Did the Republicans Pay Too High A Price For Uncritically Embracing Thurmond in 1964?

Ave Maria

[AveMaria]

Imagine what the Republican Party would be today, if it composed of the vast majority of pro-family whites and pro-family blacks and other minorities. The blacks would have risen up in outrage, against attempts by gay rights activists to appropriate the legacy of the black Civil Rights Movement.

And the Bush administration would have filed an Amicus brief, supporting the right of Texas to keep sodomy laws in its books.

And most importantly, blacks would not have the mistrust of the Republican Party that they have today, and they would not have felt they needed affirmative action, because they could trust the Party of Lincoln to guarantee them equal opportunity and equal rights.

And blacks would not automatically assume that a white person is racist, simply because he is a Republican, as is the case today.

[rogerthedodger]

Uh . . . did Alf Landon and Tom Dewey oppose the New Deal?

[wardaddy]

Geez...you are so myopic.

The world does not turn on injustices towards blacks by whites.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Well, isn't it a tad late to wonder about it now?

[JohnGalt]

"And, sadly, Bush had to issue a statement agreeing with the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action"


Why did he have to do this again?

[isthisnickcool]

Many modern Republicans feel obligated to defend the Confederate Flag and the Confederacy.....

"Many"?? How "many". That's a very general statement on your part unsupported by anything factual. I can play the same game: Many blacks in America don't have a clue who Strum Thurmund is!"

Hey! That's fun! Just saying things like they are fact.

[GOPcapitalist]

Did the Republicans Pay Too High A Price For Uncritically Embracing Thurmond in 1964?

Short answer: No.

Longer version: Thurmond's switch, combined with the election of John Tower in 1961, marked a key point in the Republican party's history by signifying the switch of conservative southerners into the R column as the last remnants of the conservative D's dissappeared. At present the conservative south makes up the foundation of the Republican Party's electoral support and will continue to for the foreseable future. We could not win a national election without it. By contrast the blacks make up a significantly smaller portion of the electorate - some 10-12% at most. While it would be nice to have their votes and I encourage any of them to join us, this is currently unfeasible and will be until the culture of race baiting dissappears. The race baiting that has landed the blacks firmly in the D column is not something new to recent decades either. It has much less to do with anything the Republican Party ever did in the 60's than it does with factors that were present for decades prior to that. Specifically it traces to a split in the civil rights movement around the turn of the last century between the conservative individual liberty and responsibility minded branch of that movement led by Booker T. Washington and a hideous left wing marxist beast of race hustling led by WEB DuBois. Washington's legacy is better known today but his movement has dwindled to a trickle, encompassing a small number of conservative blacks. DuBois' exploded into what we have today with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton being his direct philosophical heirs.

[TheAngryClam]

And most Republican victories would have been defeats, since a major base of GOP power is the South, which had been Democrat since time immemorial, and viewed the Republicans with suspicion and resentment.

[AveMaria]

>>>Uh . . . did Alf Landon and Tom Dewey oppose the New Deal?<<<

Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio, leader of Senate Republicans in the FDR years, was the strongest critic of New Deal policies in the entire country.

And blacks in Ohio often voted for him.

[wardaddy]

BTTT

[rogerthedodger]

Taft's version of Old Right conservatism in the Republican party was already losing out during the New Deal, and by the time of Eisenhower's election was d.o.a.

The black share of Republican voting in the first half of the century represented two phenomena: 1) the left over loyalty of blacks to the Republican party of the Lincoln/Reconstruction era, and 2) the fact that the Democratic party had not yet become the source of total socialist succor.

If the Dixiecrats had not joined the Republican party, I think what you would have seen was an all powerful Democratic party running the show, with an insignifant Republican, eastern liberal establishment rubber stamp.

Black votes would be nice, but the Republican party lost them not because of civil rights issues, but because we weren't able to outbid the Democrats at the 'free giveaway' game.

[Kuksool]

{We could not win a national election without it.}

Bush would not be president if it weren't for the Solid South. As long as the GOP maintains its lock on the South, it wouldn't need to carry the East Coast or the West Coast to win the White House.

[Ohioan]

The Republican Party owes virtually every victory that it has had since 1964 to Strom Thurmond. While Eisenhower--a War icon at the time, could be elected--no other Republican seemed able to succeed him. Certainly Nixon failed in 1960.

Strom Thurmond not only brought over enough Southern Democrats to begin to change the ratios, in doing so, he more than almost any other man, pushed the Republican Party enough to the right to make it clearly the more Conservative Party. The election of Ronald Reagan, and of both Bushes, were made possible, because of formerly Democratic voters, realigned as a result of forces that Thurmond set in motion.

Thurmond was, moreover, the man most responsible for moving the Supreme Court at least somewhat to the Right of where it had been during the long Earl Warren nightmare. It was the one condition he extracted for supporting Nixon in 1968, that Nixon appoint more Conservative Justices than had been the wont. It was a major point with Thurmond ever since.

As for your equating the Republican Party with Lyndon Johnson's "Civil Rights Bills" in 1964 & 1965? You will look in vain for any more Socialistic Legislation, in our history. The Republican Conservatives, Goldwater, etc., opposed the bills. The Republicans who voted for them, were the "me-to" Republicans, who before Thurmond, managed to thwart all efforts to make the Republican Party a more Conservative party.

Finally, although it is not the subject of this thread, let me pay a well deserved tribute to one of that small band--that very, very small band--of decent and honorable men, who held political office in America in the 20th Century. It was not, by and large, a time for statesmanship. Most of our public office holders were a sorry lot, fluttering in the wind, without embarrassment, and with few principles that they would not abandon for a perceived advantage. In that sorry state of affairs, Strom Thurmond stood out as lighthouse in the storm: A man of principle in an age of the vilest trimming and subterfuge.

May he rest in Peace! May God comfort his family and fellow South Carolinians in their loss.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Ohioan]

Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio, leader of Senate Republicans in the FDR years, was the strongest critic of New Deal policies in the entire country.

Actually, the second most. The strongest critic was Virginia's Senator, Harry Flood Byrd. But, they were frequent allies, so that point is not important, here.

But what is to the point, is that Taft opposed the F.E.PC. bill--which was the core of Truman Civil Rights program--which was, in turn, the basic source of Johnson's Civil Rights bills of 1964 & 1965. So don't imply that had he lived, he would not have been delighted with Strom Thurmond's switching parties. He worked very closely with the Southern Democrats, throughout Truman's Presidency.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[RightWhale]

This must be vanity day.

Anyway, fact is Dems made a big deal out of civil rights and Reps didn't. So those interested in civil rights would not be attracted to Reps, even at this late date. In reality, there is no difference between Dems and Reps at this time, a natural consequence of a nearly even split in numbers. However, there is no Rep Left and no Dem Right but they both have large Moderate membership, so we can look at the wings and pretend they represent the difference between the parties even though they don't make much difference in sheer numbers.

[Kuksool]

Bump

[fieldmarshaldj]

Interesting read, but with flawed conclusions. Whole books have been written about this subject. A better question to ask is, how would the relationship with African-Americans and the GOP be if JFK/LBJ not stolen the 1960 election ? Nixon surely would've implemented Civil Rights because of critical mass towards that point. What would've happened to the GOP as a result ? A challenge from the Goldwater right, as Nixon was a moderate ? Thurmond deciding to remain a Democrat in '64 ? Would a more moderate Civil Rights bill come forward that would've been palatable to all wings of the party and caused more of a rift with the 'Rats ? Perhaps even if that had happened, the Black community might've still ended up radicalized as they did by the end of the '60s and we still might've been in the same boat. This is all sheer speculation, of course.

[Impy]

No. They were "me too"ers.


If you look at other southern states were whites still vote for rats way too much like LA and I say we were very lucky to have Thurmond.

[barkeep]

Interesting scenario. LBJ got the 64 Civil Rights Act passed partly by riding it on the sainted corpse of JFK, who was actually lukewarm to the issue, at least compared to Bobby. The "dems outbid us" scenario has legs.

Aside from the Nixon possibility, and I think you are right, Jim Crow was a Southern Democrat construct. Until it migrated to the midwest and got co-opted by political opportunists, the good ol'Klan at its southern roots was a purely Democrat organization. Georgia probably had about the same number of Black Klan members as it had Republicans.

Actually, when LBJ pushed Civil Rights, he chose as his shepherd through the Senate Everett Dirksen, who agreed to the task without claiming great credit because he believed in it. All the Democrat Senators with seniority were southern, and dared not touch it, assuming any of them actually believed in it once their hoods were off.

The only way to explain the modern perception of Republicans as the racist party would be that we got outbid in the government giveaway game.

[onyx]

Nixon was cheated in 1960 and you know it. Nixon didn't "fail."