Democratic Party Control of the U.S. House of Representatives (Since 1950 ...)

FR ^ | Aug 11 | RF

[Gay State Conservative]

Back then the Rats weren't quite as depraved as they've been recently *and* they succeeded in convincing voters that the GOP was the party of the rich.

But today many,many voters understand that it's the Rats who are the party of the rich and that the GOP is the party of the middle class and the working class.

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[deport]

How did they do it?

*********

They were very good at getting out the vote. I remember
how they watched the poles and who had voted. If someone
hadn’t voted then a person went to see if they needed a
ride, etc. And some did back in the day. After voting
they would go in the local store and get a few items and
then someone took them back home. Life changes for sure.

[MayflowerMadam]

“FDR Democrats were perceived as a working man’s party.”

The spread of those lies can largely be blamed on the media, especially the print media pre-TV. That lie is similar to the lie that the KKK is/was a GOP invention when it actually was created by the RAT party as its Thug Arm.

[Tom Tetroxide]

“Back then the Rats weren’t quite as depraved as they’ve been recently *and* they succeeded in convincing voters that the GOP was the party of the rich.”

Back in the early 2000s there was a study done that looked into the net worth of Republicans and Democrats. At that time the total net worth of Dems was in the area of $1.2 billion while Republicans were in the ballpark of about $400 million.

[ansel12]

“”””Let’s not forget Rush Limbaugh and his influence.””””

I’ll never forget first hearing his show in 1988, regular Americans around America had come to think of themselves as alone, isolated, outside of the culture and society, and then Rush came along and we saw that we were still plentiful and everywhere, and that most Americans were still normal.

[ansel12]

If people look at the over $200,000 voters instead of the over $100,000, they will see how the rich have been voting for a long time.

[MayflowerMadam]

“Let’s not forget Rush Limbaugh and his influence.”

True. I think it’s interesting that two of our most influential people in winning elections — Rush and Charlie Kirk — didn’t go to college. Self taught.

[Dan in Wichita]

IIRC, the man who orchestrated the 1948 steal for Johnson confessed to it shortly before his death and provided details on how it was done.

[Gay State Conservative]

Yup,I can believe that. If the GOP has *ever* been the party of the rich is was 100...or maybe even 80...years ago. Since then it’s been the party of the middle class and the working class.

[Degaston]

In 1993 the Liberals took over the Democrats nationwide on social issues. Up until then they were more Big Tent, especially in the South. Ever since then they have become quite Purist about their Liberal views without tolerance for diverse opinions. However, this purity approach of theirs offended the Dem conservatives, especially in the South. And we saw numerous Dems switch sides.

Tip O’Neill often equipped how all politics was local. That is because his Big Tent of Dems in the House during his decade as speaker was genuinely full of conservatives, moderates, and Liberals.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Dems controlled the US Senate for 24 years straight from 1957 to 1981.

Yesterday I visited the Dallas Sixth Floor Museum with a friend visiting from out of town. The purpose of JFK’s Texas trip in Nov 1963 well illustrates the BIG tent challenges that the Dems faced in the South. Texas had been super close for Kennedy vs Nixon in 1960 and there was an open rift between the Conservatives led by the Texas Governor and US Senator Yarborough & Liberals. Kennedy’s goal was to heal the rift & this involved parades everywhere he went. They did this in Fort Worth earlier in the day and then in Dallas with that parade where he then got shot & killed. Back then the Liberal Dems were still trying to keep the Big Tent together. But the Liberals still expected to control the party agenda and they did.

By 1993 they were emboldened to go overboard. By then the New Deal coalition that had brought them all together had it’s memories faded away. And the key for the GOP to take the South was to have southern leaders and make their agenda national. It worked.

Since then the Dems have a theme of 3 words to describe their approach - Power & UltraLiberal & Purity. There is no room for diversity of thinking. Everyone must be aligned to the agenda. And they are obsessed with getting power.

[MplsSteve]

They did it incrementally thru legislation. They didn’t try to change the world in one fell swoop. They made their changes subtly and over a period of time and before you know it, they were in the majority for a long time. A number of them were also masters of constituent service. remember Tom Daschle? he was out and out of a liberal as they come. But he was diligent in looking out for South Dakota. I remember hearing stories of him visiting small towns and asking the town barber about his great aunt Ethel and how she was recovering from her hip surgery.

They, like it or not, learned the legislative process and how to manipulate it to their benefit. Remember Robert Byrd of West Virginia? Like him or not, the guy was a genius when it came to knowing the rules of the Senate and the legislative process. he knew how to add money to a bill here and a little bit more there.

Some on Free Republic would disagree - but the GOP in Congress needs more people who know how to campaign and how to legislate. The Dems built their pre-1994 empire that way. it wouldn’t hurt us to emulate some of that.

[cowboyusa]

Back then, the Democrats had a Conservative Wing, and the GOP had a Liberal Wing.

[cowboyusa]

Tje Comservative Coalition held power in the House from 1938 to 1965.

[packrat35]

It was a different time then. You had liberal Democrats and Republicans, you had moderate Democrats and republicans, and you had conservative Democrats and Republicans.

It wasn’t unusual to see bipartisan votes all the time along ideological line, not party lines.

Rockefeller Republicans were the liberal (in social issues) Republicans but were much more conservative on fiscal ones.

Now, most democrats are just communists, extreme liberals, racial hucksters, and social justice warriors.

[Claud]

Fascinating so Newt Gingrich broke their chokehold on the House at least.

Yep. Read about the Contract with America...that was the key element of it.

And the other big thing was the breaking of the media monopoly. Rush Limbaugh and the nationalization of talk radio (which had also been quite local). Conservatives were able to do an end-run around the network news.

Same stuff that is happening today...Dems were panicking that they couldn't control the narrative so they tried to marginalize and then compete with talk radio (Air America). And then Drudge broke the Clinton scandal and voila...enter the Internet. Conservatives were so shut out of mainstream media that we took very readily to any and all forms of alternative communication--and maybe you can argue that's why we continue to dominate those spaces today.

What the GOP actually got accomplished in the 1990s was limited and didn't go as far as many of us wanted. But it was the first meaningful turn rightward since Reagan, and galvanized people like me (a mushy moderate fresh out of college) into fierce conservatives.

[packrat35]

Yep, they drove out the moderates and conservatives. Established purity tests and dumped those who didn’t follow the line.

[Claud]

Oh of course. Media propaganda played a huge part of Democrat dominance...until talk radio and the Internet destroyed that stranglehold.

[Claud]

I was at a very liberal college in the early 1990s. I wasn’t a progressive kook by any means, but reflexively thought Limbaugh was a blowhard.

Then I finally listened to his show, almost felt dirty doing it, and found myself agreeing with him way too many times.

Never been the same since!

Turned my folks onto him also...it turned my parents very conservative to the consternation of my siblings!! :D

[Pikachu_Dad]

Bill Clinton was the best President of modern times. He has the top three Presidential accomplishments.

#3: After two years of very hard work. (from 1993 to Nov 1994) Clinton gave us the first Republican Senate in 8 year on a massive EIGHT seat swing. {from 44-56 to 52-48}

#2: After two years of very hard work. Clinton gave us the first Republican House in FORTY (40) years on a massive fifty four (54) vote swing. {from 176-267 to 230-204}

#1: And finally, the top accomplishment, after eight years of very hard work, he gave us the first Republican President in eight years, George Bush. {2000 271 to 255 - such a near thing, but had he stepped down and let Gore become President, we may have lost}