“I find it really annoying when people make the claim that “the parties have switched”. “
But, they have. And historically that is not unusual.
In our case, first we had the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. The Federalists didn’t last long, and Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans were born out of the Anti-Federalists. They, in turn, split in the late 1820s to become the Jacksonian Democrats and the briefly lived National Republican Party, which was created in opposition to the Jacksonians. In the 1830s the National Republican Party became the Whigs. The Whigs punted in the mid 1850s and became the Republican Party, and the Jacksonian Democrats morphed into the Democrat Party that in 1860 further divided into the Southern Democrats and the Northern Democrats.
In a nutshell, the Federalists/National Republicans/Whigs/Republicans believed in a strong and dominant federal government that distrusted the rule by the people and thought the nation could best be governed by the elites (basically, the gentry). On the other hand, the Anti-Federalists/Democratic-Republicans/Democrats wanted a limited federal government and strong state governments and, since they distrusted elites, they believed that ordinary people (small farmers, shopkeepers, laborers, merchants) should have a pivotal role in governing.
So, you see, the parties have to a great extent “flipped.” Today it is the Democrats that favor a strong and dominant federal government with the states and the people being subordinate to and subservient to the federal government; and it is today’s Republican Party that subscribes to a limited federal government and more and greater state and local control. Now, within that distinction some things haven’t changed too much from the 19th century, but the basic concept of government has.
I don’t find that convincing.
The Republican Party has, for over 150 years, supported the rights of the individual. The Democrats were a States Rights party (and I am very sympathetic to this view) but part of that was the idea that if your state government wanted some people to be owned like property, that was OK. Republicans stood up and said that was wrong.
After the Civil War, the Republicans wanted freed slaves to have open opportunities in education, in business, and in politics. The Democrats didn’t like that and wanted segregation where blacks and white were treated differently and seen as separate and distinct.
Now, more than 150 years later, it is still the same. The Left still supports segregation, still insists that Blacks stay on the plantation and support the people in charge. Joe Biden says if you don’t vote for him, “you ain’t Black”.
I agree that some of the details of political execution have moved around quite a bit. But the core idea has always been that Blacks are just tools to be used by a political elite. Keeping them in a downtrodden, subservient position has always been a strategy for the Democrats — today, as well as before the Civil War. The Republicans, on the other hand, have consistently wanted Blacks to be equal partners in a country based on individual freedom and responsibility.
The core ideology of the parties has not changed, although some of the details have.