One of the Kennedys, I think it was a woman, once remarked, "I would hate to have to explain to a foreigner the difference between Republicans and Democrats." Well, that was the early '60s -- the parties were not so much ideological as tribal groupings, and each had its liberal and conservative wings -- in those days "liberal" and "conservative" being defined mainly by their attitude to race relations. Most Southern blacks, the few who could vote, voted R because the GOP was the party of Lincoln, and most Southern whites voted D for the exact same reason, hence, the "Solid South" for the Dems. In other parts of the country that division did not have the same salience -- but at the national level FDR did have to tread very carefully to keep the Southern Dems behind the New Deal, he couldn't afford to let it be perceived as something done for the blacks.
In the 1960s, everything changed. The Dems decided to back the civil rights movement. The Pubs responded by going the other way -- Goldwater came out against any federal desegregation legislation, as a "states' rights" matter, and then Nixon employed his Southern Strategy of dogwhistling. And then there was a substantial change of constituencies -- conservative white Dems migrated over to the GOP (some of them, by way of George Wallace's American Independent Party), and liberal Republicans fled to the Dems. It took time, of course, but the process was pretty much complete by the late '80s. The Solid South is now solidly red.
So please stop invoking the Democratic Party's racist history, which was real, as being anything now relevant, which it is not.
Buckminster Fuller, an inventor who fancied himself a philosopher, used to do a rope trick on the college lecture circuit. He had a length of silk cord, cotton cord, hemp cord spliced together; tied a loose knot at one end, slid it along, and asked "Is it still the same knot?" I'm not sure what point he was making, certainly nothing political, but political parties can work that way -- a party can substantially change its constituency and ideology and still remain the same organization with the same name and the same institutional memory.
What we have now is a truly ideological party system, liberals in one party and conservatives in the other. It is not a symmetric change -- the Dems are still more of a coalition of interest groups than anything else, while the Pubs have become a true ideological party (exactly what ideology is now at issue in an intra-party war between old-guard pro-business conservatives and an insurgency of right-populist nationalists -- which would not be happening if it were still possible for the party to be the loose inclusive ideological "big tent" both parties once were). But it does matter. It is the reason why American partisan politics have become so polarized and acrimonious. Back in the 50s, Senator Robert Taft might have wanted to roll back the New Deal, but it was impossible for the matter to get as hot as things get now.
In the 1960s, everything changed. The Dems decided to back the civil rights movement. The Pubs responded by going the other way -- Goldwater came out against any federal desegregation legislation, as a "states' rights" matter, and then Nixon employed his Southern Strategy of dogwhistling. And then there was a substantial change of constituencies -- conservative white Dems migrated over to the GOP (some of them, by way of George Wallace's American Independent Party), and liberal Republicans fled to the Dems. It took time, of course, but the process was pretty much complete by the late '80s. The Solid South is now solidly red.
So please stop invoking the Democratic Party's racist history, which was real, as being anything now relevant, which it is not.
Buckminster Fuller, an inventor who fancied himself a philosopher, used to do a rope trick on the college lecture circuit. He had a length of silk cord, cotton cord, hemp cord spliced together; tied a loose knot at one end, slid it along, and asked "Is it still the same knot?" I'm not sure what point he was making, certainly nothing political, but political parties can work that way -- a party can substantially change its constituency and ideology and still remain the same organization with the same name and the same institutional memory.
What we have now is a truly ideological party system, liberals in one party and conservatives in the other. It is not a symmetric change -- the Dems are still more of a coalition of interest groups than anything else, while the Pubs have become a true ideological party (exactly what ideology is now at issue in an intra-party war between old-guard pro-business conservatives and an insurgency of right-populist nationalists -- which would not be happening if it were still possible for the party to be the loose inclusive ideological "big tent" both parties once were). But it does matter. It is the reason why American partisan politics have become so polarized and acrimonious. Back in the 50s, Senator Robert Taft might have wanted to roll back the New Deal, but it was impossible for the matter to get as hot as things get now.
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