think it's a quarter of a million here and that's if you're a child of the deceased, it's a lot worse if your unrelated
Ah. Sorry for assuming jurisdiction.
No prob, I assumed the USA had similar inheritance laws to here.
There’s no estate tax in the US anymore up to $10 million after the most recent tax bill passed.
I’m not sure there’s much need to “dodge” anything anymore for 99.9% of people.
I’m not sure there’s much need to “dodge” anything anymore for 99.9% of people.
Many states have their own inheritance taxes. For example Massachusetts taxes out of state property at an exorbitant (relative to typical tax rates on real property) rate. In practice it's basically a tax on untimely death or having a crap relationship with your heirs because anyone with a double digit number of brain cells and a functional relationship with their kids transfers the property to their heirs before death as a result.
The "line marriage" concept from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress comes to mind here.
This reminds me that there is video footage online today of a person who witnessed President Lincoln's murder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPoymt3Jx4
This one is lively. Civil War vets chatting in 1929 https://youtu.be/4qGX0XM84Ck
One aspect of this that doesn't seem to be getting much attention is the law of unintended consequences. It's easy to contribute other people's money to an inarguably noble cause, but I wonder how many of the authors of the budget that set aside these funds appreciated that their great great great great great grandchildren, many of them _descendants of slaves_, would be paying for this benefit?
As long as pensions aren’t inflation adjusted and we have near-constant low level inflation, it’s just not a big deal. This article is about an approximately $1000/year benefit received by a single person. It’s an extreme outlier and its cost is many orders of magnitude from being even a rounding error.
To your question, though, designers of pension funds definitely do understand that pensions which survive the original recipient can start to look like perpetuities.
To your question, though, designers of pension funds definitely do understand that pensions which survive the original recipient can start to look like perpetuities.
This reminds me that at least until recently, two grandsons of President Tyler (born in 1790) were still alive.
Here's an interview with one of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGiL2PgC17A
It seems like a lot of elderly men in the late 1800s/early 1900s married younger women to essentially be caregivers.
It seems like a lot of elderly men in the late 1800s/early 1900s married younger women to essentially be caregivers.
The grandson comes across as a nice sensible countryman, no airs or graces despite the extraordinary lineage and the wealth he seems to have, judging by his house.
The headline is a bit weirdly qualified. “X-War-Era” usually refers to something from the time of but not directly associated with the war. This is, in fact, a Civil War pension.
Nopay 2016 article about the recipient and other war funds:
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/civil-war-ve...
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/civil-war-ve...
[deleted]
Huh, they completed a loop in time.
[deleted]
Agreed, I think this is such a good reminder that slavery wasn't that long ago. There are many people alive today who grew up under legal segregation. In fact, it's not hard to see how today's modern Republican Party grew out of the "Southern Strategy" of the late 60s.
There are many people alive today who grew up under legal segregation
Legal segregation never went away, it's just not necessarily Plessy v. Ferguson obvious anymore.
There was a great episode of Why is this Happening about two years ago with Nikole Hannah-Jones, who you might know as the NYT's Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist behind the 1619 Project, that covered this topic: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/investigating-school-s...
----
Sidebar: if you haven't seen Nikole Hannah-Jones's 1619 Project, now is the perfect time to familiarize yourself with it.
Here's the main site: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619...
And here is the incredible podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/podcasts/1619-podcast.htm... — if you only have time to listen to one episode, try the third one, "The Birth of American Music".
Legal segregation never went away, it's just not necessarily Plessy v. Ferguson obvious anymore.
There was a great episode of Why is this Happening about two years ago with Nikole Hannah-Jones, who you might know as the NYT's Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist behind the 1619 Project, that covered this topic: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/investigating-school-s...
----
Sidebar: if you haven't seen Nikole Hannah-Jones's 1619 Project, now is the perfect time to familiarize yourself with it.
Here's the main site: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619...
And here is the incredible podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/podcasts/1619-podcast.htm... — if you only have time to listen to one episode, try the third one, "The Birth of American Music".
The 1619 project has admirable aspirations, but it's maybe worth noting that some prominent academic historians have criticised it for inaccuracy: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians...
Still very worthwhile if you're unfamiliar with the deep and ongoing legacy of slavery in the United States.
Still very worthwhile if you're unfamiliar with the deep and ongoing legacy of slavery in the United States.
I had forgotten how good Adam Serwer’s piece, which you linked to above, was.
The clash between the Times authors and their historian critics represents a fundamental disagreement over the trajectory of American society. Was America founded as a slavocracy, and are current racial inequities the natural outgrowth of that? Or was America conceived in liberty, a nation haltingly redeeming itself through its founding principles? These are not simple questions to answer, because the nation’s pro-slavery and anti-slavery tendencies are so closely intertwined.
The clash between the Times authors and their historian critics represents a fundamental disagreement over the trajectory of American society. Was America founded as a slavocracy, and are current racial inequities the natural outgrowth of that? Or was America conceived in liberty, a nation haltingly redeeming itself through its founding principles? These are not simple questions to answer, because the nation’s pro-slavery and anti-slavery tendencies are so closely intertwined.
sacks2k(1)
The Democratic Party used to be the party of the south/segregation. What year (or decade) is the point where the two parties flipped places on this issue?
The solid south flipped in the 1960s. LBJ through force of his will basically betrayed the senate democrats and pushed through significant social legislation. (Voting, civil rights, great society, etc)
The solid south types saw the writing on the wall and started breaking away. The “Southern Strategy” as implemented by Nixon and perfected by Reagan basically started as a collaboration of conservative southerners (“rehab Democrats”) and western resource extraction interests. Eventually they took over the GOP and you have the circus that we see today.
The solid south types saw the writing on the wall and started breaking away. The “Southern Strategy” as implemented by Nixon and perfected by Reagan basically started as a collaboration of conservative southerners (“rehab Democrats”) and western resource extraction interests. Eventually they took over the GOP and you have the circus that we see today.
Senator Byrd was a KKK grand wizard and lifelong Democrat.
LBJ said terrible things about blacks.
No, it's not simple to reassign blame. There's enough to go around.
LBJ said terrible things about blacks.
No, it's not simple to reassign blame. There's enough to go around.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160727193022/http://action.naa...
100% in line with the NAACP by the time he died.
It is unbelievably naive to reduce Robert Byrd to that classification, or dare I say wilfully ignorant. He also wasn't a Grand Wizard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__BaztE3EII Obama wouldn't have said this if he was a racist to his deathbed.
LBJ is a more complicated question. He was a man of his time, but he is also a key figure in bludgeoning the civil rights act through congress. Whether he did so out of a desire for justice or power, we'll never know.
It is unbelievably naive to reduce Robert Byrd to that classification, or dare I say wilfully ignorant. He also wasn't a Grand Wizard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__BaztE3EII Obama wouldn't have said this if he was a racist to his deathbed.
LBJ is a more complicated question. He was a man of his time, but he is also a key figure in bludgeoning the civil rights act through congress. Whether he did so out of a desire for justice or power, we'll never know.
Check out the Robert Caro books on LBJ. I’d definitely argue “justice”, with a serious helping of insecurity.
No it didn't. The South was split in 1968, with deep south voting for Wallace, a Democrat, and most other states going to Nixon. Finally, after Ford, in 1976 you had Jimmy Carter, a southern Democrat who carried the south entirely: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/El...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=1968+election+by+state&t=brave&ia=...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=1968+election+by+state&t=brave&ia=...
You don't seem to understand the comment you are referring to. "The Solid South" refers to the block of southern states that voted strongly Democratic from the end of Reconstruction to 1964, when most of those states switched to supporting Goldwater based on his "states rights" rhetoric and opposition to the Civil Rights Act.
That "flip" happened in 64, and while it was far from complete (note Wallace was NOT the Democratic candidate in 68, he basically started a 3rd party rooted in racism that won the deep south), that's when the switch started.
That "flip" happened in 64, and while it was far from complete (note Wallace was NOT the Democratic candidate in 68, he basically started a 3rd party rooted in racism that won the deep south), that's when the switch started.
No only 5 states voted for Goldwater (the same 5 that voted for Wallace). The South has 13 states, 14 if you count Maryland. Wallace ran as an independent but he lost and then returned as a Democrat governor for Alabama. Again, I repeat myself from elsewhere, the south continued to be strongly Democrat in state elections and Congress until the 90s, with Gore and Clinton representing the last strong showing of the old hegemony (enjoying fairly strong support in the south until 2000).
Also, the myth that the "solid south" began cracking in 1964 can easily be dispelled by looking at the 1960 election, Kennedy v. Nixon, with Kennedy carrying 8 states in the South (w/ Byrd picking up 2).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_United_States_president...
Or the 1956 election, where Eisenhower took half the South and the rest of the country: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_United_States_president...
Also, the myth that the "solid south" began cracking in 1964 can easily be dispelled by looking at the 1960 election, Kennedy v. Nixon, with Kennedy carrying 8 states in the South (w/ Byrd picking up 2).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_United_States_president...
Or the 1956 election, where Eisenhower took half the South and the rest of the country: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_United_States_president...
No, you are missing the point.
The "flip" everyone is talking about isn't voting patterns, it is on policy.
The question was "The Democratic Party used to be the party of the south/segregation. What year (or decade) is the point where the two parties flipped places on this issue?"
The policy changed happened in 1964 with the Republican Goldwater campaign:
In the 1964 presidential election, Goldwater ran a conservative campaign that broadly opposed strong action by the federal government. Although he had supported all previous federal civil rights legislation, Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act and championed this opposition during the campaign. He believed that this act was an intrusion of the federal government into the affairs of state; and second, that the Act interfered with the rights of private persons to do business, or not, with whomever they chose, even if the choice is based on racial discrimination.
Goldwater's position appealed to white Southern Democrats and Goldwater was the first Republican presidential candidate since Reconstruction to win the electoral votes of the Deep South states (Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina). Outside the South, Goldwater's negative vote on the Civil Rights Act proved devastating to his campaign. The only other state he won was his home one of Arizona and he suffered a landslide defeat. A Lyndon B. Johnson ad called "Confessions of a Republican", which ran in Northern and Western states, associated Goldwater with the Ku Klux Klan. At the same time, Johnson's campaign in the Deep South publicized Goldwater's support for pre-1964 civil rights legislation.[1]
Prior to that the Republican party was mostly supportive of the Civil Rights Act, and afterwards it wasn't. The opposite was true in the Democratic party.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
The "flip" everyone is talking about isn't voting patterns, it is on policy.
The question was "The Democratic Party used to be the party of the south/segregation. What year (or decade) is the point where the two parties flipped places on this issue?"
The policy changed happened in 1964 with the Republican Goldwater campaign:
In the 1964 presidential election, Goldwater ran a conservative campaign that broadly opposed strong action by the federal government. Although he had supported all previous federal civil rights legislation, Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act and championed this opposition during the campaign. He believed that this act was an intrusion of the federal government into the affairs of state; and second, that the Act interfered with the rights of private persons to do business, or not, with whomever they chose, even if the choice is based on racial discrimination.
Goldwater's position appealed to white Southern Democrats and Goldwater was the first Republican presidential candidate since Reconstruction to win the electoral votes of the Deep South states (Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina). Outside the South, Goldwater's negative vote on the Civil Rights Act proved devastating to his campaign. The only other state he won was his home one of Arizona and he suffered a landslide defeat. A Lyndon B. Johnson ad called "Confessions of a Republican", which ran in Northern and Western states, associated Goldwater with the Ku Klux Klan. At the same time, Johnson's campaign in the Deep South publicized Goldwater's support for pre-1964 civil rights legislation.[1]
Prior to that the Republican party was mostly supportive of the Civil Rights Act, and afterwards it wasn't. The opposite was true in the Democratic party.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
I know there's the southern strategy theory, but it's really just a Democrat talking point. The Democrats continued to dominate state and local politics as well as presidential elections until Ronald Reagan in 1980. Eisenhower carried half of the south in 1956 as a Republican. Kennedy did not win the whole south in 1960. Goldwater won 5 states of the 14 that make up the cultural south, a minority of both delegates and total states. Even Hoover (Republican in 1928) won much of the South: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_United_States_president...
This myth that 1964 was some magical year where southern politics flipped is completely made up. In 1976, Jimmy Carter completely swept the South.
Wallace, who split the Democrat vote in 1968 by running as an independent, went back to become a Democrat governor of Alabama. Vast majority of the south had Democrat leadership and congressional representation until the 90s, post Reagan. Clinton and Gore, both southern.
Georgia, had Democrats for governor until 2003: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Georgia
Florida, mostly Democrat governors until 1999: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Florida
Alabama blue until 1987: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Alabama
Mississippi blue until 1992: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Mississ...
I can go on and on... Republican party never opposed the CRA. Goldwater was an outsider, a libertarian leaning Republican. "He lobbied for homosexuals to be able to serve openly in the military, opposed the Clinton administration's plan for health care reform, and supported abortion rights and the legalization of medicinal marijuana."
Goldwater opposed CRA on principle but the majority of the Republican party voted for it, with 136 for and 36 against (in fact, more Dems voted against than Repubs):
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/88-1964/h182
This myth that 1964 was some magical year where southern politics flipped is completely made up. In 1976, Jimmy Carter completely swept the South.
Wallace, who split the Democrat vote in 1968 by running as an independent, went back to become a Democrat governor of Alabama. Vast majority of the south had Democrat leadership and congressional representation until the 90s, post Reagan. Clinton and Gore, both southern.
Georgia, had Democrats for governor until 2003: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Georgia
Florida, mostly Democrat governors until 1999: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Florida
Alabama blue until 1987: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Alabama
Mississippi blue until 1992: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governors_of_Mississ...
I can go on and on... Republican party never opposed the CRA. Goldwater was an outsider, a libertarian leaning Republican. "He lobbied for homosexuals to be able to serve openly in the military, opposed the Clinton administration's plan for health care reform, and supported abortion rights and the legalization of medicinal marijuana."
Goldwater opposed CRA on principle but the majority of the Republican party voted for it, with 136 for and 36 against (in fact, more Dems voted against than Repubs):
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/88-1964/h182
I don't know why you claim the Southern Strategy is a Democrat talking point.
Republicans have talked about it publicly since at least 1970[1][2], and here's a book from 1971 talking about it too: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2748017?seq=1
Here's a Princeton History processor with a thread showing how real it was: https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1115712024015712262
I have no argument that Democrats kept winning elections in the South. As I said in the post you are replying to "The "flip" everyone is talking about isn't voting patterns, it is on policy."
[1] https://www.newspapers.com/clip/18000851/southern-strategy/
[2] https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30432238/the-lawton-constitu...
Republicans have talked about it publicly since at least 1970[1][2], and here's a book from 1971 talking about it too: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2748017?seq=1
Here's a Princeton History processor with a thread showing how real it was: https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1115712024015712262
I have no argument that Democrats kept winning elections in the South. As I said in the post you are replying to "The "flip" everyone is talking about isn't voting patterns, it is on policy."
[1] https://www.newspapers.com/clip/18000851/southern-strategy/
[2] https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30432238/the-lawton-constitu...
No, it's not.
It's been adopted as a core part of the broader conservative movement for a long time. Conservatives were at one point of sort of red headed stepchild in the mainstream, "Chamber of Commerce" or Eisenhower GOP. I grew up on a farm listening to Rush Limbaugh all summer in the 90s, they talked about it constantly. Reagan was the big hero, Goldwater and to a lesser extent Nixon were the minor heroes of the past. As the WW2 generation started retiring and dying, the next cohorts of GOP folks were more conservative than traditional republican.
At the same time, alot of the old-style conservative democrats started shifting as the old political machines started breaking down. The stereotype union, Irish, Italian and Polish guys (cops, construction, etc), fed a steady diet of talk radio in the truck, started going more republican.
It's been adopted as a core part of the broader conservative movement for a long time. Conservatives were at one point of sort of red headed stepchild in the mainstream, "Chamber of Commerce" or Eisenhower GOP. I grew up on a farm listening to Rush Limbaugh all summer in the 90s, they talked about it constantly. Reagan was the big hero, Goldwater and to a lesser extent Nixon were the minor heroes of the past. As the WW2 generation started retiring and dying, the next cohorts of GOP folks were more conservative than traditional republican.
At the same time, alot of the old-style conservative democrats started shifting as the old political machines started breaking down. The stereotype union, Irish, Italian and Polish guys (cops, construction, etc), fed a steady diet of talk radio in the truck, started going more republican.
Do you believe the Civil War was fought over state's rights?
Here's Nixon advisor Alexander Lamar talking about the Southern Strategy in a memo in the Nixon presidential library from 1971.
https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/virtuallibr...
https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/virtuallibr...
[deleted]
It started flipping in the 1960s, but Southern Democrats hung on to most southern state governments, and many House & Senate seats, until the 1990s. Richard Shelby (a conservative Alabama Senator) only switched parties in 1994, for example.
It _started_ even earlier. In 1948, Strom Thurmond ran for President as a Dixiecrat (Democrat for Racial Segregation), which is one reason why Truman v. Dewey was so close.
In 1952, Robert Taft wanted to run for President using the "southern strategy" to woo disaffected Democratic voters, but Eisenhower decided to run, and that put an end to that strategy until Nixon was more successful in 1968.
Basically, the south became squishy on Democratic Party once northern Democratic Mayors (and FDR) realized that African-Americans were a strong labor voice and a powerful voting block. "The Party of Lincoln" (GOP) had been ignoring African-Americans since TR was in the White House.
In 1952, Robert Taft wanted to run for President using the "southern strategy" to woo disaffected Democratic voters, but Eisenhower decided to run, and that put an end to that strategy until Nixon was more successful in 1968.
Basically, the south became squishy on Democratic Party once northern Democratic Mayors (and FDR) realized that African-Americans were a strong labor voice and a powerful voting block. "The Party of Lincoln" (GOP) had been ignoring African-Americans since TR was in the White House.
[deleted]
Oh gosh, the answers and discussion here so far are quite bad.
First, we have to discard the idea that there was a specific year, or even decade, that the two parties "flipped". The history of politics is absurdly complex and involves lots of different players and there are rarely any discrete points in history you can point to and say, "this is precisely where this big ideological shift happened". It would be a lot like asking, "what year did tea party politics take over the Republican party?"
We also need to address the dog whistle in the air: modern Republicans love saying that they are the party of Lincoln and that it was Democrats that fought for slavery. They count on people having heard of this shift happening but not being well enough versed in it to understand where the lie is hidden.
Let's start with Andrew Jackson. He started as a member of the Democratic-Republican party but he pushed hard for an ideology that would become known as Jacksonian democracy [1]. This alienated a lot of fellow members of the Democratic-Republican party, and they joined forces with the remnants of the Federalists and a handful of others and formed the Whig party. The Democratic-Republican party became the Democratic party, led by Jackson. Neither the Whig party nor the Democratic party had views which exactly parallel any of today's popular political ideologies.
After the Mexican war, the loose coalition of Whigs started to fracture over the issue of slavery. A bunch of smaller groups, including former Whigs, joined together to form the Republican party, which opposed the expansion of slavery. Meanwhile, in the lead-up to the Civil War, the Democrats started to split into northern Democrats and southern Democrats ("Dixiecrats"). At this time, slavery is the leading political issue of the day, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Lincoln runs as a Republican and wins. There's a Civil War, and Reconstruction begins. The northern Democrats had held a wishy-washy position on slavery, and as a result, they lost all political power. Industrialist political influences in the north became represented by the victorious Republican party, while the Democratic party held on to power in the south.
This is the part where people see a "pro-slavery Democratic south" and an "anti-slavery Republican north", but neither of these parties at the time are all that similar to their modern antithesis. The Republican party at this time has a conservative group and a progressive group, and they fight frequently over things like concentration of wealth (sound familiar?). Southern Democrats meanwhile focused most of their political efforts on fighting any and every expansion of civil rights for former slaves.
Conservative Republicans won the presidency with McKinley, but Teddy Roosevelt, a progressive, was his VP. McKinley gets assassinated, Roosevelt takes office, and proceeds to enact a bunch of progressive reforms. [2] This ultimately results in a lot of friction between Roosevelt and conservative Republicans and that leads to an internal fight, with Taft leading the conservatives and Roosevelt forming the Progressive party.
Along comes Woodrow Wilson. (Bear with me, we're getting there.) Wilson, a Democrat, has been frustrated by his party's inability to tackle any issues other than civil rights. He manages to gather enough political influence to take control of the Democratic party, getting it out of the hands of the Dixiecrats. [3]
The infighting in the Republican party meanwhile leaves southern blacks unprotected, so they get really unhappy with both parties. All of this comes to a head post-Depression when FDR comes along. He's a very egalitarian, populist, post-Wilsom Democrat, and he captures a lot of political power.
So the situation now is this: there is a broken Republican party in the north, with progressive Republicans and conservative Republicans, and there is a progressive Democratic party, and there are a bunch of unhappy Dixiecrats -- the "Southern Democrats". FDR manages to pick up a bunch of the progressive Republicans along with black voters, and then Truman comes along and continues FDR's racially progressive policies, so this is when black voters begin to vote as Democrats.
The Southern Democrats were nearly shut out of national politics altogether at this point, while northern conservative Republicans were kept on life support until Nixon. There's a Nixon-Goldwater fight over the Republican party, but Nixon is an absurdly shrewd politician, and over the course of several years, he's able to build an FDR-like coalition of multiple groups under the Republican banner, including the northern conservatives and the former Dixiecrats, who were thrilled to get some political power again.
Nixon though was still an old-guard Republican and he would barely recognize today's Republican party. But, from here, the remaining dots are easy to connect.
This was the shortest summary of 150 years of messy politics that I could come up with. I'm skipping over a lot of important details and there are probably some points here that can be argued by those better-versed in this stretch of history.
But the important part is that these two modern parties have not existed as constant political entities, and so they didn't "switch sides". They were just labels for loosely-associated smaller political and demographic groups, and those groups changed allegiances depending on the biggest political issues of the day.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacksonian_democracy
[2]: The excellent u/Samuel_Gompers with a lot more detail on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1nolzz/why_w...
[3]: u/Samuel_Gompers again, https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/yczua/can_so...
First, we have to discard the idea that there was a specific year, or even decade, that the two parties "flipped". The history of politics is absurdly complex and involves lots of different players and there are rarely any discrete points in history you can point to and say, "this is precisely where this big ideological shift happened". It would be a lot like asking, "what year did tea party politics take over the Republican party?"
We also need to address the dog whistle in the air: modern Republicans love saying that they are the party of Lincoln and that it was Democrats that fought for slavery. They count on people having heard of this shift happening but not being well enough versed in it to understand where the lie is hidden.
Let's start with Andrew Jackson. He started as a member of the Democratic-Republican party but he pushed hard for an ideology that would become known as Jacksonian democracy [1]. This alienated a lot of fellow members of the Democratic-Republican party, and they joined forces with the remnants of the Federalists and a handful of others and formed the Whig party. The Democratic-Republican party became the Democratic party, led by Jackson. Neither the Whig party nor the Democratic party had views which exactly parallel any of today's popular political ideologies.
After the Mexican war, the loose coalition of Whigs started to fracture over the issue of slavery. A bunch of smaller groups, including former Whigs, joined together to form the Republican party, which opposed the expansion of slavery. Meanwhile, in the lead-up to the Civil War, the Democrats started to split into northern Democrats and southern Democrats ("Dixiecrats"). At this time, slavery is the leading political issue of the day, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Lincoln runs as a Republican and wins. There's a Civil War, and Reconstruction begins. The northern Democrats had held a wishy-washy position on slavery, and as a result, they lost all political power. Industrialist political influences in the north became represented by the victorious Republican party, while the Democratic party held on to power in the south.
This is the part where people see a "pro-slavery Democratic south" and an "anti-slavery Republican north", but neither of these parties at the time are all that similar to their modern antithesis. The Republican party at this time has a conservative group and a progressive group, and they fight frequently over things like concentration of wealth (sound familiar?). Southern Democrats meanwhile focused most of their political efforts on fighting any and every expansion of civil rights for former slaves.
Conservative Republicans won the presidency with McKinley, but Teddy Roosevelt, a progressive, was his VP. McKinley gets assassinated, Roosevelt takes office, and proceeds to enact a bunch of progressive reforms. [2] This ultimately results in a lot of friction between Roosevelt and conservative Republicans and that leads to an internal fight, with Taft leading the conservatives and Roosevelt forming the Progressive party.
Along comes Woodrow Wilson. (Bear with me, we're getting there.) Wilson, a Democrat, has been frustrated by his party's inability to tackle any issues other than civil rights. He manages to gather enough political influence to take control of the Democratic party, getting it out of the hands of the Dixiecrats. [3]
The infighting in the Republican party meanwhile leaves southern blacks unprotected, so they get really unhappy with both parties. All of this comes to a head post-Depression when FDR comes along. He's a very egalitarian, populist, post-Wilsom Democrat, and he captures a lot of political power.
So the situation now is this: there is a broken Republican party in the north, with progressive Republicans and conservative Republicans, and there is a progressive Democratic party, and there are a bunch of unhappy Dixiecrats -- the "Southern Democrats". FDR manages to pick up a bunch of the progressive Republicans along with black voters, and then Truman comes along and continues FDR's racially progressive policies, so this is when black voters begin to vote as Democrats.
The Southern Democrats were nearly shut out of national politics altogether at this point, while northern conservative Republicans were kept on life support until Nixon. There's a Nixon-Goldwater fight over the Republican party, but Nixon is an absurdly shrewd politician, and over the course of several years, he's able to build an FDR-like coalition of multiple groups under the Republican banner, including the northern conservatives and the former Dixiecrats, who were thrilled to get some political power again.
Nixon though was still an old-guard Republican and he would barely recognize today's Republican party. But, from here, the remaining dots are easy to connect.
This was the shortest summary of 150 years of messy politics that I could come up with. I'm skipping over a lot of important details and there are probably some points here that can be argued by those better-versed in this stretch of history.
But the important part is that these two modern parties have not existed as constant political entities, and so they didn't "switch sides". They were just labels for loosely-associated smaller political and demographic groups, and those groups changed allegiances depending on the biggest political issues of the day.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacksonian_democracy
[2]: The excellent u/Samuel_Gompers with a lot more detail on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1nolzz/why_w...
[3]: u/Samuel_Gompers again, https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/yczua/can_so...
dataflow's link will have more detail. Besides the Southern Democrats you had the machine democrats in the urban cities whose power block was representing working class immigrants and minorities. Except blacks who were Republicans up until the late 1920's. Blacks broke for FDR in 1932.
Abraham Lincoln's thoughts on party flipping:
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/pierce....
> The Democratic Party used to be the party of the south/segregation. What year (or decade) is the point where the two parties flipped places on this issue?
They started flipping with the New Deal Coalition, which gave the Democratic Party a new but not yet unifying working class national agenda.
The splitting off of the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party (“Dixiecrats”) in the late 1940s was a response to this and the Democratic Party’s support for Civil Rights at the time.
The major turning point, though, was Johnson's support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the subsequent Republican effort to exploit that known as the Southern Strategy. The Dixiecrats hadn't lasted as a breakaway group; the Republicans in the 1940s and into the 1960s had a strong base of support for Civil Rights too, and there wasn't anywhere better than the Democratic Party for white racists to go. But when the Republicans actively courted them, that changed.
The phase of political realignment that started in the 1960s (which was itself an extension of the one starting in the 1940s) completed around 1994-1995, as the last of the Southern conservative Democrats (those further right than the center-right neoliberal faction like Clinton) in office jumped ship to the Republican Party.
They started flipping with the New Deal Coalition, which gave the Democratic Party a new but not yet unifying working class national agenda.
The splitting off of the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party (“Dixiecrats”) in the late 1940s was a response to this and the Democratic Party’s support for Civil Rights at the time.
The major turning point, though, was Johnson's support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the subsequent Republican effort to exploit that known as the Southern Strategy. The Dixiecrats hadn't lasted as a breakaway group; the Republicans in the 1940s and into the 1960s had a strong base of support for Civil Rights too, and there wasn't anywhere better than the Democratic Party for white racists to go. But when the Republicans actively courted them, that changed.
The phase of political realignment that started in the 1960s (which was itself an extension of the one starting in the 1940s) completed around 1994-1995, as the last of the Southern conservative Democrats (those further right than the center-right neoliberal faction like Clinton) in office jumped ship to the Republican Party.
The Republican Party fought hard in the '60s to get the civil rights bill passed, as well as the voting rights bill. Percentagewise, more Republicans than Democrats supported it.
> The degree of Republican support for the two bills actually exceeded the degree of Democratic support, and it's also fair to say that Republicans took leading roles in both measures
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/may/25/michael-st...
Not only is the party switch theory rather absurd (suggesting that Republicans were exploiting Johnson's support for a bill supported by over 80% of Republicans), it's also counterfactual. In fact, all but three prominent Southern Democrats remained Democrats. Al Gore's father was one of them, as was Robert Byrd, and the leader of them all, George Wallace, who won his last election in 1982, running as a Democrat for governor of Alabama.
> The degree of Republican support for the two bills actually exceeded the degree of Democratic support, and it's also fair to say that Republicans took leading roles in both measures
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2010/may/25/michael-st...
Not only is the party switch theory rather absurd (suggesting that Republicans were exploiting Johnson's support for a bill supported by over 80% of Republicans), it's also counterfactual. In fact, all but three prominent Southern Democrats remained Democrats. Al Gore's father was one of them, as was Robert Byrd, and the leader of them all, George Wallace, who won his last election in 1982, running as a Democrat for governor of Alabama.
> The Republican Party fought hard in the '60s to get the civil rights bill passed, as well as the voting rights bill. Percentagewise, more Republicans than Democrats supported it.
Yes, that's why the major turning point is Johnson's support for the bill and the subsequent exploitation of disaffection within the party with that support by Republicans in the Southern Strategy.
> Not only is the party switch theory rather absurd
It's not a theory. The Southern Strategy starting at least with Nixon’s targeting Southern racists with the well-worn code words of the movement in the 1968 Presidential election is a well-documented fact. The body of anti-civil-rights, especially Southern, Democrats (both in the electorate and, even more clearly on an individual basis, in elected office) moving to the Republican Party over the period of 1964~1995 is a documented fact. That some of the leading wave of those (like Strom Thurmond) who left before 1968 were instrumental in the 1968 Southern Strategy is a documented fact.
> In fact, all but three prominent Southern Democrats remained Democrats
The list of noteworthy Southern Democrats figures, or even just incumbent officeholders, that switched party from 1964 to 1995 is much longer than 3. [0]
I mean, when you see a taking head in the media today arguing that slavery was beneficial to blacks (as you do), they aren't Democrats. When you see someone arguing (or ruling from the bench) against the Voting Rights Act of 1965, they aren't Democrats. When you see former Democrat and former KKK leader and still proud racist David Duke endorsing a major party candidates for President (or running for office himself), it's not for or as a Democrat. The switch of the parties on this issue isn't a mere theory, it's one of the clearest and most readily directly observable facts in American politics.
[0] It's not specific to Southern Democrats or Denocratic >> Republican switchers, but this page has a section for the latter and enough descriptive detail to use to identify the former in that list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_party_switchers_in_t...
Yes, that's why the major turning point is Johnson's support for the bill and the subsequent exploitation of disaffection within the party with that support by Republicans in the Southern Strategy.
> Not only is the party switch theory rather absurd
It's not a theory. The Southern Strategy starting at least with Nixon’s targeting Southern racists with the well-worn code words of the movement in the 1968 Presidential election is a well-documented fact. The body of anti-civil-rights, especially Southern, Democrats (both in the electorate and, even more clearly on an individual basis, in elected office) moving to the Republican Party over the period of 1964~1995 is a documented fact. That some of the leading wave of those (like Strom Thurmond) who left before 1968 were instrumental in the 1968 Southern Strategy is a documented fact.
> In fact, all but three prominent Southern Democrats remained Democrats
The list of noteworthy Southern Democrats figures, or even just incumbent officeholders, that switched party from 1964 to 1995 is much longer than 3. [0]
I mean, when you see a taking head in the media today arguing that slavery was beneficial to blacks (as you do), they aren't Democrats. When you see someone arguing (or ruling from the bench) against the Voting Rights Act of 1965, they aren't Democrats. When you see former Democrat and former KKK leader and still proud racist David Duke endorsing a major party candidates for President (or running for office himself), it's not for or as a Democrat. The switch of the parties on this issue isn't a mere theory, it's one of the clearest and most readily directly observable facts in American politics.
[0] It's not specific to Southern Democrats or Denocratic >> Republican switchers, but this page has a section for the latter and enough descriptive detail to use to identify the former in that list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_party_switchers_in_t...
It's one of the big lies of American politics. Whatever David Duke may believe, he's wrong. He's ~~never won an election as a Republican~~ (see edit below), he's never been endorsed by the RNC, and he's been denounced by every prominent Republican. He is not welcome in the Republican party.
And when you see someone in the media saying "You ain't black" or calling a black man "Uncle Tom", it's always a Democrat talking about a black Republican. Pretending that there are no racist Democrats is just ignoring the obvious.
And that list you linked is long, but it's not a list of prominent Southern Democrats. Many of the people on that list never even held office as a Democrat. If you'd care to list the people who actually won office as a Democrat supporting segregation or opposing civil rights, then switched parties, I'd be grateful. I only know of three.
Edit: In fact checking my own post, I discovered I was wrong. David Duke did win an election once, for a state House seat, running against a real Republican, despite the opposition of every major Republican leader, including President Bush and former President Reagan, and Chairman Lee Atwater, who said:
> David Duke is not a Republican. We repudiate him in his views and we are taking immediate steps to see that he is disenfranchised from our party.
And when you see someone in the media saying "You ain't black" or calling a black man "Uncle Tom", it's always a Democrat talking about a black Republican. Pretending that there are no racist Democrats is just ignoring the obvious.
And that list you linked is long, but it's not a list of prominent Southern Democrats. Many of the people on that list never even held office as a Democrat. If you'd care to list the people who actually won office as a Democrat supporting segregation or opposing civil rights, then switched parties, I'd be grateful. I only know of three.
Edit: In fact checking my own post, I discovered I was wrong. David Duke did win an election once, for a state House seat, running against a real Republican, despite the opposition of every major Republican leader, including President Bush and former President Reagan, and Chairman Lee Atwater, who said:
> David Duke is not a Republican. We repudiate him in his views and we are taking immediate steps to see that he is disenfranchised from our party.
> And that list you linked is long, but it's not a list of prominent Southern Democrat
There are more than the three “prominent Southern Democrats” you claimed on the list. Heck, there's more than that in each the early 1964-1970 phase of the Civil Rights driven realignment, and the final 1994-1995 wave, which was product of the culturally regressive wing of the party losing influence after the emerging center-right wing rose to dominance by supporting basically conservative economics while abandoning regressive culture war positions, especially on race, marginalizing both the left (who has no other major party to run to) and the solid right (whom the Republicans courted actively and welcomed with open arms).
There are more than the three “prominent Southern Democrats” you claimed on the list. Heck, there's more than that in each the early 1964-1970 phase of the Civil Rights driven realignment, and the final 1994-1995 wave, which was product of the culturally regressive wing of the party losing influence after the emerging center-right wing rose to dominance by supporting basically conservative economics while abandoning regressive culture war positions, especially on race, marginalizing both the left (who has no other major party to run to) and the solid right (whom the Republicans courted actively and welcomed with open arms).
That's a lie and always has been. The South was strongly Democrat until after Reagan (who won 49 states by the way, and basically created the modern Republican party), well into the 90s, as evidenced by Clinton and Gore, both southern Democrats. Sorry, the attempt to pin the party "flip" on Civil rights is bogus.
Sorry, if you are pointing towards Presidential politics as evidence, that actually supports the OP's point that the roots of this party flip began in the 1960s.
Goldwater won the American deep south handily in '64 based on his "states rights" rhetoric.
Goldwater won the American deep south handily in '64 based on his "states rights" rhetoric.
State politics too bud, Democrat governors and Congress dominated the south until the 90s. And you had ex-klansman Senator Byrd of West Virginia serving in Congress until 2010. Sorry, in early-mid 90s was when south started to go heavily Republican. Do your homework.
You can't cherry pick one election. Goldwater won 5 or 6 states. He didn't even win the whole south, as Jimmy Carter did in 1976. Reagan won 49 states in 1984. Does that mean the "southern strategy" worked on everyone? Or was he just a popular politician and personality, as Johnson was?
You can't cherry pick one election. Goldwater won 5 or 6 states. He didn't even win the whole south, as Jimmy Carter did in 1976. Reagan won 49 states in 1984. Does that mean the "southern strategy" worked on everyone? Or was he just a popular politician and personality, as Johnson was?
Worth noting that there was a pretty obvious policy split between national and state-level Democrats for a pretty long time. Also voters. The stereotype of the white union member who was a galloping racist and a reliable Democratic voter was a stereotype for a reason: 'cause they existed.
I don't know why you're being downvoted.
The party flip happened due to single-issue voting on the topic of abortion. It became the Republican platform during and after Reagan. They've since co-opted a host of other issues that cater to their base, but abortion is still at the heart of it.
Abortion changed the Republican party.
The party flip happened due to single-issue voting on the topic of abortion. It became the Republican platform during and after Reagan. They've since co-opted a host of other issues that cater to their base, but abortion is still at the heart of it.
Abortion changed the Republican party.
The Republican party has also taken on a lot of 'free agent' groups like the NRA. I believe prior to Nixon, there was no stance on gun control. Nixon saw the NRA as a group that voted and brought them in solely to win, but he was recorded as calling them 'gun nuts.'
While it's true that abortion changed the republican party, the OP is referring to an earlier realignment in the 1960s:
https://www.history.com/news/how-the-party-of-lincoln-won-ov...
Or if you prefer, here is a 1971 book saying how after the Goldwater campaign the Republican party concentrated on wooing the traditionally conservative white southern voters: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2748017?seq=1
https://www.history.com/news/how-the-party-of-lincoln-won-ov...
Or if you prefer, here is a 1971 book saying how after the Goldwater campaign the Republican party concentrated on wooing the traditionally conservative white southern voters: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2748017?seq=1
Threeve303(1)
Especially now, it's important to remind ourselves that American slavery isn't a thing of the the distant past - there are old people alive today whose fathers literally fought in the war to keep slavery legal. And the last former slave died in 1971 [1], which means there are probably tons of middle-aged people going about their lives who personally knew and had conversations with ex-slaves.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Magee