Southern Democrats?

[OnionAhaiReborn]

I wouldn't necessarily say the parties swapped sides. After all, the last time a Republican was to the left of the Democrat was in 1904, and even then Teddy Roosevelt wasn't exactly representative of his own party.

The Republicans always were the party of industrialists and business, at least once slavery had been abolished. The Democrats always were an odd coalition of everyone else. In the pre-New Deal era, the Democrats were the party of Jews, Catholics, immigrant minorities, and the South, while the Republicans were the party of WASPs, commerce, and blacks. Trade unionists were in both. Today, the coalitions have swapped the South and blacks, while trade unions are Democratic.

Saying they switched sides is, admittedly, a simplification. But I think it's essentially accurate. Go back further and look at the Whigs vs the Democrats. The arguments of this time are over the size and scope of the Federal government, the Whigs want a National Bank, internal improvements, government intervention to aid the American economy. Democrats oppose all of these things. The slavery issue destroys the Southern Whigs, and the Northern Whigs become Republicans who support the same things. Public education is another plank of the Northern Whig/Republican platform that carries through the Civil War era. The Republicans were the inheritors of a progressive strain in American politics dating back a long way. The Democrats, on the other hand, had long opposed the type of government interventionism, particularly from the Feds, characteristic of the progressive movement.

The parties' ideological cohesion begins to break down not long after the Civil War, because of the growing population of the West and massive immigration to Northern cities. In the West the populist movement grows and forms a powerful anti-capitalist third party which is eventually subsumed by the Democratic Party under William Jennings Bryan. Urban immigrants were a traditionally Democratic block, largely due to the antagonism between them and nativist Northerners, many of whom find a home in the Republican Party. As the industrial economy grows, so does the labor movement, which first, like the Western populists, channels its energy into a third party- the Socialists- but is later subsumed by the Democratic Party under FDR.

After the war Northern capital does take greater and greater control of the Republican Party, but this was not complete nor was it inevitable that it would be made complete. This is because just as the South has been historically conservative, so has the North, particularly the Northeast and New England, been historically liberal. The political dominance of the Republican Party in the North made it the natural home for Northern capital after the Civil War, but the liberal population hadn't gone anywhere. So Republicans continue to champion civil rights, public education, government activism, and as the challenges of industrial capitalism arise there is internal disagreement over what to do. Voters elect lots of progressive Republicans- Sherman of the Sherman Anti Trust Act was a Republican. Under Taft, the Republicans support the income tax amendment to the Constitution.

During and after the New Deal some of the most significant opposition comes from Southern Democrats. And this makes perfect sense for the region, which has opposed expansion of Federal power at every point in American history. It's just that now they've lost control of the Democratic Party to the progressive wing, which is finding more and more success in the North because its pro-government progressivism aligns with Northern voters, as has historically been the case, more than anti-government conservatism does.

[SeanF]

In response to the O/P, civil rights legislation didn't kill the Southern Democrats, but it did accelerate the process by which the South was becoming more electorally competitive. Democrats held most Congressional seats up to 1994, and continued to win plenty of State-wide contests till recently. But, they usually had to run well to the Right of the national party to do so. As the parties became ever more divided by ideology, that became harder, and the luck of people like Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, and Mary Landrieu ran out.

In a good year, a right wing Democrat could still carry some States, IMO. Bill Clinton won Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas in 1992, and the same States less Georgia, but adding Florida in 1996. Most people who voted for him are still alive.

However, do the Democrats even want to win in the South any more, or do they think it would result in too many ideological compromises? Some commentators like Michael Tomasky advocate writing off the whole region, bar Florida and Virginia.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Sean,

Writing off an entire region seems dangerous for national cohesion in my opinion.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

I don't know how many serious people are really calling for Democrats to write off the South. I see far more (possibly premature) salivating over the prospect of Texas and Georgia going blue in the near future.

[The Marquis de Leech]

The Republicans were the inheritors of a progressive strain in American politics dating back a long way. The Democrats, on the other hand, had long opposed the type of government interventionism, particularly from the Feds, characteristic of the progressive movement.

Government intervention in and of itself isn't inherently progressive: there are plenty of Big Government Conservatives in the world. The question is what the intervention is intended to achieve. I would argue that the traditional US Whig emphasis on internal improvements wasn't progressive as such - they saw it as fostering the interests of commerce and industry, rather than as part of a programme of populist redistributionism.

[Baitac]

The South has always been conservative when it comes to issues like religion, abortion, marriage and gay rights. There's no change there. It's all in the Republican Party platform and they know how to exploit these issues. I live in Florida and we are our own universe. We have minorities that vote with both parties (i.e. Cubans are Republicans while Puerto Ricans are Democratic). Retired persons from the Mid-West are Republican while our Jewish contingency votes for both parties. Native Floridians are conservative as well. College towns are Democratic.

I remember when Carter was elected, the Democrats were having problems with Boll Weevils (Conservative Democrats in Congress.) This is nothing new.

[Shryke]

Saying they switched sides is, admittedly, a simplification. But I think it's essentially accurate. Go back further and look at the Whigs vs the Democrats. The arguments of this time are over the size and scope of the Federal government, the Whigs want a National Bank, internal improvements, government intervention to aid the American economy. Democrats oppose all of these things. The slavery issue destroys the Southern Whigs, and the Northern Whigs become Republicans who support the same things. Public education is another plank of the Northern Whig/Republican platform that carries through the Civil War era. The Republicans were the inheritors of a progressive strain in American politics dating back a long way. The Democrats, on the other hand, had long opposed the type of government interventionism, particularly from the Feds, characteristic of the progressive movement.

The parties' ideological cohesion begins to break down not long after the Civil War, because of the growing population of the West and massive immigration to Northern cities. In the West the populist movement grows and forms a powerful anti-capitalist third party which is eventually subsumed by the Democratic Party under William Jennings Bryan. Urban immigrants were a traditionally Democratic block, largely due to the antagonism between them and nativist Northerners, many of whom find a home in the Republican Party. As the industrial economy grows, so does the labor movement, which first, like the Western populists, channels its energy into a third party- the Socialists- but is later subsumed by the Democratic Party under FDR.

After the war Northern capital does take greater and greater control of the Republican Party, but this was not complete nor was it inevitable that it would be made complete. This is because just as the South has been historically conservative, so has the North, particularly the Northeast and New England, been historically liberal. The political dominance of the Republican Party in the North made it the natural home for Northern capital after the Civil War, but the liberal population hadn't gone anywhere. So Republicans continue to champion civil rights, public education, government activism, and as the challenges of industrial capitalism arise there is internal disagreement over what to do. Voters elect lots of progressive Republicans- Sherman of the Sherman Anti Trust Act was a Republican. Under Taft, the Republicans support the income tax amendment to the Constitution.

During and after the New Deal some of the most significant opposition comes from Southern Democrats. And this makes perfect sense for the region, which has opposed expansion of Federal power at every point in American history. It's just that now they've lost control of the Democratic Party to the progressive wing, which is finding more and more success in the North because its pro-government progressivism aligns with Northern voters, as has historically been the case, more than anti-government conservatism does.

Viewing the Federalist party and their descendants as "progressive" is a big mistake. It's applying current political thinking to a completely different era. They were for big government (comparatively anyway) but not progressive at all. They were just pro-trade and such. Progressive policy as we understand it didn't exist at that point.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Government intervention in and of itself isn't inherently progressive: there are plenty of Big Government Conservatives in the world. The question is what the intervention is intended to achieve. I would argue that the traditional US Whig emphasis on internal improvements wasn't progressive as such - they saw it as fostering the interests of commerce and industry, rather than as part of a programme of populist redistributionism.

Well, I didn't say government intervention in itself is inherently progressive, I referred to specific policies, and "they type of government interventionism ... characteristic of the progressive movement." And that's just what the Whig program was, progressivism in the United States is and has been about government support for creating and maintaining public goods and nurturing commerce to the general benefit of everyone. American progressivism has been generally pro-market, with the exception of socialist elements of the labor movement (and the radical left was intensely critical of progressive politics for this reason during the Progressive Era, as it is wont to be of all merely somewhat center-left politics). So we can see pretty clear continuity between Whig/Republican support for a national bank, internal improvements, public education and later progressive support for the Federal Reserve, New Deal public works projects, and, still, public education. You can follow this through to this day, with a Democratic Party which is supportive of the role government spending to aid the economy and create infrastructure ("You didn't build that"), but is not generally hostile to a market economy, which it hopes to manage to the benefit of all.

[SeanF]

Sean,

Writing off an entire region seems dangerous for national cohesion in my opinion.

I don't know how many serious people are really calling for Democrats to write off the South. I see far more (possibly premature) salivating over the prospect of Texas and Georgia going blue in the near future.

There was Thomas Schaller's book, Whistling Past Dixie, which I think has been pretty influential. It's a fault of the First Past the Post system that it becomes tempting to write off places that vote for your opponents, and just focus on a handful of marginal States/constituencies.

[Seaworth'sShipmate]

Its been mentioned, but I don't think its right to think both parties "switched places." There always were more progressive and conservative wings of both parties. Still exist today, but in a much muted form.

In a way, it makes perfect sense the south is predominately republican today, even if race isn't considered. The south Imo, seems to have had more of a "conservative" ethos. Sure they may want some government funding to help poor people, and money for a new hydroelectric dam or highway or whatever.

But it seems culturally, the south is and always was pro gun, strongly pro death penalty, all about christian morals, and not terribly enthusiastic about raising taxes in order to have nicer schools/libraries/high ways or what have you.

I find it sort of funny how republicans call the democratic party the "party of segregation" basically implying the massive number of black democrats suffer from some sort of cognitive dissonance. Sure all the worst segregationists were of the democratic party. But they were fairly conservative by national dem standards, and repubs fail to mention Dems like Hubert Humphery, RFK, and Truman who were huge for civil rights.

They don't like to mention it, but the Republicans idol, "The Great Ronald Reagen" was opposed to nearly all the civil rights legislation of the 60s, based on some sort of "anti federal government" platform.

Also, republicans were and remain the anti immigration party. Years ago they were virulently opposed to Catholic/Jewish immigration, and now are opposed (at least many are) to hispanic immigration.

[The Marquis de Leech]

But it seems culturally, the south is and always was pro gun, strongly pro death penalty, all about christian morals, and not terribly enthusiastic about raising taxes in order to have nicer schools/libraries/high ways or what have you.

Huey Long?

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Here's a good interview with an historian on this subject, where I read the Lincoln quote from my first post:

So what is it that happens during Reconstruction that eventually turns Southern whites so strongly against Republicans?

[Democratic President Andrew] Johnson looks at [Republican reforms] and he recognizes that the Republicans are popular enough that if he doesn’t do something to rein them in, a Democrat will never be elected [president] again. He’s got a personal stake in that, but he’s also concerned about the growth of federal government; he thinks it’s way too big already, because [due to] patronage, [the government] is only hiring Republicans and they will always vote Republican and then pretty soon there won’t be any Democrats.

So he vetoes [two ambitious and popular Republican bills] … and in his explanation for his two vetoes … he pulls together a number of things: The idea that if you let everybody have a say in American society, [voters] will redistribute wealth; he pulls together racism; and he pulls together hatred of Republicans on the part of Democrats. So he says that these bills — which are designed to help white people as well as black people — are a deliberate attempt by Republicans to redistribute tax dollars … to black people … and bleed “hardworking white men” dry for the sake of African-Americans.

That link, right there, [between] taxes and helping black people — regardless of what it does for society or regardless of how good it is for everyone — is still the language we use; we’re taking from “makers” and giving to “takers.”

...

When you think about where the Republican Party situated itself regionally and ideologically at its founding, and where it places itself on the same axes today, the irony is so striking that it feels almost heavy-handed.

As Lincoln said when somebody was arguing with him once … it’s like two men who fight so hard they fight into one another’s coats. Yes, it to me looks very much like the Republicans and the Democrats have switched sides.

The whole thing is worthwhile and interesting.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

RBPL,

Louisiana is always a tad different from the rest of the old South.

[mcbigski]

Whatever happened to the democrats from the American South ( the old confederacy?)

Up until the 1960s, the only party that practically existed down there were the democrats.

Many people say the reason democrats are almost non existent in the south is because the democratic party helped get the civil rights bill passed. But that explanation doesn't really hold water, seeing as how two US presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were both dems, and both won the south by pretty comfortable margins. Up until the 1990s, democrats held a majority of southern congressional seats.

So what happened? why is the democratic party basically extinct in the south now?

The Democrats only held on to the Solid South for so long because the national party made a Faustian bargain. They were the party of institutionalized racism for nearly century for the sake of electoral gain.

By the 1950s it was no longer a defensible position. The Dixiecrats tried to keep that agenda alive, but eventually threw in the towel and realigned, more towards the Republicans, but many to the Democrats as well (they were the Dixiecrats, not Dixiepublicans, after all). The Civil Rights legislation in the 60s was bipartisan - more Republicans voted for it, percentage wise, than Democrats, but both parties were in favor of it. (The death of the Dixiecrats shows, by the way, one of the advantages of First Past the Post electoral systems, positions reprehensible to a wide majority get no representation - in a proportional representation system, we'd probably still have Dixiecrats in Congress today, and at some point they'd have held the balance of power.)

As for why Republicans dominate the South today, gerrymandering certainly isn't the answer. Republicans have roughly a 2-1 advantage in southern Senate seats, and you can't gerrymander a state wide electorate.

It's largely a function of what coalition is stitched together to make your national platform. The US population isn't homogenized, and some policies that help you win in one region will often be less popular in others.

[sj4iy]

I was born and raised in the South, and I'm absolutely a liberal. My family is divided politically, though.

[Ulthosian Stark]

I blame the Evangelists honestly, brainwashing all their kids, then their kids etc, but hopefully life will teach them some sense to believe a lot of the shit told to them by their parents when young was of the highest quality Bull variety and start thinking correctly and not enjoy life sized George W Bush cardboard cut outs so much

[Suttree]

The Civil Rights legislation in the 60s was bipartisan - more Republicans voted for it, percentage wise, than Democrats, but both parties were in favor of it.

Politifact had a decent breakdown on this.

The primary reason that Republican support was higher than Democratic support -- even though the legislation was pushed hard by a Democratic president, Lyndon B. Johnson -- is that the opposition to the bill primarily came from Southern lawmakers. In the mid 1960s, the South was overwhelmingly Democratic -- a legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction, when the Republican Party was the leading force against slavery and its legacy. Because of this history, the Democratic Party in the 1960s was divided between Southern Democrats, most of whom opposed civil rights legislation, and Democrats from outside the South who more often than not supported it. This pattern showed clearly in the House vote. Northern Democrats backed the Civil Rights Act by a margin even larger than that of Republicans -- 141 for, just four against -- while Southern Democrats were strongly opposed, by a margin of 11 yeas to 92 nays.

...Democrats deserve credit for being the driving force behind the legislation, our experts said, particularly Johnson, who had only been in office for three months yet who staked his own re-election prospects on a tough, divisive legislative battle. Other crucial Democratic players were Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana and Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, who had been championing the issue of civil rights for a decade and a half.

The issue really seemed to be one of geography.

[A True Kaniggit]

RBPL,

Louisiana is always a tad different from the rest of the old South.

Thank you :-)

[SeanF]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/12/11/southern_democrat_extinction_was_not_inevitable_124928.html

There's a good article here from Sean Trende which discusses the issue in detail.

[SeanF]

The Democrats only held on to the Solid South for so long because the national party made a Faustian bargain. They were the party of institutionalized racism for nearly century for the sake of electoral gain.

By the 1950s it was no longer a defensible position. The Dixiecrats tried to keep that agenda alive, but eventually threw in the towel and realigned, more towards the Republicans, but many to the Democrats as well (they were the Dixiecrats, not Dixiepublicans, after all). The Civil Rights legislation in the 60s was bipartisan - more Republicans voted for it, percentage wise, than Democrats, but both parties were in favor of it. (The death of the Dixiecrats shows, by the way, one of the advantages of First Past the Post electoral systems, positions reprehensible to a wide majority get no representation - in a proportional representation system, we'd probably still have Dixiecrats in Congress today, and at some point they'd have held the balance of power.)

As for why Republicans dominate the South today, gerrymandering certainly isn't the answer. Republicans have roughly a 2-1 advantage in southern Senate seats, and you can't gerrymander a state wide electorate.

It's largely a function of what coalition is stitched together to make your national platform. The US population isn't homogenized, and some policies that help you win in one region will often be less popular in others.

In the Confederate States, the lead is now even bigger. The Republicans have 19 out of 22 Senate seats. If one adds in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Missouri, then they hold 23 out of 28.

WRT switching positions, I don't quite agree. The Democrats in the past ran to the Left of the Republicans in the North, and to the Right of them in the South.