During the KKK era, the Democrats were the ones in favor of hate, while the Republicans were not. The parties radically flipped after the passage of the Civil Rights act as a direct result of Nixon making a decision to support the hate to win elections, though the full flip took decades to play out. We’re hitting the end of that now.
This, but also it was more complicated as well: There were conservative and liberal contingencies in both parties, but after the big flip, conservatives went with or stay with Republicans, and progressives gravitated towards Democrats.
I’m 50, and I grew up after the flip, so it’s weird to think about how it must have been before. I think that’s the only reason things worked out as well as they did after WWII. Somehow we managed to push back against the racists and make some progress (Civil Rights Act, etc.) and even kinda pushed them into the racism closet for a while there. But boy howdy they exploded back out when the Tea Party took off and Obama was elected. But by that point, the Republians had already been working on attacking our democracy for a couple of decades.
The Southern Strategy was one big waterfall moment; another was when the Republicans partnered with evangelicals. I think the first big moment when partisanship really started to show its ugly head was the attack on Clinton and the attempt to impeach. Not that he didn’t abuse his office for blowjobs, but that really was not impeachable - and they didn’t get him for that, they got him on what was really a technicality. But after that, it feels like the gloves came off and partisanship was the primary tool of the Republicans.
During the KKK era, the Democrats were the ones in favor of hate, while the Republicans were not. The parties radically flipped after the passage of the Civil Rights act as a direct result of Nixon making a decision to support the hate to win elections, though the full flip took decades to play out. We’re hitting the end of that now.
This, but also it was more complicated as well: There were conservative and liberal contingencies in both parties, but after the big flip, conservatives went with or stay with Republicans, and progressives gravitated towards Democrats.
I’m 50, and I grew up after the flip, so it’s weird to think about how it must have been before. I think that’s the only reason things worked out as well as they did after WWII. Somehow we managed to push back against the racists and make some progress (Civil Rights Act, etc.) and even kinda pushed them into the racism closet for a while there. But boy howdy they exploded back out when the Tea Party took off and Obama was elected. But by that point, the Republians had already been working on attacking our democracy for a couple of decades.
The Southern Strategy was one big waterfall moment; another was when the Republicans partnered with evangelicals. I think the first big moment when partisanship really started to show its ugly head was the attack on Clinton and the attempt to impeach. Not that he didn’t abuse his office for blowjobs, but that really was not impeachable - and they didn’t get him for that, they got him on what was really a technicality. But after that, it feels like the gloves came off and partisanship was the primary tool of the Republicans.