[truthguy]

For years I had been looking around and asking, "What the heck has happened to the Democratic Party that I grew up in?" My Democratic Party loved America, believed in the Constitution, free market values, and independent thought and actions.

No the Democratic Party has actually been rotten for the last 40 years at least. My mother made the switch over from Democratic to Republican in 1968 when she couldn't vote for Humphrey. She said at the time that the Democratic Party had changed for her.

[wendy1946]

No the Democratic Party has actually been rotten for the last 40 years at least.

More like since about the time of Thomas Jefferson...

[alice_in_bubbaland]

Yes, my parents made the switch sometime in the sixties too. My Dad, a small business owner sat me down in 1976 and gave me the talk.

He said:
“I was a lifelong Democrat until I saw what the Government was doing with all my hard earned money, I switched to the Republican Party and never looked back. I trust you will consider the same thing when you vote for the first time.”

I registered as a Republican....and never looked back.

[Clemenza]

The Democratic Party has been fudged up since the purge of the Bourbons following the Cleveland administration. The Dem party my grandparents voted for was leftist and populist on economics.

The big change is that the "social issues" didn't become an issue until the 60s/70s, before which both parties had their socially liberal/socially conservative factions.