Do you believe that the parties switched?

[Anonymous]

And by that I mean the 2 dominant political parties in the United States. There is a theory that the parties between the Civil war and Now have switched sides. (Old Democrats = Republicans, and Old Republicans = Democrats). Not surprisingly Democrats believe in this and Republicans do not. What do you think?

If you think so, when and why would this take place?

If not, how do you explain the change in voting demographics from 1865 to now?

[BCA6010]

The people moved, not the parties. Your charts do not show population and business migration, which is a major factor all throughout the cold war era and even today as people and businesses flee California and New York for Florida and Texas for largely the same reasons with similar results. The Democrats have always been the party of powerful government and a subservient population, once and now again using sexist and racist rhetoric to achieve that goal regardless of whether or not they actually believe it, but the truth is that they're opportunists who are highly adept at exploiting or creating issues to achieve this goal. The Republican platform has barely changed at all since the 1860s, with immigration being the only major issue that they've done a 180-degree turn on, and that's a fairly recent shift (even Obama was tougher on the border than Bush, to his credit). You could also make the argument that the Republicans briefly became a more warhawkish party during the Bush Jr years, but most like to forget that the Democrats were largely onboard with it at the time, too, and escalated our war involvement even after campaigning against it. A shift that's currently underway but hasn't really manifested yet is that the Republicans (voters, not the politicians themselves) are turning against large businesses in what can best be described as a two-way street, largely because they see big businesses as becoming too powerful and able to circumvent the constitution on behalf of political interests.

[Asker]

You're correct. The Industrialists in the North moved South because Northern manufacturing was killed by Chinese outsourcing, but the Southern Oil industry remained strong.

[Stoner710]

No I don’t especially when you look at the voting demographics from the 1960s to the 80s 90s and primarily early 2000s and definitely now, the democrats party has always been racist they which’s there racist bigotry to white peoples but democratic have always believed in some sort of white supremacy even now. For example why the hell is the Democrat party teaching that white kids are inherently superior to black kids because of the color of their skin and the idea that they’re going to be more likely to get a job compared to a black person and the idea that black people are in capable of having agency over their own lives and not stop themselves from rioting it is the soft bigotry of low expectations or in the case of 2020 to hard Bigotry of no expectation.

if there was a southern switch the south wouldn’t have gradually started voting more republicans then democrats who was predominate in the south and continued into the 1970s the shift started in the 80s with Reagan

[Anonymous]

There's more to it than regional shifts. The older maps had entire states that were blue and entire states that were red. What's happened now is nearly the entire country outside the big cities is red and the cities are blue. Some states are more rural then others and the shift from blue to red was drastic. West Virginia and a lot of the deep south are in that category.

The root cause is that the Democratic party shifted their priorities away from the interests of the working class and toward priorities that interest only very liberal and highly educated people and poorly educated, jobless people. Some good examples of that shift are student loan cancelation, the green new deal, and releasing violent criminals all of which are popular with college educated liberals while being of no interest to working class voters.

Democrats prefer to think the shift happened because "Republicans are racist." Truth is they changed their brand to appeal more to campus radicals at the expense of losing the entire rural vote, which they then wrote off as "deplorables".

[JustADudePlayinADude]

The motives of the Republican party have not really changed, the Democratic party just did a somersault in the opposite direction. Now because of that, those that were far right (neo Nazis, KKK, etc) had to become more left to conform with the party that was closest to them, which is the Republican party. Which is why you will get the occasional public racist, confederate, or racist being Republican. However, a vast majority of political figure are not these extremists, they are more of traditional Republicans. In turn, anyone who felt the Republicans weren't left enough (communists, socialists, etc) switched parties when the Democratic party flip flopped. This is why you see this demographic change.

[Waldoe]

Democrats Lie... they use Propaganda and "Messaging" to win votes... "THEY" will say "anything" to win... except the truth... Republicans freed the slaves, Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act, now Democrats see the "Error of their ways" and realize that they will NEVER win another Election... so, They Lie... they want us to believe that that all the freedom fighters and slave owners decided to change sides? Ridiculous... Liberals will say anything to gain power, Do NOT be fooled. Abe Lincoln is still the Bright light of the Republican party... Recently Southern Democrats were refusing to allow Blacks to sit at the local Lunch Counter at Woolworths... Democrats will say and do anything to regain Power... I never chose to become a bigot... and I never will

[Pterodon]

The democrats have always championed slavery still to this very day by telling minorities they can’t make it without their help just Ike slave owners told their slaves. They also bind them to government programs and make them dependent on the government. The minorities are too stupid to see through this and are grateful for these government handouts thinking the government really cares about them

[Asker]

Can you explain the changes in demographics?

[Pterodon]

I don’t think it has

[Asker]

Well Southern states clearly vote republican now and Northern States Democrat. Typically anyway

[TroyDT]

Not really. The idea is popular in parts of the Democratic Party because they do not like their history of Jim Crow (as if modern D'S should be blamed for what happened 60+ years ago anyway.) The problem with the switch idea is that if that were the case the GOP would have taken over in the late 1960's, when in fact they did not become dominant till after 2000. So I guess a case could be made that the current GOP's positions are economically closer to the old Democrats and vice versa, but the case they usually try to make is that all the Dixiecrats switched and historically that is simply not true.

[Sargentcaptain]

Sounds like a load of horseshit. I asked a few imbeciles who think this when and why it happened, all of them had wildly different answers. If the cretins can't even get their bullshit narrative straight, I feel no need to actually consider their propaganda.

[Soteris]

Its literally not a theory but an historical fact. Not sure what else to tell you.

[Asker]

Can you explain why and how?

[Soteris]

To not literally drop an essay on here ill try make it as brief as possible.

Early American politics was... chaotic. Political parties dropping like flies, literal civil war etc.. Point is, politics was different back then and did not follow the left-right political spectrum you are used to today.

The topic of the day back then was mostly about government authority, and more specifically, the democrats were wondering how best to murder it in a dark alley and prop its corpse up in the office so that they would not do anything to abuse the federal power.

By modern standards both parties was pro-small government but the distinction was literally worth fighting a civil war over so dont think that they were on the same side of this issue. Again, does not fit the modern left-right spectrum.

The fact that the north AKA the Republicans won the civil war was perhaps the beginning of a major issue in USA. You see, the losers of a civil war is not very popular in elections so the Democrats had one hell of a losing streak after this which in return meant that the Republican party grew extraordinary corrupted from having it too easy.

Thus began the era of political corruption in USA where Republican politicians in power and corporations collaborated to enrich themselves. You know this era as the Gilded Age.

As the Democrats were the losers they lost pretty much all their political ideology. It became a group for anyone and everyone who opposes the Republicans no matter what your ideology is. This of course did not make for a particularly united party nor keep out bad influences but it was a way to collect support to at least try stand up against the now insanely corrupt Republicans.

[Soteris]

The turning point came eventually and after a few economic disasters people eventually started to turn towards the Democrats as an alternative to what they perceived as the failing Republican party. Through a bit of a coincidence and outstanding individuals this started a Democratic dominated era with a lot of social and economic reforms which would have been fucking heresy to the original Democratic party but at this point it did not really have a political identity anymore after being diluted by every opposition party in the country.

This was the point where the Democrats started to ram through tons of major legislation like the new deal and sort of cemented them as the party that enacts progressive legislation rather than the original Democratic party which would literally rather have started a civil war for a fraction of this.. which they did.. Point is, this is a major shift in the political identity of the Democratic party.

This is where the Democratic party began to fracture since they still maintained the old racist southern voters which split from the party which is where you get the Dixiecrats or "States' Rights Democratic Party".

Just like how the Democrats suffered after losing elections all the time so too did the Republicans suffer at this point but unlike the Democrats the Republicans had the addition of being very corrupt and having connections to businesses so rather than opening up their party and losing their political identity like the Democrats did they instead started to plan on how to win elections again.

This is the birth of the Southern Strategy, to pick up the voters in the south that became alienated by the sudden progressive turn in the Democratic party. And so, Democrats started to win the North and Republicans picked up the voters in the south. The switch is complete.

[NaultD]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MwuFIJlY7fU

It's accurate. As times what is conservative changes over time as well as radical progressive.

[exitseven]

It is not 100% accurate but Republicans are now the party of the workers and middle class. A lot of rich people are democrats as well as well as welfare recipeints.

[Twalli]

Well we need to differntiate party names from philsophies. Liberals were Republcians, now they're Democrats and vice versa. You can see it in the Dixiecrat switch.

[SmokinAces2000]

Someone has to be willfully ignorant or just refusing to accept reality to think that the party’s are the same as they were in the past

[Asker]

They're not exactly the same, but it us a strech to say that they completely swapped sides and are polar opposites of what they once were. Don't you think?

[SmokinAces2000]

I wouldn’t say polar opposites but the core values of each party have most definitely switched

[MountAverage]

Has nothing to do with belief.

[fireforeffect]

NO, it isn't true.