I am a DEMOCRAT; not a REPUBLICAN.
That could change some day…
People that believe that the Democratic Party is free of sin are either naive or hypocrites.
Tired of being in the partisan crossfire and finger
pointing I’d like to make a couple of things clear. Many liberals like to point their finger at conservatives and moderates with disdain
accusing anyone who is not a Liberal of a myriad of abuses.
The facts remain
that:
The Republican Party was founded by anti-slavery
activists in 1854, the GOP dominated politics nationally and in most of the
northern U.S. for most of the period between 1860 and 1932. There have been 18
Republican U.S. presidents, the first being Abraham
Lincoln, who served from 1861 until his assassination in 1865.
AIDS:
Reagan first mentioned AIDS in response to a
question at a press conference, on Sept. 17, 1985. On Feb. 5, 1986, he made a
surprise visit to the Dept of HHS where he said, “One of our highest public
health priorities is going to be continuing to find a cure for AIDS.” He also
announced having tasked Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to prepare a major
report on the disease. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, Reagan dragged Koop
into AIDS policy, not the other way around. Democrats also mislead other
Democrats about AIDS funding: They forget the success Democrats had in
convincing Reagan to spend more money. The administration increased AIDS
funding requests from $8 million in 1982 to $26.5 million in 1983, which
Congress bumped to $44 million, a number that doubled every year thereafter
during Reagan’s presidency.
RACISM:
Abraham
Lincoln was a Republican. Some like to roll their eyes at his
motives but his courage in emancipating African Americans cost him his life.
By the 1870s the South was heavily Democratic
in national and presidential elections, apart from pockets of Republican
strength. It was the "Solid South". The social system was based on Jim Crow, a combination of legal and informal segregation that made
blacks second-class citizens with little or no political power anywhere in the
South.
In the 1930s, the New Deal under President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat) , a realignment
occurred. Much of the Democratic Party in the South shifted towards economic intervention. Civil rights for blacks
was not on the New Deal agenda, as Southerners controlled the key positions
of power in Congress. Jim Crow was indirectly challenged as two million blacks
served in the military during World War II, receiving equal pay in segregated units,
and equally entitled to veterans' benefits.
The Republican Party, nominating Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey in 1944 and 1948, supported civil rights legislation that the Southern Democrats in Congress almost
unanimously opposed.
The States' Rights Democratic Party (usually
called the Dixiecrats) was a segregationist political party in the United
States in 1948. It originated as a breakaway faction of the Democratic Party in
1948, determined to protect what they portrayed as the southern way of life beset
by an oppressive federal government.
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine
African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in
1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which
the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school system by Orval Faubus
(Democrat) , the Governor of Arkansas. President Dwight D.
Eisenhower (Republican) placed the Arkansas National Guard under
federal control and sent 1,000 U.S. Army paratroopers from the 101st Airborne
Division to assist them in restoring order in Little Rock.
It was George Wallace (Democrat), not John Tower, who
stood in the southern schoolhouse door to block desegregation! The vast
majority of Congressional GOP voted FOR the Civil Rights Act of 1964-65. The
vast majority of those who opposed to those acts were southern Democrats.
Southern Democrats led to infamous filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
It wasn’t till the 60’s that the Democrats decided to
flip and try to take the moral high ground from the GOP and focus on civil
rights.
HIGHWAYS:
Before the interstate highways that we take for granted
were built, you’d have to travel from New York to California on local roads.
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of
Interstate and Defense Highways (commonly known as the Interstate
Highway System, Interstate Freeway System, Interstate System,
or simply the Interstate) is a network of controlled-access highways that forms a
part of the National Highway System of
the United
States.
The system is named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican), who championed its
formation. Construction was authorized by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956,
and the original portion was completed 35 years later, although some urban
routes were cancelled and never built. The network has since been extended, and
as of 2012, it had a total
length of 47,714 miles (76,788 km), making it the world's second longest after China's. As of 2011, about one-quarter
of all vehicle miles driven in the country use the Interstate system. The cost
of construction has been estimated at $425 billion (in 2006 dollars)
Some claim the Dixiecrats, as a whole, defected from the Democrat Party when
President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (no thanks to Democrats),
and became Republicans which they claimed were more accepting of segregationist
policies.
The idea
that “the Dixiecrats joined the Republicans” is not quite true, as you note.
But because of Strom Thurmond it is accepted as a fact. What happened is that
the **next** generation (post 1965) of white southern politicians — Newt, Trent
Lott, Ashcroft, Cochran, Alexander, etc — joined the GOP.
So it was
really a passing of the torch as the old segregationists retired and were
replaced by new young GOP guys. One particularly galling aspect to
generalizations about “segregationists became GOP” is that the new GOP South
was INTEGRATED for crying out loud, they accepted the Civil Rights revolution.
Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter led a group of what would become “New” Democrats like
Clinton and Al Gore.
There weren't many Republicans in the South prior to 1964, but that doesn't mean the
birth of the southern GOP was tied to “white racism.” That said, I am sure
there were and are white racist southern GOP. No one would deny that. But it
was the southern Democrats who were the party of slavery and, later,
segregation. It was George Wallace, not John Tower, who stood in the southern
schoolhouse door to block desegregation! The vast majority of Congressional GOP
voted FOR the Civil Rights of 1964-65. The vast majority of those opposed to
those acts were southern Democrats. Southern Democrats led to infamous
filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The stance
is what won Goldwater the South in 1964, and no doubt many racists voted for
Goldwater in the mistaken belief that he opposed Negro Civil Rights. But
Goldwater was not a racist; he was a libertarian who favored both civil rights
and property rights.
Switch to
1968.
Richard
Nixon was also a proponent of Civil Rights; it was a CA colleague who
urged Ike to appoint Warren to the Supreme Court; he was a supporter
of Brown v. Board, and favored sending troops to integrate Little Rock
High). Nixon saw he could develop a “Southern strategy” based on
Goldwater’s inroads. He did, but Independent Democrat George Wallace
carried most of the deep south in 68.
By 1972,
however, Wallace was shot and paralyzed, and Nixon began to tilt the south
to the GOP. The old guard Democrats began to fade away while a new generation
of Southern politicians became Republicans. True, Strom Thurmond switched to
GOP, but most of the old timers (Fulbright, Gore, Wallace, Byrd etc etc)
retired as Dems.
Why did a
new generation white Southerners join the GOP? Not because they thought
Republicans were racists who would return the South to segregation, but
because the GOP was a “local government, small government” party in the old
Jeffersonian tradition. Southerners wanted less government and the GOP was
their natural home.
Jimmy
Carter, a Civil Rights Democrat, briefly returned some states to the Democrat
fold, but in 1980, Goldwater’s heir, Ronald Reagan, sealed this deal for
the GOP. The new ”Solid South” was solid GOP.
BUT, and
we must stress this: the new southern Republicans were *integrationist*
Republicans who accepted the Civil Rights revolution and full integration while
retaining their love of Jeffersonian limited government principles.
In the end, we the people have to hold both party's feet to the fire.
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